Headhunter (34 page)

Far from the Shore

5:13 p.m.

The thread was red serge, just as he had suspected. But what did the other fact mean? Avacomovitch had finished with the laser scatter technique. It had been two days since he had slept and his body cried out for sleep. His mind had begun to blur. Though he needed to talk to Robert DeClercq, that would have to wait. Perhaps he'd understand it all after a night of rest. Tomorrow might bring perspective.

If that's red serge,
the scientist thought,
from an RCMP tunic, then the tunic that that thread comes from is more than fifty years old.

Avacomovitch went home.

5:21 p.m.

She saw the boat approaching, hugging the jagged shore.

She stood alone on the miniature dock, waiting for him in the rain.

5:22 p.m.

"Do you want to get the warrant or the tools?" Rick Scarlett asked.

"The tools," the woman replied.

"Okay, drop me off at Headquarters and you take Rackstraw out to the Pen and have him put on ice. I want him totally isolated and incommunicado. Have them book him for now on PPT cocaine. I'll phone Tipple and have him do a stakeout till we arrive. I'll get the warrant and meet you there sharp at ten. Got it?"

"Got it," she said.

After Spann had dropped him off Scarlett smiled to himself.
Yes,
he thought smugly,
I'm taking back control. That's how it ought to be.

He went inside and phoned Bill Tipple at home.

"Hello," the Corporal answered, his voice thick with sleep.

"It's Rick, Bill. Get up. We've found John Lincoln Hardy."

"You mean you got him in your hands?"

"No, but we know where he is."

"Then let's get a warrant."

"I'm just about to do that. Will you go watch the place till we get there at ten?"

"Give me the address."

Scarlett gave it to him.

"How'd you find him?" Tipple asked.

"Rackstraw told me."

"Oh, I see," the Corporal said. "Well just don't tell me why he told you. I don't want to know."

They both hung up.

5:27 p.m.

Robert DeClercq had been drinking.

As he climbed out of the small boat with his wife helping him onto the dock, the man tripped on a loose board and fell down on his hands and knees. The empty bottle of Camus cognac which he had in one hand rolled over to stop at Genevieve's feet. She crouched down to look at both the bottle and her husband.

"Robert DeClercq, I do believe you're drunk," she said.

"Was drunk, Genny. Now I'm just high."

She picked up the bottle. "Well at least it's a high-class binge."

DeGercq sat down on the dock in the pouring rain and looked out across the sea. All he could see was gray, the downpour like a curtain.

"Let's go up to the house," she said, "and settle in for the night. I want to talk to you about your case."

"Screw the case," DeClercq said. "I've got the day off."

Genevieve stared at him in wonder. She had never before seen him this way.

"Don't you have a seminar tonight?" the Superintendent asked.

"I'm going to cancel it."

"Why?"

"To be at home with you." "Well, I wish you wouldn't." The man turned to look at her. "Would you do that for me? Would you please go to that class?"

"Will you tell me why?"

DeClercq looked at the bottle in her hand and then looked away, once more out to sea.

"Well. Genny, do you recall telling me I hold myself too tight. Well that tightness is my cell, it's the dungeon of my guilt.

"This afternoon I took the boat and that bottle and just drifted along the coast, measuring the distance to shore. It's been a long time since I've done that—shared my own company with a bottle. And I'm finally thinking things out.

"If it hadn't turned dark I wouldn't be back yet because I still have some distance to go. But if I get just a bit more time to myself, just some more time to examine this dungeon of mine and how I built it, then I believe I'll find a way out."

She didn't say anything at first, but watched this man she loved so much just sitting in the pouring rain. He had his legs curled up and his chin on his knees and his arms wrapped around his shins. Finally she sighed a long sigh and said: "How long do you want?"

"Will you give me till twelve o'clock?"

"Yes," Genevieve said.

6:55 p.m.

"What time is the seminar?" he asked.

"Seven-thirty," she said.

"Where is it?"

"In North Vancouver. Just off the Upper Levels Highway."

"What's it about?"

"I haven't decided yet." Then Genevieve's eyes fell upon the open book on the living room coffee table. She walked over and picked up Albert Camus'
The Fall.
"Do you mind if I take this?" she asked. "I'll find a topic in here."

"By all means," DeClercq said. "Perhaps you should look at I, I, I—the extension of the self. Or at The Little-ease—the dungeon of man's guilt."

For a moment Genevieve watched him with sadness in her eyes. Again she wished with all her heart that she could give him a child. For she knew that when Janie had died, a part of Robert had died with her too. Sometimes just the fact that she would never have a son or daughter affected her as well. It was almost as though the future could hold no hope, as
 
though without the innocence of childhood the cancer of experience would eat up all that ever had been.

