James Heneghan

Fit to kill

CHAPTER ONE

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6

Vancouver’s Stanley Park peninsula hunched its granite shoulders against an early November storm. Relentless rain and gale-force winds howled in from the ocean. West Enders knew that something terrible was going to happen. They stayed indoors and waited anxiously.

Julie Dagg was an exception. Nothing could make her stay home and miss her workouts. Twenty-five years old, she watched what she ate and kept herself slim and fit with regular workouts. Tuesdays and Thursdays she practiced yoga and self-defense for two hours at the Tae Kwon Do Academy on Robson Street. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she grunted and sweated through weight training and cardio for an hour at the West End Fitness Center on Denman.

Tonight she’d worked mostly with free weights and was now finishing off with twenty minutes of cardio on the stationary bicycle.

Life was good. An hour or two each day was all it took. Stay fit, look great, live longer.

The gym, almost empty tonight because of the foul weather, would be closing soon, at 10:00 PM. Time to go home. Sauna first, then a quick shower. Her roommate Billie would be waiting for her with a nightcap. A career nurse at St. Paul’s Hospital, Billie was a lot of fun to live with. Before turning in they would watch tv together for a while. Or they might talk again about their plans for next summer’s hiking vacation in Umbria. It would be Julie’s first trip to Italy. She was looking forward to it. An image from one of Billie’s travel brochures popped into her head. A terraced vineyard under the golden light of an Umbrian sunset. Julie sighed happily.

Peeling off her Lycra exercise togs in the change room was like shedding a skin. She relaxed in the sauna, then showered and toweled herself dry. She pulled on her warm tracksuit and raincoat and headed out onto a deserted Denman Street, gym bag swinging by her side.

She crossed the street, almost blown off her feet in the gusting wind. Traffic lights bounced and screeched on their overhead cables.

A man stood well back in the darkness of the Royal Bank doorway, watching her.

Julie hurried through the rain. Her apartment was only a few blocks away, near Stanley Park. When she reached the minipark and Pearl’s Restaurant-closed Mondays-she heard heavy footsteps behind her and quickened her pace.

The footsteps came closer. She turned her head and saw a man in a dark raincoat.

She dropped her gym bag and ran.

The man ran after her.

Heart thumping with fear, she whirled around as he reached out to grab her. She ducked her head and moved into him fast. Hard kick. Knee in his crotch. Like the Tae Kwon Do Academy had taught her. He bent, gasping with pain. But he recovered before Julie could jab her apartment key in his eye.

With a cry, he hurled himself at her, looping an arm around her neck and cutting off her air. She kicked and struggled. But it was no good-he was too strong.

He dragged her into the bushes of the minipark.

Terrified, heart bursting, Julie was forced down onto the ground. She couldn’t cry out or scream, for the arm locked round her neck was like an iron bar. He wound something-duct tape-around her head, sealing her mouth shut. Then he jerked her arms behind her back and snapped handcuffs onto her wrists.

She could hardly breathe. He ripped away her clothing and pressed her body into the wet earth and dead leaves. Then he heaved and gasped above her and spilled words in her ears.

All she knew before she died was the sound of his voice, the scream of the wind and the cold wet earth.

CHAPTER TWO

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7

Sebastian Casey, reporter for the West End Clarion, turned off his alarm, rolled out of bed and shuffled barefoot to the bathroom.

Sleepy blue eyes stared back at him from the mirror as he mowed lemon stubble from his chin. Lighted by the fluorescent tube over the mirror, the thick hair on his head glowed a brick red. The eyebrows were less red-more of a burnt orange-while the hair on the rest of his body was the yellow color of turnip. As though the quality of redness in him diminished the closer it grew to the ground. He was a big man, just starting to go to fat. He rinsed off his jaw and stepped back from the mirror, regarding his white flaccid chest and the unsightly bulge about his middle. This morning he felt older than his forty years. The sight of the spare tire saddened him, but he wasn’t ambitious enough to do anything about it.

He retrieved his copy of The Province from the hallway and carried his coffee, toast and newspaper to the kitchen table.

He settled down to scan the front page.

Under the Wednesday, November 8, dateline, the headline read:

Murder in Vancouver’s West End

Woman’s Headless Torso Found Near

Stanley Park

He skimmed the story. A late-night walker had discovered the naked and decapitated body of a woman, identity unknown, a block from the park.

Casey finished his simple breakfast, rinsed the mug and plate, and barefooted it back to the bedroom. With only a narrow bed, no wall hangings, a small chest of drawers and a night table, the room was monastic in its simplicity. He made the bed, then dressed for work. Beige cords, blue cotton shirt, gray wool sweater, tweed jacket.

He slid his window open and stepped out onto the balcony of his eighth-floor apartment. The building was old and the balcony narrow, with black wrought-iron railings. He filled his lungs with the cold morning air as he took in the black broil of sky and a street littered with leaves and branches from last night’s windstorm. He watched Albert Kayle leave his house on the opposite side of the street and step over broken branches as he set off on his morning walk. Then he watched Albert’s wife, Matty, sweeping leaves off her pathway. A nice woman, a real lady, with a quiet, dignified way of speaking. She reminded Casey of his Aunt Maeve in Belfast.

The Kayle house was easier to see now that the big horse chestnut in its front yard was almost bare of leaves. He could see its mossy roof, front porch, steps and front door clearly through the web of black branches. Except for Matty, and a pair of squirrels bounding about in the sodden leaves, the street was deserted.

He should get moving. An hour at the Clarion office, and then he had a doctor appointment.

He grabbed his raincoat and his battered Irish tweed cap out of the closet, stepped out into the hallway, and locked the door. He took the elevator down to the street thinking about the news of the murder. There was a maniac out there somewhere who had decapitated a woman. The West End was no longer safe.

While Casey was stumbling sleepily about his kitchen brewing coffee, his neighbor across the street, Matty Kayle, was eyeing her husband from across the wide Arctic tundra of their breakfast table. She thought, not for the first time, what life would be like if Albert was dead and she had her house to herself.

It was almost 7:00 am, and Albert was reading his newspaper in sour silence and spooning milky bran flakes into his mouth. The newspaper lay flat on the table between them. She watched his lips, fleshy, greedy, glistening like the pink worms in her garden.

She must remember to take the dahlias in before the frosts came. The rains could stop any day now. Then the frost would come.

When had she started feeling revulsion watching her husband eat? She watched Albert’s lips, pouting in repose, wriggling in action. She tore her eyes away from his mouth and read his upside-down newspaper instead. A skill she had acquired over thirty years of silent breakfasts.

A murder in the West End, on Haro, only a block away. She shivered. The killer chopped off her head and-what? Buried it? Took it away with him?

Matty must have cried out, for Albert was watching her over the tops of his glasses with those black eyes and that familiar sarcastic look on his face.

“What?”

She nodded at the paper. “A woman-”

He blinked, staring at her, saying nothing, waiting for her to finish her sentence. As though she were a child struggling with new words. Or an Alzheimer victim like poor old Ellie Benson on Comox Street, who couldn’t even remember her own name from one day to the next.

“Murdered!” said Matty.

“Ah.” Albert’s upper lip curled in a pink sneer as he returned to his newspaper.

She was born Matilda Harrison sixty-two years ago in this same Nelson Street house where she had lived all her life. Her father died when Matty was in her mid-thirties. Her mother followed him a year later. Matty then met and married Albert. Albert Kayle was thirty years old. She was thirty-seven. He had burning dark eyes and dark hair. He worked as a lineman’s assistant with the telephone company, where Matty worked in the typing pool. He proposed to her almost immediately.

She was overwhelmed. Nobody had ever proposed to her before. They were married that same year. Matty hoped she wasn’t too old for children. She looked forward to raising a family in the house where she’d grown up and known so many happy times.

That was twenty-five years ago. Now she was an old woman.

She refilled Albert’s coffee mug. He didn’t look up. He was now absorbed in The Globe and Mail.

He looked young for his age and still had most of his hair. His face, unlike Matty’s, was relatively unlined. Matty put his youthful appearance down to his regular exercise.

Matty had never been a beauty-she was “plain,” she would be the first to admit-and had never been smart enough for college. She wondered what Albert had ever seen in her. After a few years of marriage and one miscarriage, she had discovered Albert’s true nature. His blind, red-hot anger if crossed. He bore no love or affection for her. He had married her only for the mortgage-free house. And the bit of money left her after the death of her mother.

Albert was often out of work. There was a pattern: he would work at whatever job came along for a while, and then would be let go or fired. Then he would sit about the house for a month or so before looking for something else. Garbage pickup, road repair, gardening, swamping, janitoring-anything that came along. In his time off between jobs, he puttered about in his basement workshop making ugly rustic furniture. Or he took long naps on the livingroom sofa.

She carried her cup to the sink and rinsed it absentmindedly, gazing out the window at the backyard. What a fine place it would have been for children to play. The children she’d never had.

