Headhunter

Tzantza

Thursday, December 23rd, 7:10 p.m.

Genevieve DeClercq closed the notebook and then sat very still. She was curled up in an easy chair and she was wearing a formal dress, the green velvet low-cut and tight-waisted, its shade the color of a glade in late spring. Her hair was combed up at the sides of her head, there held by two mother-of-pearl clips before tumbling back down to her shoulders. She had kicked off her shoes and had tucked up her feet into the folds of the skirt. Now she was playing with a strand of her hair and asking herself quite seriously: Do I believe him?

She was afraid of the answer.

Across the living room of his apartment Al Flood stood at the large front window and stared down four floors to Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park. Beyond Genevieve's reflection in the glass he could see the stream of Causeway traffic streaking through the night. Everyone rushing,he thought to himself, with nowhere important to go.

He abandoned her image on the windowpane and turned back into the room. 'Would you like another brandy?' he asked quietly.

Genevieve nodded her head. 'Please,' was all she said.

Flood walked over to the small bar set beside the window. He selected a bottle of Remy Martin which he carried across the room to pour two fingers in her glass. The woman held out the snifter. She drank a third of the refill in a single gulp. Flood watched her wince and thought, I love you even more.

'How do you feel,' he asked her, 'about what I wrote in the book?'

'Flattered,' she said. 'Skeptical. Sorry. And somewhat afraid.'

'Not afraid of me, I hope.' And he struggled to give her a smile.

'Afraid for you, Al, if what you wrote is from your imagination.'

'Do you believe me?' he asked.

Genevieve took another sip and then looked him in the eye. 'Before I reply to that will you answer a couple of questions?'

'Sure.'

'What did you do after you opened the box?'

'Took off my jacket and placed the contents inside. I added the unlit candlestick, then carried both my satchel and the burning candle over to the hole in the wall.' He paused. 'I put the light down on the floor and piled up some boxes as a ladder. Then pushing the sack in front of me I crawled back out the way I had come. It was easier without the thickness of my overcoat.'

'Why the candlestick?' she asked.

'Fingerprints,' he said. 'I took the boat back to the hardware store' — he laughed — 'and you should have seen the look on the owner's face when I came in covered in shit. Then I stopped at a doctor's for a rabies shot and came back here to clean up. That's when I called you.'

'Why?' Genevieve asked.

Flood's eyes wavered from hers as he said: 'You're the wife of Robert DeClercq. Besides, didn't we make a compact, that day that we had brunch? What was it you said?'

Her face took on the hint of a frown. 'I told you that I was desperate and asked for your discretion as a friend. I said that my husband was… well having problems and that I had to help him somehow. I had stayed up all night reading those files and I didn't know where to start. Then about five in the morning I came upon your name listed as the Squad liaison officer with the Vancouver Police. I recognized you as the fellow auditing one of my seminars and…' Her eyes wavered.

'And what?'

'And I knew that you were in love with me and would do anything to help. So I suppose I used you, didn't I?'

'I don't mind,' Flood said.

'It's just that I had nowhere else to turn. I couldn't go to the RCMP and say that Robert was… was cracking up. He was senior officer, with everyone else below him Beside, there was so much public pressure they'd have pulled him in a minute. So I came to you and asked for secrecy I made you promise to tell me first anything you found out. I hoped your

feeling for me would both make you want to help me and also keep you quiet. God, I sound awful, don't I?'

'No, it was good for both of us. If you hadn't motivated me I'd never have seen it through. But to answer the question why did I call you first? — it's both to keep our pact, and also to now use you. I need access to DeClercq. You can give me that.'

'Why did you start the diary?' Genevieve asked, changing the subject abruptly.

'My life was getting out of control, what with the Head-hunter crimes playing on my neurosis. I had to set things down to get them in perspective. Catharsis, I guess.'

'So John Lincoln Hardy was framed?'

'Yes.'

'And all those things in that mountain shack — they were all planted there?'

'Everything but the masks and the cocaine.'

'But who would do that?' Genevieve asked.

'A cop,' Flood replied. 'Only a cop could be in position to manipulate the frame.'

'Why?' the woman asked.

'I can only guess. Maybe the Headhunter felt like I did, that things were out of control and a little too hot to handle. Maybe the killer's psychosis — and I'm sure we're talking psychosis after what I found in that box — was slipping into recession. Who knows? Maybe the hope of promotion that might come from solving the thing. You understand a mad person's mind far better than I do.'

For a moment there was silence, then Flood asked a question: 'Tonight you've got the Red Serge Ball to attend, so why did you come when I called?'

'Because you sounded desperate. Because you were my friend when I needed help so bad. And because I like you.'

Then she surprised him. Leaning forward, she took his face gently in one hand and kissed him lightly on the lips.

'Do you love me enough,' she whispered, 'that you could just be my friend? Believe me, inside I'm old- fashioned. I really am a one-man woman. And Robert is the man.'

Al Flood shook his head. 'I love you that much,' he said.

'Good, then I'll love you too.'

'Even enough to believe the things that I wrote in that book?'

'Even enough for that. What did you find in the box?'

'Tzantas,' Flood said.

The detective held out his hand and helped Genevieve out of her chair. He led her toward his bedroom and motioned her inside. Then he turned on the light — and the woman audibly gasped.

For each of the heads, except for the nun, had long black flowing hair. The eyes of each had been sewn shut and so had each pair of lips. Each head had skin that was shriveled and cracked and was now almost pure white. Each head was no larger than the size of a navel orange.

'Mother of God!' Genevieve said as one hand involuntarily rose to touch her open mouth.

But it wasn't the sight of the eight shrunken heads that filled her with shock.

It was the dull black gleaming object lying in front of them on the bed.

Part three