Headhunter

The Superintendent walked down the hall and over to the front door. Before leaving the Headquarters building he had packed several briefcases full of the pertinent documents in the case, his intention being to set up another overview at home. He had long known that his best insights came in the hours before dawn and he had reached the point where mentally he had to draw on every asset just to keep on going. The first briefcase he picked up seemed ten times as heavy as when he had carried it down the driveway. His head ached and his back was stiff and his legs were full of lead.

Robert DeClercq had spent the entire day analyzing the results of the sweep. With each new arrest there were reports, computer projections and videotape interrogations to be reviewed. As the day wore on he had begun to get depressed lust from the number of weirdos there were out there walking the streets. Had it always been that bad — or were more people snapping lately?

Leave it alone till tomorrow, he thought, and then it occurred to him that tomorrow had already become today.

As he took the briefcase out into the greenhouse and placed it on his desk he wondered if someone would find another victim tonight. He wondered if he would get yet another call.

It was while he was unpacking the contents of the case that his eyes fell upon a note that he had made about hematomania. He picked up the piece of paper. Until today the Superintendent had never known that there actually was a medical condition akin to vampirism. The incidents were rare, but they were well recorded. John George Haigh confessed to eight murders in 1949 stating that he took a wine-glassful of blood from the neck of each victim and drank it.

Was that it? he asked himself. Did the Headhunter suffer from hematomania? And if so might there not be a record of it somewhere? Perhaps a minor incident? Something someone had noticed?

His eyes fell upon the books.

For there were now five volumes standing at the corner of his desk which had not been there that morning. Each book was bound in rich tooled leather with gilt worked into the hide. All five were held upright by two bronze bookends, one of a very fat man.

DeClercq removed one of the volumes and looked at the spine. It read: The Very Best of Nero Wolfe.

He opened the cover to the title page. On one side there was a color plate of the great detective himself, sitting in his own greenhouse surrounded by hundreds of orchids, waiting no doubt for Archie Goodwin to return. Across from this in black ink and a fine hand his wife had written: 'To the Greatest Detective of Them All. I love you. Genevieve.'

The Superintendent smiled. Then he remembered what she had said to him early yesterday morning. Do me a favor? Please. Take it easy on yourself.

'All right,' he whispered. 'I'll try to do that for you.'

He walked out of the greenhouse door and into the living room. In spite of his tiredness, DeClercq knew that he was just too wound up to sleep. That he had to calm down first.

In the record rack he looked for something very light by Chopin. Withdrawing a disc, he placed it on the stereo, turned the volume very low, and sat down between the speakers.

Fifteen minutes,he told himself,and then I'll go to bed.

Three minutes later he fell asleep sitting in the chair.

12:55 a.m.

Some days you're lucky, some days you're not. Life just plays it that way.

It was twenty minutes to one by the time that Monica Macdonald and Rusty Lewis returned to the Headquarters building to retrieve their personal vehicles. Most of the afternoon they had spent booking in bikers charged out of the Iron Skulls scramble. Following that they had turned once more to their sweep sheet pickup list and gone back out on the street. Between 5:00 p.m. and midnight they had collared six more skinners. By half-past twelve, exhausted, they were ready to call it quits.

'Let's meet back here at eight,' Rusty Lewis said.

'Fine,' Macdonald agreed.

She climbed into her Honda Civic and pulled out of the lot.

Tonight she was simply too tired for highway driving so she chose the long but quieter route home. It happened to take her by the Pussycat Club. A neon sign outside blinked: 'Our Girls Bare All.'

Monica Macdonald did not intend to stop.

At the moment her mind was a jumble of visions, the foremost of which was her eiderdown bed and soft, soft pillow. The image of Robert DeClercq, however, was also in her thoughts, for Monica could not forget how beaten down he had looked that morning. Yet even in adversity the man rose to the occasion and what he had said about duty had stirred something within her. Your duty is maintain the right, no matter what the cost, her weary mind told her now.

So Monica Macdonald pulled to the side of the road.

She found a pair of jeans and an old sweater among the clutter in the back seat of her car and changed out of uniform in the shadow of a doorway. Then she ran through the rain across the street and in through the door of the Pussycat Club.

'It's not ladies' night,' the burly doorman said. 'We bring the cock out Thursday night at seven.'

'Thanks,' Monica said. 'But I'll look anyway.'

'Suit yourself, lady. But it's pretty rough in there.'

She came through the door to find a naked stripper on her knees in front of a table of men. The men were all wide-eyed and staring between her legs. The woman was smoking a cigarette with her vagina.

It's too late for this, Macdonald thought — then her heart took a lurch.

For there in the front row of men was Matthew Paul Pitt.

Special O

7:45 a.m.

Robert DeClercq climbed the stairs that morning to find five people waiting outside his office door. They were all sitting on a bench along the opposite wall of the corridor. Four of the five were squad members, while the other was a civilian. He took the civilian first.

DeClercq felt better for a good night's sleep in which his nightmare had not come again. He was ready once more to tackle the sweep and whip it into shape. He had told himself that perhaps today the break would come in the case. But either way it mattered not: when you've got a job to do, you roll up your sleeves and do it. Wisdom ought to tell you, nothing does like doing.

'My name's DeClercq,' the man said. 'I command this investigation.'

'I'm Enid Portman. Joanna Portman's mother.'

A jolt hit the Superintendent. How am I so stupid! he thought, for there on the wail just behind this woman was the picture of her daughter's head stuck on the end of a pole. What the hell am I doing bringing the public into this room? DeClercq was angry with himself. How would he correct this?

'I apologize for the mixup with your daughter's… with your daughter,' he said. 'I realize how that must upset you.'

Mrs. Enid Portman was about fifty-five years old. She was very thin and her hair was already white. She did not look in good health. Her eyes were sad and it was obvious that she had cried a lot.

Any policeman will tell you that the toughest part of his job is informing the next-of-kin that a wife, a husband, a child, a relative will not be coming home. It never gets any easier, and every case is different. Sometimes a mother will not say a word, just silently walk into the kitchen and plug in the kettle for tea. Another time a wife will break into hysterical laughter and shout: 'Why that bugger! It's about time.' Yet another occasion a