She would like to have a dog-a puppy- or even a cat. But Albert forbade animals. This was typical of him, acting as though the house were his. He took over most of the basement for his workshop, filling the house with horrid smells of varnish and paint. She never went into his workshop or his den. Both were kept locked. Only Albert had keys. Matty wasn’t welcome there.

If she suggested that he might help with household chores, he flew into a frightening rage.

She was safe upstairs. She had her own bedroom, thank goodness. Albert stayed away and never bothered her there.

She put her cup away in the cupboard. Once again she gazed out the window. Tiny water globules hung like teardrops from the leaves of the hydrangeas and from the withered clematis vines near the back door. She glanced at the stove clock: 6:55. She had a chiropractor appointment at ten. For her back pain. She rubbed the small of her back. Lumbar vertebra number five, or L5 as Dr. Malley called it. Why couldn’t she have married someone like David Malley, a kind man with enough tender affection for every lonely, unloved soul in the West End? She pressed her hands around her waist to her stomach, still flat and slim. And barren.

She came to realize much later that it wasn’t because she had been too old. Many women had babies later in life. The reason she and Albert had never had children was because he’d never loved her.

She tidied the kitchen, rinsing out the coffeepot, putting things away, brushing Albert’s bran buds-he always spilled some- into the sink.

She went downstairs to the basement and loaded the washing machine. The front door rattled upstairs. Albert was off for his walk. She set the timer and closed the lid. Then she went outside and started sweeping leaves and branches off the walk, debris from last night’s windstorm.

CHAPTER THREE

“G ’morning, Matty.”

“G’morning, “Good morning, Casey. I’m just about to put on the kettle.”

“Sounds like an invitation.”

Casey sat at the kitchen table while Matty made tea. The office could wait. He liked the solid feel to this house. Its smell of furniture polish and cracked leather excited a sharp and satisfying nostalgia in him. It evoked childhood memories of his Aunt Maeve’s house in Belfast, a veritable museum of Edwardian bric-a-brac.

Matty placed the tray on the table. “Albert’s out.”

“Yes, I saw him set off. Y’know, I’ve always liked that coffee table of yours, Matty.” Casey nodded toward the living room. Made from a burl, a wart-like knot cut from the bole of a tree, the table was finished with what Casey guessed was probably a polymer resin. Its unique grain swirled in surreal patterns under its clear glassy surface.

“Albert’s hobby. He spends a lot of time in his workshop. It’s a terrible thing, the murder of that poor woman,” she said, changing the subject as she poured the tea. She pointed to her newspaper on the table and sighed. “Will you be writing a report about it in your paper, Casey?”

“Not likely. My colleague, Jack Wexler, is on the police beat. I take care of the politics and the human-interest stuff.”

“It must be a very interesting job, being a newspaper reporter.”

“The Clarion is only a weekly community paper, Matty, as you know. I like my job, but I don’t cover great events or important issues. Just the small stuff. A tiny brick in the huge skyscraper world of journalism is all I am.”

“Every brick is important, Casey, if the building is to stand. Help yourself to a butter tart. I made them yesterday.”

Casey thought again about his waistline as he helped himself to a tart.

“So what’s the story, Doc?”

“For an old guy of forty, you’re doing not too badly.” Tom Watterson frowned.

“But-”

“But?” Casey buttoned his trousers.

“It’s the weight. Two years ago you were a few pounds over. But now?” Watterson’s black eyebrows disappeared under his untidy gray mop. “Now you’re twenty pounds over.”

“Hmmph.”

“Still happy at the West End Clarion?”

“You’re asking me if I’m a contented man, Tom. You know I am. The job’s fine. So what is it you’re trying to tell me? Out with it.”

“Exercise. That’s what you need, regular exercise. And plenty of vegetables and fruit. Cut out the cinnamon rolls and the pizza. And-” He paused. “You still living alone?”

“I am.”

“People live longer when they have a partner.” He smiled. “Maybe you could find a good woman.”

“Thanks, Tom.” Casey made for the door.

“And come back in a year. Regular checkups would do you no harm either. You’re too young for a coronary.”

He walked to the office.

Too young for a coronary!

Find a good woman!

“Hmmph!”

This time of the day, the Clarion ’s other two reporters were usually out doing legwork. Interviews, story follow-ups, what they called “face-to-face” work. He didn’t expect to find any of them in.

Brenda at the front desk smiled when she saw him. “Messages for you, Casey.”

“Thanks, Brenda.” He examined the yellow slips. “Here. I brought you a Mars bar.” Which wasn’t quite true. He’d bought it for himself to eat while working on his piece about the infighting at the parks board. But chocolate didn’t exactly come under the doctor’s prescription. He should try to shed a few of those extra pounds. Take some of Tom’s advice. The parts about eating sensibly and exercising anyway. The good woman he definitely did not need. He was a loner, always had been.

He’d thought about jogging last summer, but had never got started somehow. He wasn’t sure if he possessed the will or motivation. It was as simple as that. Why struggle? You lived, you died. Who cared if you were a few pounds overweight?

“Thanks, big guy,” said Brenda. “Jack’s been looking for you.”

Jack Wexler was at his desk. Their third reporter, Debbie Ozeroff, was out. Debbie covered the arts, fashion, women’s issues and the environment. There was also a part-time photographer, Doug Duchesne, who was mostly out. The four of them shared an office the size of a jail cell. When the three reporters were all there, the place reminded Casey of the farmer’s market back home in Belfast-noise and chaos unlimited.

Wexler stood and grabbed his jacket off the peg when he saw Casey. “Come on, it’s lunchtime. I’ll buy you a bagel.”

Wexler was over sixty. Lately he’d been telling anyone who would listen that he couldn’t wait to retire and sell his overpriced West End condo. He and his wife Midge would buy a small place near sunny Victoria at half the price. Short and wiry, he looked much younger than his age, even with his balding pink head. He always dressed smartly. Today he wore a dark houndstooth jacket, dark green V-neck sweater over a white cotton shirt, green cords and a pair of brown oxfords. Wexler had been married for almost forty years.

They were early, so they got two seats at the window counter of Hegel’s Bagels looking out toward the beach and seawall at English Bay. Wexler ordered coffee and a gypsy salami bagel. Casey took only a house salad and a glass of water.

“What’s with the rabbit food?”

Casey shrugged. “Doctor says I should lose a few. What’s on your mind, Jack? Anything new from Cop Shop on the murder?”

“Cop Shop” was the daily police information service at police headquarters, held weekday mornings.

Wexler wiped cream cheese off his chin. “Not a thing. Kind of hard to identify someone who’s missing a head.” He bit into his bagel. His glance fell to Casey’s middle, bulging slightly over the belt of his cords. “Look, you wanna lose some weight, you buy yourself some barbells.” He propped his elbow up on the counter and offered Casey a bicep. “Feel that.”

Casey looked into Wexler’s eyes to see if he was serious. He was. He prodded the older man’s arm gingerly with a fingertip.

“Hard, huh? And lookit!” Wexler slapped his stomach. “Steel drum.”

“I didn’t know you lifted weights.”

“Four years. Work out three times a week, mornings at six, before breakfast. Try it for three hours a week, Casey, and you’ll look like me.”

“No comment.”

“I’m serious.”

“Exercising is hard work, Jack. I’ll have to think about it.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9

Lunch hour. Hegel’s Bagels.

Casey toyed with his salad, wishing it was a ham-and-egg bagel.

Wexler consulted his Cop Shop notes. “Woman’s name was Julie Dagg, white, twenty-five, secretary. Lived at 1976 Haro with roommate Beryl Gibb, who goes by the name of Billie. Julie was on her way home from the West End Fitness Center about half an hour after it closed. That would put the time of the murder around ten thirty. Her naked body was found in the minipark next to Pearl’s Restaurant around midnight by a guy on his way home. He cut through the park and saw a dog eating-”

“Ugh! Say no more.”

Wexler put down his sandwich and sipped his coffee.

“Woman was decapitated. Head missing from the scene. Marks on her wrists from handcuffs. No clothing, no id left at the scene-that’s all I got.”

“How did they id her if she had no head and no personal papers or clothing?”

“Fingerprints. Arrested two years ago, impaired driving charge, so they had her on file.”

“Was she raped?”

“Probably. Awaiting confirmation.”

“Pretty creepy, Jack.” Casey wiped his fingers with his napkin.

“Creepy ain’t the word for it.”

Vancouver’s West End district was mainly residential. It occupied the center of the downtown peninsula between the office towers on the east and Stanley Park on the west. Shaped roughly like the sole of a foot, the peninsula divided into three parts. The toe was the green Stanley Park forest with its seawall. The instep was the residential West End. And the heel was the downtown business district. The whole peninsula was surrounded by the natural beauty of forest, sea and mountains. In the spring and early summer, when most of the rain had finished and snow covered the mountains, Vancouver shone like a jewel.

Vancouver was the most beautiful place in the world as far as Matty Kayle was concerned. Not that she’d traveled much-a trip to New York with her parents when she was ten. But, to Matty, Vancouver was fresher, younger than anything she had seen. Green and beautiful and sparkling. It was like the sweet and innocent child she’d never had.

