Primal Scream (9 page)

SCARS AND/OR MARKS

"If the tear's a jailhouse tattoo," said DeClercq, "we may find him under OFFENDER instead of VICTIM. Give it a try."

Lewis page-downed to SCARS AND/OR MARKS, and there entered LOCATION. ViCLAS presented a human outline like an acupuncture model. The sergeant clicked the mouse on the site of the left eye. Starting tight, he'd move out to head, then body if necessary, in case some slack cop had entered the tattoo without a location. If Question 91 didn't score, he'd use 90, too, in case the teardrop wasn't recognized as a tattoo.

No need.

ViCLAS scored a hit.

A child molester—"short eyes"—named Bron Wren, recently released after serving twenty-five years of an indeterminate sentence as a dangerous sexual offender— a DSO.

A note on file said Wren was missing, in breach of his parole.

The photo on-screen showed long black hair tied in a ponytail.

"Look like the head to you?" DeClercq said to Macbeth.

"No skull structure makes it hard to tell, but the tattoo is exact."

Lewis entered a command to call up Wren's crimes:

ViCLAS Analysis Report/Crime - Narrative Summary 4/19107

"Nick," DeClercq said to Craven, "find Wren's home and toss it."

Craven had left for Wren's hotel in skid road, and Macbeth had driven the shrunken head back to the VGH morgue for more postmortem. Chandler went down to H.Q.'s canteen for cinnamon buns and coffee, and now DeClercq and Lewis sat munching hi the sergeant's office. Outside in ViCLAS central, the Suits wore smiles.

"Why the change in attitude?" asked DeClercq.

"I told the corporal guiding them to point out our Acknowledgements." Lewis flipped forward in the booklet to page iii:

This questionnaire and computer-aided system used by the ViCLAS units are based on the research and experience of members of the FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (VICAP), the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation's Sex Crimes Analysis System, the Washington State Attorney General's Homicide Investigation and Tracking System, the New York State Police's Homicide Assessment and Lead Tracking System, and RCMP E Division Violent Crime Analysis Unit's Major Crime Organizational System.

"You brown-noser," said DeClercq, grinning.

"Ours is the first time any country has programmed a system for murders, sex crimes, missing persons, and abductions on a national level. The FBI's contains just murders. ViCLAS casts a wider net, and bridges language barriers through no key words, just point and click. So we're asking the FBI to look at upgrading our system by adopting it in
theirs
.

"The piss-off," added Lewis, "is we've got foreign police beating a path to our door, yet it's a hard sell to convince our own to use the system."

"We're notorious for overburdening our detachments with paper," said DeClercq. "A survey of twenty-five hundred Members found 'excessive paperwork' the top cause of stress. No wonder with nine hundred different operation forms to fill out. We'd rather tackle a crook than wrestle with an arrest report. Risk from working alone was
far
below. I pray the Simplified Paperless Universal Reporting System helps."

"SPURS won't help me," grumbled Lewis. "The ViCLAS joke with Members is 'We're not here to prevent crime—we're here to report it.' "

"The Bic is mightier than the Smith & Wesson, eh?" said DeClercq. "A cop can pass through his whole career without drawing his gun, but an hour into the job will see him Sourish a pen. We don't lug briefcases around because we like big lunches. Someone in Ottawa seeks to explore the outer limits of clerkishness at the Force's expense. Why sixteen pages of forms for run-of-the-mill impaireds?"

"One thing for sure," said Chandler. "You'll never see me write up another UFO."

"You're kidding?" laughed Lewis.

"I wish I were. That file was a nightmare from the idealistic period of my service. This guy swore he saw a UFO over the Rockies. From what he reported, it could have been a distress flare. If I had written it up like that, it would have taken two pages. But no, I was dumb and went by the book. Twelve volumes, each six to eight inches thick, and sure enough, our manual has procedure for UFOs. In following it, I had to check with National Defense, Search and Rescue, the Weather Service, nearby airports, air traffic controllers, et cetera, et cetera, for rational explanations. The file kept growing. Next, calls and letters started coming in. Scientific groups, wanting me to check this and that, find witnesses, work with Fox Mulder. Before long the file was thicker than the manual. But never again. Unless I
see
the UFO land, then little green buggers running around."

Droopy bedroom eyelids made Lewis look like he was going to cry. "That's the problem," he said. "It's hard to persuade skeptical cops to invest an hour in filling out a ViCLAS report. Behavioral analysis is mumbo-jumbo to some, and those who already have a suspect see us as a waste of time. The big push now is to get one hundred percent reporting, with fifteen thousand cases a year flowing in. Veteran cops moan they've yet to see a computer that'll solve crime. We reply a computer will never replace the gut feelings of a detective, but—like the Fingerprint Identification System and Forensic Lab—ViCLAS will be a useful tool. If tied to a national DNA databank, this will be twenty-first-century policing."

