Casey spent the morning at City Hall going over city business reports, including brief summaries on what had come to be known as the hens-in-the-backyard issue. Tame stuff compared to murder. He often wished he had the police beat. But Wexler had been doing that job since before Homer wrote the Iliad.
He phoned the office and left a message for Wexler and Ozeroff to meet him at Hegel’s for lunch if they could make it.
It was raining hard.
On the way he picked up a copy of the Province. Banner headlines screamed:
Headless Corpse Number Two!
He sat in the bus and read the lead story.
The body of a young Japanese-Canadian female was found in her Broughton Street apartment at 7:20 am by her husband when he returned home from working the night shift. Police believe that the woman let the killer into her apartment, that it may have been someone she knew. Names are being withheld for the time being. It is the second brutal murder in the West End in two weeks. Police are advising women to use extra caution. They should not under any circumstances open their doors to strangers.
Wexler and Ozeroff had already grabbed three window seats. Ozeroff seemed excited.
Their wet raincoats hung dripping on pegs near the door. Casey hung his beside theirs, ordered a vegetarian bagel sandwich with a glass of water and sat down.
“You read about the murder, Casey?” said Ozeroff, excited. “Murder number two? He’s a serial killer all right. Now we know for sure.”
“So tell,” Casey said to Wexler.
Wexler shrugged. “Nothing you haven’t already read in the Province. This one is in the victim’s apartment, otherwise it’s pretty much the same mo as the first murder. Female, naked torso, raped, cuff marks, decapitated. Obviously the same crazy man. No further details. End of story.”
Ozeroff broke in impatiently. “But it’s not the same. This guy butchered the woman in her own place, not on the street. He’s unusual. Serial killers always use the same mo. Which means they always work in the same way, use the same methods. Take Ted Bundy, for example. He always picked up girls from college campuses. Didn’t go looking for them in singles bars or fitness clubs. A serial killer doesn’t usually kill someone in the street and then break into a person’s home to kill a second.”
“Well, this one did,” said Wexler.
“Which is what I meant when I said he’s unusual,” said Ozeroff.
“More creative, Deb?” said Casey. “That what you’re saying?”
Ozeroff nodded. “Yeah. Creative. And more of a gamble for him. If he has already murdered successfully, then it makes sense for him to murder the same way next time. Use the same methods and the same scenario. But this guy tries something different. He gambles. For murder number two he gets into a secured building. And, without breaking in, as far as we know, makes it through a solid apartment door to his victim.” Ozeroff ran her hands through her hair. “He knows that criminals stick to the same MO. It’s his way of telling us he’s not like anyone else. He’s different. He’s smart. Holy fuckoly-they’d better catch this bastard real soon!”
“According to the Province,” said Wexler, “the victim might have let him in because she knew him.”
“What about checking the fitness center sign-in sheets for last night?” said Ozeroff.
Wexler wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Police already thought of that. She was there all right, but her husband picked her up. He’s a cop.”
Wexler and Ozeroff talked, but Casey was no longer listening. He was thinking of the husband coming home and finding his wife’s headless body. And the blood. There would be blood. Lots of it. Then he thought of Emma Shaughnessy living alone. Did she live alone? He really knew nothing about her.
“Casey?” said Ozeroff.
“Huh?”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Deb.”
“You seem kinda out of it. And you didn’t finish your sandwich.”
“Not so hungry today.”
“If I didn’t know any better,” Ozeroff said to Wexler, “I’d say Casey’s in love.”
A Message from the Angel of Death Maggoty: I have proved that I can do what I like when I like, and there is nothing you can do about it. Beware! Harlots are everywhere! I deal with them in fury. You cannot stop me. I am the avenger, and my hand will not be stayed. Turn away your eyes from a shapely woman. Sirach 9:8. And behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, and wily of heart. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: Yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell. Proverbs 7:10–27. I shall strip her naked and make her like a wilderness and slay her. I will uncover her lewdness and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. Hosea 2:10.
Casey ran in the morning rain.
Later, when he got to work, Percy called for a lineup meeting. He was wearing a brown suit that looked like it had been found in a dumpster. His eyes seemed more prominent than usual.
“I’ll be doing a short piece on the second murder victim,” Wexler said.
“Whaddya know about her?” said Percy.
“Japanese-Canadian, born in Vancouver, thirty-one years old, married to a policeman, no children. Worked in a duty-free shop on Alberni Street, where the Japanese tourists off the cruise ships go to spend their yen.” Wexler glanced at his notes. “Husband picked her up from the gym, took her home, left for the night shift soon after. She let someone into their apartment. The first murder was committed in the street, which raises the question as to whether there’s a second killer on the loose. Talked to a few of the residents in the building. One man saw a pizza delivery man that night. I got an interview lined up with the victim’s mother. Lives in Richmond. That’s it for me this week, except I’ll help Casey cover some of the face-to-faces after the Liberal nomination meeting.”
“Good work, Jack,” said Percy. He turned his head. “Deb?”
