Michael Slade - Headhunter

So what am I going to do?

Pull Robert from the command and destroy his self-esteem?

Let him go on and allow this madman to slowly shred him to pieces?

He had to do something, that was for sure, to try and relieve the pressure. For Chartrand had spent his whole life working with men at the line of combat. He knew all the signs, and he could see them building.

DeClercq was on that combat line. And Robert DeClercq was cracking.

4:15 p.m.

It was MacDougall's idea to draw lots to see who would go and who would stay.

The North Vancouver Detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was filled to overflowing with men and women all bedecked in their red serge uniforms. The men wore heavy scarlet tunics with stiff choker collars. Stetson hats, breeches, white lanyards, Sam Browne belts and riding boots and spurs. The women wore the tunic, turtleneck sweaters and long blue skirts. They all wore gloves. Some had stitched to their sleeves the insignia of appointment: rough riders and dog masters and bandsmen and lancers of the musical ride. Some wore the crown and firearm badges that set apart the distinguished marksmen. All wore the regimental badge of the RCMP.

It was no secret that Jack MacDougall was damn proud of the Force. It was also no secret that he expected every other Member under his command to feel exactly the same way. That was why he had ordered them to attend a dress rehearsal before proceeding from North Vancouver Detachment to the Parade.

"All right," MacDougall said. "Those who are going, polish your brass and form into groups of five. Those who are staying, hold the fort, and luck be with you next time."

They were just about to leave for their cars when a very excited dispatcher came running in from the radio room.

"Bad news, Inspector," the man said. "We got another one."

For a moment MacDougall hesitated, stunned, then he recovered himself and said: "You mean here? In our jurisdiction?"

"Looks like it. Number three. Up on Seymour Mountain. Found about forty-five minutes ago by two cross-country skiers."

Good God! MacDougall thought. Not here! Not again!

Then he held up his hand for silence among the Members gathered around him.

"Okay, let's roll," he said.

4:18 p.m.

"My, my," Genevieve stated, leaning against the doorjamb.

"Now I see why women used to go for a uniform."

DeClercq turned from the mirror and gave her a wan smile.

He was dressed in the blue serge of an RCMP Superintendent. "At the present rate of recruitment," he said, "we'll soon have more women in uniform than we do men."

"Well don't you turn the tables and fall for a woman dressed in red serge."

"I won't," he said as the telephone rang.

Together they moved to the living room where DeClercq picked up the receiver.

As she watched him listen, Genevieve saw her husband's face fall apart and his spirit disintegrate. She saw him swallow dryly and his shoulders actually slump. Instinctively she comprehended the news coming over the line. Oh no, not another one. Please don't do this to him.

DeClercq put down the phone. "Don't wait up," he said.

4:53 p.m.

By the time Chartrand reached the murder scene it was swarming with uniformed Members. For a moment even he was surprised — all those years in the Force and here was his first red serge investigation. It certainly gives one a sense of history, he thought as he walked over to the body.

Robert DeClercq looked up from where he was squatting on his knees.

"It's a bad one," he said.

It wasn't that Inspector Jack MacDougall was any more hardened than the others, it was just that for him the outrage of the crime had no sexual element. When he looked down at Natasha Wilkes all he saw was the violence.

The woman lay spread-eagled on her back in the snow a yard from the bank of the river. On her feet were a pair of cross-country skis. Her legs were spread apart, the left boot four feet from its partner. The back half of each ski had been rammed vertically into the snow. The clothes on the lower half of the corpse had been ripped to shreds with a knife. Her pubic hair was matted with ice and blood. There was a long slash across her breasts, rending her jacket open. A great deal of blood had stained the snow, particularly in a wide pool circling out from the throat. Rivulets of red were still seeping into the Seymour River where they washed toward the sea. The head was missing.

As MacDougall watched Avacomovitch pick up what had replaced the skull, he thought: DeClercq does not look well.

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.