Genevieve crossed to the liquor cabinet and removed
an
unopened bottle of port. Five minutes later with bottle
and
book in hand she left by the front door.

With one last look at her husband she thought,
What a time for Robert to meet his daughter's ghost.

7:06 p.m.

She came out of the house and into the downpour, the
rain
pounding against her umbrella and the wind that blew through the high trees threatening to turn it inside out. As she climbed the driveway up to where her TR 7 was parked beside Robert's Citroen the tarmac beneath her feet had become a rushing river. About her branches tossed wildly in the storm
as
the lights from the front porch of the house threw convulsing shadows across the wooded lot. Reaching the car she unlocked it, climbed in, put the book on the dash and wedged the bottle of port between the bucket seats, then she started the engine, and pulled out onto Marine Drive.

Fifty feet down the road there was another car parked at the curb. It pulled out behind her and followed at a distance.

Sparky was at the wheel.

The Fall

7:07 p.m.

Once Robert DeClercq heard the car pull away he went to the liquor cabinet and removed a bottle of Scotch. He took the cap off the top and swallowed a slug straight. Within seconds he could feel the liquor ignite the lining of his stomach, the glow of its heat radiating out to the rest of his body.

After a minute he put the bottle down and crossed over to a bookcase against one of the walls. From a lower drawer that he had not opened for several years he removed a picture that was lying face down.

The photograph was of a little girl, maybe four years old, sitting in a pile of maple leaves colored gold and amber and red and orange and brown. She was laughing, her blond hair in curls thrown back to catch the glint of the sun.

DeClercq carried the picture over to a table and set it against a lamp. Then he pulled a chair across to face it, retrieved the open bottle of Scotch, and sat down to stare at the photo.

From the liquor bottle he took another slug.

Then with words so soft that they seemed to tiptoe around the room, he touched the picture lightly and said: "Princess, this is your father. I want to talk to you."

8:03 p.m.

The cutlass was two feet long. It was similar to the sort of machete used for hacking sugar cane, except for one difference. Down the back of the knife, along the spine opposite the razor-sharp cutting edge, ran a rounded ridge jutting out to both sides. Close to the handle and clamped loosely like fingers around and under both sides of this ridge was a sliding six-ounce weight. When the cutlass was swung in a wide arc, the weight would slip down to the end of the blade to increase the centrifugal force of the blow by arithmetical proportions.

One cut from the knife in Sparky's hand would slice a head clean away.

From the shadows beside the driveway and hidden behind a tree, Sparky could watch the front of the house into which Genevieve DeClercq had disappeared. Already the driveway was filled with cars. The TR 7 was eight feet away. The rain had died down to a drizzle, almost a mist hanging in the air.

Sparky settled down to wait and pass the time with talk.

For there was talk in Sparky's mind.

Lots of talk with Mother.

8:16 p.m.

Joseph Avacomovitch was too tired to sleep. For a while he had watched the lights on English Bay from the window of his room in the Sylvia Hotel, then he had plugged in his Chess Challenger computer and set up a board.

Avacomovitch moved the black queen to put the white king in check.

8:31 p.m.

The woman emerged from the front of the house and approached the TR 7.

Sparky moved back in the shadows and watched her come up the driveway, knife in hand.

The rain had now stopped and her black hair was blowing wildly in the wind, whipping strands about her face and shoulders and high into the air. She was thinking about Camus.
I, I, I
. the woman thought, nodding to herself.
If no man or woman is innocent, then no man or woman may judge others from a standpoint of righteousness.

When she reached the car she inserted a key into the driver's door, opened it and bent in to retrieve the bottle of port from between the bucket seats. The sucking sound of her rubber soles on the tarmac made her once more think:
I, I, I
.

As the woman eased her body back out of the car and began to straighten up, Sparky left the shadows of the trees and crossed the distance between them.

As the woman turned the knife began its sweeping diagonal descent, the whickering sound of the blade lost in the wind among the trees.

Then suddenly her world was turning over and over and over again, her vision spinning madly until with an abrupt jar her horizontal slammed to a halt on the perpendicular.

Oh God!
she thought,
I see my body!
For there on the ground not ten feet away her headless form had hit the tarmac, spurting blood in all directions as it twitched in the death-throe spasms.

I've lost my head!
her mind screamed with terror, but no sound came from her lips.

