'Ed Gein was a farmer in Plainfield, Wisconsin. According to psychiatric reports his mother had been a religious fanatic who exerted a strong overbearing influence on her son.
'After her death it is believed that Gein had read of the sex change undertaken by Christine Jorgensen and wished himself to become a woman — to become his mother.
'At first a grave robber, he later took to murdering women.
'In a shed next to his large farmhouse Gein would skin each corpse and then study his dissected trophies. He began to don the skins that he removed and wear them for hours draped over his own body so as to experience a bizarre thrill in thinking himself a woman.
'After Gein was arrested the local Sheriff went to the farmhouse. There he found a woman's body with its head cut off. hanging upside down from the ceiling of the shed. Scattered around the main house, the Sheriff located a number of Ed Gein's trophies: there were bracelets made of human skin, four female noses in a cup on the kitchen table, a pair of human lips on a string dangling from a windowsill, two human shin bones, strips of human skin used to brace four chairs, a tomtom made from a coffee can with human skin stretched over both the top and bottom, a pair of leggings made from the skin of several women, the skin from a female torso converted into a vest, nine death masks made from skinned female faces mounted on the walls, ten heads belonging to women sawed off above the eyebrows to open up their brain vaults, another head converted into a soup bowl, and a purse that Gein had made with handles of human skin.
'A further search revealed that the refrigerator was stocked with frozen human organs and that a human heart was in a frying pan on the stove. By the Sheriff s estimate, the various body pieces discovered would add up to fifteen women. Of course no one knows how many more Gein had consumed over the years.
'In December of 1957 — after admitting to graverobbing, intercourse with the bodies and cannibalizing the remains — Gein was committed for life to an — institution for the criminally insane where, I believe, he resides today.
'I could go on and on with the cases of modern cannibals,' the psychiatrist said. 'The public is either not aware — or soon forgets — just how common a practice it is.
'The point is,' Ruryk said, 'that every jurisdiction has similar cannibal cases. That's why I say that this very well might be the reason why the Headhunter cuts off heads. And if it is the reason, I'll venture he's eating the brains.'
At this juncture they took a break while DeClercq turned over the tape. Ruryk packed and poked his pipe and then he continued.
'Does the Headhunter take the head to collect it as a trophy? Well this I think is also a distinct possibility.
'Again we have the case of Ed Gein: nine skinned female faces were found mounted like masks on the walls of his farmhouse. Though the animal is human, the psychology at work here is that of the big game hunter. The trophy above the mantel.
'And finally: Does the Headhunter take the head because he has a fetish for female hair? Again very likely.
'In one of your reports, Superintendent, you have noted that the first three victims all had long black hair. To my mind the killing of the nun might also fit this pattern, for in that case her black cowl is a symbolic representation. What one must realize is that a fetishist is a person preoccupied with symbol.,
'The psychological link between sex and hair goes back a very long way.
'Prostitutes, of course, have used this knowledge for centuries; a large percentage of them keep a selection of wigs to meet the psychological needs of their various clients.
'A problem arises, however, when a mania develops.
'In a case of mania we find that the affected person's mind has upset or lost its natural connection with reality. An obsession has taken over resulting in the collecting of or concentration upon some concrete object which the mind links to sex.
'Hair is a prime example. Take the case of John Reginald Halliday Christie, a sexual psychopath who committed eight murders of women between 1940 and 1953.
'Before disposing of the bodies he would shave off the pubic hair and store it in a tobacco tin. Later when his fetish overtook him, he would gloat over the tin of hair, masturbating as he did so.'
At this point Dr. Ruryk glanced around for an ashtray. DeClercq handed him an empty flower pot.
'So,' Ruryk began again, 'where does all this leave us?
'I believe back at the question which to my way of thinking is at the center of this case: 'Why have the heads gone missing?' That is our real mystery — and the key to the Head-hunter's illness. Answer that question and you will be well along the road to revealing his identity. For you see everything else in this case revolves around those heads. Not only the fact that the heads have gone missing, but also the fact that in the later crimes the killer has gone to great risk to leave a head-substitute.
'This attention seeking is typical for a psychopath. Such a person believes himself superior to and better than everybody else. He doesn't make mistakes, and if he does he blames it on another. In effect this killer is saying: 'I can do no wrong. You have not caught me on four occasions. See what you can do now.'
'So believe me. Superintendent, center on the heads.'
For a moment Ruryk turned away from the microphone and looked out over the ocean beyond the glass of the greenhouse. With a swoop a cormorant took a dive at the water. Ruryk watched the bird a while, then brought his attention back.
'I believe,' the psychiatrist said, 'that we are now able to return to your original question. You asked me for my general impression of the killer whom you seek.
'Most likely he is a sexual psychopath with one of those three perversions concerning his victims' heads — cannibalism, trophy hunting or hair fetishism.
'Less likely he is a psychotic with one of the same three perversions.
'And then there is one more
'What's that?' DeClercq asked with a bare trace of a frown.
Ruryk met his eyes and said: 'There's the off-chance, Superintendent, that what we have here is the most dangerous of men. For it is possible that the Headhunter is a psychiatric crossover. He may just be a psychopathic sadist with psychotic overtones.'
That afternoon when Genevieve DeClercq arrived home she found her husband sitting by himself down by the edge of the sea. Across the water clouds were boiling above the city of Vancouver.
'A penny for your thoughts,' she said, crouching down beside him.
For several long seconds Robert DeClercq was silent. Then he said: 'I was just thinking how life affects the very young. And how those young grow up to become an effect on life.'
Out on the water a cormorant was swimming with a fish clamped in its bill.
The Price of Your Skull
11:50 a.m.
That morning as Dr. George Ruryk was driving out Chancellor Boulevard from the University of British Columbia on his way to meet Robert DeClercq, Spann and Scarlett were driving in. Earlier they had tried to contact Corporal William Tipple at Commercial Crime in order to get a lead on John Lincoln Hardy but it was Tipple's day off. The member who answered the phone told Spann that the Corporal had gone hiking in the North Shore mountains and wouldn't be back till tomorrow.
They had decided late last night to follow the trail of DeClercq. What was the use of a manhunt if you didn't know your quarry? Therefore, they had spent the morning reading psychology texts.
'Okay,' Katherine Spann said. 'I've read enough. I think I'll recognize this guy if we bump into him in the dark. Let's sweep the pubs again.'
