Michael Slade - Headhunter

For someone had just come in through the front door.

When he looked back out into the living room, the Superintendent saw Genevieve running toward him. She had her arms outstretched and she was crying out through tears: "Oh, Robert, it was awful. Linda's been…"

And that was when he pushed her.

His hand connected with her chest, stopping her in her rush of anguish and suddenly sending her flying in the opposite direction.

"Goodbye, Genny," he said.

And he slammed the greenhouse door.

Genevieve looked up in wild amazement from where she was sprawled on the floor. She could not believe this was happening. What was going on?

First Linda, her student, had been killed after offering to go up to the car and retrieve the bottle of port.

Then the police had been called by some fellow out walking his dog and before she knew it the house was swarming with dozens of officers.

For an hour and a half she had tried to call home, only to hear from the operator that the line was out of order.

And now she had finally gotten away, had kindly been driven home by Joseph Avacomovitch who had asked to come in but who she had told she needed some time alone with her husband, and now this!

What is going on? she thought. I do not believe this night!

And then she saw it all. The room struck like a chime.

The telephone lying smashed against one wall.

The bottle of Scotch broken and spilled on the floor.

The files stacked beside the door and the hung-up uniform.

And then her eyes grew wide with terror as she came to realize that the uniform holster was open and its pistol was missing. He's going to kill himself, she thought — and then she started for the greenhouse door, knowing abruptly that it was a solid barrier of wood totally sealing him off, knowing also in that instant that in order to get to him she had to go right around the house. She knew that it was impossible for her to make it in time, but all the same that she had to give it a try. She scrambled in horror for the front door, fingers clawing at the wood, fingers slipping on the metal handle, wrenching it open wildly and running straight into another wall that was Joseph Avacomovitch.

"Where's Robert?" the scientist asked. "It's all over the air. Tipple, Scarlett and Spann have brought the Headhunter…"

"He's in the greenhouse!" Genevieve screamed, frantically trying to push the Russian aside and pointing at the door. "He's going to shoot himself!"

Then she squeezed between the man and the doorframe and ran off outside.

Avacomovitch was moving.

He was coming across the living room floor and heading toward the door. He began to lead with his body, cutting the distance rapidly, lowering and coiling into a crouch, his left shoulder coming out to the fore as his head tucked into his chest, his right foot firm on the floor as he pushed off with all his strength, unwinding, hurtling, until finally at six four and 285 pounds, like a human battering ram, he hit the door. The wood never stood a chance.

With a fierce crack of protest it buckled right down the middle, the lock ripping free in a shower of splinters as both the hinges gave. Breaking free, the door crashed into the greenhouse. Followed by the man.

Robert DeClercq jammed the pistol barrel into his open mouth and bit down on the steel. The muzzle touched his palate, pointing at his brain.

Amid the tumble of shelves and potted plants, with dirt flying everywhere, the Russian somersaulted across the floor until, one foot smashing through the glass, his body came to a halt.

DeClercq's thumb snapped back the hammer as his finger closed on the trigger.

"Don't do it, Robert! You got him! A flying patrol brought him down!" Avacomovitch yelled.

And he didn't pull the trigger.

There was an awkward moment while Robert DeClercq sat at his desk with the pistol still in his mouth, looking down at Avacomovitch stretched out on the floor. Then slowly he took the gun barrel out and placed the.38 down on the leather.

"What are you doing here, Joseph?" was all he could think to say.

"I've come for that party, Robert. Don't you remember?" The Superintendent nodded.

And that was when, beyond the greenhouse wall and standing out in the rain, Robert DeClercq saw his wife's face and hands pressed against the glass. For a moment he looked at one of his own hands, the one that had pushed her away, then he got up from the desk chair and moved toward the door.

As he reached out to undo the lock he saw Genevieve waiting outside. He watched her face in the windowpane and the streaks running down from both eyes and he wondered briefly if they were tears or just the rain on the glass.

Seattle, Washington

Saturday, December 4th, 10:02 p.m.

"Apart from making Corporal, what was the best part of the case for you?" Katherine Spann asked.

Rick Scarlett smiled. "When the Prime Minister — not fifteen minutes after telling the House of Commons that DeClercq had been pulled from the investigation — had to go back in and inform them that the Superintendent had brought the Headhunter down. The man looked like such a fool."

Both Corporals laughed.

As they had been promoted, this trip was a celebration. Bill Tipple-now a Sergeant — had been asked to come along, but he had begged off saying that Commercial Crime was hot on the tail of something big and he could not desert at the moment. "By the time you two return," he'd said, "I'll probably be an Inspector." The way things turned out, Rick Scarlett was pleased, for now they were alone.

The restaurant was a part of Pike Place Market, serving French cuisine at skyrocket prices. For a few extra bucks under the table the maitre d' (Parisian, of course) had seated them by a window where the view out over Elliott Bay was positively breathtaking. They were dining up on the second floor of a building constructed on stilts so that it jutted out over the edge of a bluff. Before the sun had set "the mountains really had been out," as the people of Seattle say. But now all that could be seen were the lights of the boats bobbing out on the water beyond the candle flame reflected in the glass. They had just finished dessert and a third bottle of wine.

"I wonder what he did with them, Kathy?" Rick Scarlett asked. His words were slightly slurred. He had consumed most of the alcohol.

"With what?" the woman replied.

"With the severed heads."

"I have no idea. And I doubt we'll ever know."

"Yeah," Scarlett said. Then they both fell silent.

He motioned to a waiter and, when the man came over, ordered two Courvoisiers. As he turned back, once again — inadvertently — Scarlett looked the woman up and down. Spann was wearing a black dress cut low in the front and a simple string of pearls. Her hair was swept up on both sides of her head and pinned back. Scarlett's throat was dry by the time the cognac arrived.

"You know," Spann said slowly, swirling the liquid around in the snifter and glancing out through the window, "the thing I like most about the States is that the people are so overt. I mean sure there's a lot of shit in this country too, but the Americans are not afraid to bring it to the surface. I believe that takes guts: they're a lot more honest than we are."

"Perhaps," Scarlett said, and he looked down her cleavage.

Fifteen minutes later the bill arrived. Though Scarlett insisted on paying for the meal, Katherine Spann declined. "Not my style," she said. So they split it down the middle and then went outside.

Immediately the aromas of Pike Place Market assailed their senses of smell: the meat, the fish, the spice shops, the bakeries and the delis. Lingering above all these was the pungent sea-salt air, blowing up Puget Sound and tugging at their clothes. Just outside the restaurant Rick Scarlett tripped and fell. Spann broke his catapult motion and said: "You've had too much to drink."