Death By Degrees (3 page)

“What is… is that a cross?”

“Yes, well, if you rotate it,” I said. “Carved into the bone.”

“How did you know it would be there?”

“This is number two,” I said. “We already excavated one in Ontario yesterday. Can you clear the dirt off of the chest next?”

He nodded this time, not bothering to correct me on my use of the non-scientific anatomical term. The dirt was thicker over the torso, the doctor sweeping more firmly to push the dirt away from him. He brushed across the chest, from the right side of the body to the left, pushing the dirt up and out of the shallow grave.

It didn’t take long before the thin fabric was visible. The killer, Crawford, had dressed this victim in the same attire: what I could still only describe as a burial shroud.

I had run out of my allowed questions before reaching the topic of the ritualized elements of the murders. If Crawford called again, I’d be sure to ask.

The remains were more decomposed than the remains of Jennifer Plimpton. The autopsy had revealed a stab wound to the abdomen, likely the cause of death. The body had decayed to a point where we were unable to get very much evidence from the wound. There was no chance of identifying the exact weapon – all we knew was that it was a stabbing tool, likely a knife or dagger. I was leaning toward a ceremonial dagger of some description as the murder weapon; it just seemed to fit with the other elements.

In the meantime, I had to try to figure it out myself. Ritualistic killings were not something I had any experience in, but I did know of one person who did: my old friend, Chen-Chen - also known by the less entertaining birth name of Vincenzo Chen thanks to newly immigrated Chinese parents who settled in Toronto’s Little Italy. Four years ago he was involved in a case in which a body was found in a clearing, burned beyond recognition and surrounded by rocks arranged in a pentagram. Chen had worked with an expert from the FBI on the case, however it turned out that the ritualistic aspects of the murder were merely a sick attempt to divert attention from the real killer.

A year later, the FBI was training a number of homicide detectives in a week-long course on ritual murders. The expert remembered Chen and invited him to attend. Chen would jump at the chance to have a case wherein he could use his new knowledge and I was happy to oblige. We hadn’t the chance to work together often throughout our careers, but he was an invaluable team member during my investigation into the police corruption, and he had been involved in the case of William Jeffries – the case from my childhood, the case of the pedophile and kidnapper I had managed to put an end to.

There were very few people I trusted as well as I did Chen, so if I was to bring anyone else in on this case, he would be the natural choice. It was something I’d have to worry about once we made it back to Ontario. I was still struggling with the concept of a global case, and the nightmares it would bring. How would we solve this, and do it quickly, when every agency wanted to be the one to catch the killer?

We had seen issues with this before, battles over jurisdiction. It had led to a lack of information sharing between two municipal police services in the midst of a serial rapist/killer case. The consensus now was that the killer could have been caught and brought to justice sooner had the police services not withheld information from each other. Whether it was a matter of mistrust, or a matter of each wanting to catch the bad guy, it had since led to computer systems that allowed for easy sharing of information between member police services.

But that only helped within Canada. We had means by which we could query records from the States, as well as internationally, but it was neither as quick nor as straightforward as it was within Ontario and Canada. We had access to some American systems, but there was no direct connection to the international systems. Queries had to go through INTERPOL – the International Criminal Police Organization – and although the queries generally came back in good time, it depended on the severity of the case. INTERPOL ran with less than several hundred employees, almost two hundred member countries and a smaller budget than those of many municipal police services.

Kara and I stood around in the mild weather, waiting and watching as the body was exhumed; carefully, painstakingly, almost lovingly. It was a time-consuming task and as the doctor worked, the RCMP detectives and constables searched the area for any evidence. I held out no hope that evidence would be found. The body had been buried over a year prior at the side of a highway. Had there been any other evidence it was likely long gone; washed away by the rain, carried off by animals or picked up and thrown away as garbage by some conscientious citizen.