Ozeroff looked smart in a high-necked maroon wool dress with matching enameled crescent earrings. She glanced at her appointment book. “Movie review. Then a piece on the Mole Hill heritage houses that the city plans to bulldoze so they can let the developers in to erect another phallic tower. It’s the last goddamn complete block of turn-ofthe-century houses left. Not just in the West End, but in the whole goddamn city. And the cretins want ’em down, can you believe it?”
“Save the speeches, Deb,” said Percy, rubbing his dark eyebrows.
“You’re just like the rest of ’em, Perce. You don’t care if the goddamn philistines win.”
Percy sighed. “Is that your lineup, Deb?”
“There’s more. I’ll try to cover designer Rosemarie Kwan’s spring collection in Gastown. Also, there’s the Joico Hair Competition and a short piece on the Vancouver Opera. That’s it for now.”
“Thanks, Deb. Casey?”
Casey nodded. “Follow-up piece on trustees playing hooky at the school board. City council update on the wards system. Whether council will allow it to go to the taxpayers in a referendum in the spring. Then there’s the expected infighting at the Liberal nomination meeting, which promises to be fierce. Jack’s with me on that. And there might be something new on the Save the Whales bunch and the dismantling of the Stanley Park Zoo, which is taking too long, according to the Friends of the Park Society.”
Percy said, “Okay. Sounds like we got a lineup. But what’s the biggest item right now?”
“Joico Hair Competition?” suggested Wexler.
“The murders,” said Ozeroff gloomily.
“Right. So what about a cautionary piece, a list of do’s and don’ts for the women of the West End? Deb, you’re a woman-”
“Holy fuckoly! I’m a woman, am I, Perce? The way you’ve got me crammed into that shoebox with three men I didn’t think you’d noticed.”
Percy sighed.
“Forget it, Perce. Anyway, how about your editorial? Why don’t you do a piece on the murders, too, instead of your usual shit-nosed, right-wing prose poem.”
Percy winced. “I already did. ‘Violence Makes Victims of Us All.’ How you like that?”
Ozeroff said, “Sounds like I might agree with you, Perce, for once. And as regards advice for the women of the West End, I’m seriously thinking of packing a piece, and I plan to tell them to do the same.”
Percy’s protuberant eyes popped.
“Packing a what?”
“Every woman should carry a gun,” said Ozeroff. “We don’t stand a chance unless we’re armed.”
“Serious advice for West End women, Deb, okay? Even if you gotta miss the fashion stuff. You know what I’m saying?”
“You wouldn’t want to read my advice, Percy. We women are mad as hell, and we’re not gonna take it anymore. Castration’s too good for these-”
Percy’s eyes popped again. He waved his arms. “Deb? Deb? Could you cool it? You’re makin’ me ill. All I’m askin’ is a few hundred words on precautionary-”
“I hear you loud’n clear, Perce. No need to get your underpants in an uproar. I’ll do it, okay?”
Percy propped his elbows on his desk, sighed, and massaged his hair with his fingers until it stood up like a gray toilet brush.
Casey raised an eyebrow at Wexler as they carried their chairs back to the reception area. Wexler grinned back at him.
At the fitness center that evening, Casey said hello to Emma Shaughnessy.
“Hello, Casey.”
“I lost one pound.”
“Ah, that’s brilliant right enough.”
Pope heard what he’d said and came over. “Ah, then you are on the road to magnificence, Sebastian, like myself.”
“Casey,” said Casey.
“One pound is a beginning,” said Emma after Pope had gone off. “The main thing is, how do you feel?”
“I feel fine.”
He wanted to ask her out. There was an Irish movie playing, but while he was waiting for the words to come, she had moved on to one of the machines.
Pope told him later that the police had doubled their evening patrols. Black-booted plainclothesmen hung out on the Denman and Davie restaurant strips. Pope said he was sure that some of the extra people working out in the gym were cops. They probably were. Pope knew everybody.
Later that evening Casey walked through the rain to Granville Street to see the Irish film. It was still raining when he got out. He dropped into O’Doul’s Bar on Robson for a beer. Then he walked home.
Casey enjoyed a morning cup of tea with Matty in her kitchen as they talked about the murders.
“Do you think the police will ever catch him, Casey?”
“He’s sure to make a mistake eventually, and when he does…”
“I hope so. I hope it will be soon. Those poor women.”
“Thanks for the tea, Matty.”
Roseanne Agostino finished her workout a few minutes before the gym was about to close. Her black cotton-polyester tights were damp with sweat, as well as the matching bra top and the bare midriff that showed off her tiny waist.
She would be thirty-two next week, and she felt better than she had at twenty.
She hurried downstairs and sweated in the sauna for ten minutes, then showered. She stepped out of the shower and eyed her glistening body in the mirror. Slim and tight. She planned to keep it that way. Her thighs were a tad on the thick side, she knew, but it was solid muscle, every bit of it. No fat. Took after her mother-good peasant stock. Strong like a horse. But her mother’s body had gone to fat years ago, and now her thighs and rump were enormous. Roseanne wasn’t about to let that happen to her. She stayed away from junk food and worked out whenever she could. Usually four or five times a week, sometimes six if her boss didn’t make her work weekends.