"We may need a law that makes filling out a ViCLAS report mandatory," said DeClercq. "Till then I'll make it easy for you with this one."

The chief superintendent completed page 35:

Lewis entered the information into the databank to search for a link. A link was a signal that two murders were probably committed by the same person. ViCLAS gave him this:

"A computer will never replace the gut feelings of a detective?" echoed DeClercq. "I don't know, Sergeant. ViCLAS has definitely picked up mine."

Round and round went the tape in the tape recorder playing on George Ruryk's desk. Listening intently, the psychiatrist jotted notes . . .

". . . the black girl's name was Crystal. She was in her teens. Through the keyhole of my cell I could hear them talking in the boudoir off the Mask Room. They had sex, and were snorting cocaine ..."

"Crystal," Suzannah said gently. "I must ask you a question. Listen before you answer. Okay?"

The girl nodded.

"The moment I spied you this afternoon, I knew we were the same. That's why I followed you from the laundry after work and sat beside you in that greasy little restaurant. You looked so alone. Have you enjoyed what we've done this evening?"

The girl nodded.

"Well, there's no reason in the world why you must go. No one knows you're here. No one knows you're with me. And no one needs to know. Would you like that?"

Again the nod.

"Good, because tomorrow night I'd like to take you to Europe. To London, Paris, and Rome. I'd like to buy you fine clothes. I'd like to give you all the coke you want. I'd like to spend hours playing with your pussy, till you're so hot you fear you're going to melt. Sound like fun?"

The girl swallowed hard.

"Here," said Suzannah. "Let's run away for good." Pulling open the washstand drawer, she withdrew a thick pack of hundred-dollar bills and tossed it to the girl. Crystal's mouth dropped. The cash slipped through her fingers and tumbled to the floor.

"Go on. Pick it up. That's yours," the woman said. "There's ten thousand dollars at your feet. And that's just spending money."

"Where'd you get it?" the girl exclaimed.

"From my guest
before
our guest who comes tonight. This one will bring us another twenty grand. After he's finished, we're off and free. I'll have earned a hundred grand from Mardi Gras this year. Not bad for two weeks' work, eh?"

The dumbfounded girl was speechless, as stoned eyes gazed at the money.

"Crystal," Suzannah said softly. "It's time to answer that question. Do you want to stay with me—or go back to slaving at the laundry in fear one day your pig of a father will hunt you down?"

In a flash the girl crossed the space between them and cuddled in her arms. Tears touched Suzannah's flesh where glove joined corset. As the
woman soothed, "That's my girl"
comfortingly, she studied the maudlin image in the washstand mirror.
Snaring her was easy
, she thought with pride.
Once you know the market of life—and what fools need to buy.

She held the girl a moment longer, then extricated herself. "No turning back, love. Is that agreed?"

"Yes," Crystal said.

Suzannah led the "Carnival" back to the Mask Room. There she opened a door sandwiched between her boudoir and the eye at the keyhole to Sparky's prison. The dark maw dropped down a spiral staircase. "Come," the dominatrix lured. "And Mardi Gras with me . . ."

"... Mother's guest that night was the Axman of New Orleans. Not the real Axman of the First World War, but a businessman who made his fortune in nuclear arms, and who lost the love of his mother after a black girl sent to fetch a doctor forsook the errand. Guilt twisted him up inside, which Mother relieved.

"By candlelight I saw the silhouettes in the Mask Room. ..."

Suzannah sat imperiously in the whipping chair and told the Axman to strip. Having come from the Rex Ball, now in full swing at the Municipal Auditorium up on St. Peter Street, he wore a tuxedo and black Carnival mask. Chained to his wrist was a briefcase, which he unlocked and opened at her boots before shucking off his jacket to reveal the ax. The hatchet hung in a sling under the armpit of his ruffled shirt.

"The bitch who killed your mother is here," Suzannah said.

The words hardened his penis as the Axman shed his pants. When he was naked, except for the mask, he slung the sling again, then crossed to the wall by the French doors to pull on the Ku Klux Klan hood which hung there for him.

Kneeling, he stacked the money in the briefcase at

her feet.

Then one gloved hand, tips sliced off to bare her scarlet claws, gripped him by the hard-on to tug him to the dark maw.

The eye at the keyhole watched as both silhouettes disappeared below. . .