OGOPOGO

Friday, April 27, 1992

Kelowna, B.C.

CONNIE WONG KNEW TODAY was going to be her last. She knew this, not just as a strong intuition, but as a pure conviction, a certainty. And sadly enough, she was resigned to her fate. Her captor had already demonstrated that he was beyond every sense of evil she had ever envisioned over her short eighteen years.The atrocities he had performed on her during the past two days gave her every reason to look forward to the end.

As much as she wanted to forget everything that had happened over the previous days, her mind would not accommodate her wishes. How could she have been so stupid? He seemed so nice!

Connie was in her first year at UBCO, the Kelowna satellite branch of the renown University of British Columbia. She was an attractive but shy girl. Her parents had arrived in Canada in 1982, her dad as a research analyst at the Kelowna General Hospital. Typical of most immigrants, both of her parents had imposed very strict measures over the years on how Connie’s social life had developed, or, in her mind, had failed to develop. Ironically, had she not been so eager to get out on her own or maybe, if she had paid more attention to what her parents were constantly harping about, she would have avoided the situation in which she now found herself.

She recalled having arranged to meet him at The Shack. He was very handsome and although older than her, he was so cool. He fit in with the younger crowd and he was very intelligent. Sadly, she now realized that secretly she had been looking forward to having her folks meet him and she was sure they would have approved of their relationship. How childish she had been!

They had finished a couple of cocktails over supper, then the last thing she could remember was being pushed through a door, then stumbling down a dark wooden stairway. It was from beyond that area that she now heard someone coughing. This was followed by a loud curse and then a crashing sound like a chair or some other object being hurled against a wall. Her body didn’t even have the strength to physically react to this sudden outburst. As she lay naked on the fetid cot, shaking in the cold, damp, eight by ten room, she could now hear him descend the stairs and then the door to the small room was opened and he entered.

In his right hand he brandished a large syringe. His black eyes gleamed mirthlessly and he tilted his head slantwise as he examined her like she was some species of insect, watching her as she involuntarily withdrew from his advance. Dragging the twelve foot length of chain that was fixed to her right wrist, she crawled as far as she could from where the end of the chain was bolted to a ring in the centre of the floor.

Her captor then told her he was going to be nice to her. He said he was going to administer a drug that would ease her pain. This, she knew from yesterday’s experience, was a lie. Oh, the pain would be absent, temporarily at least, as he did his ‘work’. But the administration of the drug was certainly not out of any form of compassion. Not hardly. And then when the drug wore off, as it inevitably did, her pain would return at an even higher level. He simply did not want her dying in shock. Not just yet.

“It’s only opium,” he said. “Surely you are familiar with opium?,” he sneered, emphasizing his use of the second person pronoun. Now he gently held up her head and showed her the instrument that he had been holding behind his back, as if he wanted to surprise her with a present. He smiled broadly, then a maniacal giggle escaped from his mouth as he approached her. Behind him, she could see his reflection in a mirror on the wall facing her. The huge black and red dragon tattoo on his back seemed to ripple as he came closer.

*

The digits on Iggy’s radio alarm clock had just rolled over to read 03:06 A.M. when his telephone simultaneously roused him from a sound sleep. It was Saturday, far too early for him to rise on a cold and rainy, late April Canadian morning. He looked at his wife with a little envy who was softly snoring on the opposite side of their bed, oblivious to everything around her. Heather, in her role as Head RN at the Kelowna General, had finished a grueling eight hour shift at midnight and she was dead to the world. It dawned on Iggy that it had been some time since they had enjoyed each other in a physical sense. It was either Heather’s late night work schedule at the hospital or his own weird hours, as was the case at the moment.

“Nat here!”

“Nat, this is Captain Henderson. I know it’s very early, or late I guess, depending on your perspective, but I want you and your partner on a crime scene ASAP over at the lakehead off of the 97 highway. It’s a bad one I’m afraid. With Gerry and Muldave still on vacation we’re running short, my friend.” He then went on to give Iggy specific directions.

“Ah, copy that Cap’n. What are we looking at here?,” asked Detective Ignatius Miles (Nat to his superior officers on the Kelowna Police Force, and Iggy to his close friends).

“A young female, Asian. We think.”

“You think?,” Iggy had to ask, he was still half asleep.

“Just get your ass rolling, Detective!” Henderson’s tone had changed suddenly as he responded curtly. Iggy noted his anger. Captain Dave Henderson rarely let the job get to him. His attitude while communicating with his staff usually reflected a calm demeanour, so Iggy immediately sensed this was not going to be a ‘normal’ homicide. Then Henderson must have realized he was being unnecessarily abrupt with one of his lead detectives, as he continued in a more moderate tone.

“Nat, there was no ID on the vic and there was a lot of mutilation. Whoever did this was definitely sick. The body was discovered in a large garbage bag by a couple of late party goers up there. They were driving home on their way back from The Shack in their ATV . Christ, they almost ran over it on the beach.”

He was referring to a location north of the city of Kelowna that was familiar to Iggy. It was on the north shore of Okanagan Lake, an eighty mile-long narrow body of water that was a huge tourist draw for the city. Known for its excellent fishing and watercraft recreation in the summer, it was also home to Ogopogo, the famous lake serpent of Canadian folk lore.

“Forensics are on their way as we speak,” Henderson continued, “and Constable Doug MacLean is there now. He received the initial call-in and has preserved the scene for them. And Nat? I know your twenty is coming up and I also know that I don’t need to say this, but I will. There’s a very bad guy out there and I want his ass. You and Jake are our best, so let’s do it by the numbers, okay?”

“Roger that , Cap, I’ll call Jake right away. I’m sure he’s gonna love me!”

*

Nat Miles and Jacob (Jake) England were looking forward to retiring this year, both having entered the Kelowna Police Department on the same day in June 1972. Two decades ago, the two had oddly ended up in Kelowna as guests of the Federal Canadian Witness Protection Program, the result of their role in an International drug bust involving jurisdictions in Alberta, British Columbia, and the states of Montana and California. At that time, they were simply a couple of young musicians from New Brunswick who had travelled to Calgary seeking to make a name for themselves and their rock band, Fusion. On arriving in Calgary they had discovered that a close friend whom they had hoped to meet up with in that city had been murdered the same week they landed. The boys had determined it was the result of his unfortunate association with a couple of small time cocaine dealers. Driven by a sense of justice for their friend, they had been informally ‘utilized’ by two street-weary Calgary PD Homicide detectives. An undercover operation was initiated that took them into the centre of a cocaine drug operation that stretched from Calgary to Vancouver, then stateside to Whitefish, Montana, and finally back to Calgary where the detectives were successful in apprehending the major criminals.

After the bust, and to protect them during ongoing investigations, the WPP had set them up in one of their available safe houses in Kelowna. Following a successful terror-filled battle against a two man Mafia hit squad that was connected to the bust, they each had the good fortune to meet the loves of their lives in Kelowna. They had taken up careers for which, as it turned out, they were apparently well suited, and were fortunate to find themselves surrounded by people they loved. Now, twenty years later, they were both getting tired of the dark side of life, constantly hovering about them, creating far too much cynicism in the lives of the relatively young detectives. They were ready to retire!

Since joining the Kelowna Police Department, Jake had sporadically taken Criminal Law courses at the University of British Columbia (Okanagan) over the years. He had also complemented that with a Bachelor of Teaching program. Hard work and a natural ability to learn had paid off and last year he had started giving part time courses in criminology at UBCO. ‘The Plan’ at retirement, for Jake, was to continue teaching, maybe even write a book.

While Jake was involved in furthering his law enforcement career, Iggy had followed his main passion in life which was continuing to hone his musical skills, and in that process he had become a gifted guitarist, locally appreciated for his abilities. He was now the go-to guru for the weekly lessons he provided to the aspiring youth in the area. Indeed, their original band Fusion still played on a quasi-regular basis at the Kelowna Community Centre and other less frequent venues, offering up cover tunes from the ’60s and ’70s, straight up rock. The two of them often wondered how they were able to mix this pleasure with the diametric of their chosen profession. Yet, it worked. In fact the large local following they had built up in a relatively short time was a testimony to their abilities.

As a plus, they were even able to provide informal counselling to young male strays from their ‘groupie’ contacts, as required every now and then. Frequently, Iggy in particular received visits from young males seeking help with today’s normal societal problems. Drugs, self esteem, girl problems. He was seen as a cool guy with authority who was approachable, handsome in that rugged Steve McQueen way, and Iggy in turn loved it.

Jake was concerned that Iggy and Heather still had not started a family. He knew Iggy loved kids, and earlier on, when they had first joined the force, he had actually confided in Jake that he was looking forward to having a family. So something went wrong, and Iggy had never brought the subject up again. Jake was reluctant to pry into that part of his life, so it went undiscussed. Ah well, all in due course. He’d wait for the appropriate moment and maybe broach the topic with Iggy then.

*

Suzie England was not happy as she reached for the telephone which was rudely ringing on her side of the bed. Why was the phone on her side? She grumbled to herself for the umpteenth time as she looked at her clock radio. 03:21 A.M. for God’s sake!

“Sorry Suzie, it’s Iggy. I need to speak with Jake. We’re on the job…..”

_____

A half hour later they were on their way heading north on Highway 97 toward the head of Okanagan Lake, some 90 kilometers away. Their drive would take them through Vernon, B.C., then west across the lakehead.

“You get much grief from Suzi when we gotta roll out at this time of day, Jake?”

“Ah, you know, Ig, the usual….,” Jake knew this kind of conversation was going to lead into something he’d just as soon try to avoid. From previous discussions on the matter, he knew it was a sore point between Iggy and Heather. In truth, Suzi took the weird work hours in Jake’s career quite well and to indicate this to his partner would only be pouring salt in the wound. So he let it pass.

Following the instructions given to him by Captain Henderson, Iggy took a left on a dirt road at a designated point toward the shore of the lake. When they arrived at their destination, they saw klieg lights had been erected on a large sand dune, glaring in bright relief through a fog that had settled on the beach an hour earlier. All was quiet save for a muted conversation that could be heard from where the kliegs had been erected as Iggy rolled his cruiser closer to the scene.

After Iggy parked his Department issued unmarked Chevy, the two detectives walked the remaining distance of some fifty feet over soft sand toward the two men who were busy setting up a tent canopy. It was being used to cover a black garbage bag from which an extended pale arm could be seen. Jake was suddenly struck by the impossible contradiction in images that he was witnessing. On one hand, here was the beauty of Okanagan Lake, its waters now quietly lapping against shorelines of pure white sand, surrounded by the greenery of lofty firs, pines, and cedars. On the other was this garbage bag containing the result of an atrocity that one sick human being had performed on another.

“Hey John, Cap’n says we have a bad one,” said Jake to the two men as they approached the forensics team. Like Jake, John Briggs was a veteran of the department for over fifteen years and he had seen his share of unmentionable crimes committed in that time frame.

“Morning Jake. Yeah, it’s bad. Hope you haven’t had breakfast yet!,” he grimaced.

“Hey, Jake. Iggy.” Another officer somberly acknowledged the two detectives as they entered the circle that had been hastily constructed with wooden stakes and yellow ‘do not enter’ police tape.

“Henry,” Iggy nodded to the officer and looked at the bag in front of him as Briggs’s partner Henry Allen carefully unfolded the plastic to reveal the contents. Iggy then turned his attention back to John.