Roseanne’s boyfriend, Gary, who drove a Coca Cola truck, went ape when she danced for him. He loved her tiny waist and muscled thighs-her hourglass figure, as he called it.
“Beam me up, Scotty!” he’d yelled last Friday night at her place when she did a slow strip for him and danced nude. It felt like she was dancing only for herself. Like he wasn’t even there, mouth open, tongue hanging out like a Doberman’s. Begging her to lie down with him. Which Roseanne loved to do. But she also loved to keep him waiting and waiting until he could take it no more. Until he finally grabbed her and gave it to her, which was fine for him but was over way too soon as far as she was concerned. Like last Friday. As soon as it was over, he’d wanted to know if she had any potato chips in the cupboard.
Men were one of life’s major disappointments.
She dressed, stuffed her damp things into her gym bag and headed out, walking down Denman Street. The rain had stopped. When she got to Comox, she turned east up the hill to Nicola, where it was quiet. She had only a short distance to go. Along Nicola to Pendrell, and then her studio apartment was on Broughton, just one block farther up the hill. She lived alone, which was the way she liked it. Even if it did mean only having a tiny place with no proper bedroom and having to manage all the rent herself. Gary stayed weekends sometimes, but she was always glad when he was gone so she could have the apartment to herself again. He often took her to his place in the east end, near Commercial Drive. A grotty attic room decorated with stolen street signs and Penthouse centerfolds and smelling of stale cigarettes and bad hygiene. She didn’t like it, preferring the West End and her own place to his.
Thinking of Gary’s place made her feel a bit depressed. Maybe what depressed her was not having a man she really needed in her life. Someone who was strong and quiet and serious. Not like Gary, who talked too much about silly things. He was always complaining about his job and about his boss, who nagged him for not taking care of his truck.
The kind of man she needed would have a good solid job and be affectionate. They would read and discuss books. Gary never read books. If he kissed her, it was because he wanted her in bed. The man she needed would love her. He would get pleasure out of brushing her hair sometimes, when she felt like it, and rubbing her tired muscles after she’d slaved on her feet all day at Eaton’s. And he’d be thoughtful, bringing her little unexpected things. She loved surprises. Gary wasn’t thoughtful, unless it was himself he was thinking about.
She wasn’t getting any younger and hadn’t yet met a man she wanted to marry. Most women were married by thirty. The ones she knew, at least. They had a couple of babies and a home with a two-car garage in Richmond or Port Moody. Or, if their husbands had good jobs, a rancher on the side of the mountain in North Vancouver. Maybe she should try changing her job. The only people she ever met in Women’s Wear were women. She could try waiting tables again. Get a job in one of the better downtown restaurants where people treated you nice and the tips were good. She could join a hiking club like the North Shore Walkers, which was a great way to meet new people. At least that was what Louise, her friend at work, said. And she should know, because she’d met her Tommy that way. They were engaged to be married in June.
That was the solution. She needed to change her life. She was still young. She was attractive and healthy, with a good figure and good prospects for the future. All she needed to do was make it all happen.
She walked quickly, anxious to get off the dark street. She would take her People magazine to bed with her. There was an article about Sandra Bullock she was looking forward to reading.
Built as a traffic barrier to keep commuters out of the residential streets, the minipark at Nicola where it joined Pendrell had benches and a table with seats set among trees and ornamental shrubs. There were many of these tiny squares scattered about in the dense jungle of West End apartment blocks. Places where people could sit outside with their friends and neighbors among the rhododendrons and japonica in the spring and summer.
Tonight the little square was wet, deserted and cold. Thick with shadows and menace. The streetlight caused wet tree branches to glisten. The saturated air seemed full of risk. As Roseanne approached the square, she thought she heard heavy breathing. She stopped and looked about her. The street was deserted. She listened, but all she could hear was the faint hum of Denman Street traffic. This section was very dark, the light from the streetlamps dimmed by the limbs of naked trees. What little light there was glimmered palely yellow and weak, hardly able to penetrate the gloom.
She was less than a block away from home.
She started running past the square and knew suddenly that someone was behind her.
She ran faster, sprinting now, too scared to look behind.
Only half a block. She had to make it, or…
Roseanne felt her shoulder gripped from behind.
She screamed and fell to the ground. A rough hand jammed her jaw shut, and she felt and heard the crackle of duct tape as her attacker pressed and wrapped it tightly around her mouth, silencing her. She tried to twist away, kicking and thrashing about with all the strength of her strong legs. But he handcuffed her wrists behind her back and dragged her into the trees where he pinned her to the wet soil.
The man was very strong. He sat on her and mumbled madly as he pressed her face into the wet leaves and knifed the clothing from her trembling body.
The rain started again in the night. In the gray light of early morning, a jogger on his way to Stanley Park cut through the mini-park and stumbled over Roseanne’s bare legs sticking out from under a hydrangea bush.