This afternoon she felt just fine. She had been adjusted. Dr. Malley had twisted her spine, wrenched her neck, leaned on her lumbars, squeezed her cervicals and thumped her thoracics. He had manhandled her in a most agreeable way. And now she was ready for her short walk. She tried to fit one in every day.

Matty and Albert never walked together.

Albert was downstairs in his workshop. She could smell the paint. She slipped into her edging-toward-shabby navy winter coat.

Her resentment of Albert’s authority in the house had grown steadily over the years. The house wasn’t his, it was Matty’s. She was the one who had lived here all her life. She was the one who held happy memories of her parents and their life together. Albert was an intruder. A fraud. He had married Matty for his own cunning purposes. He no longer-now that he ignored and mocked her and felt repugnance toward her-had any moral right to be there. He had forfeited that right when he broke his marriage vow to love and cherish and protect her.

Love and cherish. Matty’s eyes prickled with tears. She pulled on a red tuque over her gray curls, jerked the front door closed behind her and set off at a good pace to the park.

But the wind was cold. So after only half an hour she turned for home, walking briskly back the way she had come. The wind now blustering at her back.

Casey, home from a sour City Hall council meeting, needed a beer. He grabbed a lager from his fridge.

You’re too young for a coronary.

It would do no harm to look in on the fitness center. Just a look, see what the place was like. It wasn’t as though he was ready to make a commitment of any kind.

He changed into shorts, T-shirt, his old tracksuit and a ragged pair of runners.

The gym wasn’t crowded. The only person he recognized was Albert Kayle, his neighbor from across the street, working hard on a rowing machine.

He started working out cautiously. No sense in overdoing things the first time.

A man strolled over and introduced himself as Gordon Pope. Mostly bald, with wisps of hair around his ears, Pope wore blue nylon shorts and a loose net shirt that left his narrow waist, muscular shoulders and much of his well-developed pectoral area exposed.

The glasses he wore magnified his watery eyes, giving him an owlish, scary appearance at odds with the friendly smile. “They call me the Pope,” he explained in a high voice. “I’m the general busybody around here.”

Casey shook his hand. “Casey,” he said.

With his bald head, Pope looked about sixty but could have been older. He moved like a much younger man.

“Here, Casey,” said Pope, “I want you to meet Sam Jackson. Sam’s just back from the Yucatan. Got a girlfriend down there. Sam, this is Casey.”

Sam, a trim, gray man in an armless and ragged white T-shirt, looked like he could be anything between fifty and eighty. He crushed Casey’s hand in a killer grip. “You Irish?”

“From Belfast, fifteen years ago,” Casey admitted, nursing his fingers behind his back.

Another man joined them. Deeply tanned, medium height, middle-aged, his muscled chest bursting out of a similar ragged sleeveless T-shirt.

Pope said, “This is Doc. Doc, meet Casey, striving for perfection like all of us.”

The two men shook hands. “Hi, Casey,”

Doc said in a gruff voice. “It’s Stanley Blunt, but everyone calls me Doc.”

“Doc, why don’t you tell Casey the story you just told us about the finger,” said Pope.

In the breezy manner of a stand-up comedian, Doc said to Casey, “Patient comes to see me this morning, wants his finger off-middle finger, left hand. I say no way. A finger’s a finger, once gone you never get it back. But the problem with this finger is it’s got no feeling, nerves all gone from an old injury.”

Pope explained to Casey, “Doc’s a surgeon.”

Stanley Blunt ignored the interruption. “You won’t take it off, Doc? this guy says to me. No, I won’t take it off, I tell him. Let me explain why I won’t take it off. No, says this guy, let me explain to you why I want it off. I’m leaving for South America a month from now in a sailboat, right? I’ll be away a year. Sailing can be rough, and I don’t want to take this finger with me. Why not? Injury, that’s why not. Or infection. Where there’s no feeling, there’s more chance of injury. I could get it cut or crushed real bad, and then what? I’m a thousand miles from the nearest hospital. I’m bleeding to death, and I don’t know it. You see what I mean, Doc? The thing’s a fuckin’ liability. I want it off. So I say to him, Okay. You convinced me. I’ll take it off.”

“So you cut off the guy’s finger,” Pope finished for him.

Doc nodded. “I cut off the guy’s finger.”

“Yeee!” said Sam, shaking his head.

“Watch your fingers around here,” Pope advised Casey with a mirthless laugh.

The group dispersed. Albert Kayle, finished with the rowing machine, came over. “Say, Casey! Haven’t seen you in here before.”

“I’m only looking, Albert. Doctor thinks I should lose a few pounds.”

“Well, you came to the right place.”

A man of shorter-than-average height, with dark hair and eyes, Albert spoke softly, with a slight English accent.

They exchanged a few more words, and then Albert drifted off to a cardio machine.

People on cardio machines made Casey think of gerbils. Still, he stepped up onto a StairMaster, looking about the room as he worked. Busy place. Men and women. All ages. All shapes. Spare tires on a couple of the men made him feel better. A pretty woman dressed in black tights, black top and what looked to Casey like tiny shamrock earrings was stretching on a mat.

“If you drop in at the same time of day, you meet the same crowd, more or less.” It was Pope again, standing close to Casey, watching the pretty woman. “Get to know people. Makes working out less of a chore.”

“Hmm,” said Casey.

“The road to physical perfection is an arduous one,” said Pope, still watching the woman. “Right,” said Casey.

The woman stood and stretched her arms above her head.

Pope shifted his attention away from the woman and looked up at Casey on the StairMaster. “Most folks work out for an hour, then sauna and shower.” He raised himself up and down on his toes. “Ain’t this Vancouver rain really something? I lived in Toronto most of my life.”

“Hmm.” Casey found it hard to work and hold a conversation at the same time.

“Bus driver,” said Pope. “Forty years. Retired and came out here to the wet coast.” He chuckled at his own joke. “Straight to the West End. Lived here ever since.”

Casey’s machine put him a foot or so higher than Pope’s head. He looked down at the older man’s shoulders with their slabs of muscle moving under freckled skin.

“You didn’t get those muscles driving a bus in Toronto.”

Pope laughed. “I like to keep fit. What do you work at, Casey?”

“Journalist, West End Clarion.”

“You’re not Sebastian Casey!”

“I am.”

“Hey, I read your stuff all the time. You’re a funny man.”

“Yeah?” Casey’s legs were tiring.

“You got anything new on this lunatic who murdered that woman?”

“Nope.”

The pretty woman with the shamrock earrings walked by. Pope introduced them.

“Casey, this is Emma Shaughnessy. Emma, meet Sebastian Casey, ace reporter with the Clarion.”

“Hey, Sebastian.”

“Call me Casey,” he said, conscious of two things, her Irish accent and his own ugly body.

Emma Shaughnessy’s smile was warm and friendly. Her soft, dark brown hair was tied back with a black ribbon. Freckles crossed the bridge of her nose like a sprinkling of sand, and she had the pale blue eyes of her Norman-Irish ancestors.

“Your first time here, Casey?” she asked.

He had only come to the gym on a scouting expedition, to take a look, to get a sense of the place. But he now heard himself saying, “Just started,” as though he’d committed himself to working out in the gym for the rest of his life.

“Emma’s a schoolteacher here in the West End,” said Pope, his magnified eyes on Emma’s chest.

“Yeah?” said Casey. Emma Shaughnessy’s smile had caused his brain to slip into neutral. He knew he sounded like a tongue-tied fool, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

Emma jerked her chin toward Pope and said, “The Pope knows everyone’s business.”

“I take an interest in people, you might say,” said Pope. “Casey is here because he yearns for magnificence, like all of us. Ain’t that right, Casey?”

He knew he should be joining in with something light and humorous, but his gears had jammed. He felt fat and clumsy in front of this woman, who, as far as he could see, had already achieved perfection.

“Keep up the good work.” Pope wandered off.

Casey looked into Emma Shaughnessy’s blue eyes and said the only thing he could think of. “You come here often?”

She laughed. “Three times a week.”

“Three,” he repeated stupidly.

She laughed again. “Usually.”

Her eyes unmade him. She was a witch.

She was laughing at him. He tried to think of something intelligent to say. “I don’t like these things much.” He nodded down at his StairMaster. Brilliant! he told himself.

“Me neither. I run the seawall and the park trails instead.”

“Seawall.” He tried to think of something interesting to say. “Park trails,” he said. If he had a gun, he would shoot himself. “The great outdoors,” he continued, hoping his brain would kick in soon or this woman would never speak to him again. An echo of this thought in the deeper recesses of his paralyzed mind made him realize that he very much wanted her to speak to him again.

“When I use a machine,” she said, “it’s exercise. But for me, running is recreation.”

“Is that right, now?” He sounded in his own ears like an Irish country bumpkin.

“Feels more natural. Trees and animals instead of mirrored walls. Smell of alder, cedar and fir instead of stale sweat. Fresh air and silence. No pounding music.”