“Talk to me John,” he said, deadpan. Of the two, John was the senior forensics man and it was his role to outline to the detectives what the two had established thus far.

“Well, Nat. It looks like she was murdered in another location and brought here by boat,” said Briggs. He pointed to bare footprints in the moist beach coming from the lake. The prints preceded drag marks left behind by the garbage bag being pulled to where it now lay. The footprints circled the bag once, then went back to the lake’s edge. A deep indent in the sand at that area indicated a boat had either been pulled or driven onto the shore.

“What’s this about?,” asked Jake, pointing to a set of four large sized tire tracks that came from the northern part of the beach right up to the body, then swerved abruptly around the bag and continued on a southeasterly course.

“Yeah, looks like an ATV came across the body then continued on. I believe you’ll find that it belongs to the guy who called this in. Check with Constable McLean Jake. We sent him home earlier.”

“Sure John, sorry to interrupt. Please continue.”

“Apparently death only occurred several hours ago, since RG has not yet occurred,” Briggs resumed his account as his latex gloved hand lifted a limp arm and dropped it. “The Man’ will soon be here though, and he’ll confirm that,” he added.

Before he could say anything else, they heard another vehicle approaching the scene and they all looked up to see the Chief Medical Officer’s van arrive. A young, athletic looking Asian got out of the van and they were blasted by the melancholy introductory chords of George Bizet’s Carmen, the opera classic, until it was muted by the van’s closing door. The figure hurried over in a confident manner to join the group. Briggs and Allen both looked at the detectives and Jake thought he saw Briggs give him an eye-roll as he went back to the job of examining the body.

Tommy Ling was new to Kelowna, having been hired only last July by the City. He was from Vancouver and had apparently earned his creds from the East Side of the metropolis as the Assistant Medical Examiner there. While he had a somewhat arrogant attitude at times which in truth bothered some of the officers in Kelowna, Iggy and Jake both took him in stride and let him do his work.

“Okay folks, make way, I’m here!,” Ling ordered the group and they allowed him access to the body. The next half hour was spent with the Medical Examiner doing his thing while Jake, Iggy, and the forensic guys scanned the immediate area looking for anything suspicious that the killer may have left behind. Aside from the footprints and drag marks, the area was clean. Briggs and Allen began making casts of the prints for future use. When they finished they joined Iggy and Jake by the vehicles.

“Whoever brought her here was not a huge man,” said Briggs. “Probably five ten or so, around one seventy. One interesting item though, he only has four toes on his right foot.”

Tommy Ling finished his on-scene work and joined the foursome. He lit up a smoke, surprising Iggy and Jake. For some reason they had taken him for a nonsmoker. As he exhaled the smoke from the Player’s Light through his nose, he spoke to them.

“She was a young Asian, probably eighteen or nineteen. She has been repeatedly raped. Both of her eyes have been surgically removed and she has suffered from a number of flesh burns all over her body. I would guess at this time they were made by a Bic lighter or a small torch of some kind. Death probably occurred sometime just before or after midnight last night. From a quick visual, I’d say it was due to suffocation. That’s all I’ve got now folks. We’ll know more after the PM.” With that, he flipped his cigarette away from the tape-enclosed crime scene and went to his van.

As usual, Iggy and Jake were left with more questions than answers. Tommy was so damn clinical in his delivery. He was like a robot. Jake knew he had to be like that. Otherwise the work would surely eat him up.

Somewhere on the lake they heard the mournful cry of a loon.

2

OKANAGAN LAKE IS HUGE. IT runs north and south for eighty four miles in the south central interior of British Columbia. The municipality of Vernon lies at the northern tip and Penticton is at the south. At its widest, it only stretches approximately three miles; however, the lake is deep, and one can usually find depths of up to three hundred feet only ten yards offshore! There are many spots on the lake that plunge to over seven hundred and fifty feet, allowing plenty of room to house its abundance of rainbow trout and lake perch, not to mention its very own lake monster, known as Ogopogo !

The story of Ogopogo was derived from aboriginal lore which described a mythical, spiritual creature who demanded a live human sacrifice in payment for unimpeded travel by the local natives on the lake. The Indians called the creature N’ha-a-itk. Over the years, and after numerous sightings, many of them contentious, the monster was transformed from its spiritual form to a more physical being. One historian cites the origin of the current name as coming from a local song heard in 1924 in a Vernon tavern:

Its mother was an earwig

Its father was a whale

A little bit of head

And hardly any tail

And Ogopogo was its name.

Back then, Okanagan Lake was home to many steamships, also known as paddle boats. Back in the day, they were used to meet the growing demand for shipping fruit from local farms to the Canadian Pacific railway stations along the lake. A number of ports or ‘landings’ to accommodate these craft sprouted in the turn of the century, and nine such places still exist. By and large these landings today are tourist locales that house small bars, B n’ B’s, craft shops, and the like. Close to the scene of the crime where Iggy and Jake now pondered the demise of a young Asian girl, there is one such community called Okanagan Landing, a small suburb of Vernon. Located in the community is a popular bar called The Shack, where Iggy and Jake had played on occasion with their rock group, Fusion.

After checking in with Captain Henderson and bringing him up to date on their findings at the scene, they were able to get in touch with the couple who discovered the body. Since it was now going on seven a.m., the two youths had agreed to meet with Iggy and Jake over breakfast at a local diner near The Shack called Johnny’s Fish and Chips. A young man in his early twenties with long red hair and a beard to match was sitting at the bar when they entered. His girlfriend was a bit younger, maybe nineteen, and a real beauty. Their names were Paul Young and Dianne Curry.

“So Paul, I know you’ve both given statements to Constable MacLean, but tell me again how you folks came across the victim on the beach,” started Jake.

“No problem,” said the young man. “We had left The Shack around 2:00 am, things were shutting down, and Dianne and I were getting tired. We really didn’t have much to drink, so we decided to take a shortcut back to our place in Vernon by riding our four wheeler along the beach, following the lake shore route. About a mile from The Shack we came across the body. Almost ran over it, actually. Oh God! Never seen anything like that before!,” he visibly shuddered.

“You guys touch anything?” asked Iggy.

“No sir! We never even got off our ride. Just got the hell out of there and called 911 as soon as we got home!”

“Did you see or hear anything while you were there?,” prompted Jake.

“Well, that’s the weird thing,” said Dianne, jumping into the conversation while looking at her boyfriend. “I thought I heard someone laughing, but Paul here says it was just a loon. I suppose it could have been a loon,” she said doubtfully, “but God, it gave me the creeps, you know?”

Jake looked questioningly at Paul. “That right?”

“Well yeah, I’ve heard lots of loons on the lake, and I think that’s what we heard!,” he said defensively.

“But you never mentioned this to Constable MacLean?”

“Ah, no sir. I kinda talked Di outta going down that rabbit hole, I guess. Are we in some kind of trouble?” Jake suspected the young man simply didn’t want to have his girlfriend embarrassed. Paul clearly believed it was a loon.

“No, no,” said Iggy. “But we’ll take note of this. If you think of anything else, here’s where to reach us,” and he gave his card to Paul.

*

“So whaddya think Ig?,” asked Jake when the two young witnesses had left the diner.

“I suppose it could have been a loon that they heard,” Iggy responded doubtfully. “But from what I know, if it was a loon that late at night, it would have made more of a low, wailing sound. More like a mournful cry, not a laugh. They sometimes make a yodel, laughing sound when they’re searching for their mate, or in alarm if maybe one of their young is missing.” Iggy had spent years in the woods of New Brunswick, hunting and fishing. Of the two detectives, Iggy was the go-to guy when it came to anything concerning wildlife.

“So you think it may have been our guy? Maybe hanging around just after he dropped her off where he did when Paul and Dianne came on the scene?”

“Maybe Jacob. If so, that puts him in a whole different class.”

“Christ! And what do you make of the weird right footprint, with only four toes?”

“It’s ugly,″ said Iggy.

“Ugly?”

“I’m lactose intolerant,” he said. Not even a smile

“Stop!” Jake said, and cuffed him hard on the shoulder. Iggy was once again in a sombre mood.

“Seriously Jacob, I’d say this guy wanted the girl’s body to be found. Probably he also wants us to find him, too! I mean, come on. If you only had four toes on one of your feet, would you drop off a vic when you’re not wearing shoes or socks? ”

“Well, at least we’ll be able to track him if it gets to that!” said Jake.They left for their vehicle to make the trip back to the city and their waiting families.

*

When Jake was dropped off by Iggy at his house in Westbank, a community on the west side of Kelowna, it was getting close to eight am. He was pleasantly surprised to find his wife Suzie up and about with coffee made, and bacon sizzling on the stove beside a pan of scrambled eggs. As he sat down at their country style oak table, she took a couple of pieces of cinnamon and raisin bread from the toaster and began buttering them at the kitchen counter. Jake quickly snatched a piece of bacon from the pan.

“Help yourself to breakfast!,” Suzie said, teasing him, her back to him.

Jake left the table and came up behind her, put his arms around her and gently turned her around so he was facing her. “How about I help myself here first?,” he countered, nibbling lightly on her left ear lobe. Suzie turned to him and kissed him quickly before putting the toast on his plate. The long, hard hours of her husband’s profession sometimes got to her. She longed for a lifestyle when they both could enjoy each other’s company without the backdrop of some awful crime always lurking behind Jake’s advances to her, constantly threatening to disrupt any ‘normal’ husband and wife activities in their relationship. But she believed in what he did and she was thankful for the reputation Jake and his partner had managed to establish in their community over the years. With these thoughts running through her mind, she began teasing him.

“See, there you go. Trying to take advantage of me after running off in the middle of the night to God knows where! I swear you and Nat Miles have something going on, like maybe a couple of young ladies at one of those after-hours bars in the North End!” The truth be told, Suzi England frequently had to fight back the odd feelings of jealousy when she accompanied Jake to the various parties and events put on by the Kelowna PD. He wasn’t that big, just a mid sized guy, but he had a cute grin and a certain way of flirting with the young secretaries at the office with good success, which usually pissed her off.

“Nah, just another day on the job, Suz,’ ” he said. Suddenly his mood became serious as he recalled the body of the young girl lying in the garbage bag. Suzie immediately picked up on the change in her husband’s eyes, coupled with the furrow of the wrinkles on his forehead.

“Was it bad, Jacob?”

“Real bad Suzie. Hey, is Judy out of bed?,” he changed the subject and asked about their eighteen year old daughter. Next to Suzie, Judy was the centre of his universe.

“I think she’s in the shower, has been for the last hour!” Suzie of course, exaggerated, but not by much, thought Jake.Teenagers! And just then Judy came bounding down the stairs and sat at the table.

“Morning honey, grab something to eat!,” said Suzie.

Judy made a sour face at the frying pans and lazily made her way to the table, slouched in her chair. “Mom, can I just have some yogurt?”

“Sure Judy, but you should be eating more!,” and she brought her daughter a tub of raspberry Iogo from the fridge. “I swear you’re losing too much wait!”

Jake smiled at his daughter and again could not get over how much she resembled her mother. Her black, almond shaped eyes against her smooth, bronze skin. That straight, jet black hair that flowed over her shoulders. She was a beautiful young girl and Jake was extremely protective of her. In the past year he began to notice many suspicious looking young males who had started hanging around their place like dogs in heat. Frequently, he was known to intimidate some of the more nastier looking individuals by using his stone cold stare, a technique he had developed while interviewing suspects in his precinct.

