There was another killing and he was sacked: that was all he knew. He didn't care where. He didn't care who. I don't give a damn, he thought.
Then he began to settle down. "Yes, I do give a damn," he said aloud. He wanted another drink. You're smashed already, he thought. Then his eyes struck the photograph.
Weaving, he walked across the living room and picked up the picture. His eyes watered as he looked at the little girl, so very, very long ago, laughing in the leaves.
Then he slumped into the chair.
"Can you hear me. Princess?" he said to the photo. "This time believe me. Daddy's coming for you."
He went to get his gun.
Firefight
9:11 p.m.
The call came through on the radio of every Headhunter Squad patrol car.
"Spann. Scarlett. This is Tipple. Our boy just came home. He's carrying something in a bag and he's just gone into the shack. Here's how to get here." No sooner had Tipple finished giving the address directions and signed off than he came on again. "Spann. Scarlett. It's me again. Hardy's just come back out. He's going to his car and from what I can see in this light, he hasn't got the bag. I'm on his tail. And this time no one gets lost."
Monica Macdonald was down with the flu and therefore Rusty Lewis was on patrol alone. He was driving along the Upper Levels Highway in North Vancouver when he heard the broadcast. Something's up,he thought.
Ed Rabidowski was less than a quarter mile from the murder scene when he picked up Tipple's reports.
With a frown of puzzlement on his face, he turned up the radio volume.
9:47 p.m.
Inspector Mac Fleetwood (no relation to the pop group; in fact he loathed rock music) was standing near the water cooler in the bull pen of Major Crimes when a constable who manned the front desk at 312 Main came up with an envelope.
"This was just dropped off," the wide-eyed man said. "There's a taxi driver downstairs says he went into McDonald's to get a coffee and when he returned to his car that was on the seat. He has no idea who left it."
Fleetwood glanced at the envelope which was labeled For the police. It had been opened.
He dumped the contents onto a desk and out fell a roll of film and a note pieced together with newspaper clippings. The note said: say uncle robert haven't you had enough? ps you develop this one.
"Hey, Al," Fleetwood called to the man across the room. "It's the Headhunter again."
Detective Al Flood rose quickly from his desk and ran across the bull pen.
10:02 p.m.
"Where are you. Tipple?" Rick Scarlett said into the microphone of his radio patrol car. He was parked behind Katherine Spann's vehicle on a small dirt road up on Grouse Mountain. Spread out before his eyes, down below, were the jewels of the city. At least a million of them, some of them in motion.
Spann was standing outside the door. She listened to the reply through the open window.
"We're coming across the Lion's Gate Bridge. I think he's coming home."
"Where's he been?"
"To the record studio, but he just drove by. He didn't stop. He must be looking for Rackstraw." "Maybe checking for his car. The Fox told him on the phone not to go near the place."
"Well then Weasel doesn't listen. What are you going to do?"
"Enter the place. I got the warrant." ' "You better do it fast, Rick, if Hardy's coming home." "Yeah. And listen, I've got a walkie-talkie, so for Christ sake keep us informed. I want to know if Hardy's coming in the door."
"You'll know," Tipple said, and they both signed off. "Okay," Scarlett said to Spann. "Let's get the tools." The woman moved forward to her car and removed a large box from the trunk. Both cars were one hundred yards past the shack and well hidden by bushes. When Hardy arrived, he wouldn't see the cars. But if he did drive on Tipple was on his tail.
"Pretty run-down," Katherine Spann said, "for a ski chalet." "I don't think it's been used for that for at least a dozen years."
They were skirting along one side of the structure to enter it from the back. The building was made of rotting boards with one window in each side. It was heated by a wood stove, if the pipe they passed by was an accurate indication. The place did not have electricity. It looked like an abandoned hermit's shack.
Once they were hidden around back, the woman opened the tool box and shone a flashlight inside. Scarlett selected a crowbar and began to jimmy the window but it slid up easily. "This place has probably already been B & E'd a hundred times by cold-assed skiers," he said. He put his hand up. "Yeah, I can feel other jimmy marks. Give me a boost."
Spann locked her fingers together and made them into a step. Scarlett grabbed hold of the sill with both hands, put one foot into her palms and hoisted himself inside. Leaning back out through the window he grasped Katherine Spann by the wrist and hauled her through the opening.
"Okay, let's spread out. You stay here and do this room, I'll do the one in front."
The woman nodded as Tipple's voice came over the walkie-talkie clipped to Scarlett's belt. "We're starting up the mountain. We're less than ten minutes away."
The male cop crossed to a closed door and entered the front room. Spann remained behind. Four minutes later, Scarlett was down on his hands and knees working his way clockwise around the walls when the woman called out to him: "Hey, Rick. You better come here." The man went back to the rear.
As he came through the door, Spann was sitting on the floorboards with four voodoo masks at her feet. He saw she had found two planks nailed together that swiveled on a hinge. The small door now stood open revealing a hole in the floor. Katherine Spann had pried one mask apart and powder had spilled in her lap. As he watched she wet her index finger and dipped it into the mess, then she raised her hand to her lips and touched the end of her tongue.
"Is it coke?" Scarlett asked.
"Eureka," she said. "The tip of my tongue's frozen solid."
"How much is in the mask?"
"At least eight ounces."
"We're five away." It was Tipple's voice. "You better make it snappy."
"You keep going here. I'll keep going out front." Quickly Scarlett rushed back out the door and began to tap the floor. And then he saw the blood. There was one small drop of it off to his right. Reaching out he touched it and found that it was fresh.
"We're three away. Maybe less. Hardy's driving fast."
Scarlett rapidly tapped the floor around the drop of blood in an ever-widening circle. He pushed at each and every join of the boards. He still had the crowbar so he began to poke and pry. Then two of the floorboards gave.
"Rick, I can see the place. I'm going to have to drop back cause Hardy's pulling up outside."
"Kathy!" Scarlett whispered sharply. "Get in here quick!"
As he turned the volume of the radio down, she came up beside him crawling on hands and knees. "Look," he said, and swiveled open the boards. They both heard the car pull up outside. Both had killed their lights.
Reaching into the hole in the floor Rick Scarlett could feel two plastic bags hanging from nails in the underside of the planks. The shack was built up on stilts because of the mountain runoff. Both bags would have been hanging above the ground but, as the supports were boarded around, well hidden from sight.
Scarlett removed the first of the bags and tossed it quickly to Spann. At that moment beyond the window there was a flash of firelight. Footsteps approached the front door.