Today, this woman was nervous and jumpy.
Her blue-gray eyes were piercing as they jerked about the room, telling all and sundry what she was looking for. I need junk, they pleaded.
"Are you lookin', baby?" It was a whispered voice to her left.
"You got?" she asked, flicking a glance at the man.
The Indian rolled his own eyes toward the pub's back door. He was a short, stout man with thick biceps circled by copper armbands. His arms were naked from the shoulder to the fingertips. The frayed jean jacket was open at his chest exposing a leather thong with a whale's tooth at its end. His soiled jeans were suspended from a thick black belt with a Harley-Davidson buckle. His face was pockmarked and his eyes, which peered out from under the brim of a Stetson, were cold with the meanness of the streets. When he smiled, as he was doing now, his lips opened over stained and rotting teeth.
"What's it for?" the woman croaked, leaning toward his table.
"Sixty for one," the Indian said. "Meet me in five out back."
Then the man stood up abruptly and quickly walked away.
5:45 p.m.
The little girl was laughing and no more than five years old. She was dressed in a waterproof snowsuit that covered her from head to toe. Her face was flushed and rosy-cheeked and here and there a red curl poked out from her hood. Squealing and chuckling with delight, she came tumbling down the wooded hillside, part running, part sliding, part rolling toward the harbor water. Every inch of her clothing was caked with thick, wet mud.
"Wait up, Cindy!" her sister yelled from behind. She was going on seven, so a little more reserved. Age does that to you.
They had seen the tent all ripped to tatters from the top of the hill. The hill was in North Vancouver, a quarter mile from their home. Already it was nearing dark and the fir trees cast deep shadows across the slope to the water. Dianne didn't like the shadows: to Cindy it didn't matter. She had plunged on ahead.
"Wait up, I said!" Dianne shouted, sliding down beside her sister, it took her a full five feet to stop. "Who do you think lives here?" the older girl asked.
"Oscar the Grouch, you nose-honker," Cindy replied.
As she approached the tent, crouching, Cindy whispered softly: "Oscar. Hey, Oscar. You hiding from me in there?" Then suddenly her foot sank into the ground with mud up to the ankle.
"You're such a gumby, Cinders. That's where the creek runs down."
The little girl ignored her and took another step. It didn't work. Her left foot came out of her rubber boot and for several seconds she stood waving her arms in the air like a trapeze artist losing balance. Then inevitably — and with a shriek — Cindy toppled over. Flat into the mud.
"Boy, are you gonna get it! Wait till Mom sees your clothes."
Cindy struggled to her feet and Finally stood up in the muck. Reaching down she grabbed hold of the top of her gumboot and gave it a hearty tug. With a sucking sound the boot came loose — but then the girl immediately fell over again. Only this time she didn't get up. Instead, with eyes as big as searchlights she stared at the ground, for there where her boot had disturbed the mud as she had yanked it out of the earth, a clutching hand of rib bones now reached out from a shallow grave.
8:05 p.m.
They had set out flares to mark the way down to the scene of the crime, but still it was dark within these woods and the underbrush was threatening. Tonight the sky above was clear, a million pin-prick stars visible in space, but the ground was partially hidden by creeping fingers of fog. Up ahead a knot of men stood washed by the glare of floodlights, all but one in uniform, and all with plastic cups. The steam from the coffee held in their hands mingled with the fog from the ground.
As Corporal Rodale moved toward this group, the man without the uniform turned in his direction. "Is that you, Rodale?" a voice asked, with a stern edge of authority.
"Yes, sir," the Corporal answered, emerging from the shadows.
"Good. I want you to look at this. I think we've got a problem."
The man who spoke was now a black silhouette in front of the portable arc light. He was somewhere in his early Fifties, and barely reached the minimum height required by the RCMP. As Rodale moved up beside him, the light shifted to reveal a pair of intense blue eyes above a neat clipped military moustache. The man's mouth was stretched into a grave and determined line. He wore a blue blazer and gray flannel slacks. Sewn to the pocket of the blazer was the crest of the Mounted Police, a buffalo head beneath a crown and surrounded by maple leaves. The man's name was Jack Mac-Dougall.
For a moment Corporal Rodale paused to take in the work in progress. An Ident. member from North Vancouver Detachment was already busy snapping photos of the scene. A constable beside him was making a sketch of the ground, while off to the right a dog master was reading his German shepherd. The animal moved back and forth as if along the lines of a grid, sniffing the leaves in front of him and advancing on the water. Down on the beach, just a black outline against the refinery flames of loco, a member with a metal detector was scanning and sweeping the sand.
"I had you called," MacDougall said, "just to be on the safe side. The site was already damaged before we got the call. The bones were discovered by two little girls who reported the find to their father. Instead of calling us right then, he came out here for a look. He's the one who cleared the leaves and mud and sticks from the grave. By the time we got here it was already dark."
Sergeant MacDougall directed Rodale to an area marked with rope. A beam from one of the arc lights made the ground seem white. Within the square delineated, the Corporal saw what looked like a shallow creek bed beneath a mass of bones. Though the flesh had long since rotted away from the skeleton's upper torso, the trousers that clung around the lower legs had preserved some skin and muscle. Here the maggots were still at work.
"Come dawn I want you to work this scene independently as a backup. I want everything done twice. Including a sifting of the soil for two hundred yards around. If what I suspect actually happened here, we can't be overly careful. Do you see what I mean?"
"Yes," Rodale said, nodding. "The skull is missing."
Wednesday, October 27th, 10:34 a.m.
They don't make newspapermen like "Skip" O'Rourke anymore. Too bad.
The Skipper was a rotund man late of Her Majesty's Navy who sported a belly made of Guinness and a tattoo from Taiwan. The tattoo was a reminder of the perils of too much drink, for when O'Rourke sobered up from his final shore leave before obtaining his discharge, the needle portrait was waiting, engraved on his lower left arm. How he obtained it, where he obtained it, or why he obtained it, O'Rourke had no idea. What he did know, however, was he hated the thing from the moment his sober eyes saw it. The tattoo was one of Popeye, spinach can in hand.
Today, as always, O'Rourke was sporting one of his long-sleeved shirts.
He sat at his City Editor's desk, butt in mouth, reviewing the four star page proofs when Edna approached him from the left. Edna was a skinny, flat-chested woman. To Skip O'Rourke she looked like a reincarnation of Olive Oyl.
"This just arrived," Edna said in her squeaky voice. "Someone's marked it Personaclass="underline" Eyes of Editor Only." In her hand the woman held a brown manila envelope.
"Put it in the basket. Can't you see I'm busy?"
"Yes,sir," Edna squeaked. Then she huffed off back to the mailroom. The Skipper merely grunted, but he was smiling to himself. The Headhunter, O'Rourke thought, I think that's what we'll call him. It's got a catchy ring.