“Hey, Pops!,” Judy acknowledged her dad. “What’s up? Was that Uncle Iggy picking you up earlier here this morning?”

“Yep...we had to roll out on a homicide that happened last night at the lakehead,” he offered. He said nothing about the age, gender, and ethnicity of the victim.

“Hope it wasn’t anybody I know! I’ll be glad when you retire and start teaching full time at UBCO,” she said.

“So will I honey, so will I. Just another few months”.

Judy finished her tub of yogurt and gulped down a glass of OJ. She rose from the table “Well, dear parents,I’m off! Marie Kwann and I are going hiking on the Southeast end of the lake over by Naramata, okay? Johnny and Doug Farrel are coming with us.”

Jake knew the reference to Johnny was the older brother of her friend Marie. Doug Farrel, though, was unknown to him. “Doug who?” he asked.

“Farrel,” she repeated. “You know his dad, I think. Everett Farrel, our City’s Crown Attorney.”

“Well, make sure you guys are back home by suppertime!,” he groused, although secretly he was somewhat mollified to know the young man was the son of another law enforcement officer!

“Jeez dad, we won’t even be finished with the wine tasting tour by that time!,” she complained, straight faced. She was still under the legal age and Jake was about to lash out a strict warning in that regard until he realized she was pulling his leg.

“Get out of here!,” he said. “And behave!” This time he gave her a knowing smile and winked. They had a good relationship and each respected the other’s space and judgments. Judy left with a wave.

“God, Suzie, where have the years gone?,” he said wistfully.

“She graduates next month, Jake. Get used to it! You’ll probably still see a lot of her if she continues with her plans to go to university.”

“Let’s hope so. Maybe she’ll catch some of my courses?,” he said hopefully. Judy had still not definitively made up her mind concerning her future studies. While she did express an interest in criminology, she had also talked to her mother about pursuing a business career path, which Jake knew was more to Suzie’s preference.

“Oh, God forbid! The last thing we need in this house is another police detective!,” exclaimed Suzie.

Jake made his way to their bedroom where he climbed out of his clothes, had a quick shower, then climbed into bed. He was dead to the world in two minutes.

3

IT WAS NOT UNTIL MONDAY that Iggy and Jake were able to learn anything further about the identity of the unknown Asian teenage victim. They were at the city morgue at 10:00 am and Tommy Ling was briefing them on the findings from his autopsy report.

“You are aware that her eyes had been surgically removed. Not a professional piece of work, but done, in my opinion by an amateur. Perhaps by somebody familiar with a scalpel, but not the human body. I’d hazard a guess,” using air quotes to emphasize the word, “ and suggest maybe an assistant veterinarian or maybe a taxidermist. And yes, I would further surmise that his work was done in anger.

“There were numerous burns in her genital area and on her breasts. Also on the soles of her feet and on the insides of her upper arms, all areas guaranteed to produce maximum pain. So we can assume our killer is a sadist and knows something about the art of torture.

“Although she had been raped repeatedly, there is no evidence of semen, nor is there anything to indicate he used a prophylactic. I would say she had been thoroughly cleansed. Her body contained a high level of opium which he probably used to delay her death as long as possible.

“There is a tattoo on her left ankle….. the chinese character for the English word strong.”

The three men looked at each other, realizing the futility and irony of what Dr Ling had just expressed. Tommy hung his head and looked at the floor. Medical Examiners rarely show emotion during their work. They can’t, for to do so would prevent them from completing the grim tasks that confronted them on a daily basis. Nobody said anything for a full minute and the silence in the room was palpable. Later, Jake knew that was the moment when he made the decision he would never stop in his pursuit of meeting up with the monster that had done such awful things to this young woman.

The two detectives drove back to the precinct.

*

“Cap’, has anybody checked yet with Missing Persons ?” Iggy asked after they had settled into the two desks that faced each other and formed the nucleus of their work station outside the Captain’s office. The Homicide room was large enough to accommodate several other desks, two of which were used by the two other detectives in the department, Gerry Spragg and Andy Mulgrave, who were currently on vacation.

“I was just speaking with Johnson over there and yeah, there was a report filed yesterday by a Mr Eddy Wong who is looking for his daughter Connie. She fits the probable age of our victim and I have a bad feeling it may be her. Apparently she went missing last week, would’ve been Wednesday night I believe. She was supposed to meet up with a friend of hers at The Shack in Okanagan Landing. Unfortunately, Mr Wong neglected to get her friend’s name. He gave his daughter the benefit of a day’s grace thinking she was staying at this friend’s place on Thursday. So Johnson had the impression that the dad had been led to believe she was staying with a girlfriend…..” Henderson added with a sad little smile.

“I don’t think he would want to try to identify her in her present condition,” Jake offered. He was immediately thinking of how he would be able to handle something like this if it were Judy.

“Cap, is it okay if I speak with Mr Wong?”

Captain Henderson was aware Jake was married to an Asian and he supposed it would be best if Jake handled this end of the process. It was a small city and most people, probably the Wong family included, knew of Jake’s mixed marriage to Suzie Lee. He also knew how well respected they were in the community. It would help.

“Certainly Jacob,” the Captain replied. “Let me know how it goes when you finish speaking with him”.

*

Before going to the Wong residence, Jake decided to make a quick stop home. Anyway, it was lunch time now and he figured he may as well catch a quick bite before speaking with the father of the supposed victim. His daughter greeted him as he came into the kitchen and offered to make him a chicken sandwich from yesterday’s leftovers. He saw a note on the fridge from Suzie, advising him if he came home for lunch, that she had gone out for a few things and would be right back.

“So mom’s out I see. You eating lunch at home today honey?,” Jake asked.

“Yes Dad. I wasn’t feeling so hot today. One of my friends has been missing since last Wednesday and everyone at school is afraid she may have gotten herself in trouble.”

Jake could only stare open mouthed at his daughter as the realization of the situation dawned on him. Judy caught the look on her father’s face and she suddenly knew she was about to learn something terrible. She could read her father too well.

“What is it Dad?,” Judy asked, her voice grave.

Jake rose from the table and walked over to her. He held her closely.

“Judo, I was just on my way over to Eddy Wong’s. Is your missing friend Connie, his daughter?”

“Oh no Dad! No, don’t tell me. Is she…..?”

Jake just held her close and told her he’d be right back and for her to stay here at home, to say nothing to anybody outside the family, and to wait for her mother to return.

*

Jake pulled into Eddy Wong’s driveway at around one thirty. He had called him from his house before leaving to make sure he was home. Upon knocking on the front door of the tidy bungalow, it was opened immediately by a slight Asian man of about forty five or so. An attractive Asian lady of similar age stood by his side. They both looked at Jake beseechingly, and he knew this was going to be a difficult afternoon for all three of them.

“Good afternoon, Eddy. Mrs Wong,” Jake said. “May I come in?,”

After Mr and Mrs Wong offered tea or coffee to Jake, which he had politely declined, they had all taken seats in the family living room. Jake got right to the point.

“Eddy, I am here about your daughter, Connie,” he began. “I know you filed a Missing Persons Report for her on the weekend.” Jake looked deeply into his friend’s eyes. “Eddy, did your daughter have any distinguishing scars or tattoos on her person?”

Eddy looked at his wife, worried, like he was asking her permission to talk about Connie’s tattoo that she had recently obtained. Mrs Wong nodded, her head bowed, almost crying now. So Eddy Wong told Jake. “She has tattoo on her ankle. It is the chinese character Qiang which means ‘strong’ in English.” Jake picked up on Eddy’s use of the present tense.

Eddy began to stammer, his voice shaking, and Jake knew he was yammering away, if only to avoid having to hear further words from Jake, somehow trying to pretend that what he was about to hear was all part of some awful nightmare.

“She is very proud of that tattoo. We really did not want her to get it, but, you know, the young girls today, they do foolish things. Maybe she likes it though, I think she does. It looks nice on her ankle….” Jake rose and slowly cut him off, hugged him. He could tell they both now knew their daughter was gone.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Jake told them.

And Jake was right. It was going to be a long day for the Wongs. He absolutely hated this part of the job. And he explained as best he could, given the limited information he had, the fate of their young daughter.

4

JAKE MADE A POINT OF stopping home after leaving the Wong residence on his way back to the precinct. Judy was there and Suzie had returned from shopping. They both wore worried expressions when he came into the kitchen. Suzie told Jake she was taking the day off from her position as Manager at The Emerald Lounge, and Jake was quick to thank her for this. He then briefly outlined the fact that incredibly, it was indeed Eddy Wong’s daughter and Judy’s close friend Connie, that had been murdered. He did not give them the details, other than that the killer appeared to be some sort of mad man, probably nobody they knew. But he was not sure of that last bit of speculation. Hell, it could be anybody, he thought, since they didn’t have a single clue at this point as to who had committed the atrocities on the young lady . . .

“Suzie, the Wongs are going to need support from the Asian community. I know you are familiar with most of the folks and it would be a great service if you’d care to maybe organize something for them?”

“For sure Jacob,” said Suzie. “And Judy, I know Connie was your friend, so you can help me, okay? ” And she went to her daughter and gave her a hug.

The three of them had their lunch of soup and sandwiches which they ate somberly, nobody speaking, each of them harbouring their own thoughts. Then Jake rose and pulled his sports coat off the rack in the kitchen corner.

“I’m off to the precinct you guys. Judy, I don’t suppose you are aware of anybody new to the Community that Connie may have been seeing lately?”

“No, Dad. I knew she was going to The Shack up on the lakehead last Wednesday but she never mentioned anything to me about meeting anybody there”.

“Well, Iggy and I know the bartender there. We’ll have a talk with him or anybody else who may have seen her around, see what they might know. Do you have your yearbook handy? Maybe I can copy a photo of Connie from it?” When Judy returned with her High School yearbook, Jake took it and left for the precinct.

When he arrived at work, Iggy was sitting at the desk they shared. Jake noted he had already iniated the work of putting the Murder Book together and he was looking at Tommy Ling’s autopsy report with the accompanying photos spread over the pages in all their gory details.

“So what makes Ling think she died by suffocation?,” asked Jake.

“See here?” replied Iggy. He pointed to a closeup of the victim’s neck. You could faintly make out a red ring around the area just under her chin. “They were also able to detect trace evidence of regular adhesive tape in the same area along with a small sample of black plastic that remained on her skin. The plastic material is consistent with regular garbage bags or grocery bags. The bastard drugged her, then committed various obscene acts on her body. Which leads to another bit of information, Jake. The eyes have been removed post mortem.

“ I don’t really know what that tells us. Probably this guy just couldn’t stand looking at her after he killed her? Weird though. Also, Ling suggested the other day that the removal of her eyes was amateurish and maybe was done in anger”.

“So?”

“I’m just sayin’,” said Iggy. “But the mention of black plastic on her neck. And we know she was put into a black garbage bag. I’d say the guy simply didn’t want to have to look at her anymore. In fact, he couldn’t stand to see her. He went out of his way to hide her face as she suffocated so he used a black bag rather than see-through!”

Jake could add nothing to that. “What say we take a run up to The Shack at Okanagan Landing?,” he said to Iggy. “Maybe we can get a story on her activities leading up to this,” he said, nodding at the pictures in the Murder Book. He then took Judy’s yearbook and went over to the copy machine next to Captain Henderson’s office and printed a few copies of the deceased girl’s face. When he finished, he dropped into the Captain’s office and brought him up to date on his talk with the Wongs and told him where he and Iggy were now headed.

