Headhunter (26 page)

Wolf at the Door

Friday, November 5th, 12:22 a.m.

Robert DeClercq arrived home late to find Genevieve sound asleep. For a long while he stood in the door to their bedroom listening to his wife's shallow breathing and watching her chest rise and fall in the wedge of light cast in from the hall. His shadow lay across her like a strange man in their bed.

How long has it been,
he asked himself,
since we did nothing but that? Just lie in bed together, relaxing or making love or whispering small talk?
It seemed to him like years.

In a wave, suddenly, exhaustion overwhelmed him and in that moment he truly wished that he had never gone back to the Force. He wished that she were awake now and that they could make love unhindered by time and pressure. He wished that the case were over and this weight were off his shoulders. He wished his book on World War I were waiting in the greenhouse. He wished . . . well, he wished . . .
Well, if wishes were horses then beggars would ride
, he thought as he turned away.

The Superintendent walked down the hall and over to the front door. Before leaving the Headquarters building he had packed several briefcases full of the pertinent documents in the case, his intention being to set up another overview at home. He had long known that his best insights came in the hours before dawn and he had reached the point where mentally he had to draw on every asset just to keep on going. The first briefcase he picked up seemed ten times as heavy as when he had carried it down the driveway. His head ached and his back was stiff and his legs were full of lead.

Robert DeClercq had spent the entire day analyzing the results of the sweep. With each new arrest there were reports, computer projections and videotape interrogations to be reviewed. As the day wore on he had begun to get depressed lust from the number of weirdos there were out there walking the streets. Had it always been that bad—or were more people snapping lately?

Leave it alone till tomorrow,
he thought, and then it occurred to him that tomorrow had already become today.

As he took the briefcase out into the greenhouse and placed it on his desk he wondered if someone would find another victim tonight. He wondered if he would get yet another call.

It was while he was unpacking the contents of the case that his eyes fell upon a note that he had made about hematomania. He picked up the piece of paper. Until today the Superintendent had never known that there actually was a medical condition akin to vampirism. The incidents were rare, but they were well recorded. John George Haigh confessed to eight murders in 1949 stating that he took a wine-glassful of blood from the neck of each victim and drank it.

Was that it?
he asked himself.
Did the Headhunter suffer from hematomania? And if so might there not be a record of it somewhere? Perhaps a minor incident? Something someone had noticed?

His eyes fell upon the books.

For there were now five volumes standing at the corner of his desk which had not been there that morning. Each book was bound in rich tooled leather with gilt worked into the hide. All five were held upright by two bronze bookends, one of a very fat man.

DeClercq removed one of the volumes and looked at the spine. It read:
The Very Best of Nero Wolfe.

He opened the cover to the title page. On one side there was a color plate of the great detective himself, sitting in his own greenhouse surrounded by hundreds of orchids, waiting no doubt for Archie Goodwin to return. Across from this in black ink and a fine hand his wife had written: "To the Greatest Detective of Them All. I love you. Genevieve."

The Superintendent smiled. Then he remembered what she had said to him early yesterday morning.
Do me a favor? Please. Take it easy on yourself.

"All right," he whispered. "I'll try to do that for you."

He walked out of the greenhouse door and into the living room. In spite of his tiredness, DeClercq knew that he was just too wound up to sleep. That he had to calm down first.

In the record rack he looked for something very light by Chopin. Withdrawing a disc, he placed it on the stereo, turned the volume very low, and sat down between the speakers.

Fifteen minutes,
he told himself,
and then I'll go to bed.

Three minutes later he fell asleep sitting in the chair.

12:55 a.m.

Some days you're lucky, some days you're not. Life just plays it that way.

It was twenty minutes to one by the time that Monica Macdonald and Rusty Lewis returned to the Headquarters building to retrieve their personal vehicles. Most of the afternoon they had spent booking in bikers charged out of the Iron Skulls scramble. Following that they had turned once more to their sweep sheet pickup list and gone back out on the street. Between 5:00 p.m. and midnight they had collared six more skinners. By half-past twelve, exhausted, they were ready to call it quits.

"Let's meet back here at eight," Rusty Lewis said.

"Fine," Macdonald agreed.

She climbed into her Honda Civic and pulled out of the lot.

Tonight she was simply too tired for highway driving so she chose the long but quieter route home. It happened to take her by the Pussycat Club. A neon sign outside blinked: "Our Girls Bare All."

Monica Macdonald did not intend to stop.

At the moment her mind was a jumble of visions, the foremost of which was her eiderdown bed and soft, soft pillow. The image of Robert DeClercq, however, was also in her thoughts, for Monica could not forget how beaten down he had looked that morning. Yet even in adversity the man rose to the occasion and what he had said about duty had stirred something within her.
Your duty is maintain the right, no matter what the cost,
her weary mind told her now.

So Monica Macdonald pulled to the side of the road.

She found a pair of jeans and an old sweater among the clutter in the back seat of her car and changed out of uniform in the shadow of a doorway. Then she ran through the rain across the street and in through the door of the Pussycat Club.

"It's not ladies' night," the burly doorman said. "We bring the cock out Thursday night at seven."

"Thanks," Monica said. "But I'll look anyway."

"Suit yourself, lady. But it's pretty rough in there."

She came through the door to find a naked stripper on her knees in front of a table of men. The men were all wide-eyed and staring between her legs. The woman was smoking a cigarette with her vagina.

It's too late for this,
Macdonald thought—then her heart took a lurch.

For there in the front row of men was Matthew Paul Pitt.

Special O

7:45 a.m.

Robert DeClercq climbed the stairs that morning to find five people waiting outside his office door. They were all sitting on a bench along the opposite wall of the corridor. Four of the five were squad members, while the other was a civilian. He took the civilian first.

DeClercq felt better for a good night's sleep in which his nightmare had not come again. He was ready once more to tackle the sweep and whip it into shape. He had told himself that perhaps today the break would come in the case. But either way it mattered not: when you've got a job to do, you roll up your sleeves and do it. Wisdom ought to tell you, nothing does like doing.

"My name's DeClercq," the man said. "I command this investigation."

"I'm Enid Portman. Joanna Portman's mother."

A jolt hit the Superintendent.
How am I so stupid!
he thought, for there on the wail just behind this woman was the picture of her daughter's head stuck on the end of a pole.
What the hell am I doing bringing the public into this room?
DeClercq was angry with himself. How would he correct this?

"I apologize for the mixup with your daughter's . . . with your daughter," he said. "I realize how that must upset you."

Mrs. Enid Portman was about fifty-five years old. She was very thin and her hair was already white. She did not look in good health. Her eyes were sad and it was obvious that she had cried a lot.

Any policeman will tell you that the toughest part of his job is informing the next-of-kin that a wife, a husband, a child, a relative will not be coming home. It never gets any easier, and every case is different. Sometimes a mother will not say a word, just silently walk into the kitchen and plug in the kettle for tea. Another time a wife will break into hysterical laughter and shout: "Why that bugger! It's about time." Yet another occasion a father will attack you for bringing the news and have to be subdued. Every cop knows that a death close to home can bring forth any emotion: silence, a scream, sorrow, tears, hysteria, violence. What do you tell a widow who has lost her only child? That she'll remarry and have a baby and be happy once again?
Not at fifty-five you don't,
Robert DeClercq thought.

"Will she be cut up again?" Mrs. Portman asked.

"Yes. There'll be another autopsy."

"Is that my daughter's picture on the wall beside me?"

DeClercq's gut turned. "Yes," he said. "I'm sorry. Perhaps we ought to . .

"It's all right. Superintendent. I'm not going to twist around. And I'm not going to cry. I've done enough of that to last me a lifetime. I was very angry at you people when my daughter's body was snatched off the train. But I'm not angry anymore. In fact I want you to have her remains if it will help you find her killer."

DeClercq found his throat dry when he tried to swallow.

"You see," Mrs. Portman continued, "I hope that one day very soon I can lay my whole daughter to rest. And I'll never be able to do that unless you find her head."

"We'll find her," the man said.

The woman looked up, holding back her tears. "There's something else," she said. "I believe my daughter had a boyfriend that no one knew about. She never mentioned it, and I never met the man. I think you should check it out."

"We will," DeClercq said quietly. "But what makes you think that?"

"A mother knows." she said.

The Superintendent used the intercom to call Inspector MacDougall. "Would you give us a statement?" he asked her.

"Certainly," she said. "You're French, aren't you?" she added. "Are you a Catholic?"

"Yes," DeClercq lied.

"So was I. Tell me, Superintendent, has your faith ever been shaken?"

"My daughter and wife were kidnapped and murdered twelve years ago."

The woman slowly nodded. "My father and my husband both died in a boating accident. For ten years I've run a Mission on skid road in Regina. I used to think God must be sad, looking down and seeing all that religion and so little Christianity. Do you know what I mean? Religion is just talking. The Christian work is doing."

Just then MacDougall entered the room and Mrs. Portman stood up.

"Well I don't believe that anymore," the sad woman said. "I no longer believe there is a God."

Neither do I
, DeClercq thought, and he watched her walk out through the door.

