As MacDougall watched Avacomovitch pick up what had replaced the skull, he thought: DeClercq does not look well.
But if you mean, was it Mr. Hyde? — Why, yes, I think it was!
4:55 p.m.
Joseph Avacomovitch pulled on a pair of surgical gloves before he picked up the mug. It was sitting in the center of the pool of blood that had pumped out through the severed arteries and veins of Natasha Wilkes' throat. Careful not to smudge any latent prints, the scientist stood up and held it out.
The beer mug was the size of a large grapefruit and made from fine bone china. The porcelain had been fashioned into the face of W. C. Fields — that hard-drinking, misanthropic braggart with the big bulbous nose. Across this nose was pasted one word clipped from a newspaper. The word was: Robert.
As Avacomovitch slowly revolved the mug in his gloved hand, Chartrand, DeClercq and MacDougall saw that its ceramic base was etched with an inscription: Never give a sucker an even break.
4:56 p.m.
Inspector Jack MacDougall broke the silence among them. "It's your command, Robert. Let's have the orders. My men are ready to move."
The Superintendent turned to him with anger in his eyes. When he spoke it was through teeth that were clenched with rage.
"Jack, I want divers in this river and I want every inch of it covered for a mile both up and down stream.
"I want a cordon with a diameter of 500 yards, no,make that 1000. around this body and every ounce of snow sifted with a sieve.
"I want dog masters from around the mainland out here as soon as possible. Put a quarter of the dogs on search lost, a quarter on search small, and the other half on command to search large. They cover every square inch of this mountain until we know there's nothing here.
"I want a hands and knees search of every road for tire tracks and then a police dog follow-up. This killer arrived and left somehow and I want to know his route.
"I want choppers over this mountainside armed with infrared. The slightest change in temperature I want thoroughly investigated.
"I want a house-to-house with every cabin inspected, every owner interviewed.
"I want this woman identified now and I want her whereabouts traced. Have every person from the sweep reinterviewed as to exactly where they've been since she was last seen alive and do a computer match for any possible connection.
"Get out a media blanket calling for public information.
"As soon as the autopsy is completed, set up a funeral and spread the time and place around. Have a squad outside the service to photograph secretly whoever comes and goes. Have every motor vehicle license recorded for a quarter mile around.
"I want a running log computer enhanced hourly from Chan.
"I want every traffic ticket given out on the North Shore within the last twenty-four hours examined.
"Have someone contact the British cops on the Ripper Squad, the Atlanta task force, and the guys who got Son of Sam and pick their brains for any technique we're missing. If one of them wants to help, buy the man a ticket.
"I want the Attorney General called and a $100,000 reward posted by tonight.
"Get a couple of psychics here and see what they have to say."
DeClercq then turned to Chartrand. "Francois," he said, "I want triple the manpower."
"You got it," the Commissioner replied.
5:12 p.m.
"I think you'd better look at this," a voice from up above said.
Avacomovitch turned from the body of Natasha Wilkes and glanced back up the hill. Corporal Murray Quinn of North Van Ident. Section and a dog master named Ingersoll were crouched down on their haunches about halfway up the slope that led to the cross-country ski trail. They were squatting alongside the route where the woman had tumbled down. Ingersoll was rewarding his German shepherd. King.
The sense of smell of a German shepherd is a hundred times stronger than man's. A dog can detect odors that otherwise go unnoticed. A police dog is trained to always work into the wind. A dog will pick up any scent foreign to an area. A police dog works for only one reason and that is its master's praise. In the present case King was one of the more senior veterans of the seventy RCMP dog teams in Canada. Once told to search up the hill it had taken him less than ten seconds to find the three threads.
"What is it?" Avacomovitch asked as he came plodding through the snow.
"The dog's found these," Ingersoll said, interpreting the animal's actions and pointing to the broken branch of a bush growing out of the side of the hill. He turned a flashlight on it, for dusk was rapidly coming down.
Avacomovitch crouched near the snow, removing a clean laboratory envelope from his coat pocket as he did so. With a pair of tweezers he removed the three ripped threads from the bramble bush. After he stood back up, he held out the envelope to Ingersoll and Quinn.
The pouch now contained two black threads.
And a third one, scarlet red.
Friday, November 12th, 6:30 a.m.
They had worked right through the night.
Robert DeClercq felt as though his body was half numb and his mind was rapidly shrinking down inside a small protective shell that hoarded what was left of his reason. He moved about Headquarters restlessly, checking and rechecking each and every aspect of the investigation, yet nothing seemed to be in perspective.
In one room a wall was papered with graphs and maps. There was a chart for the ages of the victims; there was a chart for their heights and weights; there was even a chart which showed the temperature at the time that each victim had last been seen alive.
In another room a police artist was working with a psychic.
There were a number of sketches of the psychic's impressions already tacked up on the walls.
Every computer terminal was in use, with several officers lined up waiting for time.
Two men from BC Tel were hooking up fifty more telephones.
At Headquarters paper was mounting up. The days and days and days of repetitive, tedious work processing an endless flow of data — indexing, filing and cross-filing — was threatening to drown the building. To DeClercq it seemed as though each detail within the mass was mocking him personally, challenging his weary mind to fit the pieces together.
But still he worked on.
At 7:23 a.m. a report came in that a burglar caught in the act overnight by two women had been beaten to death with a fireplace poker and shovel. Both women were over sixty.
At 9:17 that morning Coquitlam Detachment arrested a gang of seven "slasher" girls who had spent the past ten hours ripping up the faces of six men — blinding two — with knives and the sharpened spikes of high-heeled shoes.
Then at 10:05 a.m. women began to mount a vigil.
Within an hour there were more than three hundred people standing outside the Headquarters building holding lighted candles. Before another hour had passed, that number had doubled.
Still those inside worked on.
6:07 p.m.
Commissioner Frangois Chartrand found DeClercq sitting in his office staring at the corkboard overview. Softly, he closed the door. Chartrand took a seat across from the Superintendent. He lit a cigarette.
"We've known each other a long time, Robert, so I'm going to be blunt with you. I have spent a night and a day reviewing your investigation. I have not found one thing that I would do differently, but I have discovered a number of techniques that would never have crossed my mind. You've mounted as fine a manhunt as I have ever encountered.