“Music?”

She jerked her small pointed chin at the speakers over their heads.

“Ah!” he said. She wore no lipstick. Lips naturally pale pink. Her mouth slightly open. Tips of two very white teeth.

“I run most mornings. Early.”

“Maybe I’ll try it myself sometime. Get rid of some of this.” He patted his sucked-in belly.

“I hear Belfast in your voice, am I right?”

He nodded. “And I hear Derry in yours.”

“Right. I came to Vancouver-”

“Hey, Emma, could you spot me?”

Emma turned her head in the direction of the voice. “Sure, Kevin.”

Casey tore his eyes from Emma Shaughnessy’s face. A muscle-bound Adonis was taking her away to the free-weights area, where he had the bench press set up with weights the size of truck tires.

“Talk to you again, Casey,” said Emma with a smile.

Casey watched her stand behind Kevin’s bench, hands poised to assist. The horizontal Adonis, his face upturned in a grimace of pain, pushed and grunted underneath her.

Casey felt he had done enough for a first visit. He escaped to the locker room, pulled on his sweats and headed for home.

CHAPTER FIVE

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13

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.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15

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.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16

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.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19

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.

CHAPTER SIX

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20

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.”

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24

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.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29

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.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2

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.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MONDAY, DECEMBER 4

In December, Vancouver’s West End folded its paws and crouched, drawing into itself, and watched almost constant rain and wind sweeping in from an inhospitable sea. It watched its forest neighbor toss its head wildly in winter storms. Watched and endured. And waited for the spring.

This December, the West End drew into itself even more than usual. A homicidal maniac was on the rampage. The shock of suddenly having to confront the grim reality of a serial killer was almost too much for it.

There had now been three killings-all women, all raped, all decapitated.

People stayed home. The evening streets were deserted. Even Robson, Denman and Davie, normally teeming with pedestrians, were sparsely populated. Store owners predicted that, unless shoppers changed their habits and shopped during the day, it would be their worst Christmas season ever.

Wexler got the official news at Cop Shop. The mood later at the Clarion was somber. An early jogger had discovered the naked, headless body of victim number three on Sunday morning. So far there was no id.

“Three weeks before Christmas,” said Wexler gloomily.

Casey said, “Peace on Earth.”

“And goodwill to all,” said Wexler.

“Especially women,” said Ozeroff, tears in her eyes.

Matty Kayle had been reading about Listeria and Clostridium botulinum and Escherichia coli. Such difficult words, but she was beginning to think that bacteria seemed her most natural allies. The natural solution might be the best solution.

Some of the other solutions, according to the book, like arsenic and strychnine, had too many drawbacks. Not the least of which was the danger of an autopsy and the discovery of a lethal poison in the body.

Having decided on the method, Matty resolved to execute her plan swiftly. Now was the time for action.

What had helped rouse Matty into action was Albert’s criticism yesterday of her cooking. It was Thursday evening. He had hurt her. If there was one thing she was proud of, it was her cooking. He had no right, after all these years of waiting on him hand and foot, to say suddenly that her cooking was like “something a dog might drag in off the street.”

His exact words.

Matty had to sit down. She couldn’t answer him. He had never criticized her cooking before. It had the effect on her of a personal attack. As if it were she herself who was flawed. All she could say was, “What?”

“This!” He pushed his plate away. The Greek moussaka casserole that had taken so long to prepare. His face was furrowed with anger, worm lips pink and wet, pouting and wriggling. “It’s inedible. I’m sick to death of foul recipes from foreign cookbooks. I mean, what in heaven’s name do you call this mess? Chinese dogshit? Japanese roadkill? What?”

“It’s Greek-”

“I thought as much. Foreign filth. Whatever happened to plain grilled chops with new potatoes? Or a nice piece of steak with chips? Boiled ham, cabbage and beets? Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding? You haven’t cooked a proper meal in more than a year.”

Matty had changed her style of cooking, she had to admit. But she thought he’d liked it. The articles in Canadian Woman stressed the importance of good nutrition. Less fat and more legumes and vegetables. Less meat, or even no meat at all, but tofu or beans instead.

She was so upset she cried.

This made Albert even angrier. He stood and hurled his plate over her head. Plate and food hit the wall with a crash.

She was terrified. She thought he would strike her. But he stomped off down to the basement. When she was finished crying, she set to cleaning the mess off the wall and floor.

Very well. If that was what he wanted, it was back to the grilled pork chops. Except this time she would leave the chops out on a plate in the oven where he wouldn’t see them and where they could breathe for a while, like wine, until they were ready.

Until her bacterial accomplices had brewed their poison.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5

During lunch at Hegel’s, Wexler filled Casey in.

“She was Roseanne Agostino, white, thirty-two, sales clerk at Eaton’s, unmarried. Lived alone in a studio walk-up on Broughton. On her way home from the fitness center when she met up with her killer. Same mo: handcuffed, raped, clothes missing, head missing.”

Casey shook his head. “How did the cops id her so fast?”

“Her folks live in New Westminster. They’d been calling her all weekend. When they hadn’t reached her by Monday night, they called the police. They made the id from childhood burn scars on her hands and arms.”

Ozeroff was unusually quiet.

They began to cobble together a lead story for their Thursday edition. Percy, in the meantime, had Ozeroff interview women in the shopping areas, asking their opinions about the murders. Whether they thought the police were doing their best to catch the killer. When all the stories were in the works, Percy went with Casey and Wexler’s “Terror in the Streets” headline over Duchesne’s murder simulation, a picture of a woman’s bare legs protruding from under a hydrangea bush. “It’s film noir,” Duchesne explained to Percy.

The papers hit the streets early Thursday morning, as usual. But what was unusual was how quickly they were all snatched up. By late afternoon, a harassed Brenda was madly fielding complaints at the front counter. Hoarsely explaining to irate callers that there were no further copies of the paper available.

So much of the success of the news business, Casey thought, seemed built on the misfortunes of others.

CHAPTER EIGHT

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8

Casey quit work early, donned raingear and took a walk on the seawall, his mind clenched on the three murders.

A light oyster-gray rain laid a mist over the beach and the ocean. The freighters anchored offshore looked like ghost ships, their riding lights flickering in the gloom.

Casey thought about dates.

Murder dates.

Julia Dagg was butchered on Monday, November 6. Corinne Wakabayashi thirteen days later, on Sunday, November 19. Roseanne Agostino thirteen days later, on Saturday, December 2.

If the killer kept to his thirteen-day timetable, then the next murder, if there was one, would be on Friday, December 15.

One week from now.

He told Jack Wexler.

Jack called his buddy Detective Sergeant Fraser in homicide.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9

Emma Shaughnessy asked Casey if he would walk her home from the gym when they were through. “It’s this damned killer,” she said. “I’m only five blocks away, but I’d feel safer with an Irishman.”

“I’d be happy to see you home.”

She felt safe with this quiet man. There was something about his blue eyes, lazy smile and rumpled appearance that invited confidence and trust. She was sure that Casey would understand her need for what it was: safety and protection. Simple friendship. He would expect no favors and imagine no subtext, of that she felt certain.

It was raining, as usual.

Emma said, “This rain would wash the ears off a donkey, aren’t I right?”

“A cup of coffee might warm you.”

“I don’t drink coffee at night. But Devlin’s tea would be good.”

“Devlin’s it is then.”

They found a table. Casey brought coffee for himself and tea for Emma. Emma had to listen carefully over the loud buzz of conversation, for Casey spoke quietly, never raising his voice.

“How are your colleagues at school taking these murders?” he asked.

“Just as you’d expect,” she said. “The women leave the school as soon as the three o’clock bell rings. Home before dark. What do you know about this latest murder?”

“Nothing really, except she was killed on the thirteenth day, just like the others.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was playing with the numbers and noticed that each of the three murders is thirteen days apart.”

“There’s a murder every thirteen days?”

“Looks like it so far.”

“Do the police know this?”

“I told Wexler, who told his police friend.”

“So now they know. Did they know before Wexler told them?”

“They didn’t say.”

“Do you know why it’s always the thirteenth day?”

Casey shook his head. “No idea.”

He walked her home through the wind and the rain to her apartment at Killarney Place.

“Thanks, Casey,” she said with a grateful smile. She didn’t ask him in.

The Quiet Man, she thought as she watched him walk off in the rain.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15

It was almost as though the killer had been reading Casey’s mind. An open letter to the police appeared in Friday’s morning’s Province: Maggoty: A word from the Angel of Death I am chosen to destroy, to kill and to cause to perish upon the thirteenth day all women which are harlots. Esther 3:12.

CHAPTER NINE

Today was the day.

She was ready.

The meat was pink and angry-looking toward the center. When she held it under her nose and sniffed, there was definitely a nasty odor. Thousands of nasty bacteria marching about in the bloody fibers of the pork. Though perhaps marching was the wrong word. Exploding might be more like it because, according to her library book, Clostridium botulinum was a sporulating bacillus, like mushroom spores exploding. Albert would swallow them down in the spoiled meat. Once they invaded his bloodstream, still sporulating like fireworks, Matty supposed, they would cause neurological and vision problems, fatigue, vomiting, diarrhea and death.