We watched them search, we watched them dig, we watched them analyze every piece of garbage they found. And we stood there. Kara and I had been sent to assist as ‘consultants’ for lack of a better word. We were not sworn in as police officers outside of Ontario and as such, we were to observe, report and advise, but not to directly assist. It was awkward, and the longer we twiddled our thumbs, the more awkward I felt.

The sun had crested hours before the remains were finally removed and taken to the morgue in Vancouver. The examination of the bones would occur first thing the following morning. I didn’t know the official term, but it didn’t seem like an autopsy to me. The bones would be examined and would provide insight into the victim’s life – past injuries, dental records and other means by which we could confirm the identity – and also, with any luck, provide cause of death.

Skeletal remains didn’t offer the same amount of evidence as did a body. With tissue, wounds were visible. A deep enough wound or one that broke or damaged a bone would remain visible, but the external damage was lost as the body decayed. Toxicology results were also more difficult to obtain, as not all toxins would be present in the bones. Generally if a person was shot, stabbed, or killed in a violent manner, there would be traces of it on the bones – a cut, a graze, a fracture, a break; something that would point us toward a murder weapon.

We met at the Squamish RCMP detachment once the remains were removed. The scene was still under guard and would be for at least another day until they could be satisfied that any and all evidence had been recovered. The four of us sat around a table, a round of fresh and hot beverages from Tim’s in front of us, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“So, let me get this straight,” Mori said, his eyes wide. “There are sixty-four of them?”

“Seems that way. And they’re all over the world,” Kara said. “Did your department have any leads or anything on this case?”

Gail shook her head. “We had nothing. We came up with a list of persons of interest, but it was pretty much the usual suspects. You know, the sex offenders, anyone convicted of any violent offences, that sort of thing. Nothing ever panned out with any of them.”

“It was a dead end at every turn,” Mori said between swigs of coffee. “Any lead we followed dried up, any evidence we thought we had turned out to be nothing.”

“And let me guess,” I said. “The name Duncan Crawford never came up.”

“Never. But now that I think about it, I’m not surprised. We had nothing to go on, and neither did you guys on yours. This guy obviously knows what he’s doing.”

“And he’s fearless,” I said. “I think he believes that no matter how hard we try, we’ll never catch him.”

“Makes sense,” Gail said, shaking her head. “Either he wants us to catch him, or he thinks he’s invincible.”

“I’m going with invincible. He called me yesterday, on my cell phone. That number isn’t even available outside of the service.” Gail and Mori were both staring at me, not that I should have expected any different. “He answered some questions and then agreed to forward me a copy of each of the sixty-four e-mails. That’s how we found out about this case.”

“I was kind of wondering how you knew,” Gail said. “Figured it had to have been a computer trace.”

“It was, but that only got us to the fact he’d e-mailed all sixty-four at the exact same time to IPs all over the world. We would have been serving warrants around the globe to find out who had received the e-mails. But he gave them to me like it was nothing.”

“Why? What is he trying to do?”

“I think he believes he’ll never be caught, never even be suspected. He said he’s bored, that this is a test. But he also said he had no choice when it came to the killings.”

Gail shrugged. “Maybe he thinks he’s doing God’s work, what with the cross and robe and everything.”

“God?” Kara said. “Or someone else?”

Chapter Five

K
ara and I flew back that night and landed in London around one in the morning. Our trip hadn’t been very fruitful. We’d confirmed that which we had assumed, always a good thing; assumptions in this line of work were dangerous and could destroy a case in court. The cases were linked, or at least the Canadian ones were, but I’d already been told that seven other police services had sent us their notes and crime scene photos.

Nine confirmed, fifty-five to go.

The e-mails had been trickling in from around the world and I was sure it would only be a matter of time before we had more. Some of the burial sites were remote and getting to them was not easy. Others were in areas with only a few officers and no one experienced in shallow grave burials. They would all have to be confirmed, and I knew that they all would be. Crawford had shown himself to be many things, but a liar wasn’t one of them.

