said Jinnah, blowing Vancouver’s premiere pit bull a kiss.
* * *
Rex Aikens had earned the sobriquet “Dr. Death” long before Jack Kevorkian came along, and came by it honestly. There were few ways of shuffling off the mortal coil (or having it shuffled off for you) that Aikens did not know of. His lab was as sterile as a double vasectomy and impeccably neat. But Jinnah always found the wide, white room with the gleaming stainless steel fixtures too cold, as if the Grim Reaper himself was putting a hand on his clammy skin. Nothing seemed to work against the chill; not wearing a sweater under his leather jacket, not even the warmth of Aikens himself, who, despite his profession as Vancouver’s top forensic pathologist, was a cheerful fellow.
“This is a day to mark on the calendar,” Aikens said, putting down the phone as Jinnah sat shivering on a stool. “I must go out and buy myself a lottery ticket.”
Jinnah smiled. He loved Aikens’s voice, which retained just a touch of the lilting Irish accent he’d largely left behind along with his youth in Dublin.
“It is indeed a rare day when we can speak frankly without worrying about what Those Who Work Above may hear,” agreed Jinnah.
“Those Who Work Above” was the code Jinnah and Aikens used to refer to the police, who worked in the upper storeys of the building where the forensic lab was located. Usually, they frowned on Aikens having these off the records with Jinnah. But Aikens found it useful talking things over with Hakeem. The reporter had a keen eye for detail and good instincts. Pity he was so damned squeamish about autopsy photos.
“Well,” said Aikens. “Where do you want me to start? I have but with a cursitory eye o’erglanced the victim.”
“Start with the cause of death, Rex.”
“Excellent question,” Aikens’s eyes gleamed behind his thick, black-framed glasses. “Would you believe me if I said beheading?”
“No,” said Jinnah. “Not unless the kid was so stoned that he was unconscious when the murderer did him.”
“Got it in one, old boy,” said Aikens. “Toxicology’s not in yet, but the poor lad shows every sign of having a sizable amount of heroin in his bloodstream. I think I should illustrate this over at the light table.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Rex!” groaned Jinnah. “I just ate.”
“Come come, Jinnah. I think I may have shown you worse.”
Jinnah reflected briefly on the lunches he had lost in the line of duty as he followed Aikens over to the light table, where a series of X-rays and photographs were hanging, all neatly marked “Golway, Thaddeus.” Jinnah squinted, feeling his stomach rebel at the sight. Aikens pointed to an X-ray of the boy’s severed head. Jinnah looked away.
“Now, now, my man,” Aikens’s triangular eyebrows were knit together in a frown, making them look like two twin, bushy peaks. “Observe and learn.”
Jinnah forced his eyes open and immediately regretted it. The sugar and cream-charged coffee churned and curdled in his stomach, desperately trying to escape. But he held it down, trying to focus on the pure mechanics of the murder and not the person. Not yet.
“A single, swift stroke with an extremely sharp, heavy blade. Unless I miss my guess, something akin to an executioner’s axe.”
“You’re kidding!”
Jinnah now had another grisly detail to add to his mental reconstruction. The Dark Figure now clutched a headsman’s axe.
“You’re saying this was an execution-style killing, Doc?”
“Yes, in a somewhat more medieval manner than we are accustomed to, Jinnah.”
Jinnah grunted. At the end of the day, did it matter whether it was by Rambo knife, ceremonial sword, or meat cleaver? A beheading was a beheading.
“Could it be a cult thing, hmm? A ritual slaying?”
Aikens frowned, sending white waves rippling up and across his pale forehead. “I want you to look very carefully at this next photograph. And if you are going to be ill, like the last time, you know where the sterile receptacle is.”
Jinnah knew where the stainless steel bucket was — right at the end of the table. He braced himself as Aikens carefully selected one of the photographs on the table’s flat surface and placed it on the shining upright wall of light in front of them.
“This is a photograph of the victim’s face. It will appear … reasonably unpleasant at first.”
Jinnah opened his eyes as fully as he dared. There were Thad Golway’s lifeless eyes, his reddish, matted hair. His mouth, open slightly, showing cracked, nicotine-stained teeth. But it was not these details that Jinnah found disturbing. It was the marks on Thad’s cheeks. At first, all he registered were the wounds. Someone had carved the kid’s cheeks with a knife. For a moment, he thought he would need the bucket, but he managed to keep his stomach under control.
“You will notice, Mister Jinnah, that the pattern of scarring is quite plainly visible. Which is extremely odd, don’t you think?”
Jinnah looked at Aikens, but his pale face gave nothing away. This was one of Aikens’s little quizzes. He made Jinnah think for his stories. It irritated him, but it took his mind of the dreadful sight before his eyes.
“Where’s the blood, Doc?”
Aikens smiled, framing his dark eyes with a latticework of wrinkles. “Spot on, my man. There was none. Someone carved the victim’s cheeks post mortem, then washed away the blood so his handiwork could be seen.”
“Name of God,” said Jinnah, sweating and wondering why he never thought to pop a tranquilizer before coming here.
“I used the word ‘carved’ deliberately, by the way,” Aikens continued. “Have you noticed the pattern?”
Jinnah stared as Aikens traced the design on Thad’s cheeks with a capped ballpoint pen. A crooked line ran vertically up either side, from chin to the top of the broad cheekbone. Cutting across the axis of these were three, wavy lines. They looked like a series of lopsided Ws: jagged crosses, macabre Christmas trees.
“Identical on both cheeks,” said Jinnah.
“Rather like trees, don’t you think?” said Aikens, voicing Jinnah’s thoughts.
Jinnah’s inherent instincts started to tingle. His stomach was forgotten. “Have you ever seen a signature like this before, Doc?”
“Not in my long service here in the first circle of hell, Jinnah,” said Aikens, a touch sadly. “It is not any known gang or cult sign that I can identify.”
Jinnah took out his notepad and made a sketch of the markings. He knew this was a breach of the usual protocol with Aikens: no attribution and no note taking. It had an immediate effect on Aikens, who began mopping his receding hairline with a linen handkerchief.
“Look, my man — do you think that’s wise?” he said, a shade nervously.
“Hey! Graham said a full briefing, didn’t he?”