According to the book.

Today was Sunday, Albert’s birthday. Not that they ever wished each other happy birthdays anymore. For years, birthdays had come and gone with zero recognition, like Christmas and Easter. But Albert would be getting Clostridium botulinum for his birthday this year. And by tonight or tomorrow, or the next day at the very latest, Matty would be living alone in her own home once again.

She popped the two chops into the oven.

A short time later, they sat down to dinner. She served Albert his chops covered in apple sauce.

She watched him brandish knife and fork.

That was when she knew she couldn’t do it.

As much as she longed for freedom, and for the house to belong to her again, she simply could not go through with it.

Albert started cutting into his chop.

She wanted him dead and gone, but she was not a murderer.

She threw down her knife and fork with a loud clatter that caused Albert to wince.

He stopped sawing at his chop and stared at her.

“This meat isn’t right. I had my suspicions when I put it under the grill, but now I’m certain.” She reached over and whisked Albert’s plate away from him.

“What!”

“The meat’s off. No sense in making ourselves sick.” Before he could protest further, she quickly scraped the food off both plates into the garbage. “You can’t be too careful with pork. Wait till I see that butcher at the market! I’ll give him what for! I’ll do you some scrambled eggs instead. You like those. And we can still eat the vegetables.”

His face was red. He stood and hurled his napkin onto the table. His voice loaded with loathing and contempt, he said, “Call me when you decide that dinner is ready.”

Matty’s legs felt wobbly. She took the knives and forks off the table, then gripped the counter and collapsed onto her high stool in the corner of the kitchen, trembling uncontrollably and weeping into the tea towel.

Rusty Carlson had always walked to the gym, only two blocks away. But nowadays she drove her car. A woman couldn’t be too careful, not with a homicidal maniac in the West End. Lance had volunteered to escort her, but she told him she could manage perfectly well on her own. She hadn’t got to where she was in life by depending on any man. Besides, Lance was hardly ever home in the evenings.

So three evenings a week, she took the elevator down from her Lagoon Drive penthouse apartment to her secured underground parking. She then drove her BMW a few blocks to the underground parking underneath the fitness center and rode the elevator up to the gym. And simply reversed the procedure when she had finished her workout. It was foolproof: not a single step onto the perilous street.

On Friday evening she drove out of her garage into torrential rain and wind. She turned on the wipers as she cleared the gate and headed for the fitness center.

Rusty Carlson hadn’t become the president of Canadian Woman magazine by taking chances. She was a professional who had planned her career patiently and carefully. Making sacrifices, avoiding distractions and accepting success as her due after so many years of single-mindedness and hard work. Taking chances was the gambler’s way of life. Rusty Carlson was no gambler.

She drove into the fitness center garage off Haro Street. Plenty of parking spaces. She picked a slot near the elevator.

All those years of sacrifice and hard work had paid off. Now that she had reached her goal, she was starting to take more time for fun and relaxation. She was starting to make changes and define her own personal lifestyle. Part of that new lifestyle was regular fitness workouts. Another part was her new love life, something she would prefer husband Lance to know nothing about.

The gym wasn’t crowded, which was one of the advantages of coming in the late evening. The music was thumping away as usual. She did her stretches and warm-ups on the mats. Then she moved to the StairMaster and the weight machines. Content with her own thoughts, she seldom talked to anyone. If people spoke to her, she usually nodded, smiled politely and moved away.

Lance was a workaholic. Perhaps that was what had attracted them to each other ten years ago. They had both been studious and hardworking, serious about their futures. Lance now had his own software company. He loved the work. Computers were his passion. And he loved Rusty. At least she was pretty sure he did. And she loved him. She couldn’t see, however, why this should be any reason to spoil her fun.

Sex with Lance had become a habit. Once a week, Saturday or Sunday night, but never both. He climbed on top to have his floppy disk scanned. Then with a few humps and pumps and wriggles of her internal hard drive, she downloaded his deposit, emptying him of his cache, and it was all over for another week.

“Say, would you mind spotting me a set?”

She turned. It was that beautiful muscular man. The one with the skimpy rag of a shirt, who always looked so preoccupied and serious. Doc, everyone called him. She followed behind, admiring his triangular back and firm buns.

He lay on the bench, chest under the barbell and feet on the floor. A position that had the effect of thrusting his lumped crotch into prominent relief. He gripped the bar with both hands and lifted it down over his chest ten times. Then he rattled it back into the rests with a loud groan. He stood and wiped his brow with a towel.

“Thanks.” He held out his hand. “Stanley Blunt. Everyone calls me Doc. Appreciate the spot.”

She ignored the hand. “Rusty Carlson.

You’re quite welcome.”

She was not about to ask him why he was called Doc, because she didn’t want to know. Doc indeed. My god! What a bod! Well endowed in all respects. What would he be like in bed?

She worked out for a little over an hour. Time to go. In the locker room, she peeled off her gloves, washed her hands and glanced in the mirror. Her new black exercise suit looked good on her. Skintight, it made her feel sexy. She had the figure for it, so why not show it off. Had Doc liked what he’d seen? She pulled her tracksuit on over her exercise suit. She never showered at the fitness center, preferring her own bathroom at home. Who knew what kinds of bugs and germs grew to maturity in public showers these days! TB was on the rise again because antibiotics no longer did the job. One would have to be a complete fool to take unnecessary risks. Just last month, Sandra, her health and fitness editor at the magazine, had run an article on the new “hot” diseases, Ebola virus and dengue fever. Their increasing ability to travel by airplane from Africa to North America in a matter of hours. Scary.

Rusty brushed her hair in the mirror, fogged slightly from the excess steam from the shower room. “Rusty” was actually a misnomer. Her hair was auburn, faded a bit now. And really no longer auburn, except for what her hairdresser coaxed from it. Her real name was Lorraine, but nobody had called her that since college. She moved her face closer to the mirror. She was thirty-nine and felt great. Still had her looks. Hadn’t allowed her body to get sloppy. She thought about Bill Murchie and smiled into the mirror. Bill was her secret lover. They were planning to get away for some heavy-duty sex on Saltspring Island this weekend while Lance attended a software conference in San Francisco.

She’d met Bill in the elevator one afternoon riding down from her office on the top floor to the coffee shop on the ground. He was a handsome “suit” who got in at the fifteenth. With the elevator to themselves, he had smiled and introduced himself. He was with the firm of McBay and Katz. Had seen her around and thought she looked like an interesting woman. Could he buy her a coffee?

Soon it was, “Why don’t you stop by my place for a drink on the way home?”

His luxury apartment on Beach Avenue had a fine view of English Bay. Soon she found herself dropping in for a drink on the way home once a week, usually on a Friday, to relax and unwind.

She didn’t love Bill, but he was the best thing to happen to her love life in a long while. This weekend she planned to turn the tables and tie him up for a change. Having all that power over him-what a total turn-on!

She headed for the elevator. With only a few cars in the parking garage, it was deserted and quiet. She slid in behind the wheel, started the car and drove out of the garage. The rain and wind were worse. The street was empty, with the Denman traffic lights swinging wildly in the high wind. She drove into the back lane that led to Lagoon Drive. Almost home.

The lane was dark.

“Stop here!”

The shock of the man’s voice and his breath in her ear caused her to slam her foot on the brake. At the same time she felt, and saw in the rearview mirror, the long blade of a knife at her throat. She swooned with fright. A volcano erupted in her belly covering her thighs in a stream of urine.

“Drive slowly till I tell you to turn.”

She couldn’t move her head without being cut with the knife. There was nobody in the lane. She took her foot off the brake, and the car rolled forward.

The West End killer.

The rain was slanting into the clunking wiper blades, and she was going to die.

No, she wasn’t! Not without a fight. What if she floored the accelerator and sideswiped the concrete wall of an apartment building and then flung herself out the car door? She might be killed, but it was a chance, a risk. She could even race the car, slam it head-on into the side of a building and kill them both. Not a mere risk but almost certain death, ridding the world of a monster.

“Don’t even think of it!” growled the voice behind her.

Her insides turned to custard.

“Drive into the park.”

She did as he ordered, driving slowly past the golf course, thinking furiously. The curb here was high. Beyond the curb there was a wire fence surrounding the golf course. Beyond that was a parking lot. Beyond the parking lot, there was a strip of forest before the drop onto the seawall. If she were going to do something, it would have to be here and now. If she drove into the deserted parking lot, he would tell her to stop and it would be all over for her.

She gathered her courage and stabbed her foot down hard on the accelerator. The powerful BMW leaped forward like an unleashed hound. She jerked the steering wheel. The tires hit the curb hard, but the car kept going, leaping over the curb and crashing into the fence with a scream of tortured metal. The BMW continued forward on the sidewalk, bucking and plunging, dragging chain-link fencing along with it into the parking lot.