It was past two by the time I made it home and I hadn’t seen the family since I left for work the previous day. I had been given a day off by the Inspector on the case – given meaning forced, due to having worked for closing in on forty-eight hours straight. Kara was in the same boat, leaving the others who had been assigned to the case to keep gathering as much information as possible.

Before we left Vancouver I made a quick phone call to Kat. It was a lot of apologizing, not that she was concerned. Work was work, and cases of a degree even remotely close to this one were luckily few and far between. I also asked her to keep the kids at home the next day, pull them out of school so I could spend some time with them. There wasn’t going to be much chance in the next couple of weeks; at least the overtime pay would make up for it. Maybe a trip would be a necessity once this was all over.

We had to drive back to the detachment and get our personal vehicles. Then it was home for a much needed sleep. I’d managed to sleep on the airplane, but I could feel my bed calling to me, luring me in with its siren song.

The alarm clock glared at me from across the room. It was almost ten in the morning, far later than I had expected to sleep. On a normal day, if I had slept in, I would have heard about it… a lot. I flung myself out of bed, got dressed and made my way downstairs quickly expecting an earful about how Kat had tried to wake me up multiple times and I wouldn’t get up.

“Sleep well?”

Not a hint of anger or annoyance in her voice.

“I did,” I said, wondering if I should say it. “Thanks for letting me sleep in.”

“You’re welcome. You didn’t get in until after two, figured you could use a bit more sleep.”

I wasn’t in trouble. The day had started well. I walked up to her and kissed her. She was still as beautiful as the day we met, her long brown hair and bright blue eyes shone in the light that poured in through the windows. Watching her was like watching one of those shampoo commercials where the woman always has the perfect lighting and just the right amount of wind.

Of course, it was the slight Polish accent she still had that really did it for me.

“Yeah, the plane was far from comfortable. It’s been a long two days.”

“Any closer to catching him?”

“No,” I said. “Winnipeg Police executed a warrant on his house, but the place was empty. It had been completely cleaned out. All that was left was this.” I took out my phone and showed the picture that I had been e-mailed.

“He left a note? ‘Sorry, Lincoln, but I can’t make it that easy.’ Is this guy nuts?”

“I’d have to say yes. But he’s smart, too. They still haven’t had much luck in tracing the cell phone call he made to me. Basically, the information we have right now we have because he wanted us to.”

“I don’t like this at all, Lincoln. He’s toying with you.” She paused. “And why you?”

“I’ve been in the news a lot lately. I get the feeling he wants to be caught, or at least wants someone to try. Thinks he’s invincible, so he figures he’ll pick the cop whose name has been plastered everywhere. If I can’t catch him, he knows he’s golden… or at least that might be what’s going through his head.”

Kat laughed. “You’re an amazing detective. If anyone can catch him, you can. If he wants to try to get away, he picked the wrong guy.”

“Thanks, but you have to say all that. I think it was somewhere in the vows.”

“It’s true, Lincoln. I’m not sure anyone else would’ve been able to pull off what you did with that corruption case. I’m not sure anyone else would’ve even tried.”

“And that worked out great. A lot of people got killed that day, Chen and I both got wounded. We were lucky to have survived it at all.”

“I know you don’t want to think about it, but I really think you had someone watching over you. Whether it was God, or it was Jakob. You saw him, Lincoln, when things were at their worst. That has to mean something.”

I hated this conversation. Kat wanted to believe, she did believe, but I couldn’t. Jakob was the officer who had been murdered, by a fellow officer no less, for his investigation into police corruption – an investigation I then took over.

“I was hallucinating, Kat. I was being tortured. It’s a beautiful idea, it really is. I just can’t get behind it.”

“I know. I just want you to consider the possibility. Maybe there is a plan, Lincoln. For everything and everyone. I mean, look at the timing. You might be dead if they’d gotten there a little earlier or a little later.”

Kat was right. I was handcuffed to a chair and being tortured by one of the many corrupt cops I’d been investigating. When the execution order was made, I’d had the time to get out of the handcuffs – even though it meant breaking my own thumb to do it – and kill my attacker.

