"How's Chan coming along with the computer enhancement?"
"One or two more days and he'll have the sweep sheet ready. He wants the psych profile in order to feed it in."
"He'll have it tomorrow. I'm reading up on it now."
"Right," MacDougall said. "I'll leave you to what you're doing." He left the room.
Ten minutes later the Superintendent had just completed pinning the wiretap transcripts from Commercial Crime up on the corkboard wall when MacDougall once more knocked at the open door. DeClercq turned around and saw the envelope that the Inspector held in his hand. His heart lurched. In his other hand MacDougall was carrying a portable tape recorder.
"Another one?" DeClercq asked, a flatness to his voice.
"The nun," MacDougall answered. He held out the manila folder.
Inside the Superintendent found a Memorex tape and a Polaroid photograph. The picture was of another head slammed on the end of a pole, same white background, nothing more, the head of the nun still wearing a black, white-banded cowl. A wave of nausea spread through DeClercq's stomach at the sight of the rolled-back eyes. A thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of one of them.
"It was left in Christ Church Cathedral under one of the pews. No one saw it placed there," Jack MacDougall said. "I've had it dusted. No prints, except the Father here."
Beyond the door DeClercq could see a Roman Catholic
priest, his face etched with a troubled look of deep concern. "Play it, Jack," he said.
The Inspector set the recorder up on the Superintendent's desk. Both men listened.
They heard a guitar, party chatter, whistling in the background, and then words:
The police walked in for Jimmy Jazz
I said, he ain't here, but he sure went past
Oh you're looking for Jimmy Jazz
"Good God," MacDougall whispered.
Sattamassagana for Jimmy Dread
Cut off his ears and chop off head
Police come looking for Jimmy Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz
"Who the hell is that?" DeClercq asked in astonishment. The Inspector shrugged. "Damned if I know," he said.
"Well let's find out fast."
So go look all around, you can try your luck brother
And see what you found
But I guarantee you that it ain't your day
Chop! Chop!
Tuesday, November 2nd, 1:12 a.m.
"Rock music!" Scarlett exclaimed. "Headquarters!" Spann replied.
The two of them looked at each other in total disbelief. It was now after 1:00 a.m. on a weekday morning, the empty hours of the day, a time when a cop might expect to find the squad room proceeding at half-speed, perhaps the occasional sound of a typewriter pounding or small talk among the members on night patrol, but certainly not the time or place for rock and roll to assail his or her astonished ears. This was just too much.
They had spent the afternoon and the entire evening on a pub-crawl of Vancouver's skid road beer parlors hoping to find John Lincoln Hardy or the Indian who might have contact with him. They were both dressed in grubby clothes, jeans and soiled T-shirts, Scarlett with the stubble of one day's beard shadowing his face. Over the past thirteen hours they had watched more scores of junk and grass and speed and acid and coke and angel dust go down than went through the courts in a year. They had seen the gypsy switch pulled more times than they could count. And they had overheard more blow jobs and around the worlds and just plain straight lays negotiated than went on at an accountants' convention — and that was saying a lot. They had felt the insidious sleaze of each successive hangout soil their expectations, but by the end of the day they had not seen hide nor hair of either hunted man.
Now they had called it a night.
They had driven back to Headhunter Headquarters, had parked the unmarked squad car outside the building, and had hauled their tired behinds up the front walk, through the doors, and come upon a rock and roll party in progress. Punk rock blared from the speakers:
Don't you bother me, not any more
I can't take this tale, oh no more
It's all around, Jimmy Jazz
J — A — Zee Zee J — A — Zed Zed Zee Zee…
The youth who sat directly in front of the speakers was maybe eighteen years old and a throwback to the fifties. He was dressed in black jeans, black winklepicker shoes, and a black leather jacket with several silver chains adorning it. His hair was greased and swept up in a ducktail. Scarlett looked for the rattail comb sticking out of his back pocket. Sure enough, it was there.
Around him, the other listeners were not quite so cool. Several of them were wearing the RCMP uniform, DeClercq and MacDougall excluded, and all had a short military cut to their hair. They all looked straight, while the bopper looked stoned. The bopper had the floor.
"The name of the cut is Jimmy Jazz. The name of the group is The Clash. Third cut. Side one. Off the double, London Calling. Great disc," he said.
"When was it put out?" Robert DeClercq asked.
"1979. Epic Records."
MacDougall asked: "What's Jimmy Jazz?"
"I've no idea," the youth said, shaking his head. "Dope, I guess. Isn't that what you guys are usually looking for?"
"Not this time," the Inspector replied. "Where can we get the album?"
"Any record store. The Clash are very big time. If you want I'll lend you the copy we got at the radio station."
"Please," DeClercq said. "And I'd like it tonight."
Scarlett and Spann skirted one side of the group of music lovers and made their way to the second floor. The reason that they had come into the building was to take another look at the corkboard visual. As they reached the top of the stairs Rick Scarlett said: "Punk rock, huh! Puke rock's more like it!"
"Well I happen to like The Clash," Katherine Spann said.
"You would," the man replied.
The woman cocked her head to one side and slightly raised one eyebrow. "Chances are you don't even know where the band is from, you're so narrow-minded."
"Don't put money on it, Kathy. I'm not Rabidowski. The Clash came out of England along with the Sex Pistols. Part of the first wave of New Wave music."
"My my!" the woman said. "And I thought you were stupid."
The first thing they saw on entering DeClercq's office were the books scattered everywhere. They each picked up a volume and looked at the title. One was Murder for Sex and the other Psychopathic! Sexualis.
"You know why he's reading this stuff?" Rick Scarlett asked.
"Cause he's Jung at heart," Spann replied.
All three walls of cork were now covered with information and in some areas the reports now overlapped. Spann immediately saw the pinned-up wiretap transcripts and crossed to them. She flipped through the pages while Scarlett read over her shoulder. When she was finished she walked to the bank of windows and stared out at the street, thinking.
Scarlett walked up behind her.
"I wonder what they're talking about in those wiretaps," she asked. "What's ahoodoo?'
"So now who's stupid?" the male Constable said. "Seems your education is lacking when it comes to geography. 'Hoo-doos' are eroded pinnacles of rock that stick up out of the ground. The Indians used to believe that spirits lived in such sandstone towers. There are some of them in the Deadman Valley of BC — but most jut up out of the Alberta foothills of the Rockies."