The lot was empty. She hung onto the wheel, keeping her foot down on the gas pedal. The car crashed into a concrete divider and came to an abrupt stop. The seat belt held her. Fingers scrabbling, she couldn’t get her door open, couldn’t release the seat belt.

The wind howled.

She turned her head painfully and saw him coming over the seat at her.

The rain drummed steadily on the roof of the car like a dirge.

CHAPTER TEN

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16

“Another body this morning.” Jack Wexler’s mournful tones sounded even more mournful over the phone.

“Where?”

“Stanley Park golf course.”

“Jaysus! That’s four.” Casey, just back from his run in the park, was beginning to cool down and couldn’t wait to soak in a hot shower.

“Body discovered at six this morning. Old man out walking his dog on the golf course. His dog was sniffing around something. He went to look. Same as usual, naked torso. Except the animals had been at it. Bit of a mess.”

“How’d you hear so soon, Jack?”

“Fraser called me.”

Detective Sergeant Fraser, Wexler’s old buddy.

“You call Ozeroff?”

“Not yet.” Wexler grunted and hung up.

Casey was no sooner out of the shower than his phone rang again. It was Ozeroff.

She was angry.

“Did you hear, Casey?”

“Yeah, Deb, I heard.”

“Goddamn maniac! Four women slaughtered and we can’t do a thing about it!”

“Everyone feels helpless, Deb.”

“I’m supposed to write a piece on tonight’s concert. I can’t go out. I’m terrified. Vera’s away at an acupuncture conference in Seattle.”

“Won’t be another killing for thirteen days, Deb. You’re safe.”

“Makes no difference. No woman is safe. I can’t risk it.”

“Stay home, Deb. I’ll cover for you. What kind of concert is it?”

“Vancouver Symphony. All Debussy. Orpheum Theater, eight o’clock.”

Casey groaned. “Any chance there’s two seats? We could go together.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. You sure you don’t mind?”

“It’ll raise my cultural quotient.”

“You’re a pal, Casey. I’m just sick about this latest killing.”

“Everyone’s sick, Deb.”

MONDAY, DECEMBER 18

Casey and Ozeroff were working in their cramped office when Wexler arrived from Cop Shop.

“They got a make on number four,” he said. “Cops didn’t even need to call Victoria for id. Her insurance papers were in the glove compartment of her car.”

“Who was she, Jack?” asked Casey.

“Lorraine Carlson, thirty-nine, magazine publisher, married, no kids, lived on Lagoon Drive, fitness center member. Car was swimming in blood.” Wexler sounded tired. “I tried to get a statement from the husband, but he’s in a state of shock. Couldn’t talk to me.”

Ozeroff leaned her elbows on her desk, head in hands.

“My turn this time,” said Emma Shaughnessy.

They pushed into Devlin’s out of the rain and found a seat, sharing with another couple, two men.

She brought the drinks, coffee for him, steamed cider for herself, nodded at their companions and sat down.

“Do you usually go away at Christmas?” asked Casey.

“Christmas Day. To my cousin’s family in Port Moody. You?”

He shook his head. Her dark brown hair had chestnut highlights, he noticed. It invited fingers. And looking into her eyes was like looking at a clear blue mountain lake. Or into a glacial crevasse, which he thought should have been a cold experience, but Emma’s personality was warmth itself.

“Do you like Christmas?” she asked, flushing slightly under his scrutiny.

He shrugged. “You?”

“Parts of it I like. It’s nostalgia really. What made you come to Canada, Casey?”

He shrugged again. “A Belfast bomb killed eight innocent victims in a shopping center. Three of them were my parents and my only sibling, a brother. His name was Eamon. I was twenty-five. Eamon was twenty-two. I should have been with them, but I was late. I decided I could no longer live in a city of barbarians.” He sipped his coffee. “What about you?”

“I came to the same conclusion. A Protestant bullet killed my kid sister in the crossfire on the main street of Derry. Annie was only seventeen.”

They sat in silence for a minute, remembering, thinking their own thoughts.

At Killarney Place, Casey watched Emma let herself into the lobby, then turn and wave.

He waved back and then headed home.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 25

It rained on Christmas Day. The Wexlers had invited Casey to have dinner with them, Midge insisting that he come. But he had turned them down, telling a white lie about a previous engagement. He ate Christmas dinner alone, his preference- drunken prawns at the Thai House. He sat at his table for almost an hour after his meal, drinking Thai tea and reading Ozeroff ’s Christmas gift, Walking the Dog, a collection of short stories by fellow Irishman Bernard MacLaverty. In this way he enjoyed his Christmas. No small talk, no dressing up, no false sentiment.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27

Emma asked him if there was any news on the West End killer. They were in a crowded Devlin’s, their wet raincoats hanging near the door.

“Nothing.”

“I read a report in your paper by Wexler- is that his name?”

He nodded. “Jack Wexler.”

“He mentions that all the victims are linked to the fitness center. They all worked out in the gym on the nights they were murdered. He thinks the killer could be a member who goes to the gym regularly.”

“It looks that way.”

“That’s scary.”

Casey nodded.

Emma said, “Wexler interprets the words flaunted her nakedness in the killer’s letter to refer to women’s tights and bodysuits. Women who flaunt their bodies. Harlots.”

“Yes.”

“Well, there’s one thing your friend Wexler fails to mention.”

“What’s that?”

“The killer takes liberties with scripture. He uses several versions of the Bible-the King James, the New International and the New Revised Standard-because his quotation, the one printed in the paper, is a mixture of two or three versions. Understand what I mean?”

“He reads the different versions and then chooses the bits he likes best.”

“Right. He could have something like The New Layman’s Parallel Bible, which compares several versions, all laid out on the page so you can see the differences. The second thing he does is, he edits scripture.”

“He leaves words out?”

“No, but he adds his own words.”

“He does?”

“Do you remember the bit ‘I will cut off her nose and her ears’?”

“I do.”

“Well, he adds, ‘and yea her very head.’”

“That isn’t in Ezekiel?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Tell Wexler he can check it for himself.”

“I’ll tell him. Thanks.”

“I don’t suppose knowing that the killer tampers with the written word will help much in catching him though.”

“He can pass it on to the police. You never know. Every little bit helps.”

Emma turned her head toward the window and gave a frightened gasp.

Casey followed her glance. Pope was outside, standing in the rain, his face pressed up against the window as he stared in at them. When he saw that they had seen him, he grinned, waved and hurried off.

Emma shivered. “He scared me.”

“Likes to joke around. He’s okay.”

“I don’t like him.”

They talked about Christmas.

“How was Christmas with your cousins in Port Moody?”

Emma smiled happily. “It was good. How was yours?”

“Quiet.”

“That’s it?”

Casey smiled. “That’s it.”

Emma smiled back at him, saying nothing for a while. Then she said, “You’re a quiet man.”

“I am?”

“Yes.” Emma looked directly into his eyes. “You don’t talk a lot.”

Casey smiled at her. “Don’t have a lot to say, that’s all. Drink up and I’ll walk you home.”

When they got outside, a bitterly cold wind was sweeping up from English Bay and bringing the rain with it. They hurried across the road and around the corner onto Pendrell.

She didn’t ask him in.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28

The thirteenth day.

Police were everywhere. Police cars, motorbikes, uniformed men, plainclothesmen, inspectors, chief inspectors, superintendents, even the police chief himself.

At the fitness center, Lucy Lambert wore her aerobics outfit-gray tights, midriff bare, white T-shirt. The center would be closing soon. She headed for the showers. There was only one woman there, and the room was steamy, but not so steamy that Lucy couldn’t see the lovebirds tattoo on the woman’s left buttock.

“Is someone picking you up?” Lucy asked the woman after she emerged from the shower.

“Pick up? No.”

She was attractive and had an accent, eastern European by the sounds of it. “I was asking because of the murders,” said Lucy. “The West End isn’t safe for walking after dark.”

The woman smiled. “Hotel not so far.”

“My dad picks me up,” said Lucy. “We could drop you off.”

“Thank you, but I am okay.”

Lucy tried again. “You know that today is the thirteenth day, don’t you? It’s dangerous out there.”

“Bayshore Hotel only short walk.”

Lucy toweled and dressed. The other woman was taking her time. Before she left, Lucy said, “Are you sure you don’t want a ride? It’s no trouble.”

The woman shook her head, smiling.

“I be fine.”

Lucy skipped down the stairs. She could see her dad’s car through the rain-spattered glass doors.

“Hello, sweetheart!” Alan Lambert opened the car door for his daughter.

“Hi, Dad.” She leaned over and kissed his rough cheek as he started the car and moved off.

She couldn’t help thinking about the woman with the lovebirds, hoping she’d make it to her hotel all right.

Marta Poljansek dressed and dropped her towel and skimpy exercise outfit into her bag. Marta liked to travel light. Happily unmarried at the age of forty-two-though looking only thirty-she traveled the world for a Prague pharmaceutical company. She had been to Vancouver several times before and preferred this local gym to the one in her hotel. Tomorrow she was due to make a presentation. The convention went to Sunday. She was looking forward to it. Especially if there were any good-looking men. When possible, Marta liked to combine business with pleasure.