The drive north to the lakehead took them about three quarters of an hour and it was close to supper time when they entered The Shack. The establishment was somehow meant to resemble the interior of an ice fishing shack. In an attempt to accomplish this, the owners had hung various types of fishing poles and gear from the rafters. Pictures of locals holding trophies from previous years’ tournaments adorned the walls of the pub. There were also actual prize catches of different species of fish from other years that had been stuffed and mounted, including perch, lake trout, and bass. Of course, there were shots of celebrities who had taken part in annual festivities over the years. The B.C. premier, the mayor of Kelowna, even one of Pierre Trudeau posing in a canoe off the deck of the restaurant.

Iggy and Jake approached the bar and eventually got the attention of a burly man behind the counter who appeared busy as he removed drinking glasses from a dishwasher and stacked them on a shelf behind the bar.

“Good evening guys, how’s it goin’?,” asked the barkeep as he noticed the detectives standing at the bar.

“Hey Joey!,” Iggy greeted the man. Joe Duran had been a bartender at The Shack for the past five years and he was initially responsible for introducing Fusion to the pub a few years back. Since then, they had performed there on several occasions and they had become good friends with the stout barkeep. Jake placed a copy of Connie’s yearbook photo on the bar and asked Duran to look at it. “We’re investigating the disappearance of this young lady and we understand she was here on Wednesday night, Joey. Recognize her?”

Joey studied the photograph. “Maybe”, he said. “Cute girl. Yeah, I think I saw her early that evening with some dude, older than her. Probably around six or so. As I recall, they were only here for supper, then left.”

“What about the guy? Anything of interest?”.

“Like I said, he was somewhat older than her, probably in his mid to late twenties. White guy, pumped, you know, probably worked out. Blond hair, cut short. I haven’t seen him here before, so there’s not much more I can tell you about him, guys. He was clean shaven, didn’t have the normal grunge look, you know. I’d maybe take him for a teacher or some other professional”.

“That’s great, Joey. If necessary, we’ll send our sketch artist around, okay? If you think of anything else, call us”, Iggy said. Like many barkeeps, Joey Duran was a student of human behavior and his ability to recall details of his clients was exceptional. The information they were able to get on the person who was with Connie Wong on Friday night may very well make him to be someone ‘of interest’.

“No problem, Jake! Say, when are you guys coming back to The Shack? We had some great comments after your last gig here!”

“We’ll check our schedule Joey and give Jack a shout. Take care man, and we’ll be in touch!,” added Jake. Jack Johnson was the owner of the pub. In their former lives, Jake mused, a little nostalgically, they would have had an agent to handle their bookings, but those days were now history.

The remainder of the week passed without any further developments in the case. A number of house to house calls were made in the area where the body had been found in the hopes that somebody saw or heard something suspicious. In each residence they visited, they told residents they were looking for a white male in his mid to late twenties, with short blond hair and a clean cut appearance. But they had no luck until the end of the week.

Most of the folks in the Okanagan Landing community were elderly and retired. It was late Friday afternoon and the two had just spoken with an older couple who said they had noticed a lone figure in a speedboat, leisurely travelling along their shoreline last Friday night. As far as they knew he was alone in the boat. It was probably around eleven since George Hanlon, the husband, said they were on their way to bed when they first heard the boat and they had just finished watching The National CBC News. When they heard the steady thrum of the boat’s engine, they looked out their back window which faces the lake. They found it odd that a boat would be on the water, given the lateness of the night and that it was so dark. Typically, most boaters finished their boating activities by late afternoon, or at the latest by dusk.

With that small bit of evidence, Iggy and Jake returned to the precinct. It was just after six as Henderson saw them enter and he immediately rushed over to their desk. Before they could pass on there bit of news to the captain, he spoke first.

“Don’t get too comfortable, boys. I just had a call from the front desk. Looks like we may have another homicide on our hands! A body was found under the Westbank ramp entrance to the bridge. Christ, how brazen of this sicko, if it’s the same guy!,” the Captain exclaimed. Since their precinct was only two blocks from the East entrance to the bridge, that meant the body was located only five or six blocks from their present position, in fact maybe only a dozen blocks from Jake’s bungalow!

“Apparently this is another young Asian girl and it sounds just as bad, if not worse than our earlier victim,” continued Henderson. “So barring a copycat killing, we may have a serial killer in our midst.”

What the Hell! thought Jake. Over the past twenty years, Kelowna and the entire Okanagan District, which fell under their jurisdiction, had only averaged half a dozen or so homicides per year. And in a matter of only one and a half weeks they were already facing two!

*

The Okanagan Lake Bridge ( also known as the Kelowna Floating Bridge ) was the first of its kind in Canada. It was actually supported by huge pontoons and it had been constructed in 1958, connecting the southbound traffic of Hwy 97 on the West side of the lake to north-west traffic on the East. The bridge was over two thousand, one hundred feet long and in 1985 the city had added a third lane to the two existing roadways to facilitate increases in usage at different times of the day. This evening, Jake and Iggy sped across the centre lane, their rooftop lights flashing as they headed down the exit ramp to Westbank. Once on the other side of the lake they drove under the on ramp and in a matter of seconds they were at the scene. Once again, Briggs and Allen were there with the Chief Medical Examiner, Tommy Ling. The officers looked up at the two detectives as they stooped under the tape that served as a barrier against the curious onlookers that had already gathered there.

“Tommy, we meet again, and too soon!,” Iggy said. Jake, meanwhile, made his way to the other side of the crime scene.

“Hey Nat. At first glance, I gotta say this victim is similar to the last one,” said Ling, his manner serious, getting directly into it. He looked grimly at the figure that was lying in the rubble under the bridge. “Another Asian lady, probably in her early twenties. No ring, so I am assuming single. She has also had her eyes surgically removed. I’ve already taken off a small, black garbage bag that had been placed over her head”.

“Christ Tommy!,” Iggy said, his voice lowered. “This is beginning to look like a serial killer’s work”.

“Yeah, although the difference here is the cause of death. Unlike suffocation with the first girl, this one has been bled to death.”

Now Jake was back with Iggy and Tommy Ling, and he had just picked up on Tommy’s last comment. “She was bled to death?!,” Jake asked the Medical Examiner, like he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.

“That’s right Jake. Not unlike a hog farmer would bleed out a hog,” Tommy responded, pointing to the neck of the girl’s body where a trail of dried blood, now black, ran from an inch long incision that had been made at the left carotid artery. The blood had flowed around her left eye socket and joined with another streak emanating from the black hole which had once held her eye, then ran into her hair.

Tommy continued his narrative. “The bag was placed over her head probably because he simply didn’t want to have to look at her, as you suspected with the first case. She was obviously killed somewhere else, then dumped here. Otherwise, there would be heavy arterial spraying in evidence,” Ling said, gesturing at the area around them which was free of any blood. “Again, death probably occurred within six to eight hours ago.”

Iggy looked at his watch. Jesus, it was still only seven-fifteen, meaning it would have been noon or so at the outside when she was killed. Then he had brought her here in broad daylight and dropped her under the bridge like a bag of garbage. They were dealing with one sick, psycho, alright!, thought Iggy.

As Tommy spoke with Iggy, Jake studied the crowd of people that had gathered around the perimeter of the tape, looking for anybody that halfway resembled the description given to them by Joey, the bartender at The Shack. No such luck. Yet he somehow felt the killer was watching the whole show, getting his kicks.

Then he saw a face he recognized. She raised her hand when their eyes met and he grimaced to himself when he saw she was holding a mic which had a chord running to a battery pack, which in turn was attached to a portable reel-to-reel recorder. Shit! Jenny Hastings, reporter for the Daily Courier. He realized it was only a matter of time before she would be around looking for a scoop, so he decided to be proactive.

“Hey Jenny, how are you doing?,” Jake said as he walked over to meet her at the tape’s edge.

“Hi Jake, what have you got for me?,” Jenny always got straight to the point.

“I’m doin’ fine, thanks for asking!,” Jake said with sarcasm. “You don’t mess around with small talk, do you Jen!”

“Not when I have a hot scoop happening, my friend!”

“Well, what you see is what you get. A deceased girl, name unknown at this time. The time, place, and cause of death are also unknown. But hey, Tommy’s got his job to do, so we’ll know more later. After us, you’ll be the first to know.That’s all I got right now Jenny, you know the drill,” Jake said.

Actually, Jenny Hastings basically wrote the drill. She and Jake had developed a good working relationship over the years. In return for professional favors from each other, they were able to maintain a friendship not often shared with the police and the media.

“Okay babe, but remember your buddy, okay?,” and she made a sign of holding a phone to her ear with one hand as she pointed at him with the other and left the crowd. Jake turned to go back to the others and as he did, his eyes were drawn to a small shiny object that was lying half buried in loose, dry soil, just inside the tape perimeter. He bent down to retrieve it and saw that it was a key. A small key, different from a regular residential door key, and it had the number ‘51’ etched in the metal surface. Jake didn’t have a clue what it might belong to but he picked it up, each end held between his thumb and index finger. The key was in perfect condition, not a speck of rust, and it was obviously not lying here for very long.

When he rejoined the forensics guys he obtained an evidence bag from Briggs and put the key in it. After discussing his finding with Briggs, the forensics man suggested he take it to a local locksmith who might be able to at least determine what it might be from. He then made his way back to Iggy who was talking with Tommy Ling over by the Medical Examiner’s van.

“Hey Jake, I was just going over my initial impressions of this situation with Iggy,” said Tommy. “Once our toxicology reports are back, no doubt we’ll find evidence in her body that she was also drugged.” He then reiterated, in a bit more detail, what he had already told Iggy.

“The ligature marks on her ankles, and the absence of the same on her wrists, indicate something. To me, at least, this says the rope burns on her ankles are not there for restraint purposes, otherwise we’d probably see the same on her wrists. I think they are there because she was strung up with rope and probably hung from a rafter somewhere until she bled out from here,” and he pointed with a pencil to a small slit of approximately one inch in length along her left carotid artery

“Jesus!,” Jake shouted.

The girl’s body was chalk white, essentially devoid of blood. The blackened holes where her eyes had been were in stark contrast to the rest of her pale, naked body. Again, the burn marks were similar to those inflicted on Connie Wong.

“One final indignity,” Iggy noted. “He took her fingertips”.

“Oh God, no!,” exclaimed Jake.

“Yeah, seems he wants to make us work. You know, all that much harder for us to identify her…..” There was nothing else to add.

Again they were faced with having to spend a lot of precious time working to first identify the victim. And the black plastic bag that Ling had removed from the girl’s head again indicated the killer for some reason was loath to view his prey. Why? Jake wondered. They left the scene for their vehicle since there was nothing further to gain.

“Iggy,I know it’s late but let’s make a quick stop at the Okanagan Locksmith shop on the way home. They have an office here in Westbank, just a block south,” Jake said.

“No problem partner. What’s up?”

“I don’t know. Maybe something, maybe nothing. We’ll see,” Jake replied, and he showed the evidence bag that contained the key to Iggy. They headed south for Okanagan Locksmith. When they arrived they were greeted at the locksmith shop by a middle-aged man who was balding and wore a short-cropped, greying beard. “How can I help, boys?,” he asked.

