A team of detectives had been dispatched to Regina, Saskatchewan, where the nurse had grown up. They had interviewed her mother, her high school friends, the staff at Gray Nuns' Hospital where she had been trained. The victim profile that emerged was of a well-liked, kindhearted young woman strong on religion and love of human beings. She didn't have a boyfriend. She had her work instead.
As DeClercq had read the Portman file again and again, he had been confronted with evidence that conclusively proved that Jack MacDougall was an officer of high caliber. All the reports as they came in had been digested, analyzed, indexed, and then cross-referenced into a cohesive whole. More than most, DeClercq knew the prominent role that morale had played in the history of the Force. Indeed it was that history which was their greatest strength, that sense of continuity that lies at the heart of the world's most elite fighting machines. Had the RCMP not evolved from the British Imperial Army? And who revered tradition more than the British did? Indeed that had been the thesis of DeClercq's first book: that the sheer weight of experience handed down from officer to officer over the years remained the Force's most powerful weapon, the feeling that they were a team. The Superintendent was well aware that he had stepped in to take command of MacDougall's squad and that it was only human nature to resent such a usurpation. For the sake of morale and that sense of team if for nothing else, DeClercq knew that no matter what the Sergeant's ability it would be necessary to find a place for him. It was a God-given bonus that MacDougall was this good.
On the wall of DeClercq's office the visual on the Portman case revolved around the nurse's graduation picture. To the left of that was a large Ident. blowup of her body hanging between the struts of the Dogfish Burial Pole. Several aerial shots of the Museum of Anthropology high on the cliffs of Point Grey overlooking the entrance to the Harbor were tacked up to the right. A photo of her vertebra revealed the same striation marks found on the other two victims. Police, autopsy, and serology reports completed the visual.
Sitting at his desk DeClercq reviewed the Portman case. To his mind certain points stood out and seized his attention.
In the first place, though MacDougall's squad had found no footprints in the snow nor in the earth beneath it — in fact the area around the totem poles was covered with loose gravel — it had discovered a line of deep indentations among the stones like those that might be left by a person overweight — or someone carrying the load of a body. These indentations ended at a paved loading area beside the museum itself. No tire tracks had been left on the tarmac.
In the second place, according to the autopsy performed on her remains, Joanna Portman had been dead for about eighteen hours before her corpse was found by Valerie Pritchard and Chris Seaton. Her head had been cut off just after she died. The killing had produced a lot of blood which had pumped out over her body, but this had dried and clotted within a matter of hours. What was strange was that the Headhunter had apparently collected most of the blood at the time of the murder and then poured it over the corpse after nailing it to the totem pole.
Put together, these facts worried DeClercq. For it appeared to him that the Headhunter had hoped that the North Vancouver body would not be found. It was buried in an isolated location and cut branches had been placed on top of the remains. Likewise, it was possible that the floater in the river might wash out to sea and never be discovered. So why, all of a sudden, had the murder pattern altered? For here in the Portman case the Headhunter had killed his victim, then at great risk of detection transported the body to the University, carried it down to the totem poles, climbed up on some sort of ladder and nailed the corpse through both palms to the crossbeam of the Dogfish Burial Pole. And then poured collected blood over his creation.
Was this bizarre scene meant as some sort of statement?
Had the finding of the first two victims and the subsequent publicity given the killer a thrilling taste of notoriety?
And if so, then next time, next murder, would he try to outdo the last one? DeClercq believed he would.
Several other matters were also playing on his mind.
Grabowski's body had been found at the foot of the University cliffs. Portman's body had been found on the campus itself. Was the killer therefore connected to UBC? Was he perhaps a student or member of the staff?
The autopsy on Joanna Portman had revealed that as with the other two victims, there was a vertical wound to the throat. In addition the pathologist had been able to take swab smears from her vagina and anus for an indication of whether or not there had been a sex attack. The slide prepared from the vagina swab had shown sperm. The sperm were immotile and few in number. DeClercq knew from Portman's file that the investigation had not turned up a boyfriend. One unkind staff member had even termed her 'prissy.' From previous cases the Superintendent was well aware that the detection of sperm in the vagina and the determination of the length of time since intercourse depends on a number of interrelated factors: the amount of ejaculation and the depth at which it occurs; the condition of the vagina for acidic/alkaline balance, menstruation and infection; sterility of the male; whether the woman has rested prone or walked around in the interim. As a general rule sperm will not be found thirty-six hours after intercourse. By twenty-four hours the tails of the spermatozoa will have broken away. Motility is lost at about the six-hour point. In the case of Joanna Portman, the sperm found in her body were immotile with the tails snapped off. That, plus quantity, would indicate intercourse had occurred during the time- span of twenty-four to thirty-six hours before the autopsy. Death and body cooling was a complicating factor. Though the presence of semen itself does not indicate rape, here the pathologist had also noted that both the vagina and external genitalia were bruised and traumatized. His conclusion, therefore, was one of a murder/sex attack. And with that DeClercq agreed.
He reached for his question pad. This is what he wrote:
1. Sexual psychotic or sexual psychopath?
2. Is each victim's gender their only connection?
3. Does the killer get sexual release from ending the lives of women?
4. Does immotile sperm = sterility?
5. Is it the memory of the crimes which enables the killer to maintain a normal relationship with his wife or girlfriend? Is his subsequent arousal secretly based on the thought of what he did before?
6. Does he pathologically hate all women?
7. Or is it all a smokescreen for some personal reason connected to one of his victims?
8.
That left the totem pole.
During the winter of 1973 to 1974 the city of San Francisco was stunned by the so-called Zebra killings. Zebra was the investigative name for a cult of Black Muslims who systematically attacked twenty white victims, killing four of them. Several years earlier in Los Angeles, Charles Manson's Family cult of 'creepy crawlies' had butchered seven 'straights' in the hope of bringing down 'Helter Skelter.' Then there was the 'Reverend' Jim Jones. And of course there had always been the Ku Klux Klan.
These days there were cults everywhere, at least one for every motive.
The totem pole bothered DeClercq.
It bothered him partly because the Portman murder marked a change in the pattern. The killer had taken a great risk to make some form of statement. Perhaps that statement was nothing more than a sudden demand for attention, the totem being nothing more than a random method to get it. Or perhaps the totem pole was a part of the statement itself.
What bothered DeClercq even more, however, was the positioning of the body. Just nailing the woman to the totem pole was attention-getting enough. Yet in this case the Head-hunter had hoisted her up almost fifteen feet and then hammered her hands to the crosspiece so that the carving on it provided a substitute for her head. That was too much work and risk unless there was a reason.
And finally it bothered him because of the totem itself.
It is difficult to live in the Pacific Northwest without picking up at least a rudimentary knowledge about the myth of the Indian totem. In the case of the Superintendent, he knew more than most.
Joanna Portman had been nailed to a mortuary pole. The Dogfish carving on it was a form of Pacific shark.
DeClercq was too experienced a policeman to overlook any possible motive, no matter how remote. Over the years he had learned the hard way that often the most stunning insight in any investigation will come from some small, almost insignificant detail that rises from the subconscious like a piece of driftwood floating up from a sunken wreck on the ocean floor. Any cop will tell you that the psychology of murder is a bizarre wasteland indeed. Had David Berkowitz not been ordered to kill by his neighbors talking dog?