Then her eyes saw feet and legs approaching, a human figure walking toward her on the horizontal, crouching, reaching down, one gloved hand gripping a bloodstained cutlass, the other entangling its fingers within her hair, as her mind thought
I, I, I, I,
and then died because the oxygen in the blood within her severed head had all of a sudden run out.

Sparky picked up the head, bagged it and ran off into the mist.

9:03 p.m.

Not ten minutes after the report of the killing came into Headhunter Headquarters the Prime Minister called. Chartrand picked up the receiver in DeClercq's office and thought:
So we have a spy in our midst.

"Chartrand?"

"Yes, sir."

"The Solicitor General is with me. In fifteen minutes we're telling the Commons that you have personally assumed command of the Headhunter investigation."

"Yes, sir."

"This man DeClercq, the one in charge. I want him pulled right now."

"Yes, sir," Chartrand sighed.

I'm sorry, Robert,
he thought.

9:06 p.m.

It was the final turn of the screw. No sooner had Robert DeClercq put down the phone than he grabbed the instrument violently and heaved it across the room. The telephone line was wrenched out of the wall. In the process the remains of the bottle of Scotch smashed all over the floor.

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.

Katherine Spann reached inside and removed four half-pound plastic bags of cocaine.

A key slipped into the lock of the front door. Orange light danced at the window.

Scarlett pulled out the second bag and reached for his gun. The .38 just cleared leather as Hardy opened the door.

"Freeze!" Scarlett ordered. "We're the police!"

In shock the man in the doorway stopped in his tracks. He held a coal-oil lamp out in his right hand, the light of the flame that licked within the glass chimney cavorting about the blank walls of the room.

Hardy looked at the .38 in Rick Scarlett's hand.

He glanced at Katherine Spann and his eyes took in the bags of cocaine.

"So you found the blow," he said.

"We found more than that," Scarlett replied. "Now put down the lamp. Easy. On the floor."

Hardy followed the order. Then as he was straightening up Scarlett put his gun on the floor, reached into the second bag, and from it removed a bowie knife and a Polaroid camera wrapped in another plastic bag. The knife was a foot long with a shallow crescent dipping from the back of the blade down to form a point. Except for a tiny nick in the steel, the cutting edge was honed sharp.

Hardy shook his head. "I never seen them things before," he said, looking straight at Scarlett.

"Then how 'bout this," the cop said. And he reached back into the bag and by the hair pulled out a human head.

"Jesus!" Hardy exclaimed.

His mouth dropped open and with a wild panic his eyes flicked from the head to the hole in the floor, from Rick Scarlett to Katherine Spann. Then he savagely kicked the lamp.

Spinning and spewing its oil, which became a pinwheel of squirting flame, the lamp flew across the room in Rick Scarlett's direction. With a scream the man covered his face and the severed head dropped to the floor. It rolled toward Katherine Spann who was trying to draw her gun.

With a
whoosh
the floor ignited along with Scarlett's arm. "I'm on fire!" the cop screamed, madly beating his flaming arm against his chest trying to fan out the blaze. At last in desperation he threw himself on to the floor, landing on top of both his gun and his arm where the floorboards had yet to ignite. His body smothered the fire.

Hardy lunged for the bowie knife now lying on the floor. Clutching it in one hand he took a swipe at Spann. Throwing herself away from him, the woman went sprawling back on the floorboards. With a crack she hit her head.

Scarlett was scrambling to his feet when Hardy swung again. This time the knife connected, slashing through the uniform and opening the flesh of the policeman's arm from the elbow to the wrist. Scarlett went down on his knees and Hardy was upon him.

"Don't!" Tipple yelled from the door, reaching for his gun but knowing he wouldn't make it in time.

With a full-arm slash, John Lincoln Hardy went for Rick Scarlett's throat just as Katherine Spann fired. She was now up on her knees. Her gun was in both hands.

The explosion was shocking within the small confines of the room.

As the muzzle flashed, the first bullet struck Hardy's neck, blowing out an exit wound the size of a golfball. The force of the slug sent him spinning and the knife slash missed by inches. Then Katherine Spann fired again and Hardy's head erupted. The lead took him just behind the left ear, ripping through his brain to blow out the front of his forehead in
a
shower of blood and gristle and bone. A third shot from the .38 hit him in the spine. His body crashed to the floor.

"Rick, grab the light stuff and get outside," Tipple ordered, as he came leaping through the flames. "Spann, get that head and the drugs and get the knife from that man. I'll take the body."

One minute later they were all outside as the fire consumed the cabin. Like a beacon, those flames on the mountainside could be seen for miles. Twenty minutes later the skies opened up and poured down to extinguish the embers.

In this city, it often rains.