Jake then introduced himself and Iggy, showing their badges to the man whose name was Ron Harrison and turned out to be the owner. He also owned two other shops, one in Vernon and another in Penticton.

“We’d like to know what this key might belong to,” asked Jake, and he produced the plastic bag that held the small silver key and showed it to the locksmith. “Looks to be too small for a regular house key?”

“Sure, that’s a boat ignition key,” Harrison stated without any hesitation. He was looking at the key through the small plastic evidence bag. “I recognize it from the shape and the number ‘51’ on the surface.Just a sec’,” and he walked over to a catalogue that hung on a wall over his desk. After a quick look in a drawer, he returned with a book which he showed the detectives. “Yep! Like I said, it belongs to an Evinrude Johnson motor ignition.They were manufactured in 1977 and this is key number fifty one, the first in their ‘seventy-seven’ series. The key numbers go up to 67 which covers seventeen different engine models.”

“But you can’t tell the type of boat that the engine belonged to, I guess?,” Iggy doubtfully asked.

“Nope, but it was to a 225HP Evinrude outboard motor if that helps, Detective,” offered Harrison.

“It sure does Ron!,” said Jake, thanking the owner as they left the shop and headed to their car. On the way to their vehicle Jake told Iggy about finding the key at the latest crime scene, and before leaving the site, he had let Briggs see if there were any prints available on the piece of evidence. There were none.

5

MONDAY MORNING’S DRIVE TO THE precinct was sombre. When Jake had arrived home the previous Friday evening, he never mentioned anything to Judy nor Suzie about the discovery of the unknown body. He doubted the news of this had reached them yet, since neither of the women had brought the subject up, and Jake was thankful. It was true that he had seen a number of gruesome situations since his time with the Kelowna Police Department, but this latest had definitely been the worst. It was one thing to have to discuss some elements of his work with the two women he loved most in the world; however, he had sworn to himself that he would never get into any of the gory details about specific cases and to that end, he had been true to himself. Besides, what they didn’t know, could not provide fodder for nightmares.

Iggy and Jake were now faced with their first serial killing and they had very little information with which to work. It was well known in police circles that if a killer was not apprehended within the first forty eight hours, the odds of ever finding the people involved decreased exponentially with each passing day. And now another weekend was gone and they were still no further ahead in catching this killer.

When they arrived at the station, they noticed a tall, professional looking man speaking with Captain Henderson in his office. When the Captain saw the two detectives coming into the building, he waved to them, inviting them into his domain.

“Detectives Miles and England, this is Dr Malcolm Strong with the local detachment of the RCMP,” Henderson said, introducing the three men. “Dr Strong is a psychologist and specializes in profile work for the RCMP nationally. His work is also highly regarded outside of Canada, and he is frequently utilized by the FBI. He is here at my request and we are fortunate to have him with us. Have a seat gentlemen!”

Iggy and Jake shook hands with Strong and they took a couple of chairs next to him while Henderson returned behind his desk. Strong looked more like a middle aged university professor than an RCMP officer. His brownish beard was flecked with grey and matched his collar length grey hair. A pair of rimless glasses fell to the brim of his smallish turned-up nose, causing the doctor to constantly readjust them as he spoke. He reminded Jake of the actor who played the role of the marine biology professor in the movie Jaws.

“What are you able to tell us about the latest victim, boys?”, asked the profiler.

The detectives looked over to Henderson for an okay to give out info to the RCMP profiler. Under ordinary cumstances, the request for any information on a working case from an outside source would need to be initiated in the manner of a more formal nature, accompanied by something in writing. But they were not operating in ordinary circumstances, so the Captain gave them the nod.They had intended to write up their report on the case upon arriving at work this morning anyway, so Iggy now deferred to Jake who gave a detailed outline of what was observed under the bridge entrance ramp over in Westbank.

Strong listened carefully to Jake’s narrative, then after approximately one half hour, he confidently spoke.

“Detectives, with your Captain’s permission, I’ve read your comments in the Murder Book on Connie Wong, the first case.” Strong was referring to the blue binder that lay between them on the top of Henderson’s desk. And from what I’ve read, it would seem we’re dealing with a psychotic who is trying unsuccessfully to cope with a lot of hatred. The amateurish removal of her eyes, the burns, and the repeated rapes. But from what you have just said about this latest victim, it also further tells me that we may be dealing with some form of white supremacy. At least a hatred toward young Asian women in particular.”

“Is that of particular significance Doctor?,” Iggy asked.

Strong adjusted his fallen glasses. “Well, if we were able to have these acts designated as hate crimes per se, it could mean a lot when it comes to available resources, such as manpower, budgets, and help from other law enforcement groups,” the doctor replied. “But that said, many agencies are reluctant to charge persons with a hate crime as such, since the law often comes into conflict with the rights of individuals under our Constitution. You know, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Expression, that type of thing.

“In the United States, Congress enacted legislation in 1991 which more clearly defines the components of such a crime. As a consequence, it makes it easier for prosecutors down there to seek the death penalty in these cases. In Canada, unfortunately, the law is even a little more defined. In our country, such a felony must be a crime against not just a person, but a whole group of people to which the individual belongs. In this case I could clearly envision a defence counsel would argue against it as being a ‘hate’ crime, since there are no male Asian victims involved, nor are there any older Asian women, you see?”

Iggy’s head was starting to spin with all the rhetoric surrounding the possibility of their cases being officially designated as hate crimes, or not. As far as he was concerned, that approach would only serve to distract them from their focus on finding the killer. But at this point Captain Henderson stepped into the conversation. “As we move forward with these cases, Detectives, I want you to enlist the assistance of Dr Strong. In this regard, that’ll mean sharing new information as it is received, and meeting with him on a regular basis, say biweekly, to help him develop a profile for this animal. Are we agreed?”

“If you say so, Captain. Okay, Doctor, let’s get together after we receive the autopsy from Mr Ling on our latest victim,” suggested Iggy. “We should have that report in hand by Wednesday, latest.”

The psychologist gave each of the detectives his card. “Very well, gentlemen. Give me a shout when you’re ready!”, and he left them in their chairs.

Henderson sensed Iggy was a bit put out by his decision to bring the RCMP profiler into their investigation, so he tried to placate him. “Nat, I want your cooperation on this. You and Jake are the best we have, but you’re going to need all the help you can get on this one, so can we give the Doctor a try?”

“Sure, Cap,” said Iggy. “As long as he doesn’t take up too much of our time. This ‘hate crime’ approach is all well and good as far as maybe getting us some additional resources, but really, I can see a lot of other people getting involved in this scene if it goes that way.” Too many cooks in the kitchen, he was thinking, but left this unsaid. Henderson knew his feelings. Then he gestured to Jake that they should get back to their desk. The two detectives spent the rest of the day writing up their report on the latest killing.

*

It was after five by the time Jake made it home for supper. Both he and Iggy had decided to canvas the area immediately surrounding the west entrance to the Kelowna Floating Bridge, in the hopes of finding somebody who may have heard or seen something. As expected, three hours had produced nothing. Still, it was work that had to be done.

The aroma of Vietnamese Curry Chicken filled his nostrils as he entered the kitchen. It was one of Jake’s favorites. Before grabbing a cold beer from the fridge, he took a sip of the broth from the bubbling pot and delighted in the wonderful taste his wife had, as usual, managed to create from a few simple products. He continued through the kitchen toward their living room where he saw Suzie and Judy watching television. The women were glued to the screen as Jake entered the room.

“Good evening ladies!,” he greeted them, but he received no response. Then he saw what had captured their attention and he sat down beside Suzie on their leather sofa while Judy sat on the Lazy-Boy, her arms wrapped about her knees with a concerned look on her face. They were tuned to Channel 9 News and a newswoman with big hair was talking about Friday’s discovery of ‘yet another young Asian woman’s body’. She further stated the police had little to offer the media regarding clues as to the perpetrator of the awful murders.

When the news report broke for a commercial, the women looked to Jake as he sat down with them. Jake could tell they were both clearly consumed by the news of this latest killing.

“Dad”, said Judy. “Were you there at the scene today?”

“Yeah, I was there, Judo. And I really don’t want to talk about it. It was pretty bad.”

“Is it true that this is the work of a serial killer who is targeting young Asian women?,” asked Suzie.

“I’m afraid so, Hon’,” Christ, now the suspicion that they were looking at a serial killer was out! “Look, let’s turn this off and have supper, okay? I’m starving!” He grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.

“Dad, we can’t just pretend this isn’t happening! What the hell is going on, anyway? Why is it that specifically Asian women are being murdered?!?!,” Judy shouted, almost getting hysterical.

“Whoa, easy Judo. We’re gonna get this guy. He’s probably some sicko that came into our community from Vancouver, drugged out, whatever. Trust me, our department will turn the area inside out to find him. And we will!” He got up and hugged his daughter, then beckoned Suzie into the group hug. “I promise,” he said, softly.

Eventually they sat down to supper, but the curried chicken dinner was not the same as on previous occasions. And his daughter’s question had gone unanswered. Indeed, why were Asians being singled out, assuming they were?

*

Tuesday was another fruitless day and on Wednesday morning Jake met Iggy at the coffee urn in the Homicide Department. “Morning Ig,” he offered.

“Morning Jake,” and Iggy poured himself a cup of coffee. He made a face of disgust after taking a sip of the vile liquid. “I’ve been thinking about these cases all night. For one thing, we’ve never had any hate related crimes in our community that I can think of, at least nothing even closely approaching this magnitude. Sure, there have been a few isolated cases of racial slurs, even cases of some disgusting graffiti on several houses. But Jake, it’s never reached this level.

“It’s true that over the years we haven’t always been very kind to our Asian peers. Did you know that just after the war in 1947, the Asian demographic represented close to fifteen percent of the Okanagan Valley. Since then that figure has dwindled to only roughly five percent. Mind you, at the time of the peak, that was because of all the cheap labor the Canadian Federal government was able to attract in order to help the agri-related industry! And since then, automation has compressed the numbers, and many Asians in this part of the country have left for higher wages available in the larger urban centers.”

Jake looked pensively at his partner and took a sip of his coffee. “Last night Suzie and Judy became very upset just watching the news on television,” he said. “This kind of thing hits home, Iggy. Man, we’ve got to find this guy. Unfortunately it looks like we almost have to wait for him to make a mistake. And that means another killing.”

Iggy knew only too well the angst that his partner was feeling. He recalled with detail the talks he and Jake had exchanged with each other twenty years ago, just prior to Jake’s marriage to Suzie. How Jake had openly discussed his feelings with Iggy regarding his proposed racially mixed marriage and where it might lead. Invariably, they had both decided it was a matter of the heart.

Neither of the boys at that time had ever felt the presence of racial feelings against others. It just wasn’t in their DNA. At the same time, they were also aware that some people around them, indeed many of their own colleagues and friends, did not share similar traits. It was, at times, problematic not only while on the job, but sometimes in community settings. Iggy knew one thing: the racial aspect of the business now at hand was going to be a problem.

“Let’s check out things with Tommy Ling at the morgue,” suggested Iggy. “He may have some new information for us on the last victim.”

*

Tommy Ling was alone in the City Morgue when they got there, except that is, for the corpse of the unknown victim from Friday. Ling now stood over the body while dictating information of his findings into a hanging mic that was suspended from the ceiling. Upon seeing the detectives, he stopped his work and shut down the recorder on the far wall.