Had the cavalry come earlier, I might not have had time to get out of the cuffs. Later? What if I had risked an escape? The possibilities were endless, but the timing had been nearly perfect. That was something I couldn’t argue with.

“I know. And saying it’s a coincidence works, but it was a hell of a coincidence.” Kat shot me a glare. “Heck. Heck of a coincidence. Anyway, if there is a plan, does it matter if I don’t believe, it’ll happen the way it’s supposed to happen anyway.”

“It’s just… I’d love for you to come with us.”

“Maybe one day, Kat.” She had been taking the kids to church every Sunday since we came back from Poland. I couldn’t blame her, with everything we had been through if she needed religion to help get her through it all, who was I to argue. We all deal with things in different ways. And the kids seemed to be enjoying it. Sunday School was a chance to play with some new friends and learn at the same time.

“That’s all I ask, Lincoln. Just consider it.”

“I just… I don’t know, Kat. I still think religion causes more harm than good. This guy, these killings, they’re ritualized.”

I hadn’t told Kat yet, and really I wasn’t supposed to be telling her at all; the code of silence extended to spouses and significant others as well. That was a rule that I couldn’t abide by. I needed to talk, even if to just get the images and thoughts out of my head. Bottling up emotions didn’t work, and I’d seen a few cops wind up in trouble because of it. Kat could be trusted. She’d probably be less likely to spill the beans than some of the officers.

Kat shook her head. She hated hearing about the dark side of religion. “How so?”

“The bodies are buried in what looks like a robe or shroud, thin white cotton. And they have an upside-down cross carved into the forehead.”

“Oh, oh my.” She made the sign of the cross on her chest. “Hail Mary, full of grace…”

I gave her a moment. It seemed that as things got worse, it upset her more. I was the opposite. I’d been to Hell and back and now, it all just seemed like another day. Even when the shit hit the fan at work as it was doing now, nothing compared. Not yet, anyway.

For Kat, every new development brought with it new fears, new worries. She had the hardest job of all: sitting on the sidelines waiting and hoping her husband would still make it home.

I couldn’t think that way. If I did, I’d probably never go into work again. And if I thought of leaving the kids behind, that was too much. The thoughts would come and be pushed away within moments; they were thoughts I couldn’t afford.

“He told me he was bored. That he’d never even been investigated, that this was a test. And he told me that he didn’t have a choice. It was like he felt he had to do what he was doing. I think he believes he’s doing someone else’s work.”

“There’s no way this is God’s work.”

“I have to agree. But he may believe otherwise. And if he believes it strongly enough, it might as well be true.”

“I guess. So you think he’s crazy?”

“I’d say he has to be. But he’s still sane enough to know what he’s doing and to do it well. No one even had a bead on this guy, nothing. And he’s been killing all over the world.”

“How?”

“They did some research on him while we were in BC. Turns out he was a pilot and flew around the world delivering cargo. His employer spoke very highly of him, said he was one of the best pilots they had and the hardest working.”

“So that explains how he’s getting everywhere.”

“Yeah, except he quit six months ago out of the blue. His boss said that Crawford had been acting differently since the crash but he never expected him to just up and quit like that.”

“Crash?”

“Three years before he quit he was involved in a rather serious crash. The landing gear failed when the plane hit the runway, it slid and spun off the runway and down a bit of an embankment. I didn’t get all of the details, but apparently he was lucky to survive it at all – and he walked away with only a couple of cuts and bruises.”

“Sounds like a miracle.”

“Right. Save his life so he can murder a whole bunch of people.”

“That’s not what I meant, Lincoln.”

“I know, Kat. Sorry.”

“Do we not have anything on him?”

“Nothing,” I said. “No criminal record, no charges, no registered firearms. The only thing Edmonton Police had on Crawford was a speeding ticket from a few years ago. I was really expecting there to have been a couple of mental health occurrences… you know, him ranting on a street corner or something.”

