Chapter 3
They cut their trip to the station short and headed immediately to The Roundhouse, a restaurant on Horton Street near the tracks. It backed onto Bathurst Street, which ran parallel to the rail line. They pulled into the service area at the back of the restaurant a few minutes later. A number of cop cars were already there. A couple of street cops were standing on the perimeter, while a couple of others were already stringing out some yellow police tape. They saw the Inspector standing next to a dumpster near the back door, talking with McTavish and Chin.
Pepper and Wallace nodded to the other cops as they made their way over. The Inspector gestured to the open dumpster as Chin and McTavish turned and looked inside.
"What have we got, Inspector?" Pepper said as they ambled up, both of them pulling on latex gloves.
"It's Yvonne Redmond. Take a look for yourself." The Inspector shook his head as he gestured towards the dumpster, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else.
Pepper and Wallace stood at the edge of the dumpster and looked inside, the dead face of Yvonne Redmond looking back at them. Pepper recognized her immediately from the picture Wallace had been carrying. Pepper bet she would have liked to be anywhere else in the world too.
She was lying flat on her back in the middle of stinking bags of garbage, her hands crossed one over the other on her lap. She was wearing a light blue sweater and denim miniskirt, a pair of short brown cowboy boots on her feet. The clothes matched the description they'd been given by the Inspector-all that was missing was the brown leather jacket. Her clothes looked like she'd just put them on, the bottom edge of her sweater and the hem of her skirt looked perfectly in place. Her makeup and nails looked like she'd just come from a mannequin production company-flawless. Her pretty face looked surprisingly serene and with her hands resting peacefully over each other on her lap, Pepper thought she looked like Sleeping Beauty-except for the arrow sticking out of the left side of her chest.
Wallace let out a low whistle. "What the hell?" he muttered under his breath.
"Stand back, guys, Forensics is here," the Inspector's voice came from behind them.
Pepper and Wallace stood aside as Tanya Janssen and The Flamingo Kid stepped forward, setting down their cases of equipment next to the dumpster.
The two techies couldn't have looked more different from each other if they tried. Dr. Tanya Janssen was a certified Medical Examiner and head of the force's Forensics department. She was a little blonde powerhouse that kept in shape by playing women's soccer. She had ice-blue eyes that could freeze you in your tracks, a cute button nose and an infectious smile, made even more so by a crooked front tooth that was more charming than a glass slipper. Her young prot?g?, Kyle Singleton, looked like he could be blown away by a stiff breeze. Well over six feet, he was reed thin and was often found standing in the lab with one foot perched up on his other knee. Carrot-top hair, droopy eyes, he sported a beak nose that could pierce a can of tomato juice, and ears you could use to swat flies. The two of them worked well together, The Flamingo Kid taking in every bit of knowledge the more experienced Janssen had to offer.
Within minutes, they had the cordoned-off area around the dumpster looking like a science lab. Singleton pulled out a camera and started taking picture after picture while Janssen opened their cases and got started.
"What do we know, Inspector?" Wallace asked as he and Pepper joined the Inspector and the two other detectives.
"The janitor who cleans the place every morning discovered the body when he went to throw out some garbage earlier this morning. He'd been inside cleaning up and washing the floors, and when he came out here, this is what he found." Inspector Caruso pointed to the dumpster, where Janssen was now standing on a step ladder and leaning over. Singleton was standing next to her holding instruments, like a dental assistant. "The janitor didn't touch anything. As soon as he saw her in there, he closed the lid and called 9-1-1."
"Was the lid open or closed when he found her?" Chin asked.
"Closed."
"I take it so far we don't have anybody that saw anything?" It was McTavish that spoke this time.
"Nothing. Whoever did it picked a pretty isolated spot. This area back here is dead quiet at night."
Pepper turned and looked up and down Bathurst Street, a high chain-link fence separated it from the rail line just beyond. Once a main street before the city grew, Bathurst acted more as a service or delivery lane these days. Most of the regular traffic used Horton Street out front. On the other side of the tracks was the headquarters for the city newspaper, with a similar fence and high overgrown scrub vegetation blocking any potential view from there. Further beyond there were a couple of high-rises, but unless somebody happened to be suffering from insomnia and looked out their window in the middle of a cool March night, it was unlikely anybody had seen anything-assuming the body had been dumped in the middle of the night.
"This is crazy," said McTavish. "Killed by an arrow? When was the last time you think that happened in this town?"
"She wasn't killed by the arrow," Pepper said.
"What?" McTavish shook his head questioningly.
"He's right." Janssen's voice made them turn. She beckoned them over. "Look at the entry wound around the arrow." She pointed and let them think, like a teacher waiting for the light to go on.
"There's hardly any blood," observed Chin.