She hurried out of the West End Fitness Center and bumped into a man standing outside the door with his gym bag.

“So sorry,” she said.

“No problem,” said the man with a smile, rubbing an elbow where the edge of the door had assaulted him.

“Is my fault.”

“No, no. I’m fine,” he said. “No problem. Let me walk you home. It’s dangerous for a woman alone at night.”

She smiled. “Am okay. Is only the short walk.”

“But I insist,” he said courteously. “I have an umbrella, see?”

“You are nice gentleman.” She allowed him to fall into step beside her.

Canadians were such kind people.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29

A Dumpster diver discovered a body in the lane behind the sushi restaurant on Robson Street, Wexler reported to his colleagues. “White female, no clothing, no id.” Wexler sounded weary.

“And no head,” mumbled Doug Duchesne, who was fiddling with his cameras, his back to them.

Ozeroff glared at him.

Wexler nodded. “Number five.”

“In the garbage,” murmured Ozeroff, about to cry.

Casey and Wexler watched her.

Ozeroff sat, elbows on knees, face hidden in her hands.

Silence.

“You okay, Deb?” Casey placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I’ll be fine,” she said in a small voice.

Wexler said, “Let’s go eat.”

Casey helped Ozeroff on with her raincoat. “You coming, Doug?”

“No, go ahead. Things I gotta do.”

The threesome headed down the hill to Hegel’s. Today it wasn’t raining and the air was mild. The tide was out at English Bay, exposing the beach strewn with the usual debris. The water glinted green under a light gray sky.

“Thirteen days since number four,” said Wexler once they’d found seats.

All Ozeroff wanted was a cup of coffee.

Casey said, “Look, Deb, if something comes up at night, call me or Jack and we’ll cover for you. Right, Jack?”

“Right,” said Wexler. “No problem.”

Ozeroff gave a hard laugh. “What about ballet? Or opera? I can’t always expect Vera to drop what she’s doing to come with me.”

“Ballet! Yuck!” said Wexler.

“Or what if I have to cover a fashion show?” said Ozeroff. “What then?”

“No problem,” said Wexler. “One of us will go with you, same as when you went to the pussy concert with Casey, right?”

“That’s Debussy, Jack, not pussy,” Casey whispered.

“That’s what I said.” Wexler sounded indignant.

Casey couldn’t tell whether Ozeroff was laughing or crying.

When Lucy Lambert’s father picked her up from the gym the next day, she told him about the woman in the shower. “Do you think it could be the same one?”

Alan Lambert shrugged. “Could be, Lucy, it was the thirteenth night. But maybe we’ll never know. It’s hard to identify a person who has no…” He stopped.

“That’s okay, say it. No head. But what about a tattoo?”

“She had a tattoo?”

“A pair of lovebirds. On her bum.” Lucy laughed nervously.

“You saw it?”

“I couldn’t help it. She was in the shower right across from me. And it was a big tattoo.”

“Hmmn. You realize, Lucy, if you tell the police, they’ll expect you to take a look at the body.”

“I already thought of that. If they keep her covered except for her behind, then maybe I could do it.”

“Body’ll be in the morgue. Not a nice place. You sure you want to go through all that?”

Lucy said, “If it will help catch this creep, I’ll do anything.”

“You want me to come with you?”

She went alone.

It was the same woman all right. There was no mistaking the two lovebirds on her left buttock.

Lucy had never seen a dead person before. Though she didn’t see this one, not really. They slid open a huge drawer, and the woman was in it, like a slab of meat, covered with a sheet. One of the men flipped back the edge of the part that covered her behind.

Afterward, they took Lucy outside into the gray daylight and walked her across the lane into the Public Safety Building. Then upstairs to an office where they had her help an artist draw a picture of the woman from a special identity kit.

Lucy felt just fine.

But when she got home, the place seemed empty and cold. She checked the thermostat: normal. Though it was the middle of the day, she climbed into bed, pulled up the covers and wept.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 31

“According to Ozeroff, serial killers think they’re smarter than the police,” said Casey.

“Perhaps they are,” said Emma.

“So they leave deliberate clues. The killer’s letters to the papers, for example. Or revealing that he kills every thirteen days, mocking police efforts to catch him.”

Emma said, “So other than the letters to the police, what other clues has he been leaving?”

“No others as far as I know. The police don’t tell us. Knowing that the killings occur every thirteen days hasn’t helped either, even with extra police everywhere on the night.”

They walked. She was very aware of him beside her. His bulk and height. The dark tracksuit, the canvas gym bag in his hand. The tweed cap, the red hair curling at the neck. And his blue eyes looking calmly down at her.

She pulled his head down and kissed him.

They didn’t go to Devlin’s. They went to her place instead. Emma made Irish tea, sent by her mother.

Emma said, “When’s the next one-the thirteenth day, I mean?”

“January tenth, a Wednesday.”

“That’s my Parents’ Night. Seven to nine.”

“I’ll walk you there and pick you up- wait-Wednesday’s bad for me too. I have a parks board meeting. It’s my job. The Stanley Park Zoo is on the agenda. They’ll be discussing the whale pool. Big issue.” He shrugged. “Can’t miss that.”

“That’s okay. I’m only a couple of blocks from the school. What can happen in two blocks?” She smiled. “I’ll be quite all right.”

“You could have a taxicab take you there and pick you up.”

“I will do no such thing. Two blocks? That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous, Emma. Look, this maniac targets his victims, I’m certain of it. You’re a regular at the gym. He’s sure to have seen you there. What if you’re on his list?”

“Holy Mother of God! Don’t say that! Why would I be on his list?”

“I’m not saying you are. But think of those letters he sends the police and the newspapers about harlots. About the way they dress. You’ve got to admit you look… pretty stunning in those tights and things!”

“Things, is it? All I wear is exercise clothing! Usually a very unrevealing extra-large T-shirt over my leotards. What about the men in their skimpy tight shorts? It’s all right for them to be parading around showing off their family jewels, is it?”

“Och, all I’m saying-”

“I’ve finished my tea. You can kiss me now if you like.”

“Well, I haven’t, so you’ll just have to wait.”

A little while later, he had kissed her several times. Then he made his way home.

CHAPTER TWELVE

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10

The thirteenth day.

Wexler called Casey at home and reported that the West End was wall-to-wall cops, most of them in plainclothes.

Casey telephoned Emma at six thirty, on his way out, and she promised him, for the second time, she would take a taxi.

“I’ll not be able to concentrate on a thing they say at the parks board meeting unless I know you’re safe.”

“Casey, I promise. I’ve already ordered Yellow Cab. It’ll be here in ten minutes.”

“What about when you get through at nine?”

“The same Yellow will pick me up.”

She wore her jungle outfit, which was what she called her green-yellow-black camouflage-design cotton skirt and matching jacket. It was smart and stylish, yet not too stylish that it would bother the moms and dads. She pushed her stocking feet into a pair of comfortable black pumps and hung a warm ski jacket with hood over her shoulders against the cold rain. She felt ridiculous riding two blocks, but the driver didn’t seem to mind.

“I am hating to say it, miss, but West End killer very good for business.” He smiled apologetically. “I come for you later, yes? Nine o’clock?”

“Make it nine fifteen, okay?”

She joined a thin stream of parents moving into the school.

The rain had stopped when she finally got out, late, delayed by a mother intent on making Emma fully informed of her son’s history since the day of his birth.

The same taxi driver was waiting. He seemed surprised to see her, as though surviving a parents’ night was an accomplishment deserving of congratulation. Which it was, thought Emma. Perhaps that was why she had unconsciously chosen the jungle outfit. There had been a good turnout tonight, but now all the parents had gone.

The driver let her off at Killarney Place. She overtipped him.

“Thank you, miss.” He gave a friendly wave and drove off. She looked about her. The street was empty and quiet. Traffic activity had ceased.

Key in hand, Emma approached the lobby door, breathing a sigh of relief that she was home. She pushed her key into the lock. She didn’t see the man in black step from the bushes. She was only aware that she’d been ambushed when his arm snaked about her neck and dragged her into the shrubbery.

She screamed.

Casey heard the scream.

He had been standing on the opposite side of the street from Emma’s apartment, having arrived just in time to see her alight from the taxi. He watched her walk to the lobby door. And saw the dark figure attack her.

Casey raced across the street, dove into the shrubbery. He leaped onto the man’s back. But the killer smashed his left eye with his elbow, and Casey saw stars. He fell beside Emma, dazed with pain.

The attacker ran away. Casey rose groggily to his feet and tried to run after him. But, half blind with pain, he lost him in the darkness.

He returned to Emma, still lying on the ground, and kneeled beside her. “Emma, it’s me, Casey. Can you stand if I help you up?”

“Casey?” Her voice was a croak.

“Let’s get you inside.” He took her weight on his shoulders. “I need your keys.”

