Primal Scream by Michael Slade Page A

others were now on line. In a war between VHS and Beta, they were flogging Beta.
    It hurt.
    Chandler, Macbeth, and Craven were gathered around a computer in the corner office of Sergeant Rusty Lewis off ViCLAS central. A veteran of the Headhunter manhunt back in the eighties, Lewis had worked with Eric Chan—now the boss of E Division and top cop in B.C.—when the deputy commissioner programmed ViCLAS in 1992. Chan had promoted him to head of the section. Now he sat at his desk, watched by the trio staring over his shoulder and the boxed shrunken head, a red-haired man with freckles that clashed with his uniform when he donned Red Serge, feeding his computer crime analysis report data on this body part.
    DeClercq joined them. "What's up?" he asked.
    "The corpse from up north has thawed enough for me to examine," said Gill. "Though Vanderkop was raped, I found no semen in the rectum. The killer used a condom or didn't ejaculate. When I compared the beheaded stump with the shrunken head, the cuts didn't match. One slice slants down to the throat. The other slopes down to the nape."
    "The head isn't Vanderkop's?"
    "No," she said. "And when I did a magnified examination for marks, moles, and age, I discovered this. The missing Idaho hunter had no such mark."
    Macbeth passed him the tzantza and a philatelist's magnifying glass. A spark shot from her to him as their hands joined, causing the head to jump in the box as if coming to life. "Must be the electricity zapping here," he said, to which she replied, "North and south poles?" Again he whiffed the sirens' perfume. Then, at the corner of his eye, he saw Craven glance from Gill to him.
    A red light went on in his mind.
    "What am I looking for?"
    With tweezers Gill spread a wrinkled fold of skin near one stitched eye. In the crease Robert saw a tiny teardrop tattoo through the magnifier. It looked like a jailhouse mark.
    "Get a hit?"
    "No," said Lewis. The ViCLAS program on the screen mirrored the questions in the crime analysis report. On his desk, the booklet lay open at VICTIM INFORMATION—SCARS/MARKS/DEFORMITIES. ViCLAS had just run a check on "tear" and "teardrop" tattoos, in hope this distinctive feature might provide a link to a VICTIM/MISSING PERSON elsewhere in the country.
    DeClercq picked up the crime analysis report booklet and flipped to page 9. There, under OFFENDER INFORMATION, he penciled in:
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    SCARS AND/OR MARKS
     
    "If the tear's a jailhouse tattoo," said DeClercq, "we may find him under OFFENDER instead of VICTIM. Give it a try."
    Lewis page-downed to SCARS AND/OR MARKS, and there entered LOCATION. ViCLAS presented a human outline like an acupuncture model. The sergeant clicked the mouse on the site of the left eye. Starting tight, he'd move out to head, then body if necessary, in case some slack cop had entered the tattoo without a location. If Question 91 didn't score, he'd use 90, too, in case the teardrop wasn't recognized as a tattoo.
    No need.
    ViCLAS scored a hit.
    A child molester—"short eyes"—named Bron Wren, recently released after serving twenty-five years of an indeterminate sentence as a dangerous sexual offender— a DSO.
    A note on file said Wren was missing, in breach of his parole.
    The photo on-screen showed long black hair tied in a ponytail.
    "Look like the head to you?" DeClercq said to Macbeth.
    "No skull structure makes it hard to tell, but the tattoo is exact."
    Lewis entered a command to call up Wren's crimes:
     
     
     
     
     
    ViCLAS Analysis Report/Crime - Narrative Summary 4/19107

     
     
    "Nick," DeClercq said to Craven, "find Wren's home and toss it."
     
    Craven had left for Wren's hotel in skid road, and Macbeth had driven the shrunken head back to the VGH morgue for more postmortem. Chandler went down to H.Q.'s canteen for cinnamon buns and coffee, and now DeClercq and Lewis sat munching hi the sergeant's office. Outside in ViCLAS central, the Suits wore smiles.
    "Why the change in attitude?"