Percy Simmons, editor of the West End Clarion, was a small untidy man in late middle age. Prominent blue eyes and thick white hair contrasted with bushy dark eyebrows. His outdated clothes always appeared to need pressing. Today he was wearing flared polyester trousers, a lemon shirt with long pointed collar wings and a striped tie, discolored by an overuse of cleaning fluid. A faded brown Value Village jacket hung over the back of his chair. His way of talking made Casey feel like he was in the newsroom of the New York Times. But Percy was a good editor. Casey liked and respected him.
Percy called Casey and Debbie Ozeroff into his office. Jack Wexler was already there. Percy massaged his thick, dark eyebrows. “It’s this murder. Everyone’s crazy with fear. Take a look at this.” He pointed to a letter on his desk.
They read it.
An open letter to the police. Maggoty: I am the Angel of Death. I write from the abyss. You will never discover who I am. The gutters of Vancouver will run with the blood of harlots before I am done. When she carried on her harlotry so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her. Ezekiel 23:18. And I will direct mine indignation and I will deal with her in fury. Yea, I shall cut off her very head. Thus I will put an end to her lewdness and harlotry and leave her naked and bare and the nakedness of her harlotry shall be uncovered. Ezekiel 23:25.
“Who’s Maggoty?” asked Casey.
“MacAtee, the detective in charge of the investigation,” said Wexler.
“And they think this is from the killer?” asked Ozeroff.
Debbie Ozeroff was a slim, attractive woman in her fifties. Dark hair cut short in the latest blond-streaked fashion. She possessed a warm, if sometimes excitable, personality. Openly gay, she lived in the West End with her partner, Vera Taniguchi, an alternative medicine practitioner.
Wexler said, “Looks like it. All the Lower Mainland news media were sent copies.”
“A religious maniac,” said Ozeroff angrily, perching herself on the corner of the editor’s desk where she could talk down to him. “I was thinking, Perce, I’d like to do a piece on serial killers. You know, Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway-creeps like that who go after women. I’d do it as a-”
“I think not, Deb,” said Percy with a sigh. “This’d be the absolutely wrong time to-” His prominent blue eyes widened. “What? You wanna scare everyone to death? You can’t call one murder the work of a serial killer. Be reasonable.”
“Look at the letter,” said Ozeroff. “This is just his first.”
“Cool it, Deb,” moaned Percy. “What I’m thinking is, wouldn’t it be something if we scooped the Province? Huh? You know what I’m sayin’? I’m sayin’ keep your eyes and ears open. That’s all. Ask questions. Somebody might’ve seen something. You might pick up a hot tip.”
Ozeroff pursued her subject doggedly. “Research shows that sixty percent of all serial killers select a game preserve-that’s what they call it. They stake out an area and hunt only in that area. Like Gary Ridgway, the Green River psycho. He killed between fifty to seventy women in the Seattle-Tacoma area. Well, that’s exactly the same as our killer here in the West End, and I think-”
“Exactly the same?” said Percy, eyes popping. “Fifty to seventy bodies? Come off it, Deb! All I’m asking is to keep a lookout, okay?”
“You know,” Ozeroff persisted, “almost seventy-five percent of the serial killings in the whole world were committed in the United States.”
Percy stared at her. “You’re kidding!”
“Them’s the numbers,” said Ozeroff.
“What’s the next highest?” asked Percy.
“Europe’s a distant second with about twenty percent.”
“How many in Canada?”
“We don’t even rate.”
“Keep the material,” Percy said. “Might be useful later.”
Wexler appeared to be asleep.
Casey crept out the door. Nobody noticed him leave.
He had felt stiff all weekend. His arms, shoulders and legs felt like they’d been beaten with a shillelagh. But his new diet of fruit and rabbit food seemed bearable. For now anyway.
By Monday evening the aches and pains had subsided. He was determined get himself in better shape. Impressing Emma Shaughnessy had nothing to do with it, of course. It was just…well, it was important for a guy to keep fit.
The gym was busy. He looked for Emma. She wasn’t there. He worked out for almost an hour. He was ready to go home when Pope barred his way, a grin on his face and his enormous eyes staring.
