The Devil's Cinema (12 page)

The case had other loose ends.

Anstey needed to find the first victim. He assumed he was a married man who was concerned that phoning the police would expose his cheating. Why else would he have failed to report the incident after being attacked by a man in a mask?

He also needed to confirm whether Johnny was alive or dead. The team still had not found any trace of his body. Johnny could still be alive somewhere. It was looking unlikely, but with no body, he couldn't rule it out.

How much could he trust what Twitchell had written to be the truth? Maybe he wrote about the sewer to throw them off the real location. Maybe there was no dump site at all. Without a body, it would be difficult to prosecute him for a planned and deliberate murder. He could argue Johnny simply ran away after a fight – instant reasonable doubt.

As Anstey kept working, another thought crept into the investigation: what if this was all just a hoax?

I
T WAS
F
RIDAY
, O
CTOBER
31, 2008. Halloween. In the sub-zero chill of early morning, a man left his house for a walk with his dog. They rounded a large park a few blocks north of where Twitchell was staying with his parents and cut across the moist grass. Under a grove of trees, the dog walker spotted a strange shadow. When he moved closer he realized it was a man lying down.

His dog pulled ahead and scampered up to the man. The dog licked his face.

But the man didn't move. The dog walker leaned down and tapped the man gently. No movement.

He touched his clammy hand.

The man was dead.

It was clear this person had died some time ago. The body was cold and stiff, likely dumped in the shelter of the trees during the night.

The police were called. Schoolchildren were rushed inside away from the horror. A forensics team arrived and took photographs. Police tape went up. Homicide detectives arrived at the scene.

They turned the man over. He was black, in his early twenties.

The body had surfaced less than ten blocks away from Mark Twitchell, the biggest suspect in town. But to the relief of many officers, it was quickly determined that there was no connection to their ongoing serial killer investigation. Pulling the night crew hadn't given Twitchell an opportunity to commit another crime.

The homicide office had been emptied with the discovery of the body, but most of the officers dedicated to the Twitchell file had stayed behind. Including Anstey.

He wasn't going anywhere. Anstey had been waiting on lab results for four days now.

He had been trying to concentrate on his work but was constantly distracted by anticipation of the phone call that never came.

Anstey felt like an expectant father.

It was frustrating.

He was willing that phone to ring.

With every call he jumped to pick up the receiver, and when he realized it wasn't the call he was waiting for, he got off as quickly as possible to free up the phone.

He just needed that one call.

Just one ring.

Whenever it came.

O
CTOBER
26, 2007: H
ALLOWEEN
drew near and the moon was full. Ghouls and revellers, zombies and princes, men seeking cheap laughs with cheap costumes and the scantily clad – all had gathered along with Mark Twitchell in a long line descending the covered steps of Edmonton's Shaw Conference Centre, snaking into one of its vast halls. Rock music pounded. Concert lights burst in shards of purple and green. Alcohol flowed. Loud talk and laughter rose against the backdrop of pumpkins, skeletons, and cobwebs. It was the night of the Howler, the city's largest Halloween celebration. There was an energy in the air. The electricity of youth was channelled into dressing up, dancing, and losing control.

The party's annual costume competition was underway with a cash prize on offer. Thousands were in attendance as Twitchell awaited the announcement of the winner – and his own chance at becoming a star. It was a weekend he had dreamed about since moving back to Edmonton from the American Midwest. Now his fantasy of winning the contest was close to coming true.

At this moment, at the age of twenty-eight, Twitchell believed he had it all. He was enjoying his first year of marriage to a wonderful woman, Jess, who was at home and six months' pregnant with their first child. His film career was looking promising. He had wrapped up shooting
Secrets of the Rebellion
, a
Star Wars
fan film that had taken over his life for the past two summers. He was now finalizing a script called
Day Players
, a buddy comedy he hoped to produce with investor funding. He had steady work in sales to pay the bills too. The coming weeks would prove to be some of his happiest.

But it was all about to crumble. The next twelve months would see him embark on a journey leading from suburbia to bedlam, from expectant father and filmmaker to serial killer suspect. Until then, a year away from his destruction, he was still an unknown, a prospect on the cusp of a
potential greatness he had worked so hard to achieve in film, in business, and, now, in costume design.

“Wow! Did you make it yourself?” a curious woman asked about Twitchell's costume.

“How long did it take?” another queried.

A girl brushed past and pinched his ass.

Twitchell enjoyed being the centre of attention. Eager admirers took pictures of him and his costume. And anyone walking past could see why: he stood nearly two feet taller than everyone else, his head high above the crowd like that of a proud warrior guarding the lobby of the main hall. His mask was hiding a beaming smile with every new inquiry.

His interest in costume-making had begun more than a decade earlier in classes with his aunt, who ran the fashion program at his high school. In his spare time during those teenaged years, Twitchell made a trench coat and designed his own Peter Pan costume. Later efforts included Spider-Man, Darth Vader, and Wolverine. But if he was going to get noticed this year, he knew his costume had to be spectacular. He decided on a
Transformers
theme since most attending the party would remember the recent summer movie release based on the series. He then settled on designing a costume of the character Bumblebee, the sporty yellow car that turns into a playful robot. If he pulled it off, he could win the Howler's coveted cash prize.

