Michael Slade - Headhunter

The nun had spent the evening with an old woman who was living out her final days in a decaying house in the East End of Vancouver. Her hands gnarled with arthritis and her eyes clouded by cataracts, she could barely take care of herself yet she steadfastly refused to be warehoused in a hospital or a rest home. That tenacity had reminded the nun of when she herself was a child, when this strong woman, her surrogate mother, had helped convince her to take the Holy

Vows. It had hurt her tonight to sit in that room in that house in East Vancouver, and listen to the one whom she loved so now shake her fist at God.

So tonight especially the nun was looking forward to Mass.

It was with utter surprise that she felt the arm circle around her throat. Suddenly her breath was cut off and so was any scream. A hand seized her roughly, throwing her to the ground. The motions were swift; the person was strong; the force applied was brutal. The attacker abruptly let her go, then fell down upon her. Now a gloved hand was instantly clamped over her mouth.

The eyes of the nun opened wide when she heard the material ripping. Above her she saw a flash of blood-red color at the neck of the nylon jacket worn by her violator. The face was hidden behind a black nylon mask, the eyes leered out of two small incisions, and a third hole revealed lips pulled back in a snarl over bared white teeth. Then in utter horror she felt the hardness stab between her legs. The pressure. The entry. And realized. Oh My Lord, this is rape!

In that instant she thought of the Sister who had been attacked in New York City. The other Sisters raped and killed in El Salvador. How in the name of Mercy, she thought, can God let this happen!

Then there was a glint of light on steel.

And the knife slammed through her throat.

Monday, November 1st, 1:03 a.m.

Robert DeClercq had seen more of death than was healthy for any man — no matter how professionally anesthetized his human sensibilities.

As with all men and women who deal daily with homicide, the Superintendent had been forced to take it in his stride and discover his own way to objectify this most subjective of human fears — the knowledge you're going to die. DeClercq had found it impossible to eschew all emotion. Nor was he able to develop a sense of gallows humor. In the end his mind reached a compromise with itself: reason was left to do its job hindered only by an accumulating overtone of sadness. Sadness about the loss.

For thirty years that technique had worked.

But it didn't work tonight.

It was the total outrage of what DeClercq saw that made the anger well up inside him.

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.