“Glad to see you, Casey. Come and meet Harry Fuerbach.” He pushed Casey lightly by the elbow, steering him over to a bearded forty-year-old who was wiping sweat from his face with a scrap of towel. “Harry, this is Casey. Writes for the West End Clarion. You must’ve read his stuff.”
Fuerbach stuck out his hand. “Sure have. Sebastian Casey, right? Are you writing an expose of the fitness center?”
Fuerbach had a high, fluting voice and an iron grip. His beard was small, neat and starting to gray.
“No,” said Casey. “Just trying to work on this spare tire of mine.”
Fuerbach laughed. “Aren’t we all?”
Casey stared. Fuerbach’s belly was flat.
Pope said, “Harry’s a psychiatrist. We were talking about the West End killer. Harry thinks he was probably abused or neglected as a child.”
“Or it could simply be an insecure home life,” said Fuerbach. “The dad leaving, something like that.”
“Lots of dads leave,” said Casey, “but their kids don’t turn into killers.”
“Right. But killers like this one generally have additional, psychological, motives for their crimes. Sado-sexual overtones. And they also exhibit strong compulsive behaviors.”
Pope laughed. “Would you call my behavior compulsive, working out in this place, same time every day for the past fifteen years?”
Fuerbach smiled. “Would you call it compulsive, Pope?”
Pope said, “They’re all the same, these shrinks-always answer a question with a question.” He turned to a young woman who was passing behind him. “Lucy, meet Sebastian Casey, reporter with the West End Clarion.” He turned back to Casey. “Lucy runs the aerobics classes here at the center.”
“Hi, Sebastian,” said Lucy with a friendly smile.
“Casey,” said Casey.
Fuerbach moved off.
Lucy looked to be in her early twenties, with brown hair streaked with blond highlights and tied back in a ponytail. Brown eyes. Tight young figure in black Lycra.
“You’re welcome to sign up for any of my classes, Casey,” she said, smiling as she moved away. “Times are posted downstairs.”
“Pretty girl,” said Pope, watching her go. “Wish I were forty years younger.” He laughed. “You married, Casey?”
“Nope. You?”
Pope grinned, and his wet eyes flashed like jellyfish behind the heavy spectacles.
“Never got around to it. Bachelor all m’life.” He paused. “So far, that is.” He laughed again and moved away to load weights onto a barbell.
Shaughnessy was a no-show. Casey felt a sharp disappointment. He stood, wiping his neck with his towel. He could hear Fuerbach asking Doc about the difficulty of cutting off a woman’s head. Casey missed the surgeon’s answer when their voices were drowned out by the loud music and the noise of clanging weights.
He walked home in the rain.
On Wednesday it rained all day. In the evening Casey slogged home through the downpour, waited for the elevator, changed his mind and climbed up the stairs to his apartment. He hung up his raincoat to dry in the bathroom. Then he changed into his sweats. Before he could get too comfortable and change his mind, he set off into the rain again, heading for the gym.
He was beginning to recognize many of the faces. Regulars. He said hello to those he knew but avoided talk by making straight for the crowded free-weights area, where everyone grunted and sweated. Where there was no time or space for idle chatterers.
He worked out for an hour.
Emma Shaughnessy did not appear.
He walked home in the rain.
On Thursday morning, Matty Kayle decided to boil herself an egg for breakfast.
She hadn’t had one all week, not since last Thursday, when she’d read of the murdered woman in the paper and Albert had been sarcastic with her as usual. And she had wondered what life would be like without him.
A skunk had been poking about in the backyard during the night. She quite liked the smell, in small amounts, for it evoked pleasant memories of her childhood in this place. There were many skunks about then. Raccoons too. And coyotes hunting for voles and squirrels.
It would be so nice if she had a small dog.
Albert was having his usual bowl of cereal more or less silently behind his Globe and Mail. Perhaps he would like an egg too.
She hadn’t cooked breakfast for him for- well, she couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anything other than cereal.
“Would you like a dog?”
She hadn’t meant to say dog. She had meant to say boiled egg, not dog.
He lowered his paper and looked at her as though she was mad. “What did you say?”
Matty blushed. “I meant to say boiled egg. Would you like a boiled egg?”
“You know I don’t eat boiled eggs. Nor boiled dogs either.” He shook his paper and glared at her.
