The opening bars of Valencia broke into Chris's thoughts.
"It's Gwen, Chris. Where are you?"
"Heading north on Fourth. On foot. Right now I'm at Twelfth Ave. What's up?"
The "on foot" brought a fleeting smile to Gwen's lips. Chris liked to say he did some of his best thinking while walking to work. "We have another DOA. In a park. Where else? Stay where you are and I'll pick you up. It'll be easier if you go over to the west side."
Another murder in the park. What did that do to his theories about the Vinney killing? Theories that were only half-formed and flimsy at best. The light changed and he walked across the intersection. Traffic in the northbound lanes was backed up for two blocks as office workers streamed into the downtown, and the sidewalks were clogged with pedestrians heading in the same direction. The morning was bright and inviting, and he had switched off his portable radio so he could think without interruption. But Gwen's news had swept everything else aside. No point in speculating. Not until he had examined what the latest crime scene had to tell.
"Your gear's in the back," Gwen told him as he climbed into the passenger seat.
He nodded. "What do we know?"
"Not one hell of a lot, so far. The body is in Fish Creek Park, just inside the gate. The mounted patrol discovered it on their first patrol of the day."
Fish Creek Park, named after the creek that flowed through it, was very extensive and was most effectively patrolled on horseback. There was also a riding stable in the park so it was a simple matter to board the horses. Four members of the police service, trained in horse-manship, in rotating shifts of two on and two off, had been assigned to patrol the thickly wooded park and its many winding paths.
Which hand would the cross be on this time? Or would there even be one? No point in asking Gwen. The information from the police patrol would have been minimal to avoid any chance of having it leak into the public domain. Travelling against the flow of traffic, they made remarkably good time and in less than twenty minutes Gwen was turning off Anderson Road onto 37th Street paralleling the northern boundary of the Tsuu T'ina Reserve. The road leading to the park was at the bottom of the hill.
A mounted Calgary police officer touched the wide brim of his black Stetson and rode beside them as, toting the crime scene equipment, they walked down to the unpretentious entrance.
"You are hereby deputized a member of the Crime Scene team," pronounced Gwen as they stopped to climb into the white coveralls.
"I am deeply honoured," replied Chris, zipping up his suit.
The harmless little performance would allow Chris immediate access to the body.
A sign said that the park would be closed and locked at 10:00 p.m. and that trespassers would be prosecuted. The gate was a single bar that could be swung into position across the road. It was still closed and locked when the patrol checked it, but a pedestrian lugging a body could simply duck under it. The killer hadn't carried his victim very far; the naked body was displayed—the word leapt into Chris's mind—on the first picnic table, not more than one hundred yards inside the gate. Joan. The position of the body lying there on the table reminded him irresistibly of his disabled friend splayed out on her platform. But this woman was no Joan. Her figure was fully formed, with a complete complement of arms and legs. Chris noted with some surprise that, unlike the other victims, she was in early middle age, the envelope of her flesh beginning to soften and spread. Not at all the type the serial had gone for in the past. Maybe she was just someone who had the fatal misfortune to turn up at a time and place where she could be abducted with impunity.
Whoever she was, she had been mutilated in the same fashion as the others—right nipple sliced off a slack breast, hands clasped on her abdomen, and bloody, violated genitalia. Apart from what was on the body, there was no blood, confirming that she would have been killed somewhere else and transported here. Deliberately trying to keep his thoughts unfocused, Chris continued to gaze down at the body. The air was still and the sound of a police horse mouthing its bit as it cropped grass was oddly comforting. A wave of nostalgia swept through Chris at the sound. It was soon interrupted with the click of Gwen's camera shutter as she began to photograph the scene. Long shots of the victim's torso, then close-ups of the wounds. Out of the corner of his eye, Chris watched her bend over the body as she unclasped the hands and turned them over. Several clicks of the shutter later, she gave him a brief affirmative nod and mouthed, "Left." Unexpectedly, he experienced a sense of relief. They were back on familiar ground. Familiar deadly ground.
The separate slam of car doors announced the arrival of Ken Patterson and the not so welcome Steve Mason, as well as the medical examiner, a balding, bespectacled man in his late fifties. Mason looked worried and uncharacteristically subdued. "We've got to wrap this up, Crane. Pronto. I got a call from Chief Johnstone on the way down here. He's royally pissed off."
Maybe he's running out of platitudes to feed the press, thought Chris unkindly. As if on cue, Mason muttered, "The press is camped outside the park gate, baying like a pack of wolves. You got any leads? Anything at all?"
"We can be pretty sure she wasn't killed here. There's not enough blood. Plus the fact that she's older than the others by quite a bit."
"I can see that, for Christ's sake! You figure that means something?"
"It might. If we assume there are two killers, not one, out there." Expecting a sarcastic retort, Chris paused, then continued when Mason merely nodded. "Killer number one is bound to be a psychopath who likes them young. Not necessarily beautiful, but young. If the other one killed not for the thrills but for a rational, comprehensible motive, and wants us to believe it's all the work of the original serial killer, he wouldn't worry too much about his next victim. So long as she's female and handy. When we find out who she is, we'll know more."
By early afternoon they knew who she was. Maud Simpson had not shown up for work that Thursday morning. It was the first time in the twelve years that she had been employed as a receptionist at the Ranchmen's Club that this had happened. When repeated calls to her home, a walk-up apartment in the Beltline, three blocks east of the club, went unanswered, the police were contacted. Her route to and from work took her past Memorial Park, which, although it had been substantially upgraded in recent years, was still notorious as a hangout for gays, hookers, and drug dealers. That didn't necessarily mean anything, although the habitués of that park were very much of the "mind your own business" school, and the dense clumps of shrubbery lining the pathways offered effective concealment for whatever might be going down. A detective was dispatched to question the regulars, but without much hope of finding anyone who might have witnessed the unfortunate receptionist's abduction. Or would talk about it. If in fact that's where it happened.
The Simpson woman had been abducted from somewhere, but not, it seemed, from her apartment. Its neat contents and furnishings were undisturbed, everything in its place. The only discordant note was a hungry black and white cat, mewing and pacing around its empty dish. A co-worker of the victim volunteered to look after it. It had been six o'clock in the evening and full daylight when Maud Simpson left the club. Four hours before Fish Creek Park closed for the night. God only knew what she had suffered in those hours. Almost certainly she had been picked at random by the killer. A victim of circumstance. On second thought, not so much circumstance as convenience.
The medical examiner would perform an autopsy on her. It had the highest priority, but even so the results wouldn't be known until the following day.
Nevermore, bold parrot eyes glittering with triumph, was perched on top of his cage when Chris let himself into the penthouse. The cage door hung down from one hinge. "You do like solving puzzles, don't you?" Chris murmured as he carried the African Grey over to his stand. "Well, I can't blame you. So do I."
There was no choice but to follow the breeder's advice and get a small padlock. It was a nuisance, having to mess around with keys, but there was no other way. Surely Nevermore couldn't jimmy locks. Or could he?
Shaking his head at his unrepentant pet, Chris opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the patio, carefully shutting the screen behind him. A rufous hummingbird hovered over the feeder on a blur of wings. He had been a little tardy in putting out the feeder this year and had been astonished to find a tiny male hummer hovering at the exact spot where that miraculous, constantly replenished flower should be. Chastened, and filled with wonder at how this mite of a bird could fly thousands of kilometres from its winter home in Central America to a column of air not more than six centimetres in diameter, Chris had quickly remedied his oversight.