Death By Degrees

by Harrison Drake

  The more calls they made, the more it became clear: this was not a hoax; it was the real deal. We had a serial killer of unprecedented prowess on our hands, and one who had changed the game by calling me directly. He was an adversary to be feared, that much I knew, and I couldn’t help but think I’d met my Moriarty.

  I never made it home that night. Instead I found myself catching a red eye to Vancouver, the largest city in British Columbia. Despite the high cost of living, Vancouver always ranked high in lists of the best places to live whether it was for Canada or the world. It was a coastal seaport and given the temperate climate of the west coast, you could go kayaking in the Pacific Ocean and skiing in the mountains on the same day. Of course it rains a lot.

  As much as the proximity to the Rocky Mountains and ocean appealed to me, the idea of living in the most densely populated city in Canada didn’t. I would have been more inclined to catch the ferry over to Vancouver Island, find a nice place in the province’s capital of Victoria, or head north from Vancouver to Squamish, a small town less than an hour away.

  Business was bringing us to Squamish today, not pleasure. Once we had landed we rented a car and made our way to Highway 99, also known as the Sea-to-Sky Highway, that went from the ocean in Vancouver into the mountains and through Squamish, Whistler and other stops along the way. We came unarmed and in little more than a civilian capacity. Our jurisdiction lay in Ontario, a couple of thousand kilometres away.

  We were here to observe and report, and by the time we made it into Squamish, the sun was starting to make its way across the sky. Luck had been with us and the RCMP in the area didn’t have an archaeologist or anthropologist able to assist in the excavation yesterday when the e-mail had come in. They located the body, cordoned the area off and placed it under guard until the expert could arrive: a forensic anthropologist from UBC – the University of British Columbia – in Vancouver.

  It wasn’t hard to find the site, and it wasn’t hard for everyone else to either. The body had been buried just off of the Sea-to-Sky Highway, near where it intersected with the Mamquam River Forest Service Road. When we arrived to a horde of onlookers and news reporters, I stood in awe, mouth agape, at the scenery. To the south and just across the highway was Stawamus Chief, a mountain that looked like someone had taken a massive piece of granite and dumped it at the side of the road - a piece of granite over two-thousand feet tall.

  The sides of the Chief were cliffs, they looked nearly vertical from where I was standing, and it’s deep grey colour split with the greens of trees scattered along it gave it an ominous appearance as it loomed over us.

  Kara and I flashed our badges to one of the officers holding down the ‘entrance’ to the crime scene. It wasn’t so much an entrance as it was the only break in the crime scene tape. He didn’t flinch at the sight of an OPP badge; obviously he had been briefed that we would be coming. The news media hadn’t though, and some reporter with a very powerful telephoto lens on her camera must have seen the badge.

  The woman, tall, blonde and leggy in a skirt far shorter than I’d expect to see on someone her age, came running over to us, navigating the uneven terrain at the side of the highway like it was nothing - despite her three-inch heels.

  “Detectives,” she yelled, her voice carrying over the traffic roaring past. “I’m with the Squamish Chief newspaper.”

  I wanted to ignore her and just keep walking, but then she would just shout after us. She had almost closed the gap by that point anyway.

  “Why are two OPP officers here in Squamish on an RCMP case?”

  “Ma’am,” I said. “You know I can’t answer that. The investigation is clearly ongoing, and any question you ask I’m going to have to answer with ‘no comment’ or ‘it’s still under investigation’. Once the investigation reaches a point where information can be released, it will be. You’ll just have to be patient.”

  “But, can you…”

  “No comment. It’s still under investigation.”

  She scowled at me and I was glad she was facing away from the mountain. It was a scowl that could have melted stone and brought the entirety of the Stawamus Chief down upon us. I’d never had much patience with reporters, and with my past now plastered on the front page of newspapers everywhere whatever patience I did have was gone. They had a job to do, I understood that, but it wasn’t a job I felt like helping with.

  Not at that moment, anyway.

  The body was less than fifty feet from the road, buried in a shallow grave just as the body of Jennifer Plimpton has been. This grave belonged to Abigail Baker, a missing Squamish Nation woman who had lived on a nearby reserve. Baker had gone missing sixteen months ago while walking home to the Stawamus reserve only a mile or so from downtown Squamish. Baker was an indigenous person, a member of the Squamish people, and one of nearly four thousand registered band members. Baker, only nineteen when she went missing, worked in the downtown area as a server. She’d left the restaurant around midnight and never made it home.

  And now we knew why.

  The anthropologist had arrived only fifteen minutes before we did, and as such the excavation hadn’t begun. I wasn’t there to assist on that, I was there to determine if there really was a connection between the bodies. It seemed obvious, but assuming anything was dangerous - even if the killer had already told me they were connected. There was also the matter of beginning the process of interdepartmental cooperation.

  There were three people looking over the gravesite when we walked up: two in business attire and one in Bermuda shorts and a golf shirt. I went for the oldest one of the two well-dressed people. She looked up as we walked toward her, then stood up once she realized who we were.

