The body of the nun lay on the ground bathed in arc light about thirty feet from the garden path. Around her the men who made murder their business went about their work, the Ident. crew flashing their photographs and sweeping the ground with humming metal detectors, the dog masters leading the German shepherds out from where the nun lay sprawled in the mud. Joseph Avacomovitch was crouched on his heels about a foot and a half from the victim, flanked on his left by Inspector MacDougall and on his right by the Superintendent. It was what had been done to the Sister that enraged Robert DeClercq.
"Same MO," Avacomovitch said, "in the pattern of the killing." He pointed toward the flesh of the neck where the head had been severed. "You can see the perpendicular stab just below the horizontal cut of decapitation. I'll want the top vertebra, Jack, once the autopsy's over."
Inspector MacDougall nodded. He too was angry for this was the second body found within North Van jurisdiction — and North Vancouver Detachment was MacDougall's home turf. He looked away to size up the progress of the ongoing search.
"She's been raped," the Russian said, "and slashed across the breasts." He looked up for a second, his forehead frowned with distaste. "The intercourse was brutal."
"You mean with her a virgin?"
"Virgin or not, it wouldn't matter. This guy's a savage."
"Were the clothes ripped or cut?" the Superintendent asked.
"Both. The one from the crotch to the feet is a knife slash. It was torn from the neck to her waist."
"Was she killed here?" asked Inspector MacDougall.
"Yes. Too much blood for it to be otherwise. The rain's done damage to any footprints or ground marks but it looks like she was walking down the path and dragged into the bushes. There's the sign of a struggle over near the walk."
"Who found her?" DeClercq asked.
"Another Sister," MacDougall answered. "She came out to close and lock the gate. She saw the candle burning."
"I'd like to know what a shrink would make of all this."
Just then the almost full moon emerged through a break in the rain clouds. The crime scene turned a metallic silver as the three men stood in silence around the corpse of the nun. Each had his own thoughts about what had happened. Not one of them would pretend to even begin to comprehend the mind of the Headhunter. That they were dealing with a maniac was all that was certain. It appeared to DeClercq that the killer had either been waiting to ambush his victim or else had followed her. He had raped her and stabbed her and cut up her clothes and then had cut off her head. What nagged at his mind once again was the vertical cut to the throat. He knew that in order to catch the contractions of the body in its death throes, such a wound was common to homicidal rapists. But this was something different. This one was a monster. For not only had he cut off the nun's head and also carried off her cowl, but in its place at the top of her neck he had left a jack-o'-lantern. The face of the pumpkin had two triangles for eyes, another triangle for a nose, and a mouth which was fang-filled and shaped into a malevolent grin. A candle had been burning inside. It was the light of the candle the Sister had seen when she came out to close the gate, and though the wax had now melted away the grinning pumpkin still looked blankly down at the butchered body.
One of the corporals involved in the search came over to speak to MacDougall. His hands and uniform were covered with mud, his clothes soaked. He had just climbed out of the reflecting pool.
"Not a bloody thing," he said. "We've given the grounds a once-over with dogs and metal detectors. At least as far as I can tell nothing was thrown in the pond."
"Do it again," MacDougall said. The Corporal nodded and walked away to carry out the order.
Now DeClercq was worried. God, he thought, four bodies and not a thing to go on. That's against the odds. Avacomovitch murmured something.
"Sorry Joseph, I didn't hear that. My mind was on something else."
"I said I'm going to try and fingerprint the pumpkin."
"Fingerprint it? Print a rain-washed pumpkin?"
"Yeah, I'll Krazy Glue it."
MacDougall caught DeClercq's puzzlement and said, "He's talking about Visuprint. You've been gone a while, Robert."
"I guess I have. Fill me in, Joseph."
"Well the way I see it," Avacomovitch said, "all we've got to go on is the jack-o'-lantern. We know the killer brought it with him as a head-substitute. It wasn't carved here. Maybe the hairs and fibers section will turn up something on it — dust or lint from his home, chemical traces, something like that. Maybe we'll get something out of the marks made in the carving. Or maybe I can pick up the killer's prints upon it.
"A few years ago a policeman from Ontario named Paul Bourdon was using Krazy Glue to repair a photographic developing tank. After the repair was completed. Bourdon discovered that his fingerprints had appeared on the inside of the plastic tank. Subsequent experimentation revealed that the chemical in Krazy Glue — its name is cyanoacrylate — reacts with the moist residue left by a person's fingertips on any number of articles — handguns, plastic bags, porous metals — which had previously been impossible to print with existing powder and iodine fume techniques.
"In one case a robbery suspect's fingerprints were recovered from a whisky bottle discovered floating in the bilge of a stolen yacht. In another case prints were lifted from an oil-covered cashbox at the scene of a business break-in."
"I must be going to rust," Robert DeClercq said.
"Not your department," the Russian replied. "But I'd like something else."
"What's that?" asked the Superintendent.
"Remember this morning you suggested that I take a look at the bones kicked up by the two young girls? Well I think I'd like to take a look at all four victims. I might find something in my field that a pathologist wouldn't look for."
"Good idea."
"That means a court order. They've already released Port-man's remains to her mother. But the other three are around." He looked once more at the nun.
"We'll apply for the order tomorrow," the Superintendent said.
"Do you think there's anything in the fact that both the Portman woman and the nun were Catholic?" MacDougall asked. "Maybe some sort of satanic cult. Black mass or black magic."
"Might be," DeClercq replied.
"I'll check it," the Inspector said, "but in the meantime, why don't you go home and grab some sleep? No use all of us being wasted when the panic hits later this morning. I know where to reach you if anything comes up."
"I agree," the scientist added.
For a moment DeClercq hesitated then he said, "I guess you're right." He glanced at his wristwatch and at the sky to the east. Four hours and it would be his normal time for waking. He did feel fatigued. There was little more he could do here, and come the groundswell of terror that was sure to arrive with morning a clear mind would be important. He had set the machine in motion, so let the machine do its work.
"I'll see you later," he said, and the other two men nodded.
DeClercq turned his back on the victim and followed the silver path up to the gate. Outside he could see the cordon of royal blue patrol cars, and beyond that a hodge-podge of spectators and reporters. As he reached the gate flash bulbs started popping. And just as thunder follows lightning, the second he went outside he knew the questions would be coming. At the gate he turned.
Back down the path near a silver statue depicting the Crucifixion, a group of three nuns were huddled together as if seeking warmth from each other. Behind them the convent rose up like a silver mausoleum.
It had been a long time since Robert DeClercq had been a practicing Catholic. In fact he had not set foot in a cathedral, except for the funeral, since the day that he had walked down that country road with his dead daughter in his arms.