“In the door…”

The keys were in the lock. Casey opened the door and eased Emma into the lobby.

From there he helped her into her ground-floor apartment. She collapsed, half conscious, onto the couch.

Then she struggled, trying to get up.

“Stay where you are, Emma. Relax. He’s gone. You’re safe.”

“Where…?”

“He got away.”

“Did you…get a look at his face?”

He shook his head. “No. Did you?”

“No.” She noticed his eye, already swollen.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m all right.”

“Your meeting…?”

“Didn’t go. Had a feeling about you… Jack covered for me. Close your eyes and relax.”

When her breathing settled, he called the police. Then he looked at his eye in the bathroom mirror. Swollen, closed, already discolored. But not too bad. Could be worse. He made an ice pack with one of Emma’s tea towels and waited for the police to arrive.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 11

Emma had nightmares.

The killer with his knife. Her headless body in a dumpster.

At dawn she crept quietly out for a run, leaving Casey asleep.

The rain lashed down. She headed off into the wind, toward the park. She was soaked before she had run three hundred yards. But it didn’t matter. The rain and wind were what she needed to banish the images from her mind. Exorcise the devils. Wrench back the power that had been stolen from her.

She ran hard, pushing herself until her muscles, lungs and heart protested. She moaned loudly, exulting in the pain. Running like a wounded animal-feral, wild, fierce. She attacked the hill up to Brockton Point, running recklessly, savagely. The rain lashed her with whips of ice, the wind tore at her face and hair. She cried tears and raged down the Siwash trail to the seawall, splashing through leaves and mud. Finally, an hour later, totally spent, she emerged from her own private storm.

Casey was waiting for her when she got back.

“Shaughnessy! Your own blessed mother wouldn’t know you!”

She looked down at herself, soaked and splattered with mud and forest needles. She felt good. She smiled at Casey, stood on her toes and kissed his injured eye. “My brave knight.”

He put his arms about her and kissed her.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

FRIDAY, JANUARY 12

The storm rattled Casey’s window. He couldn’t sleep. His eye hurt. He glanced at the clock: 1:25 am.

He lay with his eyes closed, listening to the howl and scream of the wind and the rattle of rain against the window.

After a while he gave up trying to sleep and opened his book, but couldn’t read. He kept thinking of Emma. No matter how many new locks Emma had fitted to her slider door, that ground-floor apartment of hers was not a safe place. Not with the killer still on the loose. He wanted to call her. He looked at the clock: 2:06.

He picked up his book and tried again to read.

After an hour, his eyes were tired. He switched off the light and lay back, closing his eyes, listening to the wind gusting outside, drifting into sleep.

A loud splintering crash jerked him awake again. He threw himself out of bed and hurried to the window. The giant chestnut tree across the street had blown down. He could see that it had crashed through the roof of Matty Kayle’s house. Its roots, torn from the ground, formed a twisted mass that reared high in the air like the arms of a monster.

He threw on some clothes and ran. The front door wasn’t locked. He pushed it open.

“Matty?” The light was on in the kitchen.

“Matty?”

Silence except for the wind.

He hurried through into the kitchen.

The back door was wide open. He looked outside and saw a figure kneeling in the dirt.

He shouted, “Matty! Are you all right?”

The only answer was a deep rumble of thunder and flash of lightning.

He went out. “Matty? Come inside!” He stood over her. “What are you doing?”

“I’m burying them,” she said calmly.

“I can’t have them in my house.”

Using a small hand shovel, she was digging a shallow grave in the soft muddy ground. Beside her was a single wood burl, like a bowling ball, glassy with Albert’s epoxy resin finish. Casey bent closer to examine it. He stared. Under the layers of resin, and mounted like a trophy, was a human head.

He yelled at her over the howl of the wind, “Where are the others, Matty?”

She led him into the house and down the stairs to the workshop. She pointed. On the shelf in front of her were four more heads like the one in the backyard, preserved like museum pieces in layers of resin. Like flies trapped in amber.

Women’s heads.

Fixed for eternity.

If you didn’t know they were real women, you would think them beautiful.

“Matty, we have to call the police.”

“No!” She turned on him quickly, pleading.

“Nobody must know. Help me, Casey! Help me bury-”

“But, Matty-”

“My life-” She gasped for breath. “My life would be over…if this got out.” She reached out and gripped his arms. “Please, Casey?”

He looked into her suffering eyes and felt suddenly tired. A huge weight settled across his shoulders. His legs felt weak. The story would be in all the papers right across the country-if not the whole world. The tv scorpions would be after her. Police would be in and out of the house for a week. They would erect a barrier with yellow crime-scene tape around the property. Sightseers would drive by the house taking pictures. People would point out Matty in the street and whisper together as she went by.

“It’s no good, Matty,” he said quietly.

“The police need to know.”

She cried.

“How long have you known Albert was the West End killer, Matty?”

“Since yesterday,” she said. “He left his workshop door open. He never leaves it open.”

She wept. Casey held her in his arms and then steered her out of the workshop and up the stairs to the kitchen.

“Sit here, Matty.” He pulled out a chair for her. The floor was muddy. He crouched beside her. “Look, Matty, it will be all right, you’ll see. Leave everything to me. Now tell me, where’s Albert?”

She raised her swollen eyes to the ceiling.

“Is he all right?”

She shook her head. She was trembling.

He made a fast 9-1-1 call and then hurried up the dark stairs to the bedroom. His fingers found the switch near the door and flipped it on. There was an immediate flash as the wires shorted.

He returned to the kitchen. Matty was shivering. “I need a flashlight.”

She pointed. He pulled open the drawer and took out a flashlight.

“Get out of those wet things before you perish, Matty. Police and ambulance will be here any minute.

He climbed the stairs again and shone the flashlight about the wrecked room, open to the wind and rain. The chestnut tree filled the room.

The rest was broken plaster and lathe, roof tiles, splintered timbers. He moved forward cautiously, feeling his way, acutely aware that a roof timber might fall and trap him.

Then he saw Kayle on the collapsed bed, pinned and crushed under the weight of the huge chestnut tree.

The West End killer was dead.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SATURDAY, JANUARY 13

The storm blew itself out by noon. A ridge of high pressure had moved down the coast, bringing bright winter sunshine. The mountains seemed higher than their four and five thousand feet on days like this. They towered over the city, dazzling white, like bright young nurses in starched caps surrounding the bed of a recovering patient.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 14

The Stanley Park seawall was crowded with walkers, joggers, cyclists.

“All we need is daffodils and it would be just like spring,” said Emma, breathing in the sharp air. She and Casey were on their way to the Sylvia Hotel to meet Debbie Ozeroff and her partner for lunch.

They introduced themselves. All were dressed casually. Ozeroff was the happiest Casey had seen her in months. She shook Emma’s hand enthusiastically. “You’re quite the surprise, Emma. Finally, we meet you. Casey tells us nothing.”

Emma smiled at these words. “He’s a quiet one all right, Debbie.” She pulled off her wool cap and shook hands with Vera Tanaguchi.

Ozeroff asked Casey, “How’s Matty Kayle?”

Casey and Emma had arranged for Matty to stay with Emma’s cousins’ family in Port Moody.

Emma said, “Matty’s good. Dan and Maureen make sure of that. Matty isn’t used to having so many people about her, especially their noisy twins. But Maureen says she’s settled in nicely. She’s talking about things, her husband and her marriage, not locking everything inside. And that’s a good sign, I think. If they can keep her for a while, the police and the media will be out of her hair. Maureen thinks Matty should stay a month at least. They all say she’s lovely and no trouble. The twins love her. Matty seems to think rather a lot of you, too, Casey.”

“She’s a good woman, so she is.”

Ozeroff laughed. “Casey likes to charm the ladies.”

They sipped their drinks.

Later, back at her apartment, Emma closed her eyes. “I’m glad it’s all over. I don’t want to talk or think about that monster for the rest of my life.”

“Is it, Emma? Is it really over for you?”

“No, not really. I’ll probably always have a scar. I don’t like to think of Albert Kayle and what he did.”

“Yes,”

“Will you stay for supper?”

“I will. What are you cooking?”

“It’s vegetarian. You’d better like it.” She frowned. “Casey?”

“Hmm?”

“I’ve been thinking. I could be dead. I’m only alive today because of you. It makes me want to savor more than ever what’s left of my life. D’you hear what I’m saying?”

“I do. Carpe diem. Seize the day.”

Emma said, “Did you ever drive the winding road from Belfast to Galway?”

“I did.”

“Do you recall the sight of the town as you drive down from the hills?”

“Aye, I do. At night you can see the moon swimming in the Corrib.”

“Casey?”

“Hmm?”

“I miss it sometimes-home, I mean.”

“I miss Ireland too. But Canada is my home now.”

“Mine too. But I want to go back and see it with these new eyes of mine. These Canadian eyes.”

“Perhaps we could go together.”

Emma smiled. “I would like that.”

Content

James Heneghan
Fit to kill

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN