"Where's this body?" the dispatcher demanded, a whisky growl to his voice.
"Man, it's hangin' from a totem pole. And it doesn't have a head!"
"The totems in the Park?"
"I said a totem pole, didn't I?"
"Who's calling?" the dispatcher inquired of the nervous and jumpy voice at the end of the line.
"Chris. Chris Seaton."
"Well, hang on, Chris, while I patch this through. I'll get back to you." The dispatcher disconnected the line and then threw a toggle switch to feed into the street patrols. "We've got a possible 212. Stanley Park. Brockton Point totem poles. Code 4 response." Then he switched back to Chris.
"Okay, Mr. Seaton. Full name and date of birth." The dispatcher picked up his pen and quickly began to write.
2:20 a.m.
Within a minute of the emergency broadcast hitting the police radio band the first blue and white car from the street patrol of the Vancouver Police Department tore into Stanley Park, its tires squealing off the Causeway and then skidding in the snow. The moment the patrol car hit the park, the cop riding shotgun kicked in the siren and started the wigwag lights Blue, then red, blue, then red. reflected off the snow. It took no more than three minutes for the car to reach Brockton Point, and its totem poles.
Even before the car had stopped moving the officer riding shotgun was out the door and running. The driver quickly followed twenty feet behind him. Fifteen seconds later they found the totem poles, each one of the mythical giants now shrouded by crystalline snow.
What they didn't find was a body.
2:22 a.m.
It was Detective Al Flood of the VPD who first caught the squeal. Because the call came into his building. Because it was a possible murder. And because he was catching up in Major Crimes.
Flood was thirty-eight and stood six feet tall exactly. He was large-boned with broad muscular shoulders. His fair skin was a backdrop for freckles surrounding sharp blue-gray eyes. His hair was strawberry blond. Whenever he walked to the water cooler — as he was doing when the squad room phone rang — he moved like a natural athlete.
"Major Crimes," Flood said, catching the phone call on the third ring.
"It's Jenkins in Dispatch, Detective. We got a possible 212. Caller says the totem poles in Stanley Park."
Flood moved a pad into place. "Where's the caller now?"
"At a phone booth."
"Which phone booth?"
"Uh… I forgot to ask him." The dispatcher's head was still pounding.
"Well, if he's still on the line, do it now. I'll wait."
The phone went dead.
For about two minutes Flood remained standing where he was. It was now 2:25 a.m. on a snowy graveyard shift and the squad room was practically empty. It felt like a deserted cavern of unmanned desks and stilled typewriters. One of the fluorescent lights was failing and it softly strobed the floor space about him. In some other part of the building a telephone was ringing. It wasn't answered. As he stood by the desk biding time until the dispatcher came back on. Flood picked up a circular put out by the RCMP. It was a Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit request for any information remotely connected to either of two deaths. Both bodies, CLEU said, had been found without a head. Flood was still reading when the line reactivated.
"Detective. It's Jenkins again. You still there?"
"Of course. Where is he?"
"Out at UBC. Guy says he's phoning from the Museum of Anthropology, a phone booth nearby."
"That's at least five miles from Stanley Park. How does he know of the body?"
"Well, it seems it's not Stanley Park. It's the totems at UBC."
"I thought you said that he said that it was Stanley Park."
"I made a mistake."
"Uh, huh. Didn't I see you, Jenkins, yesterday, surrounded by empty bottles in the Athletic Club?"
"Uh… yeah, maybe."
"Well get onto the Mounties. The stiffs in their jurisdiction."
"Right. Thank God it's not in ours. The body's got no head."
Flood almost dropped the phone. As with most people in this city who could read, he had consumed the front page story on the headless bodies in one of the two major newspapers. And he had seen it on TV. He had just read the RCMP flyer on the crimes sent out to the private municipal police forces — and then to top off all this, here he had a hungover police dispatcher telling him there was yet another headless body around and that for those most important moments in any police investigation — namely the first few minutes when the force reacts to the squeal — they, the VPD, had been fumbling the ball. Flood did not need to remind himself of the police response equation: that for every initial minute lost the chance of a case being ultimately unsolved went up by mathematical proportions.
"Well, go on! Move it, man! Get the Mounties on the line!" Flood almost shouted the words into the phone. It was out of character, for usually he was an easy gentle-mannered man.
"Right!" the dispatcher said, and the line went cold.
2:31 a.m.
Constable Ron Mitchell stood among the tumbling flakes and stared up in disbelief. The scene was almost surreaclass="underline" it was that weird. The body nailed to the Dogfish Burial Pole was now illuminated not only by the light at the base of the totem but also by the headlamps of Mitchell's patrol car. He had driven the vehicle down the access road off Chancellor Boulevard and right out onto the plaza in front of the Museum of Man. Then, careful not to get too close and do damage to the scene, he had climbed up onto the hood of the car to get a better look. What he saw was diabolical.
For whoever had carried the body out here and nailed it to the wood had also dumped a container of blood over what remained of the corpse. The plastic container, an Imperial gallon in size, was lying on the ground and Mitchell could make out streaks of dried blood on the body in among the wet ones.
2:36 a.m.
The phone beside the bed rang and wrenched him out of sleep. He reached for it quickly, fumbling in the dark, hoping that he would catch it before it woke his lover up. He yanked the receiver from its cradle before the second ring. There was a mumble from across the bed as he spoke in a whispered tone.
"Hello," Jack MacDougall said, glancing at the clock.
"Sergeant, this is Constable Ron Mitchell. University Detachment. I don't think you know me."
"I don't," MacDougall said frowning. Then he waited.
"I'm sorry to bother you, sir. I hope it's the right decision."
MacDougall felt like telling him that for his sake he hoped so too. "Well," he said.
"We've got another body. One without a head."
The Sergeant threw back the covers and sat up on the bed. "Where?" he demanded, abandoning the whisper.
"The Museum of Anthropology. Nailed to a totem pole."
"Where are you, Mitchell?"
"I'm right at the scene."
"Well, you stay right where you are. I'm on the way. You guard that area with your bloody life. Nobody goes near it. Nobody, you hear. You report directly to me."
"Yes, sir." Then Jack MacDougall hung up.
The Sergeant was already off the bed and halfway into his clothes — same blue blazer and crest, same gray slacks — when there was the squeak of bedsprings and a sleepy voice from the sheets. "Is something the matter, Jack?"
"We've got another body. This one's worse." "Oh God no. Want some coffee?" "I haven't got time, love. One quick phone call and then I'm out the door."
"Will I see you later? Spend another night?" "I hope so," MacDougall said, glancing at the bed, taking in the gymnast's body outlined beneath the covers. Chances were good that body would perform in the next Olympics. "I hope so, too," Peter Brent said.