From atop her step ladder, Janssen nodded to Chin in agreement. "She was dead quite some time before that arrow entered her body."
"Do you know the cause of death?" the Inspector asked.
Janssen shook her head, grief in her eyes as she looked down at the pretty young girl lying dead before her. "No. There's nothing physically apparent at this point. I probably won't know until I get her back to the lab."
"Time of death?"
"Based on body temperature and the amount of rigor present, she's been dead 12 to 14 hours."
"And the arrow?"
"My guess would be that she'd been dead somewhere in the neighbourhood of four hours before she was shot with that arrow."
"What the hell?" McTavish blurted, his face a mask of questions.
"He must have done that for a reason," said Pepper, looking the dead girl up and down. "We just don't know what it is."
"What do you mean?" Chin asked.
"He must have been here for quite some time when he dumped her. Look at her. Her clothes are perfectly arranged. He didn't just toss her in and take off. No, he placed her here and then carefully arranged everything. Look at how evenly the hem of her skirt lies across her legs, and how straight the bottom of her sweater is. If he'd just heaved her into the dumpster, her sweater and her skirt would probably have been hiked up on one side."
Chin nodded in understanding. "And her crossed hands too. You're right-she's definitely been posed. But why?"
Pepper shrugged. "I have no idea, but he definitely took his time to get her just the way he wanted her. Look at her makeup and her nails. It looks like they've just been done, right down to the lipstick. Tanya, do you think the killer might have done that to her?"
Janssen leaned further over the edge of the dumpster, studying the girl's nails. "I think you're right. That nail polish looks brand new. There's not a scratch, chip, or dent on any of her nails. By the look of these nails, it's pretty obvious that she didn't put up any form of a struggle. Strange." Janssen moved up and looked closely at the girl's face. She had a small pair of forceps in her gloved hand, and touched the young woman's face gently with the tips. "Her makeup looks the same-not a smear or smudge anywhere." She stared intently at the girl's painted red lips, and then leaned way over the edge of the dumpster, her face mere inches from the girl's face. "Wait, there's something here." They watched as she took her forceps and pulled gently at the side of the girl's lips furthest away from her. Nothing happened. She then moved the forceps to the other side of the girl's mouth and pulled on her bottom lip. The gap between the girl's lips opened.
"That's strange. One side of her mouth has been glued shut, but the other side left open. There's something in her mouth," Janssen said as she slipped the ends of her forceps between the opening on the one side of the girl's lips. They watched her fingers move as they manipulated the instrument. Pepper could feel his heart racing, wondering what the hell was going on. The others looked the same, riveted with anticipation. Janssen slowly drew her hand backwards, something grey and slimy was visible between the tips of the forceps. As she continued withdrawing her hand, they could see that it was a folded piece of paper, soaked from being inside the girl's mouth. It kept coming as Janssen drew her hand slowly back, finally coming clear of the girl's lips.
Singleton passed Janssen an evidence bag, and she carefully slipped the folded paper inside. Holding the bag open, she reached inside with the forceps and gingerly opened the folds, being careful not to tear it. It was a square about four inches by four inches, with lines of typewritten words in the middle of it.
"What's it say, Janssen?" Inspector Caruso asked.
Janssen pushed the air out of the evidence bag by smoothing her gloved hand over it, zipping it shut as she lifted it to her face. "It says:
WHO BROKE MY HEART?
YOU DID, YOU DID
BOW TO THE TARGET,
BLAME CUPID, CUPID
YOU THINK YOU'RE SMART
STUPID, STUPID."
Janssen paused for a second after she'd finished reading. "And then below that, there's a whole bunch of numbers." She looked up at the rest of them questioningly.
"Those first lines, that's ABC!" Wallace burst out, turning immediately to Pepper.
"It's from Poison Arrow," Pepper replied, feeling the energy coming from Wallace.
"Slow down, slow down," Inspector Caruso said. "What are you talking about?"
"Those lines are part of the lyrics from the song 'Poison Arrow', by the group 'ABC'," said Pepper.
"From the 'Lexicon of Love' album, released in 1982 by Mercury Records. Lead vocals by Martin Fry," Wallace added, like a school kid blurting out the answer before the teacher even finished her question. Pepper looked on as the Inspector and the others just stared at Wallace.
"So the words on that paper are song lyrics?" Caruso asked, wanting to clarify what his two detectives were saying.
"Yes," Pepper said, his voice much calmer than Wallace's rapid-fire trill. "They're lines from the song 'Poison Arrow', and the next line is, 'shoot that poison arrow through my heart', which would seem to explain that." He nodded to the fletched arrow, buried deep in Yvonne Redmond's chest.
"But what does it mean?" Chin asked, her eyes scanning the note Janssen held in her hand.
