Put together, DeClercq thought, these pictures raise a number of questions. They offer very few answers.
He removed a sheet of paper from the drawer of the library table that formed the bottom of the horseshoe and began to write:
1. Was the woman killed at the location of the tent? Or was she carried there after her death by the Headhunter? If the latter, then a strong person indeed! It's very rugged terrain.
2. If deposited there after death, was the corpse carried down from the road up above? Or up from a boat on the sea? Or along the shore? It was probably done at dusk or in the early morning — dark enough for cover, but light enough to see.
3. Was the body meant to be found? Cut branches indicate that it was purposely hidden. Was the stream running at the time that it was left? Was it buried mainly by the act of nature?
Looking over the questions, DeClercq's gut reaction was that the woman was killed at the tent site, that she was probably camping there, and that the killer had then cut off her head and buried the body and in a frenzy ripped the tent to pieces. His reasoning was that up in the North Shore mountains there are a thousand sites more deserted than this one where a body would never be found. Here the risk of being seen was just too great. But the corpse was left at this location — so that indicated that either the Headhunter had stumbled upon her in the wood, or they had met at some other location and returned to the murder scene. If the Headhunter was camping here, one of the people in the houses nearby might have seen him coming and going. And that could lead to a description. No, the chances were the victim was the one who pitched the tent. But even that was conjecture. It might have been there before.
What concerned him most and tugged at his mind was not, however, the answer to these questions. It was the question that arose from these questions in the light of subsequent facts. For if this corpse was meant to be hidden, why had the Headhunter changed his style?
Look at the case of Joanna Portman.
Tacked to the corkboard wall in the section for the North Vancouver crime there were many other sheets of paper: lab and autopsy reports, police memos, witness statements, interforce inquiries — but these added little to his knowledge. From the angle of the cuts on the branch ends (plus the blade shape left in the flesh of Grabowski and Portman) the lab had determined that the weapon was probably a large bowie knife. That was more an American instrument than one found in Canada. The autopsy report revealed that there were cuts on several of the rib bones indicating that the North Van corpse might also have suffered a slash through the breasts. The time of death was estimated at between three and five months ago, but probably closer to three, since the last days of August had been very hot and decomposition would have advanced rapidly. A soil search of the entire gravesite was negative; a diver search of the shore waters by the RCMP frogman team had turned up nothing; an infrared helicopter scan of the area recorded no temperature differences that might indicate other rotting human remains. A check of the Harbor Patrol had proved fruitless and not one of the neighbors living on top of the hill had noticed anything suspicious. In fact only one had known that the tent was there.
The only positive fact in the investigation so far was that the tent had been traced to an outdoors shop in Luzern, Switzerland. It had been purchased eight months ago.
DeClercq rose from his chair and crossed over to the wall. For the next twenty minutes he again reviewed the entire North Vancouver case as reconstructed and focused on the corkboard. At the end of that period he had confirmed that on this part of the investigation there were only two constructive things to do: wait for the European Missing Persons reports requested through Interpol.
And have Joseph Avacomovitch go to work on the bones.
It was 7:23 a.m. when the Superintendent turned his attention to the Helen Grabowski case. Though technically the corpse had been found within the jurisdiction of University Detachment, because that outpost was so small the investigation had been usurped by Rodale out of Richmond. DeClercq was pleased to see that the Corporal had done a thorough job.
Again, however, there were questions — and not very many answers.
As with the case of the North Van bones, this display centered around the Polaroid print sent to Skip O'Rourke. Once more there had been a blowup by the lab — same grainy quality — and this along with the subscription form from Buns and Boobs Bonanza was pinned up to the left. MacDougall had determined that the form came from the July 1982 issue of the publication which was available at any corner store. DeClercq's eyes moved back and forth from the clipping to the Polaroid.
The picture was of another head with the eyes rolled back in the skull. Helen Grabowski had black hair, a narrow face, and her mouth hung slackly open. Even in the photograph she looked like a junkie, the ravages of the drug having pinched and lined her skin. Blood ran from both comers of her lips. And again the picture was confined to the head and the top of a pole, no ground, no backdrop except for the same white surface.
Another pose, DeClercq thought.
It also occurred to him, judging from the lack of decomposition and freshness of the blood, that both photos had been taken immediately after the killings. The bodies had probably then been dumped very shortly after. Obviously the pictures were saved for the killer's titillation and his subsequent taunt. But what had then happened to the heads?
Immediately to the right of the Polaroid was tacked an aerial shot of the wharf where Heller and Simpson had found the floater, and next to that a close-up of the bloated nude remains stretched out on the dock. The slash through her chest had halved her breasts, each withered wrinkled quadrant pointing in a different compass direction. Bare ribs could be seen. Two other photographs were off to the right of these. One of them showed the striation marks on the vertebra that Dr. Singh had removed. The other the woman's fingertips. DeClercq could see that Dr. Singh had injected glycerin beneath the fingertip skin to smooth out the washerwoman's wrinkles before printing the remains. Singh was obviously a very cautious man. He knew that without the head a dental identification was gone forever. And that left just her prints. In the photo — which was a blowup — the fingers of the corpse were positioned below the individual print of each one on a fingerprint sheet. Thus, though the flesh would have long since rotted before any case got to court, Singh's opinion on identification could withstand any cross-examination. Look for yourself, counselor!
Beside that photograph was Rodale's earlier fingerprint sheet. And tacked next to that the reports from New Orleans.
The Superintendent picked up his pen and turned to his Question sheet. He began to write:
1. Where was Grabowski killed? No water in the lungs so it wasn't in the river. Was it on a boat, the best of murder scenes? Is that a connection between the two remains? The North Van woman killed at sea and then taken ashore? If so why not just use a sea dump like Grabowski?
2. Does bruising to vagina mean sex attack? Is vertical stab to the throat made during intercourse? Sexual stimulation connected to female death throes? Slash to the breasts significant as mother mutilation?
3. Was Grabowski picked up hooking by a sadistic client? Perhaps the North Van girl too? Perhaps, but then Portman doesn't fit. Drugs?
4. What about John Lincoln Hardy aka "The Weasel"?
5. Connection with New Orleans?
DeClercq once more got up from his chair, crossed over to the wall, and scanned the papers and reports pinned there.