While the Superintendent was talking to Mrs. Portman, Rabidowski and Scarlett and Lewis and Spann sat outside and brainstormed the case. Both flying patrols had staked out their course and were not afraid of pollution. Each told the other what they were doing and Rabidowski filled in the theories going around the main corps. Monica Macdonald was conspicuously absent. Dead beat, she was still out on the street following Matthew Paul Pitt.

When DeClercq finally ushered them in, the first thing he saw was the mask. Scarlett was holding the ebony carving gripped
underneath one arm.

Thirty minutes later DeClercq sat back and digested what he had been told. He did not think much of Rabidowski's theory concerning the motorcycle club. While it was entirely possible that the rape murders were part of an initiation— several gangs throughout North America were known to demand a killing before a striker was admitted—and while the decapitations did fit in with the motif "Iron Skulls," DeClercq had been told that Special E Section had a spy within the gang. If that sort of trip were going down the RCMP would know.

Matthew Paul Pitt, on the other hand, was a very promising lead. The man was mentally ill; he was in the area now and could have been for the duration of the Headhunter killings; the US murders fitted. The real problem with the Australian was lack of evidence. They could bring him in like the others for questioning at the Pen, but gut reaction told DeClercq to play him another way. Give the man a little line and he might just lead them to a stash of heads. Was it worth the risk?

DeClercq looked at Rusty Lewis who was sitting beside Rabidowski. It was hard to believe that two men doing the same job could be so radically different, but then the Superintendent had chosen his team to cover every contingency. Balance was his buzz word. So whereas the Mad Dog was a superb marksman and a well-known rabble-rouser, Lewis was filled to the brim with steady common sense. If Lewis thought a suspect fit then the man was worth a hard look.

"Where's this fellow Pitt now?" the Superintendent asked.

"I don't know, sir, but I do know my partner is on his tail. I got a call from her in the middle of the night saying that she had spotted the guy in a place called the Pussycat Club. We've been trying to find him for a couple of days."

DeClercq glanced down at the twelve-page report sitting on his desk.

"Your outline convinces me. We'll call out Special O."

Then DeClercq turned to Spann and Scarlett. For the briefest of moments as he looked at the woman he found a strange thought intrude into his mind.
Might Janie have grown up to be like this?
he wondered. For DeClercq had handpicked this woman for the squad on the strength of her service record. She had distinguished herself by the cool way that she had handled her assignment in Iran. In addition, a number of other cases had shown she could take care of herself. There was something in this woman that given time would drive her up the ranks. DeClercq recognized the quality: he had had it once himself.

Rick Scarlett, on the other hand, was a different matter. He was just a little too sure of himself and that was dangerous in a cop: it made you tend to overlook things and unbending in compromise. On balance, however, the man did have a reputation for never giving up, and DeClercq knew that if a situation got really rough Scarlett would hold up morale. A good leader must know that a team has different parts.

At this moment the Superintendent was of the belief that Hardy was the best lead of all. Starting with nothing but a picture, Spann and Scarlett had connected him to Grabowski, the Moonlight Arms, and in some way the traffic of heroin; followed his footsteps through Tipple's wiretaps and made the hoodoo/voodoo connection; linked the voodoo element to a traffic in human skulls; found an ebony object perhaps in some way associated with Avacomovitch's finding of the splinter (though how he had no idea); and now were on to some sort of ritual or other act joined to New Orleans.

Not bad when you put it together, for two Constables working alone.

"I wish I could go with you," the Superintendent said.

"Sir?" Spann frowned.

"My forefathers were Cajuns who lived in the bayous of Terrebonne. Even my father lived down there for a while."

Rick Scarlett's face began to flush with excitement.

"That is what you came up here for, isn't it? In order to get my permission?"

"Yes, sir," Spann said.

"Well, you've got it. You two may go to New Orleans."

11:20 a.m.

It was Special O—short for Special Observation—that ended the rampage of murder by Clifford Robert Olson.

Like the SAS and the SBS in Great Britain, Special O has its secrets. Most Canadians in fact are not even aware that such a team exists—and Special O likes it that way. The ten men who make up its core group are experts in police surveillance. For these men terms like front tail, side tail, three-car plan, and flood pattern have rather special meaning. The techniques they employ were refined and tested by British, American and Israeli Intelligence—but of course the men at Special O have come up with a few of their own. Their daily stock in trade includes computers, "homers," satellite bounces, infrared cameras and gyroscopically-mounted binoculars. It is not uncommon for this team to send as many as one hundred disguised Members after a single suspect, and more if they think he needs it.

At 11:20 that morning Special O relieved a very tired Monica Macdonald and took up the tail of Matthew Paul Pitt.

Except for the RCMP itself, nobody knew they were there.