In preparation, Twitchell had bought thick sheets of Sintra, a brand of plastic foam board that can be boiled in hot water or heated with a hairdryer to bend in various ways. Over a period of two months, he cut through sheet after sheet of foam to shape the robot's gigantic body. He used a motorcycle helmet, parts from a Chevy dealership, props from his own
Star Wars
film, hockey gear. Everything was painted yellow and black. The costume required multiple fittings, adjustments, and the construction of large robot feet that amplified his height like stilts. “What kind of masochistic weirdo does this?” he asked himself as he toiled away. His pregnant wife could only shake her head as she watched her husband lock himself in the basement for hours at a time, fiddling with his creation. He was like a big kid when it came to Halloween. It was his Christmas. And after weeks of work, he was finally ready for his public debut.

His sister, Susan, stood beside him in the lobby as the crowd grew in size. More pictures were taken. She had played along with his theme and came dressed as “mini-Bumblebee.” Her long brown hair held back with cute antennae, she was wearing a black-and-yellow-striped sweater, fairy wings, and holding three sunflowers. It looked like a last-minute costume, but it was in good fun and received a few chuckles from passers-by who noticed how she was playing off her only sibling's massive effort.

As the night rolled on, streams of partygoers circled and strolled around them. Twitchell didn't drink or dance. He chose instead to soak up the attention in the lobby, watching the party from the sidelines and away from drunkards who could destroy his costume. But even in the lobby, a few people brushed past and accidentally knocked off pieces of his foot or his fake metal parts. Susan became an impromptu assistant at times, using tape for makeshift repairs on her brother's outfit.

His friends soon arrived, squeezing through pockets in the crowd. One of the first was Rebecca, a business student whom Twitchell had met on
plentyoffish.com
. While it was primarily a dating site, she had not been looking for romance and viewed Twitchell as a big brother, nothing more. After several get-togethers, Rebecca thought he was a tad arrogant, a loud talker, and too much of a geek. But she also discovered they both knew Joss Hnatiuk, one of Twitchell's closest buddies, and the random connection made her uneasiness subside. They began hanging out as friends at the movies, car shows, and coffee shops.

Twitchell spotted another friend, Mike Young, bouncing along in his own robot costume. “Hey, what's going on there, robot buddy?” Mike shouted as he strolled past in his cardboard Bender outfit from the TV show
Futurama
. He was off to dance, “throwing the horns” with his fingers as he rocked out to the blaring music of the hall with a group of girls.

Rebecca dragged her girlfriends over and they too were stunned by Twitchell's costume. “What's it made out of?” She took a photo of him, and then the two of them posed for another one together. Rebecca noticed how Twitchell was loving the attention. “He liked feeling like a famous person,” she later recalled.

But the huge party came with a whiff of anxiety for Twitchell. After several hours, he was still waiting for the winners of the costume competition to
be announced. He began to doubt his efforts. Twitchell took off pieces of his
Transformers
gear, preparing to leave and give Rebecca a lift home, when the speakers pumped out the one word he had been waiting all evening to hear.

Bumblebee!

Giant TV screens broadcast a photograph of his yellow costume as an announcer screamed the name of the winner. The crowd erupted in cheers of appreciation. For a second, Twitchell did not believe it. As the big win slowly sunk in, his smile grew until his teeth finally bucked out like a horse.

He was elated.

The next evening, Twitchell was still bathing in the afterglow. He dragged Susan to West Edmonton Mall to repeat their Halloween experience and hopefully win another prize. He stood inside a massive nightclub, once again dressed as Bumblebee.

As the night reached its peak, Twitchell rose to the stage. A large audience before him was left to decide the costume winner with a screaming vote. The chanting swelled as he gazed at the sea of hands and faces. The howling and whistling mixed in a blur of tones. And it didn't take long for the announcer to proclaim the crowd's favourite.

It's Bumblebee!

The nightclub exploded in excitement.

Twitchell's face bloomed once again in a sublime grin. He had secured two wins in two days.

He was a hero.

Between the two Halloween parties, Twitchell had won a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and thousands of dollars in cash. He quickly sold off the bike and his costume, earning a total of $16,000 from a handmade effort that cost him a mere $300 to build.

He had won a small fortune. Adoration. New-found respect.

Finally, he felt like he was on top of the world.

B
ORN IN
E
DMONTON ON
July 4, 1979, Twitchell had shown a passion for costume-making, performance, and fantasy from an early age, reaching its
pinnacle when he was nearing thirty and still dressing up to win money.

Both of his parents were equally encouraging of his creative pursuits. His mother, Mary, was a career graphic artist; his father, Norman – or “The Normster,” as Twitchell liked to call him – was a maintenance worker for one of the city's downtown office towers. Both grew up on Alberta farms outside of Edmonton, and Mary was one of twelve siblings. His parents met in their twenties and had now been married for more than three decades. And Twitchell viewed his childhood as a “textbook upbringing” with parents who did everything right and gave him a stable and positive home. They were the typical suburban family: mom, dad, two kids, and a dog.

His sister, Susan, had been a close friend for many years, though they fought as teenagers, as siblings usually do. Twitchell viewed his sister, four years his junior, as an “Amazon” woman. She was tall, always active in kick-boxing, skiing, or mountain climbing. Susan was a tomboy and probably had more muscle than him. And she was smart. Growing up, the family used to watch
Star Trek: The Next Generation
after dinner, which led to Twitchell calling her “Q” as a nod to one of the show's omnipotent, genius characters. It was no surprise to the family when she decided to pursue a career in engineering.

The family had always lived in the north end of the city. Their single-storey home had been built during the 1950s when the city expanded rapidly in all directions, creating a new grid of picket-fence neighbourhoods. Their small house sat near the outer edge of the Killarney suburb, 132nd Avenue separating it from a nearby Catholic school. It was a home Twitchell would return to as an adult, when the police were watching his every move.