"It almost sounds like an old boyfriend wrote it," McTavish said. "Look at those first two lines: 'Who broke my heart? You did, you did'. That's gotta be something a spurned lover would say."
"Ian might be right, but it seems too obvious" Pepper said, nodding in agreement. "Let's take a look at those numbers you said were at the bottom."
Janssen held the flattened evidence bag on the edge of the dumpster as they looked at the typed numbers written below the text: 2-8 4-2 5-6 1-11 3-11 6-3 3-3 4-2 6-9 5-9 2-11 1-15.
"What the hell is that?" McTavish said, shaking his head.
Pepper turned to Wallace, who was eyeing up the numbers intently, the wheels in his head whirling furiously. "Rupe?" Pepper asked, breaking his friend out of the trance he seemed to be in.
"Uh, I don't know," Wallace replied, his eyes flicking back and forth along the line of numbers. "It might be some sort of code. I have to give it some thought."
"It means something. This guy doesn't look like he does anything randomly," Pepper said. He looked the dead girl up and down, taking in every detail. He was thankful that it was a cold crisp March day-otherwise the flies would have been all over her. As it was, the putrid scent of the rotting garbage seemed to envelop her in a sickening miasma, her still form resting on sticky black bags reeking of discarded steakhouse beef. Pepper wondered if that was what the killer thought of her-just another piece of meat to throw away. "He was here for quite a long time posing her like this. And then that note in her mouth with the lyrics from Poison Arrow. If that note is any kind of clue, I'm sure we'll find out she's been poisoned, although that's likely not to be of much help." He turned and looked at Janssen. "You said her mouth was glued shut on one side?"
Janssen nodded. "Yes. It looks like there's some form of clear adhesive holding her lips together, but just on the right side."
Pepper nodded, his mind racing. "This whole thing was definitely planned. The killer's been very meticulous-the way she's so perfectly dressed, her makeup and nails, her hands placed liked that, and then that note. Yeah, he knew exactly what he was doing."
The Inspector turned towards Pepper and Wallace. "Wallace gave me the rundown when he called it in on what happened at that apartment on Richmond Street this morning. Do you two think this is in any way connected to that?"
Wallace spoke first, shaking his head from side to side. "I can't see it. From everything we saw there, Bartolucci was with the girl the whole night. We can't be 100% sure, but everything pointed to the fact that he never left that apartment all night."
"And I just can't see Bartolucci doing this," Pepper added, gesturing to the way Yvonne Redmond was posed. "The meticulous placing of the body, the makeup and nails, the attention to detail in everything he's done here, not to mention the arrow and the note. Jesus, Bartolucci could barely put two sentences together." Pepper shook his head. "No, I just don't see him for this."
"Nonetheless, let's not dismiss the idea entirely. Keep looking into that to see if you can find out anything more. It is kind of a coincidence."
The Inspector turned back to the dead girl. They all looked at Yvonne Redmond, seemingly at peace with the world, serene as could be, almost as if asleep. But here she was, her life cut short at the age of 19, lying on bags of rotting garbage, with an arrow lodged in her chest.
The sound of an approaching vehicle caused them to turn. A large van from the television station pulled up along Bathurst Street and one of the perimeter cops stepped up to the vehicle. The vultures had arrived. Pepper noticed the station's lead reporter, Anthony Fragakos, looking in his direction as soon as he stepped out of the van, microphone already in hand. Pepper turned away, happy that the Inspector was there and would have to deal with that asshole.
"Inspector," Chin said, pausing thoughtfully before continuing. "The way this guy seems to have so meticulously planned this thing, and the way he laid her out, it's almost a textbook example. Do you think?do you think this is the work of a-"
"Don't even say it, Chin," Caruso held up his hand, stopping Chin in midsentence. "At this point, we're looking at it like any other homicide, although we all know even those are few and far between around here. I have to admit that stuff with that note and those song lyrics make this whole thing pretty fucked up." The Inspector looked at Pepper and Wallace, the ones who knew where the words in that clue had come from. "Pepper, Wallace, you two are the lead investigators on this one. McTavish and Chin, you give them any help they need."
"Yes sir," McTavish said, answering for both of them.
"Janssen, when do you think you'll have more for us?"
"Probably later this afternoon. Once I get her back to the lab, we should be able to move right along." Singleton nodded in agreement.
"All right." The Inspector turned and addressed them all. "We'll meet again at four p.m. Let's get to work, people."
The four detectives watched as the Inspector straightened his tie and walked towards the reporter and cameraman being held at bay by the street cops. The camera was already trained on the Inspector like a sniper's scope.
All of them had been thinking the same thing as Chin, but she had been the one to say it. Although the Inspector didn't want the words 'serial killer' even spoken, Pepper knew he'd be looking at his box of Corn Flakes differently tomorrow morning.