She carried her egg and toast to the table and sat down. She couldn’t see Albert because of the paper. Afghanistan on the front page. It was in the papers all the time. Iraq too. She could never remember the difference between the two countries. Mrs. Prendergast, who now lived in a low-rise on Chilco but used to live next door in the high-rise building, and with whom she sometimes chatted if they ran into each other shopping at the SuperValu, said that one country was as bad as the other. She had no sympathy for either of them, she said. They were all a bunch of terrorists. Matty was sure Mrs. Prendergast must be right, for she had spent two years at university.
“What’s the latest news from Ghanistan?” she said brightly to the newspaper wall in front of her.
Albert lowered the paper and stared at her.
She smiled wanly at her husband’s face, already sorry that she’d opened her mouth. Knowing she’d said something wrong. But the drive for some human contact, no matter how minimal, was so often her undoing.
His pink wet lips pursed disapprovingly. “Ghanistan? Do you mean Afghanistan?”
“What did I say?”
“Ghanistan. You said Ghanistan.”
“Same thing.”
Albert’s upper lip curled in contempt before his face disappeared behind the paper.
A wave of dizziness came over her. She wanted to kill him. Her heart missed a beat. The spoon fell from her fingers and clattered to the floor.
The dizziness passed, and suddenly it all seemed so simple. She would kill him.
That was it.
She would kill Albert.
Later, at ten, she slipped into her warm blue wool sweater and navy coat and set off briskly for the library with her Harlequins in her shopping bag. The rain was holding off, but not for long, she thought. She eyed the heavy black clouds massing over the mountains. Unless she was prepared to work in the rain, she would have to put the dahlias off for another day.
She returned her Harlequins to the library and, after much searching, checked out only one book: The Oxford Book of Poisons.
Roy Wakabayashi was due to pick up his wife Corinne from the West End Fitness Center at 10:15 PM and already it was 10:05. He would have to hurry.
Before the West End killer, Corinne had always walked to and from the gym alone. But not now. As far as his wife’s safety was concerned, Roy took no chances. A Vancouver police officer with five years’ service, he was more aware than most of the crime and violence in the city. He had to deal with it every day. Since the West End murder, Roy had been driving Corinne to the gym and picking her up when she was through.
He made it on time. When he saw her hurrying toward the car, it always made him feel glad to see her, even after a short absence. She was slight and dark, with a heart-shaped face and shining eyes. She was so beautiful. She always had a smile for him that made his heart beat faster. She slid into the car, and they kissed affectionately before heading home.
Home was a one-bedroom apartment on Broughton, in the West End. Married for three years, they were saving for a down payment on their own home. He drove into the underground garage and parked. He held his wife’s hand in the elevator up to the tenth floor. At the door of their apartment, he kissed her and nuzzled her neck and stroked her damp back.
“I want you,” he said.
“I know.”
He led her into the bedroom.
Afterward he made tea while she showered- she didn’t like showering at the center. Then he got ready for work. He was on the night shift, which meant leaving at 11:00 PM. Tonight he would be going to work with a smile on his face.
Corinne saw him off at the door. Dressed in pj’s, smelling of soap, her eyes shining at him. God! He wanted to make love to her again. Instead he kissed her twice and waved to her from the elevator.
She closed and locked the door.
At 11:20, just as she was about to go to bed, her apartment buzzer rang.
“Pizza delivery.”
“I didn’t order pizza.” She hung up the phone.
A few minutes later there was a knock on her door. She stood on her toes and put an eye up against the peephole. A man with a pizza box stood outside in the hallway. He wore a white coat that read Luigi’s Pizza.
“Go away,” Corinne called through her closed door. “I told you. I didn’t order a pizza.”
“You number ten-oh-four?” He was reading from a slip of paper. He had an accent, Italian, it sounded like.
“Yes. But I didn’t order.”
“Medium bacon and pepperoni. Number fourteen?”
“You made a mistake. It’s not for me.”
“Eight-oh-eight Broughton, apartment ten-oh-four?”
“Go away.”
He sounded worried. “Please, you sign paper for me that I come to right place, same address on bill? Otherwise boss, he make me pay for pizza myself.”
She hesitated. He looked harmless enough. She felt sorry for him. All she needed to do was sign his bill.
She unlocked and opened the door.