At the photograph table the Corporal paused and gave it a little attention. There were prints coming and going and moving about the surface, photos being passed from hand to hand with the occasional comment, pictures of bodies and pictures of heads and pictures of murder locations, snapshots of women, a shot of a nurse decked out in her graduation garb, mug shots in full-face and profile of hundreds of men, most with dark hints of fetishism and obsession in their eyes.
The man beside him was holding a photo in each of his large hands. In his left was a picture of a woman's head stuck on the end of a pole; and in his right the same face staring out from a mug shot. The man was staring as if in a trance at the snap of the severed head. The Corporal thought that odd.
"It's like a jigsaw puzzle, eh?" William Tipple said.
His eyes dazed, the man turned to look at him without a smile on his face.
"I'm Bill Tipple," the Corporal said, introducing himself. "Commercial Crime Section."
"Al Flood," the man replied, "VPD Major Crimes."
Ah,Tipple thought to himself, so they're working this one too. He was a wee bit hurt. For here was a Vancouver City bull as an outsider on the inside, while he — Bill Tipple of the RCMP — was an insider out in the cold. That wasn't right.
"Looks like a bargain basement sale at the Hudson's Bay Company, eh?" the Corporal said jovially, nodding at all the others.
Flood merely shook his head and turned back to his pictures.
Yeah, well same to you, buddy. Bill Tipple thought. Then he too began to rummage about the table. It seemed to him that pictures of heads and bodies were now at a premium. Someone threw down a photo of a black man and reached for something else. Tipple picked it up. Someone grabbed for an Ident. enlargement of marks on a neck vertebra and revealed underneath a second photo of the woman in Flood's right hand. It was also a mug shot, but a different type of one. Tipple picked that up also.
"Here," he said turning to Flood and handing him the picture. "Another piece for your puzzle."
"Thanks," the Vancouver Detective said, reaching out with nicotine-stained fingers. There was a puffiness under his eyes.
Looks like a cynic. Tipple thought.
Rood added: "This one's from our own VPD mugbooks downtown." He wagged the photograph which he held in his right hand. "The woman's name is Grabowski, she's up for heroin possession. The shot that you just gave me is from the files of the New Orleans PD. I believe the black dude in that surveillance photo in your hand is also linked to her. And to New Orleans."
At the words "New Orleans" Tipple almost jumped as if he'd been jabbed in the ribs. "Can I see that again?" he asked, indicating Grabowski's NOPD picture. Flood gave it to him.
For a minute or two the RCMP Corporal examined the two American photographs, front and back. The names of the persons depicted were printed on the reverse side of the shots. Then Tipple put both pictures in his left hand and dug his notebook out of his jacket pocket with his right. Flipping over several pages, he stopped and nodded. "Well I'll be damned," he said. "Will you take a look at this."
Flood looked at the notebook and at a name written on the page. Tipple held out the photograph of the black man and indicated the name printed on the back. Both names were the same.
John Lincoln Hardy.
9:45 p.m.
It was while Robert DeClercq was pinning the wiretap transcripts from Commercial Crime up on the corkboard beside the photo of John Lincoln Hardy that he noticed his hands were shaking. Lack of sleep,he thought. It had been an exhausting day.
After leaving the scene of the nun's murder he had gone directly home and tried to get some sleep. But sleep wouldn't come. For no matter how hard he had tried to clear his mind of all its nagging thoughts, he could not shake off the sense of tension and urgency that the latest murder had caused. The killings were coming so quickly that the city was bound to explode. And now explode it had.
After obtaining the body release order early in the afternoon, the Superintendent had spent half an hour arranging to have the CPR train with Joanna Portman's body intercepted along the line and her remains rerouted. Then he had left the courthouse and driven out to UBC. Next to the University Hospital, in the Department of Psychiatry building, he had found the office of Dr. George Ruryk where a secretary was waiting.
DeClercq had reached the point in the investigation where he thought it advisable to obtain a psychological profile based on the information that they now had on the Headhunter. He knew as well as anyone that this was a very long bow to draw, that there are as many psychological profiles as there are people on this earth. Being married to a psychologist, however, he had also learned that a disease of the mind might strike any one of those individuals at any time, and that if it did, depending upon the mental illness, that person would show certain recognizable symptoms. There was always the chance that observed symptoms might lead them to the killer.
It was a weak straw to clutch at, sure.
But a straw nonetheless.
"I hope your back is strong," Ruryk's secretary had said. She had pointed to a box filled with books off to the right of the office door. "George marked the relevant parts with bookmarks but said you might want the rest of the volume in order to get your bearings. Otherwise we would have Xeroxed. I understand you're to leave him a synopsis of the investigation."
DeClercq walked over and placed it on her desk.
"He'll pick it up after his evening lecture," the secretary said.
"Would you tell him that I'll expect him tomorrow any time after nine?"
"Right. Does he know how to get there?"
"Genevieve's my wife. I believe he's been over before."
"Oh, right," the woman repeated, and then DeClercq had left.
Once back at Headhunter Headquarters, the Superintendent had asked Inspector MacDougall if he could round him up a sandwich and following that had sat down and unpacked the box of books.
By the time that MacDougall had entered the office later that night with the wiretap transcripts just sent over by Tipple of Commercial Crime, Robert DeClercq was struggling just to keep his eyes focused. He welcomed the break.
"We might have some good news," the Inspector said. He handed the wiretaps to the Superintendent. "We just got a printout from Headquarters in Ottawa. Interpol might have traced the identity of the bones. A German national named Liese Greiner left Switzerland eight months ago for a camping trip in North America. She never returned, and hasn't been heard from since early August. She was by herself. Six years ago she was badly injured in a car accident and suffered a number of bone fractures. Interpol sent the X-rays. Joseph is going over to the morgue to compare them with the North Van skeleton."
"Good," DeClercq said. "Anything else come up?"
"The autopsy on the nun proved negative for sperm. Perhaps our man was interrupted by the Sister going up the path to close the gate."
"Probably not. She'd have seen him lighting the pumpkin."
"A Corporal named Tipple at Commercial Crime thinks he's got Grabowski's pimp on some of his wiretaps. The target is a guy named Steve Rackstraw who calls himself the 'Fox.' Land fraud. Corporate rip-offs. That sort of thing. Evidently an unknown male known as the 'Weasel' started turning up on the tapes. Tipple later pegged him as John Lincoln Hardy. He's a cousin of Rackstraw. There's also another guy known as the 'Wolf floating around on the taps. He's Rackstraw's brother. Tipple culled out some of the calls and sent them over. You've got them in your hand."