“What does he look like?”

“All we have is his most recent driver’s licence photo, but he looks like the average for a guy pushing fifty. Greying hair, a bit of scruff, average looking face, glasses. Looks fairly slim, licence says he’s just shy of six feet tall. Pretty unremarkable really.”

“Was there anything else?” She paused, took a breath. “At the graves. Like Satanic stuff?”

“Nothing. The burial site was simple. No markers at all. The only ritual elements are the robes and the crosses.”

“Were they buried a certain way?”

I thought for a second, not sure what she meant. “Face up, arms at the side.”

“Sorry, I meant direction. Like facing south or east or anything. Traditionally, Christian burials had the person buried face up with their head to the west and feet to the east.”

I thought about it, picturing the graves in my head.

“No, if anything they’re turned around. The heads were to the east, but I think they were both somewhat to the southeast.”

“Both in the same direction.”

She had me questioning myself and what I remembered. “I think so. The first one, it followed the lay of the land somewhat. But the second, I don’t know. Probably would have been easier places to bury someone. You think the direction has something to do with it?”

“It might,” Kat said. “But I don’t know what the significance of ‘somewhat to the southeast’ would be.”

I smiled and she smiled back. It was important to find even the slightest bit of humour in situations like this one, some little bit of light to push back the darkness.

“Where are the kids?” I was shocked that they hadn’t come running upstairs to greet me yet.

“They’re downstairs with a new movie on. And I made them popcorn.”

“Popcorn at ten in the morning? No wonder they haven’t come up yet.”

“Could be worse. What about that time you gave Link Oreos and salt and vinegar chips for breakfast?”

“You’re never going to let me live that one down, are you?”

“Probably not,” she said, a grin from ear to ear as she turned and walked toward the basement door.

“For the record…”

“You had just finished working a full day and night and were hungry when you got home. He saw you eating that stuff and you couldn’t very well say no to a really cute three-year-old. I know, same story every time. At least you’re consistent.”

“Hey, he liked the breakfast.”

“I know. You worked the next few days, what do you think he asked for every morning?”

I laughed. Five years had passed and still I found the whole thing priceless. “Yeah… sorry about that,” I said, barely able to get the words out without snickering.

“Head downstairs and see the kids. I’ll make you some breakfast.”

“Thanks, Kat,” I said. I walked over and gave her a quick kiss before heading to the basement to see what movie the kids were watching.

Kasia and Link both lit up when they saw me coming down the stairs. The bowl of popcorn fell to the carpet spilling everywhere as Kasia leapt off the couch.

“Daddy,” they both yelled as they ran toward me. The problem with fast-moving children was that they tended to be at crotch level. I wasn’t fast enough to dodge Link’s shoulder as he threw himself against me.

“You okay, Daddy?”

“Yeah, Link,” I said through pursed lips. “I’m good. Let’s sit… what are you guys watching?”

“
Brave
. Mommy got it for us yesterday.”

I had wanted to see that one. The previews I had seen made the movie look fantastic, and the main character’s accent was priceless. The couch was beyond comfortable as I sunk into it. They had only just started watching the movie so I hadn’t missed much, and the smell of popcorn still filled the room. Popcorn that had been spilled.

Whatever. I had vacuumed the carpet only a couple of days ago. It didn’t take long to scoop up the popcorn and put it back into the bowl. Ten seconds had long passed, but I felt that the rule applied more to unknown surfaces than one’s own carpet. I was just glad Kat made the popcorn healthier than I did; if it had been me, it would’ve been doused in butter and salt and the cleanup would have been far worse.

The kids didn’t care either. They sat on either side of me, the bowl on my lap, and dug in. It was nice to relax for a bit and watch a movie. They had to sit right beside me of course, almost on me really, but it was worth the slight discomfort. Having the two of them curled up on me was a wonderful feeling, and it seemed that with the way the case was heading moments like these would be in short supply.