  “Detective Lincoln Munroe, OPP,” I said, taking the last two steps and holding out my hand. She shook it gently, her grip loose.

  “And you must be Kara Jameson. We were told you two would be coming. I’m Gail Kelly, Sergeant with the RCMP here in Squamish. How was your flight?”

  “Not sure, I slept through most of it.”

  “Snored through most of it,” Kara said.

  “You slept just fine,” I said. “At least you did once they brought you those ear plugs.”

  Gail was laughing. “So it was a good flight then, perfect. You know, it’s a wonder we’ve never had anyone kill their partner, what with the amount of time we spend putting up with each other. Right, Mori?”

  “Sure thing, Sarge. Whatever you say.”

  “You’ve trained him well,” I said.

  “We’re getting there. Daniel Morimoto, or ‘Mori’, if you prefer. He won’t mind. Right, Mori?”

  “Right, Sarge.”

  Mori stood up and came over to us. We shook hands and finished the last round of introductions.

  “So, this is just the tip of the iceberg, eh?”

  “Seems that way, Mori.” I looked back at the reporters, all standing behind the crime scene tape with their expensive cameras and giant boom mikes. “We can’t say much here on that though, too many people listening in.”

  He nodded, remembering the range on some the equipment. I walked over to the gravesite and introduced myself to the anthropologist, Dr. Ahmed.

  “Does it fit the timeline?”

  He was carefully brushing dirt away from the skull as he spoke, looking intently at the bones. “Yes, based on skeletonization, it fits the time line.”

  Not much of a talker.

  His brush moved across the jaw, sweeping dirt out of what used to be the mouth and off of the teeth. The forehead was still covered in a layer of dirt.

  “Can you brush off the forehead, please, Dr. Ahmed? Need to confirm something.”

  “The frontal bone. Yes, I can.”

  Sorry, I guess it’s only a forehead while you’re alive. I wanted Dr. Heinlen here.

&nb
sp; It only took a few passes of the brush before I could see what I was looking for: an upside-down cross in the centre of the victim’s fore… frontal bone.

  “What is… is that a cross?”

  “Yes, well, if you rotate it,” I said. “Carved into the bone.”

  “How did you know it would be there?”

  “This is number two,” I said. “We already excavated one in Ontario yesterday. Can you clear the dirt off of the chest next?”

  He nodded this time, not bothering to correct me on my use of the non-scientific anatomical term. The dirt was thicker over the torso, the doctor sweeping more firmly to push the dirt away from him. He brushed across the chest, from the right side of the body to the left, pushing the dirt up and out of the shallow grave.

  It didn’t take long before the thin fabric was visible. The killer, Crawford, had dressed this victim in the same attire: what I could still only describe as a burial shroud.

  I had run out of my allowed questions before reaching the topic of the ritualized elements of the murders. If Crawford called again, I’d be sure to ask.

  The remains were more decomposed than the remains of Jennifer Plimpton. The autopsy had revealed a stab wound to the abdomen, likely the cause of death. The body had decayed to a point where we were unable to get very much evidence from the wound. There was no chance of identifying the exact weapon – all we knew was that it was a stabbing tool, likely a knife or dagger. I was leaning toward a ceremonial dagger of some description as the murder weapon; it just seemed to fit with the other elements.

  In the meantime, I had to try to figure it out myself. Ritualistic killings were not something I had any experience in, but I did know of one person who did: my old friend, Chen-Chen - also known by the less entertaining birth name of Vincenzo Chen thanks to newly immigrated Chinese parents who settled in Toronto’s Little Italy. Four years ago he was involved in a case in which a body was found in a clearing, burned beyond recognition and surrounded by rocks arranged in a pentagram. Chen had worked with an expert from the FBI on the case, however it turned out that the ritualistic aspects of the murder were merely a sick attempt to divert attention from the real killer.

  A year later, the FBI was training a number of homicide detectives in a week-long course on ritual murders. The expert remembered Chen and invited him to attend. Chen would jump at the chance to have a case wherein he could use his new knowledge and I was happy to oblige. We hadn’t the chance to work together often throughout our careers, but he was an invaluable team member during my investigation into the police corruption, and he had been involved in the case of William Jeffries – the case from my childhood, the case of the pedophile and kidnapper I had managed to put an end to.

  There were very few people I trusted as well as I did Chen, so if I was to bring anyone else in on this case, he would be the natural choice. It was something I’d have to worry about once we made it back to Ontario. I was still struggling with the concept of a global case, and the nightmares it would bring. How would we solve this, and do it quickly, when every agency wanted to be the one to catch the killer?

  We had seen issues with this before, battles over jurisdiction. It had led to a lack of information sharing between two municipal police services in the midst of a serial rapist/killer case. The consensus now was that the killer could have been caught and brought to justice sooner had the police services not withheld information from each other. Whether it was a matter of mistrust, or a matter of each wanting to catch the bad guy, it had since led to computer systems that allowed for easy sharing of information between member police services.

  But that only helped within Canada. We had means by which we could query records from the States, as well as internationally, but it was neither as quick nor as straightforward as it was within Ontario and Canada. We had access to some American systems, but there was no direct connection to the international systems. Queries had to go through INTERPOL – the International Criminal Police Organization – and although the queries generally came back in good time, it depended on the severity of the case. INTERPOL ran with less than several hundred employees, almost two hundred member countries and a smaller budget than those of many municipal police services.

  Kara and I stood around in the mild weather, waiting and watching as the body was exhumed; carefully, painstakingly, almost lovingly. It was a time-consuming task and as the doctor worked, the RCMP detectives and constables searched the area for any evidence. I held out no hope that evidence would be found. The body had been buried over a year prior at the side of a highway. Had there been any other evidence it was likely long gone; washed away by the rain, carried off by animals or picked up and thrown away as garbage by some conscientious citizen.

  We watched them search, we watched them dig, we watched them analyze every piece of garbage they found. And we stood there. Kara and I had been sent to assist as ‘consultants’ for lack of a better word. We were not sworn in as police officers outside of Ontario and as such, we were to observe, report and advise, but not to directly assist. It was awkward, and the longer we twiddled our thumbs, the more awkward I felt.

  The sun had crested hours before the remains were finally removed and taken to the morgue in Vancouver. The examination of the bones would occur first thing the following morning. I didn’t know the official term, but it didn’t seem like an autopsy to me. The bones would be examined and would provide insight into the victim’s life – past injuries, dental records and other means by which we could confirm the identity – and also, with any luck, provide cause of death.

  Skeletal remains didn’t offer the same amount of evidence as did a body. With tissue, wounds were visible. A deep enough wound or one that broke or damaged a bone would remain visible, but the external damage was lost as the body decayed. Toxicology results were also more difficult to obtain, as not all toxins would be present in the bones. Generally if a person was shot, stabbed, or killed in a violent manner, there would be traces of it on the bones – a cut, a graze, a fracture, a break; something that would point us toward a murder weapon.

  We met at the Squamish RCMP detachment once the remains were removed. The scene was still under guard and would be for at least another day until they could be satisfied that any and all evidence had been recovered. The four of us sat around a table, a round of fresh and hot beverages from Tim’s in front of us, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Mori said, his eyes wide. “There are sixty-four of them?”

  “Seems that way. And they’re all over the world,” Kara said. “Did your department have any leads or anything on this case?”

  Gail shook her head. “We had nothing. We came up with a list of persons of interest, but it was pretty much the usual suspects. You know, the sex offenders, anyone convicted of any violent offences, that sort of thing. Nothing ever panned out with any of them.”

  “It was a dead end at every turn,” Mori said between swigs of coffee. “Any lead we followed dried up, any evidence we thought we had turned out to be nothing.”

  “And let me guess,” I said. “The name Duncan Crawford never came up.”

  “Never. But now that I think about it, I’m not surprised. We had nothing to go on, and neither did you guys on yours. This guy obviously knows what he’s doing.”

  “And he’s fearless,” I said. “I think he believes that no matter how hard we try, we’ll never catch him.”

  “Makes sense,” Gail said, shaking her head. “Either he wants us to catch him, or he thinks he’s invincible.”

  “I’m going with invincible. He called me yesterday, on my cell phone. That number isn’t even available outside of the service.” Gail and Mori were both staring at me, not that I should have expected any different. “He answered some questions and then agreed to forward me a copy of each of the sixty-four e
-mails. That’s how we found out about this case.”

  “I was kind of wondering how you knew,” Gail said. “Figured it had to have been a computer trace.”

  “It was, but that only got us to the fact he’d e-mailed all sixty-four at the exact same time to IPs all over the world. We would have been serving warrants around the globe to find out who had received the e-mails. But he gave them to me like it was nothing.”

  “Why? What is he trying to do?”

  “I think he believes he’ll never be caught, never even be suspected. He said he’s bored, that this is a test. But he also said he had no choice when it came to the killings.”

  Gail shrugged. “Maybe he thinks he’s doing God’s work, what with the cross and robe and everything.”

  “God?” Kara said. “Or someone else?”

  Chapter Five

  Kara and I flew back that night and landed in London around one in the morning. Our trip hadn’t been very fruitful. We’d confirmed that which we had assumed, always a good thing; assumptions in this line of work were dangerous and could destroy a case in court. The cases were linked, or at least the Canadian ones were, but I’d already been told that seven other police services had sent us their notes and crime scene photos.

  Nine confirmed, fifty-five to go.

  The e-mails had been trickling in from around the world and I was sure it would only be a matter of time before we had more. Some of the burial sites were remote and getting to them was not easy. Others were in areas with only a few officers and no one experienced in shallow grave burials. They would all have to be confirmed, and I knew that they all would be. Crawford had shown himself to be many things, but a liar wasn’t one of them.