Primal Scream

by Michael Slade

  Then he drove to the scene.

  Nothing destroys a murder case like too many boys with big guns caught up in the thrill of the chase, and not enough nerds with big brains looking for specks and traces. The most important decision at any murder scene is how those who make murder their business approach the corpse. Once anything at the site is disturbed, it's not the work of the killer, so how involves who goes when and the path they take.

  The paths most likely to have forensic clues (like hairs, fibers, footprints, weapons, or clothes) are the ones most likely used by killer or victim, so Mounties choose the least likely path to the corpse and mark it with tape. Here the "path of contamination" used by investigators to reach the scene ran along the shore exposed by the outgoing tide, then angled back to the upside-down car by the felled tree. Only a fool would have launched a boat in last night's storm, and this killer was anything but a fool.

  Spann approached the corpse.

  Corpses, actually.

  Sprawled about a site resembling an archeological dig.

  Cop shows on TV make techs look stupid. There they are sporting civvy clothes among the cops, like stylin' dudes in a Gap commercial, scattering hairs from their pets and dandruff about, also messing up the site, but don't they look cool? If shows have cop consultants to make them real, where do they get these guys and how in hell were they trained?

  Not in barracks, thought Spann.

  The techs working this scene were all in "monkey suits": white coveralls with attached hoods and boots, wearing double gloves so they didn't leave their prints through thin latex. Mounties doing forensics look about as sterile as heart surgeons, and that, to do the job right, is how it should be.

  Perhaps—as with Hollywood—she was too hard on cop shows on TV. Judging from the recent O.J. fiasco, which had cops around the world rolling in the aisles, howling as techs and bulls tried to outdo each other in fucking up the scene, those were real-life forensics in some jurisdictions. Let Keystone Kops set the standards and you get the results you deserve. Perhaps the LAPD should join the NYPD for a trip north to see it done right?

  But enough of the soapbox, Spann thought. Down to work.

  By the time Kathy arrived at the scene, a pecking order of Eggheads had searched, swept, vacuumed, cast, excavated, and printed the site, clearing the way for flat feet to tromp in. The path of contamination snaked around the felled tree to vanish into the woods, from which a cop emerged to intercept her by the overturned car.

  The cop was Scarlett.

  "Kathy."

  "Rick."

  "How ya been?"

  "You know. Here and there. How 'bout you?"

  "Still a corporal. But what can you do? Women and ethnics got it made. White boy's nigger of the Force. Congrats on inspector."

  "Thanks for the call."

  "I'd have called sooner"—his eyes dropped to her breasts—"but why lose beauty sleep while techs fart around?"

  "What went down, Rick?"

  His gaze returned to her face. "Like old times, eh?" Scarlett said. "If a chick got boned here instead of some fellow, I'd swear the Hunter was back from the grave."

  Again the corporal's eyes copped a feel.

  Pig, thought Spann.

  In a recent Regular Member Survey of the Mounted, aimed at learning why more women and ethnics leave than Caucasian males, six out of ten females claimed sexual harassment. "I'd hate to think I was recruited because I'm a woman . . ." "The Force has ruined tradition to suit outside groups. Ignoring white males inflames hostility and dissention ..." "For decades white males were the only recruits. Now they have to adjust and feel that's unjust . . ." "Females are loath to stop cars at night . . ." "I'll be candid to the point of being a bigoted Archie Bunker ..."

  Spann, too, had endured sexual harassment.

  She had also been the object of a sex assault when Scarlett forced himself on her after both were promoted to corporal.

  An assault rooted in the Headhunter case.

  An assault she hadn't reported.

  Law enforcement anywhere attracts sexist males. It comes with the yearning for power and authority, which are emasculated when women hold them, too. Athletic and lean, with short brown hair, a clipped brown mustache, and muddy brown eyes, Scarlett knew he had the biggest balls around, the size of which was threatened in every way by Spann. Not only was she physically a match for him, tall enough to stare him straight in the eye, and muscular enough to judo-flip him around, but Spann had mentally outshone him in the Headhunter case, and now, having both begun as constables, she had made inspector at Special X, while he wallowed as corporal in a campus detachment.

  Around Kathy, Rick was a wuss.

  "The dead guys were frat boys out for puss. Drunk, the fools came down the bluff from UBC"—he pointed up Marine Drive to the west—"and hit this tree chopped across the road."

  "Ambush?" Spann said.

  "Seems to me. But why would the killer set a trap here? Chance of a car chuting the cliff last night was slim. And who'd drive the other way knowing the bluff was ahead?"

  "Maybe the tree was cut to lure a victim on foot? Like the kids with the stranded car you said called in the report?"

  "If you were hunting heads, would you set your trap here?"

  "No," said Spann.

  "Then why did this killer?"

  Beyond the tape marking the path of contamination, techs were inside the overturned car and excavating the ground around three headless corpses zipped into bags for the body-removal service. The snow rounding was blood red.

  "First Member on the scene stumbled over a body. A body without a head, so he called me. Searching for the head we thought was buried under snow, archeologist found two more stiffs. No sign of the noggins either, just a concave in the drift like something was dragged away."

  Spann caught movement in the woods.

  Where the path of contamination cleaved into the trees.

  "The way I see it," Scarlett said, "the car rammed the snag and overturned in the ditch. The killer waited for them to crawl out, or reached in and hauled them out, then, one by one, hacked off their heads. Except the last guy was dragged away, who's the reason I called you."

  The Mounties crunched on.

  Continuing along the path toward the bush reminded Spann of a journey through Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, one gruesome tableau leading to the next. Snow crashed down from the forest trees in clumps, lobbing bursts of crystal-white shrapnel at them like exploding mortar shells.

  The body in the bush was cuffed around a tree, the neck a circle of raw flesh filled with tubes and bone. The upper back was clothed but the buttocks were bare, pants and underwear slashed about the ankles. The drift for yards around was sprayed blood red, sheltered from later snowfall by branches overhead.

  Overneck, actually.

  "You gotta wanna blow a load bad," Scarlett said, "to fuck a guy outside last night."

  "No one 'blew a load' here," said Macbeth, easing out an anal probe and sealing it in a bag. "Unless a condom was carried off."

  "DNA," said Scarlett. "I'd take the rubber, too."

  "Would you?" Macbeth said archly, with a glance at Spann.

  "He was raped?" confirmed the inspector.

  "Brutally. Before death. The anus and rectum are bruised and lacerated."

  "Cock ring?" Scarlett asked.

  "Possibly. Or a piercing like an ampallang through the glans."

  "Wow," said the corporal. "You been around. I hope your source of knowledge is professional, Doc?" A wink at Spann.

  "The cuffs?" Spann asked, the question directed at him.

  "Not police issue. These are sold in any bondage shop. And you can bet your ass they don't keep client lists, Kath."

  "How'd he escape?"

  Scarlett shrugged. "The killer's scent was erased by the storm."

  "Footmarks?"

  "Yeah. But all accounted for. Any footprints are just holes in the snow."

  "Tire marks?"

>   "Nothing wild. Just snowed-over ruts from the dead guys' car and tracks beyond the barricade imprinted by us."

  "That leaves snowshoes or cross-country skis. Any shallow tracks from them are filled with snow. No luck with dogs?"

  "Zero," he said. "Applied around the stiffs, they sniffed no scent. We circled them in from the perimeter without success. Techs just gave the okay to cast them large here."

  "Then do it, Rick."

  "Yes, ma'am," he said, snapping her a sharp salute and clicking his heels. He used his portable to summon a handler with a dog.

  Spann ignored the taunt and said, "What about the heads?"

  "No sign of them we can find. You want my opinion, he's probably fucking the mouths at home to relive the thrill of the kill. Gives new meaning to getting head, eh?"

  Scarlett snickered at his own pun. Gallows humor keeps cops sane. He was having fun yanking the women's chains to see if they would laugh like the boys or were humorless bitches.

  Macbeth grimaced at Spann, who rolled her eyes in reply.

  Humorless bitches, said the corporal's smirk.

  They left the pathologist to her anal fixation and walked to the end of the marked path to wait for the dog. Sunbeams stabbed into the bush like bloody swords, drawing vapor off the drifts like last breaths from the fallen.

  "Sean O'Connor's the name of the guy cuffed to the tree, then buggered. He's the son of a big-gun engineer at Hydro. Those who kept their virginity but lost their heads are the sons of a judge, surgeon, and Reform M.P. Christ, Kath, these guys were the Great White Hope of the future, and topping them's the biggest squeal I'll ever catch."

  "A huge crime, eh, Rick? Not like women raped and killed every day?"

  "Every day, Kath. That's the point. The public is accustomed to women snatched off the streets to ravage and destroy. But these were men ambushed to cornhole and cut in the bushes."

  "I thought you said they were 'boys out for puss’. Perhaps it's time you boys knew the fear you induce in us?"

  "Cut the feminist crap with me, Kath. This case is; my ticket up the ranks. You and I both know you're an inspector because you got a cunt, and I'm a corporal because I don't. Filling the brass with women oh so P.C., and we know exactly what'll happen here. You got a murder up north with a raped and topped guy spiked to a tree. I got a murder here with a raped and topped guy cuffed to a tree. Special X has a shrunken head. You're Special X and I'm dinky detachment, so how long till my case is yours, and I'm back giving tickets to chinks in BMWs rushing to class?"

  Blood pressure rising, his face turned pink.

  "I was your partner once upon a time. Watch Lethal Weapon and see what a partner is. Watch The X Files and see it, too. Partners look out for each other. Partners don't let partners drown. Gimme a break, Kath. Keep me in the case."

  Spann grabbed him by one well-developed pec. The corporal flinched with surprise. He had never been manhandled by a woman.

  "Remember Seattle, Rick? Did I squeal on you? Your nuts are still in uniform thanks to me. A quiet word to DeClercq and you'd have been tubed. I owe you nothing. You owe me."

  Snow crunched behind them.

  "You called for a dog? Where do you want him applied, Rick?"

  "Ask her," Scarlett said with venom in his glare. "She's the boss."

  A Mountie and his dog. The essential stereotype of the Force. Sergeant Preston of the Yukon with his dog King. All of the crooks ran for cover 'cause he always got his man. He say, "On, King, on you great husky," and the great husky say, "Bow-wow, Bow-wow," Ray Stevens sang . . .

  Well, Dirty Dan, a sneaky villain

  Robbed the trading post one day

  Killed off four or five Eskimos

  And made his get-away

  "He won't get far," say Sergeant Preston

  "I've got my trusty dog

  "I'll track him down and bring him back

  "He'll have to pay the cost. ..."

  Well, they brought that villain to justice He didn't even put up a fight

  When he saw that big dog charging at him

  He almost died of fright

  And Sergeant Preston of the Yukon

  Was proud 'cause he had done it again

  He'd got his man and you could hear him say,

  "Who needs Rin Tin Tin?"

  He say, "King, this case is closed"

  And King say, "Bow-wow."

  A Mountie and his dog.

  Fact into myth.

  From 1908 on Members took their own dogs along I to help manhunt. When the RCMP Dog Section was formed in 1935, a German shepherd, Dale of Cawsalta, became the first official canine. So outstanding a tracker was he that Dale was soon joined by Black Lux and Sultan. The dog training school was established at Calgary in 1937, and three years later the RCMP won its first case on dog search evidence. In-Rex v. Stokes (1947), an appeal court upheld the ruling, and dogs have been witnesses ever since. "Members without badges" now graduate from the Police Dog Service Training Center at Innisfail, Alberta. Purebred German shepherds and Belgian Malinois are trained for seventeen weeks in fugitive tracking, crowd control, hostage standoffs, and how to search for drugs, explosives, avalanche victims, and crime-scene evidence.

  Brock, the shepherd at this scene, had topped his class.

  The scent of a human will linger for up to twelve hours on a dry or slightly humid day with little wind. Last night had been anything but dry, with gales of wind, so this killer's scent was long gone. But since there was a slim chance the severed heads were hidden under snow, Brock was released to "search large" with his forensic sense of smell.

  The dog fanned out from the path of contamination, then suddenly blitzed away to signal his handler from deeper in the woods.

  "Bingo," said the handler.

  Another excavation.

  Another headless body.

  Buried in a shallow grave under a snowy fir.

  Clothes on the torso.

  Buttocks bare.

  Like the body cuffed to the tree.

  Decomposition.

  Belly tattooed.

  Flames of hell licking up the gut from the groin.

  Putrefaction begins about forty-eight hours after death. Bacteria from the intestines migrate throughout the body by way of its blood vessels. Tiny bubbles of gas form in the blood, reddening the veins of the neck, shoulders, and thighs with "marbling." The skin of the abdomen takes on a greenish tinge, and depending on the weather, such signs indicate the body is two or three days into rot.

  Gross disfiguration is apparent after three weeks, unless the corpse is "pickled" from too much booze or the surrounding temperature is cold. By then internal organs have begun to decay, bloating the body with gas and distorting the features. This produces oozing from every orifice, a horror known as "bloody purge." Organs decompose in stages. The brain, stomach, and intestines putrefy quickly. The heart, lungs, and kidneys hold out longer. A general rule of thumb is a body decomposes in air twice as fast as in water, and eight times as fast as in earth. Eventually, nothing remains but slime and bones.

  Then just bones.

  Then dust

  to

  dust.

  "How long's he been dead?" Spann asked Macbeth.

  "A week or so. Since he breached parole."

  "You know the stiff?" Scarlett said.

  "The flames from the groin tattoo was listed with the teardrop in the ViCLAS Scars and/or Marks hit'? used to ID the shrunken head. The kids he assaulted recalled the flames, too. Now we have both the head and body of Bron Wren."

  Killing Team

  By the time DeClercq parked his car in the seaside lot near the barricade, Gill Macbeth had finished work at the crime scene. She was unlocking the driver's door as he pulled in beside her BMW. What had slowed his commute across Lions Gate Bridge, through Stanley Park, around English Bay, and out to the point was Lotusland yahoos slipping and sliding about. They were the jerks on last week's news crowing their cars still had summer tires on the wheels
while the East dug out from yet another storm. The most obnoxious yahoo had pranged DeClercq's Benz, denting the far door of the old-fogey mobile, to hear Katt, and then had the gall to try to blame the collision on him. Maybe the yahoo would learn a lesson from the repair bill for the overpriced car—Katt was right, his were the wheels of Yuppie swine, and this had convinced him to sell the import for a car in line with common sense, free of anxiety, like escaping from a shop filled with Ming vases—but meanwhile he had to drive around in a concave wreck with a rattle to drive him mad.

  "Uh-oh," Gill said. "That looks expensive. Perhaps you should leave the high-speed chases to government-funded cars."

  "It hurts, so pardon me if I don't smile."

  The smile she flashed him was big enough for them both.

  "Want a coffee? To warm you up?"

  He almost said, Your radiance is all the warmth I need, but caught himself in time to reply, "Your Beemer comes with a cappuccino machine?"

  "Just a thermos. But it's hot. And we can discuss what I found."

  "Black. No sugar."

  "My taste, too. Seems we have more in common than books and music."

  "Katt has me reading Dean Koontz and listening to Nine Inch Nails."

  "If you need a port in the storm, my house is down the road. We could sip port and explore what else we have in common."

  "I'll keep that in mind."

  "Do," she said, fetching the thermos to fill the lid with coffee. "One cup. Are you adverse to sharing fluids with me?"

  "No," he said, and wondered if he was agreeing to something he wasn't.

  Or was he?

  Sexual politics.

  So long had he been celibate that he worried his mind was reading erotic subliminal messages into purely innocent words flowing from her luscious mouth. Science had recently theorized sexual attraction results from chemical processes in the brain, which, combined with the fact the testes are always whipping up sperm, went a long way to explain why Catholic priests are behind bars, and why Robert could think of no more agreeable way to pass a storm than anchored in any port Gill was offering.