“Good morning detectives,” Tommy cheerfully spoke as he lay down a long saw-like instrument and walked over to a side table where he picked up what appeared to be a half eaten salami-on-rye sandwich. Between bites he addressed the two detectives. “We received the toxicology reports back from Vancouver early this morning guys, and as suspected, it’s the same M.O. as the other vic. She had been drugged with opium prior to bleeding out. Incidentally, the incision in her neck was made while she was still alive,” Tommy said as he looked at the detectives knowing this last little bit would evoke a response.

“So Tommy, you’re saying this guy strung her up and watched her as she in turn knew she was bleeding to death!?,” asked Jake, though it wasn’t really a question..

“Yeah, I would say so, Jake. He also removed her finger tips while she was still strung up and heavily drugged. But like the first victim, she was dead when he removed the eyes.”

“How will we find out who she is?,” Iggy asked. “There were no distinguishing scars or tattoos, correct? ”

“Dental records,” said Tommy. “Some work was recently done on her bicuspids and I recognized the dentist’s work,” Tommy stated in a matter-of-fact way. He took another bite off his sandwich and wiped his mouth with a paper towel from the table. “Doctor Jared Filmore at the University Dental Clinic. He’s a colleague of mine. I’ve just sent a copy of the X-rays over to him so we should hear something in a few,” he said as he yawned.

“Tommy, you are the man!,” exclaimed Jake. Tommy just looked at Jake with his eyebrows raised and finished off his sandwich while brushing non-existent crumbs from the front of his shirt. This was everyday stuff for Ling.

“Oh, and by the way guys, there is nothing sexual about what is going on here with this guy. At least not in the conventional sense. You see, our unknown was raped but he used something made of wood. Actually, it was from bamboo.Trace evidence was found in the vaginal area. When I realized this I went back and checked Connie Wong’s body again . . . same thing.”

On the drive back to the station, Iggy recapped the situation.

“So. We have two young Asian women who were brutally raped and tortured, their eyes removed after death. Both apparently had been heavily drugged, only to be kept alive, seemingly so they would be aware of their own manner of death, and possibly to prolong the act to further gratify the killer’s depravity.

“The first was death by suffocation, the second by exsanguination. In each case, the killer apparently acted in anger. Tommy seems to think the perp may be an amateur or ‘wannabe’ surgeon. Maybe even a taxidermist or veterinarian. He is also hiding their faces from his view so as to not have to look at them after their death. He’s making it difficult for us to determine the identification of his victims, yet he is very blatantly making sure the bodies are easily and quickly found. Is that about it?”

“One other thing, Iggy. He’s using opium to drug the victims and something made of bamboo as part of his torture routine. This seems to confirm a leaning toward the Asian angle, if such was required. And according to our RCMP profiler, it appears the killer is playing some kind of game with us while at the same time letting us know he can get away with this shit. He’s obviously eager to continue taunting us, and wants to prove he can outsmart us. And apparently he is harboring some kind of hatred specifically against young Asian women. Joey, our bartender friend, thinks the guy he saw with Connie Wong appeared to be a youngish professional. A ‘yuppie’ type of guy. Oh yeah, and we’ve got a key to a speedboat that the killer may have used for transporting his victims to his ‘display’ venues” .

*

The remainder of the day for the two detectives was spent catching up on paperwork from previous cases that had been put on the back burners. At close to five they left for their individual homes and after supper, Jake took time to brush up on his coursework on criminology at UBCO that he would be holding for a small group of students tomorrow evening. He was getting ready to go to bed when his telephone rang. It was Iggy and he sounded quite excited.

“Jake, I just had a call from Tommy Ling. He in turn was speaking with Doctor Filmore, the dentist at the university, and they have ID’d our latest victim. According to Filmore, her name is Lynn Chan. She was a third year student at UBCO, majoring in Psychology. I was able to obtain Fillmore’s cell number and I’ve made arrangements to meet with him tomorrow morning. We are to check in first with Ms Sharon Jones, Director of Human Resources. He wants to keep her in the loop . . . it’s their policy. ”

“Okay Ig. I’ll meet you at the university, nine sharp in the morning !”

6

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) lies just west of Highway 97, about a fifteen minute drive north from the precinct between a couple of golf courses. Jake met up with Iggy when he entered the campus cafeteria at nine on Tuesday morning. Mindful of their intention to stick with their arrangement with Dr Strong at the downtown detachment of the RCMP, Iggy called the profiler’s cell while they had a quick coffee. The call went through to Strong’s voice mailbox.

“Yes, good morning Doctor, it’s Detective Nat Miles. We met yesterday in Captain Henderson’s office. Sir, if you are available, perhaps we could meet after lunch today to discuss the case. We’ll have a copy of the autopsy report with us. Right now we are just checking out a lead at UBCO. The latest victim has been identified through dental records and we can discuss our findings with you later. Please confirm this with me at this number,” and he flipped his cell closed. They headed for the Administration office. He then called the university and got hooked up with Sharon Jones.

*

After introducing themselves to Sharon Jones, the Director of Human Resources at the reception area in the university, they asked if it would be possible to meet with Dr Filmore. The HR Director led them to her office and had them take seats while she placed a quick call to the dentist.

“Good morning Dr Filmore, it’s Sharon in HR. I have two detectives from the Kelowna Police Department in my office who would like to meet with you? I’ll tell them, thank you!” Smiling at Iggy, she told the detectives the dentist would be with them momentarily. While they were waiting, Iggy made polite conversation with the HR Director, and Jake’s attention was drawn to a faculty group photo on the nearby wall of Ms Jones’s office. He noted that a large percentage of the professors in the picture were Asian. At that point his thoughts were interrupted as a man dressed in a white smock over a shirt and tie and khaki slacks entered the office. He was of medium height, a wiry, athletic looking young man, probably in his late twenties, early thirties, attractive with a gleaming, engaging smile and a full head of blond hair. He carried a pair of file folders.

“Oh, hi Doctor Filmore. Please join us,” said Jones. “This is Detective Miles and Detective England from the Kelowna Police Department,” she added. “Gentlemen, I’ll leave you to your business. Detectives, if I can be of further assistance, please let me know, and Jared, when you are finished here, please check with me in the Staff Room,” and with that she left the office, but not before leaving a smile to Filmore that seemed to Jake to be more intimate rather than simply friendly.

Iggy opened the conversation when they were alone in Jones’ office. “Doctor, we are investigating the death of Ms Lynn Chan, and we understand she was a client of yours,” began Iggy.

“My God, I spoke with the Chief Medical Officer, Tommy Ling, yesterday about this! I can’t believe it! Lynn was so full of life, and a real darling. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to harm her,” the dentist said, looking at them with questions in his eyes.

“Did she live on campus, Doctor?,” asked Jake.

“No sir, she is a local resident and lives…..excuse me, lived at home with her parents. I came prepared,” he added and produced a file folder which contained a current copy of Lynn Chan’s university I.D. card along with her address, her parents’ names, telephone numbers, etc. Jake studied the file contents. “Do you mind if we have this copy of her photo, doctor?,” he asked.

“Not at all, sir. I made the file for you, please take it all.” Jake was impressed with the efficacy shown by Filmore.

“Is there anything else you can tell us about Ms Chan ?,” asked Iggy.

“Not really, Detective. Like I say, Lynn was very well liked by most students. As far as I know, she was not seeing anybody steady. Maybe Dr Zhao can tell you a bit more about her. He was her Psychology professor.” Jake took note of the name.

“Very well Doctor, that will be all,” said Iggy. “ I assume you are going to see Ms Jones now in the Staff Room. Would you mind having her call Dr Zhao and ask him to see us?”

They waited in the Administration office for Zhao to appear and it was another ten minutes until finally Ms Jones appeared. She seemed somewhat upset as she told them she was just speaking with Dr Zhao who preferred to have them visit him at his own office. The hostility in her tone was not lost on the detectives.

“Please follow me,” she said curtly and the three walked toward a bank of elevators.

*

Dr Chen Zhao met with the detectives in his office, a small corner room in the northwest sector of the Sciences building. Though admittedly a bit cramped, the office occupied by Zhao offered a fantastic view of the relatively new Shadow Ridge Golf Course from his fifth floor location. Jake envied the psychologist’s office compared to their own setup. An expensive oak desk, a similarly large coffee table with an accompanying sofa of black cloth over a blond oak frame were situated in front of a floor to ceiling double glass window. Two matching arm chairs and a solid four tier book cabinet completed the office decor.

“Doctor, we are here to talk with you about your student, Lynn Chan,” stated Iggy after they had introduced themselves. Zhao carefully scanned their badges while the detectectives admired the view from his office. As far as they knew, the news of her homicide had not yet reached the entire university, so the detectives studied the professor’s reactions closely.

“Am I suspected in her death, or a ‘person of interest’, as they say, Constable Miles?,” the young professor asked, in a rather assertive manner.

So much for subtlety, thought Iggy as he studied the young professor. He was about to correct the professor’s errant use of his rank in his address to him but let it go, assuming it was done intentionally and any reaction on his own part would only further antagonize their relationship. Dr Zhao was a Euro-Asian man of somewhere north of thirty, an attractive person with clear, intelligent looking eyes. “I was not aware that the news of her death had been released,” Iggy replied. “But to your point Doctor, how well did you know Ms Chan?”

“To your point Constable, I heard of her death from a colleague, Doctor Filmore. This is a small campus, sir. I was aware that she had been missing from the last three of her classes and we were becoming concerned. In fact, I was going to be calling her parents today.”

“What was her current focus?,” interjected Jake.

Zhao immediately turned his attention to Jake. His smile when he spoke to Jake did not reach his eyes. “You look familiar, Constable. Have we met before now?”

Jake didn’t want to allow the professor to control the situation here, yet he had picked up on Iggy’s restraint on handling the hostile attitude being displayed by the professor. “Doctor, we get to ask the questions, if you don’t mind. But yes, we’ve met. I’ve been enrolled in one of your courses in recent months,” he finished, waiting for the doctor’s response to his question.

Zhao was somewhat taken aback. “Of course. I recall seeing you in Behaviour Modification last week. Lynn was not enrolled in that course. She was more interested in the study of Forensic Psychology,” he said. Suddenly his whole attitude had changed dramatically, Jake noted. He also took note of the professor’s reference to his former student by her first name. “So you would not have had the pleasure of meeting this wonderful lady,” he finished, speaking softly.

“Hm, the relationship of psychology to the justice system. Interesting,” mused Jake. “Doctor, we will be speaking with Ms Chan’s parents. We came here directly, first thing this morning, so we’re not aware at this time as to whether or not they know anything about her death. Please respect the confidentiality of this matter, okay? Another thing Professor. I’m not sure how you became aware that there was a homicide involved, but until we know more, anyone close to the deceased, including yourself sir, will not be ruled out as suspects, or persons of interest!” Jake and Iggy turned to exit the office. Jake then stopped mid stride, turned and faced the professor.

“Oh, and Doctor, would you be so kind as to provide us with a list of students or faculty that, from your perspective or knowledge, would be considered close friends of Ms Chan? You can fax the list to this number,” and he handed a card to Zhao.

*

As soon as they were back in their vehicles, Jake called Captain Henderson on his car phone, intending to tell the captain they were on their way to the Chan residence.

“I understand sir,” Jake said after apparently listening to Henderson speaking. Closing his phone, he then told Iggy that the Captain himself had already spoken with Mr and Mrs Chan. Iggy and Jake decided to wait until tomorrow before interviewing the bereaved parents. Let them have some time to mourn their loss , thought Jake, which immediately got him thinking about his own daughter. Christ, he didn’t know how he could ever function in a situation of what the Chans were now facing if something like this were to happen to Judy.

They decided to catch lunch at a nearby Taco stand off the 97 Highway on the way back to the precinct and while they were having their shrimp burritos, they talked about their meeting with Dr Zhao.

“He seemed a bit uptight about something, wouldn’t you say Ig?,” asked Jake.

“Well yes, at least at first. Yeah, the good professor is definitely holding something back. Let’s do some checking on his background when we get back to the office”.

*

By the time they got back to the precinct it was mid afternoon. Upon heading into the homicide room they were spotted by Henderson who called them into his office. They could tell right away that their boss was in a sour mood.

“I just got off the phone from speaking with Chief Johnston,” he said. “He in turn has been getting flack from the Mayor so you can imagine how our conversation went. Now, you know what I’m gonna say to you two. It runs downhill, men ! This creep has murdered two of our young Asian female citizens and it has got to be stopped!,” he bellowed. “Christ, if you could have seen the anguish and despair in the faces of the Chan parents this morning,” Henderson continued. “They showed me her graduation picture from her second year at UBCO. God, she was another beauty! Do you have anything new from your visit to the campus?”

“Not really, Cap’,” Iggy replied. “Her Psych prof, Dr Zhao, will be faxing us a list of her close friends. Maybe we can learn something from somebody. Another thing, both Jake and I picked up weird vibes from Zhao himself so we want to check him out. We’ll know more tomorrow, hopefully.”

A quick call back to Sharon Jones at UBCO told Jake that Dr Zhao came to them from UBC in Vancouver. Another call to the home institution in Vancouver was made and he learned that Zhao had previously been a student from Beijing under their Foreign Student program. He had entered UBC as an undergraduate student in 1969 and received top honours in his last two years there, specializing in Forensic Psychology. He was considered to be one of the brightest students to come from China in many years. A single man, he lived by himself in Kelowna, his parents were still living in Beijing. Jake tucked his notes on this information into their Murder Book after going over it with Iggy.

He then remembered they had agreed to get in touch with the RCMP Psychologist, so he called Dr Strong at the Kelowna RCMP Main Office.This time his call went through and when Strong came on the line he greeted Jake warmly, obviously anxious to get together with the detectives.

“I’m afraid we don’t have too much new to add to our file Doctor,” said Jake, rather unenthusiastically. He really wasn’t up for meeting with Strong right now; in fact, he had his own reservations on the whole business of profiling. It was a relatively new science, currently being made popular by the FBI, and while the detectives had agreed with their Captain to cooperate with Strong, that did not mean they had to be proactive about it!

“Well Detective, I have something of interest to go over with you. Can we meet at my office before you leave for the day?” Strong was being insistent and he now had Jake’s attention.

“Okay, Doctor,” Jake said. “We’ll see you in a few minutes”.

It was a short drive to the RCMP Headquarters on Richter Street and when they arrived, Iggy and Jake were shown into Dr Strong’s office by the front desk secretary who was expecting them. The doctor occupied a ground floor office that dwarfed the Homicide Room of the detectives. A brand new telex machine was sitting on a table close to Strong’s desk and it was spitting out a long roll of printed matter when they took their seats. Strong casually walked over to the machine before greeting the detectives, and tore off a five foot length of paper after turning the machine off.

“Good afternoon gentlemen, and thanks for coming over on short notice. I hope I wasn’t too cryptic in my earlier conversation, but I’ve just been in contact with our colleagues to the south. They said they would be able to send me some information through our system and I thought you’d like to see what came in. Voila!,” he declared, handing a ream of paper to the detectives with a flourish.This guy is not without drama, thought Jake as he took the proffered document in hand.

Jake and Iggy looked with a certain amount of envy at the transcript and the familiar seal of the FBI that was embossed on the head of the letter. While the telex was not a stranger to Jake, they had never had an occasion to use it in concert with the FBI. He was also aware of VICLAS, another acronym he noticed on the second page of the transcript. The Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System was Canada’s equivalent of VICAP ( Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) in the US. It must be cool to have these tools available at your fingertips. No matter, though. If this stuff helps us nail the bastard, so much the better!, thought Jake.

The teletype printout contained a copy of an article from SAC Jon Davidson at the FBI agency in Seattle, Washington. It described the discovery of a body in late July of last year off a remote hiking trail near Leavenworth, a small town on the edge of the Wenatchee National Forest. What was significant to the FBI and the RCMP about that case were the apparent similarities to those of the cases now occurring in Kelowna. The body in the U.S. was also that of a young Asian female, the victim’s eyes had been removed, and there was evidence of rape and torture.

Jake asked Strong if they could look at a map of the area where the body was found. The profiler obtained one from a separate cabinet in his office, and brought it back to his desk. As Iggy and Jake closely studied the map, they both took note of the location of the body discovered by the FBI. A quick look at the map revealed that Highway USA 97 runs just south of the city of Leavenworth. It then follows the Wenatchee River south, but thereafter chases the Columbia River north to Brewster. From there it follows a direct route into Canada, specifically straight into Kelowna!

*

From the information provided by the FBI they were able to determine that this was the only case of its kind that had come to their attention; however, as they pointed out, the nearby National Forest was a vast recreational area covering approximately four million acres, much of which was heavily wooded terrain, accessible only through logging roads! Just because other people that may have met similar deaths had not been reported, that really meant nothing. It was a good bet they were dealing with the same monster.

Doctor Strong sent a reply to Special Agent in Charge Davidson, thanking him for the information, telling him he would keep him abreast of their investigation in Canada. The FBI would reciprocate and their case was now international in scope.

7

AFTER DRIVING BACK TO THEIR office and bringing Henderson up to speed, they both decided to call it a day since they still hadn’t received the information they had earlier requested from Professor Zhao. Besides, Jake had his course to give at UBCO tonight, and he told Iggy he’d check himself with some of his own students to see if they might be able to give him some more personal info on Lynn Chan. Jake walked into the kitchen of his Westbank home to find his wife and daughter once again engrossed in the Channel 9 television news.

“Dad, come and see!,” yelled Judy. “They’re interviewing Dr Zhao at the university. He’s sooo coool!,” she added, comically batting her eyelashes.

Jake suddenly had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he walked into the living room. Then the nausea he first felt was now competing with a growth of anger forming in his chest when he looked at his TV. Sure enough, there on the screen was Dr Chen Zhao wearing a big smile as he spoke with Jenny Hastings, the Daily Courier’s ace reporter. Apparently, Hastings and Zhao had been invited on the evening news show to discuss the recent killings. As much as he wanted to have a father-daughter talk to Judy about her misguided feelings regarding Zhao, he was equally anxious to hear what this guy was about to say.

“It’s obvious the police have no experience whatsoever in dealing with a serial killer like the one now in our midst!,” said the professor. “I was speaking with them earlier today. After two similar killings, they still have no leads whatsoever! Hard to believe!”

Well I guess that cat’s out of the bag!, thought Jake. He wondered where Zhao was getting his information. Now the City was probably going to have to quell an outbreak of panic once the public heard there was a serial killer in their midst. The Chief was going to be royally pissed. Which meant Captain Henderson would be getting a call first thing in the morning, and that meant Jake and Iggy would be called in to face Henderson’s wrath. Shit! Unintentionally, Jake then vented his anger on his daughter.

“Listen Judy, I don’t know why you think this professor is sooo coool ! ,” he said as he pantomimed his daughter. He was standing over Judy who was sitting on the sofa, her legs folded under her. “Iggy and I met with this jerk earlier today and we told him we wanted the case kept confidential. There was no mention of how Lynn Chan was killed, so how does he know we’re dealing with a serial killer? And by the way, why do you think so highly of him?” .

Judy now crossly jumped off the couch to her feet and stood abreast of her father and she could tell that he was clearly angry at her. She was about to tell him how she had met Dr Zhao last weekend when she was hiking with her friends in Naramata Landing. Zhao knew Doug Farrell, the son of Everett Farrell, the City Crown Prosecutor, and Doug was in Zhao’s Psychology class at UBCO. Doug was impressed with Zhao and he had been telling her and Marie how interesting the professor was, how the other students had all taken a liking to him. He was cool.

But Doug had failed to mention how cute the professor was. When they ran across him at the Landing getting some chips, Doug had introduced both Judy and Marie to him. The professor seemed to take a real interest in her, especially when she told him her dad was a police detective! So when she gave it some further thought, she decided to skip telling her dad about all that. Anyway, Zhao was way older than her, and he probably wasn’t interested in her that way!

“Oh dad, come on! It’s not that I think highly of him. I don’t even know that much about him. But, you know, the girls at school seem to think he’s pretty cool, coming here from Vancouver and being single. Aaannnd, tres cute!,” she added as she again batted her eyes at him in a mock flirtatious way, letting him know it was all in fun. That usually had the effect of calming the waters with her father whenever they happened to get into an argument.

This time however, it wasn’t working. When Jake heard this from Judy he threw his arms in the air and looked at her crossly. “Oh come on, Judy! Grow up!,” he shouted, and immediately regretted it.

However, his pride would not allow him to change what he just said to her. At the same time, Judy started to say something else, then realized she would only be digging a deeper hole around herself. She decided to cut her losses and simply flipped her arms in the air. “Oh, never mind!,” she said, clearly exasperated at her father’s lack of understanding, and she flopped back down on the sofa lying on her back, her arms folded and her mouth set in a tight line.

Jake looked at his watch, and he realized it was getting time for him to be going to the university himself so he begged off, telling them he would see them after his classes were over. When Jake’s back was turned as he left the room, Judy just held out her arms and gave her mother a look of frustration. Suzie simply shook her finger back at her daughter, implicitly telling her to mind her father’s words.

8

“SO WHAT YOU’RE SAYING JIMMY, is that if not for a bit of luck in favor of the Feds, the demise of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow would not have happened the way it did, and to some extent, I agree with you. The vehicle that was reported stolen in Kansas, and that was later found to have interesting articles belonging to the two criminals, was certainly a stroke of good luck for the Texas Rangers. And, of course this then eventually led the FBI to numerous other leads, culminating in the ambush and death of the two notorious bank robbers.

“But I would suggest to you that the lifestyle of these two gangsters back then almost guaranteed it was only a matter of time before they were caught. The same was true of a lot of criminals in the early part of the century. Many of these bad actors back then were actually able to rely on the general public to give them a break. Indeed, a good number of them were considered folk heroes. The public likened them to Robin Hood and his Merry Band of Thieves for God’s sake! Give me a break! Ordinary folks thought they lived glamorous lives!” Jake was getting into his groove and he paced back and forth in front of his class, clearly excited.

“They were thugs! Violent people who robbed banks! It was during the time of the Great Depression and a lot of the banks at that time carried bad reputations due to the many homes and farms that were sold under foreclosures. ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, Al Capone, ‘Bugsy’ Siegel. They were all glamorized by the press, and it was difficult for law enforcement officers to be seen as helping the public when, after all, these mobsters never really hurt poor regular schmucks back then, just the rich bankers and other bad dudes who happened to get in their way or otherwise competed with them. The fact is, they didn’t bother to hurt everyday folks, ’cause regular folks didn’t have much worth stealing!

“As a result, their paths of crime were basically always going to be against the rich and they were frequently able to receive some respect from the public. So they continued on with their lifestyles, became overconfident with the manner in which they committed their crimes, made mistakes, and were eventually caught or died in shootouts,” Jake finished, looking at his watch.

“So here’s the fun part: I want each of you to think about tonight’s discussions. And for next week’s assignment, I would like you to consider today’s criminals. Bring me a ten page essay on our discussions. Do lawbreakers today receive the same respect from the public as did their earlier colleagues? Are today’s law officers deterred from doing their jobs like they were before? What, if anything, has changed, and why? That’s all folks, have a good week!”

Jake packed up his valise with various case documents. His mind was replaying some of the talk he had just given to his students and he began to wonder if maybe his heated discussion with his daughter earlier this evening was affecting the way his speech was delivered. Ah well, at least his students seemed more animated of late. Also, he was happy to see another increase this week in the number of students attending his classes. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but he was beginning to think that ironically, the recent muder cases in the area were the cause of the increase in student attendance.

As he was about to turn off the light switch to the auditorium, he noticed a lone man sitting by the back entrance to the room in the upper tier of the folding seats. At first he didn’t recognize the figure, then as the man rose and approached him, he realized it was the great man himself, Dr Chen Zhao. Jake looked apprehensively at the professor as he walked up the inclined aisle to approach him. “Good evening, Doctor. Spare time on your hands?,” he asked, not without a touch of sarcasm.

Again the professor gave Jake his mirthless smile. “Not really, Detective England. I just thought I’d check out one of your classes to see what type of crowds you’re attracting. The youth of today seem to have a morbid sense of curiosity in crime, wouldn’t you say?”

“We’re always searching for bright minds in law enforcement, Doctor Zhao. Hopefully what I say in these courses may have the effect of bringing some good young people to the fold, so to speak,” Jake replied. “So I don’t necessarily agree with your general assessment of today’s youth, regarding their interest in the macabre nature of some crimes. I'd say it's more that they want to help in solving crime.

“But say Doctor, while I have you…I was watching Channel 9 News this evening on TV before coming for class. I thought we were clear in our last conversation that we wanted you to maintain the confidentiality of Ms Chan’s death. Also, where did you hear there was a link with her death to that of Ms Wong’s?”

“Like I said earlier Detective, this is a small university. I was approached by the Courier’s News Reporter to join her on a segment of Channel 9 News to offer my views on the 'second young female Asian', as she put it, to be murdered this month in our City. So I assumed the topic was open for discussion. And if you’re looking for leaks, Detective, perhaps you should first check into your own environment!” With that the professor turned around and left the auditorium.

Somewhat confused and taken aback, Jake was at a loss for words. He finished packing up his material and proceeded on his way out of the building toward his vehicle. Halfway across the parking lot he noticed a young man coming in his direction and just as he was about to get into his car, the man called out his name. Jake paused and waited until a tall man, perhaps in his late teens or early twenties, stood beside him. The youth was clean cut, attractive and dressed in casual but expensive clothes.

“Good evening sir, my name is Doug Farrell. You may know my dad, Everett Farrell. I met your daughter Judy the other weekend through some mutual friends and we went hiking together down at Naramat Landing. Er, she’s really nice.”

Jake never responded, just looked blankly at the young man who was clearly becoming embarrassed.

“I was in your class this evening,” Doug continued. “Uh, and I realized when I left that I had forgotten a textbook on my desk. I was just now on my way back to get it. Great course by the way!” The young man stood where he was, making no moves to continue on his way.

Jake didn’t really want to spend any more time with the young man who, as far as Jake knew, may even have designs on his daughter! Let him come to me under more formal circumstances, Jake thought. Then just as suddenly, he realized where he was and these thoughts evaporated like steam.

“Uh, well, nice meeting you Doug. See you next week, I guess,” Jake said and got in his car to drive out of the lot and go back home to Westbank.

On the way home, he thought of what Zhao had said earlier about a couple of things. First, he had suggested that Jenny Hastings with the newspaper was already aware they were dealing with a serial killing. How would she know that? He tried to replay his brief conversation with Jenny at the latest crime scene and he was certain he had not unconsciously given her any information he shouldn’t have.

And secondly, he remembered that Zhao had referred to the possibility of a leak coming from Jake’s own office or at least from someone connected to the Kelowna PD? What words did the Doctor use? His own environment? That was puzzling and a bit disturbing. It could have been something leaked by Judy, for Christ’s sake! He’d talk further with Iggy about it in the morning to see what his thoughts might be.

On his way home, he realized that the little dust-up he just experienced with Zhao this evening had even detracted him from his original intention of getting more info on Lynn Chan from some of her other classmates, and he still didn’t have the list of Lynn Chan’s friends he had asked Zhao to provide!

Also, he had just missed a good opportunity to talk with young Farrell about Lynn Chan and who her other friends might be! He was suddenly very pissed off at himself for his lack of focus on the case and how he was obviously allowing the professor to get under his skin. He made a promise to himself to have a chat with Zhao first thing in the morning.

*

It was early May, a beautiful evening in the Okanagan Valley. Known for its favourable growing climate, tonight was a promise of another great season for the local fruit and grape producers. Jake rolled his window down to fully enjoy the moist, warm outside air and allow the sultry evening to wash away his anger as he continued his drive south along Highway 97.

When Jake arrived home it was close to nine. Darkness had now fully fallen and he decided to sit out on his patio and enjoy a cold glass of Pinot Gris as a nightcap. He also considered it a reward to himself for not arresting the good professor on charges of ‘gross arrogance’! After pouring himself a glass of wine, he had just settled into his favourite lounge when his wife came out and sat next to him, brandishing her own glass of their preferred white wine that was produced locally. They clinked glasses and Jake put his arm around her and kissed the back of her neck as they snuggled.

Suzie was the manager and part owner of a local restaurant-piano-karaoke bar called The Emerald Lounge . The rock group called Fusion that was fronted by Jake and Iggy had made an audition at the lounge when they first came to Kelowna two decades ago in 1972. Jake fondly recalled how, under stress, their band had jumped far out of their normal genre of commercial rock and performed a couple of Doo-Wop numbers for the owner who was also Suzie’s uncle, Kenny Chou. Kenny, up until then, had usually only hired Doo-Wop groups.

It probably would have been a total failure without the help they had managed to obtain from an older black performer, one Delbert Johnson, who was playing in a local piano bar at the time. Delbert had great chops along with a host of Soul tunes in his repertoire, and he was able to come to their rescue.

Kenny had hired the band based on the recommendation of his niece immediately after she heard their first audition right here in this bungalow! That was the same night she first met Jake and the two had immediately fallen in love with each other. She eventually learned that Jake and Iggy were guests in Kelowna of the Canadian Witness Protection Program along with the full story that went with it.

Over the years, Kenny had involved Suzie more and more with the day-to-day operations of the restaurant complex. As well, he had enrolled her in an employee stock purchase plan that had culminated in her becoming a forty per cent shareholder in the business. Kenny, for all intents and purposes, was practically retired now, and recently Suzie had been discussing the matter of purchasing his shares to take full ownership of the business. She was still young and ambitious. Plus, Jake thought it was a good idea.

“How was your day, hon’,” said Jake, savouring a slow sip of the cold Pinot Gris.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Oh, yeah, I guess you should know that Kenny and I met with Josh Harris at the TD Bank today. We went over the numbers from the second quarter’s financials and, well, you are now married to the new one hundred percent owner of The Emerald Lounge ,” she added in an overly bored manner, then smiled up at him, awaiting his response, her eyebrows raised.

“What?!! Hey! Congratulations!,” Jake yelled. He jumped off the lounge and pulled her up to his open arms, enclosing her, kissing her hard. “This calls for a toast! But we want something a little more formal, I think,” and he ran off into the house. In a minute he was back waving a bottle of Grey Monk Odyssey in one hand and two tall crystal champagne glasses in the other. He had been saving the local champagne in the downstairs fridge for a special occasion. With a grand flourish he popped the cork on the bottle, and carefully filled both glasses, passing one of them to Suzie.

“Here’s lookin’ at you kid!,” he mimed Bogart as he clinked glasses with her. He stared lovingly at this woman he was so lucky to have met twenty years ago. “I love you, pal,” he said.

“I love you more!,” she replied. They set their glasses down and took each other in their arms. Just at that moment a screen door slammed and Judy was standing there.

“Jeez, you guys! Get a room would ya!?,” their teenage daughter exclaimed.

Jake sheepishly let go of Suzie and said to his daughter “And where have you been this evening, my young, errant daughter?” He was desperately trying to erase the temper blurts from earlier this evening and probably not doing it very well, he thought.

“Just hanging with Marie and Johnny,” she said, a bit tentatively.

“Oh, that reminds me. I met your friend Doug Farrell tonight at the parking lot at UBCO when I was leaving for my car. He seems like a nice guy?,” Jake said, hoping for some hint as to where things stood with Judy and the son of the City Prosecutor.

“Yeeessss?,” said Judy, drawing out her reply and giving her dad a wink. “Did he say anything about us?,” she asked.

“Nope, I was in a hurry to get home and kinda left him a little too quickly, I guess”. And now Jake was feeling a bit guilty about his reluctance to stay and chat with the young man. “What would he be telling me, anyway?,” Jake prodded.

“Probably nothing Dad. But I know he’s enrolled in one of your courses. He’s really interested in all that criminology stuff. Plus, he actually knows Professor Zhao at UBCO!,” Judy exclaimed, a dreamy smile now emerging on her face. It was like she was referring to Zhao as if he were one of The Beatles! It had the effect of quickly changing Jake’s attitude at the moment to one of mounting anger.

“Judo, I gotta tell you, I also had a chat tonight with the good professor,” he said sarcastically. “I’m afraid he’s not quite the type of person you want to be putting up on a pedestal. In fact, he is being downright uncooperative and confrontational with us regarding the investigation into Lynn Chan’s death!,” he said , his voice beginning to rise in volume. “So really honey, I want you to stay clear of that guy! Agreed?”

“Sure dad, I get it, okay? Jeez, chill out! ” and she ran back inside.

After Judy had left, Jake looked at Suzie with raised eyebrows, his arms spread, palms held upward. Without saying anything, his gesture was clear: What can I do? Despite the beautiful, warm breeze that was still evident, they both went back into the house. Their earlier quasi-romantic, and certainly lighter moment, had evaporated.

*

For the remainder of the week, both Iggy and Jake again spent their time performing mundane tasks that involved a lot of tedious interviews with area residents, shop owners, and possible witnesses at The Shack. They even spoke with a couple of homeless individuals that they had discovered sometimes slept under the west entrance ramp to the bridge. As expected, their work was all in vain.

Even their call to the FBI SAC Jon Davidson in Seattle wasn’t helpful. It was their intent to simply clarify a couple of questions they had regarding the body that had been found there last July. Had she been raped? Were they able to identify her? The answer was a quick ‘no’ to both. The FBI had determined she had been lying in the woods for over three months, and it was badly decomposed. So it was impossible to tell much from the autopsy. The only info they were able to learn was that the victim was probably strangled, since a noose made of hemp rope was found around her neck. The case was filed in their ‘Closed/Unsolved’ cabinet.

The write-ups in the Daily Courier were becoming highly critical of the police, demanding action, and the protest groups in the park seemed to be increasing in size as well as volume. It was all taking its toll on the detectives, seemingly Jake in particular. He was getting increasingly testy around his wife and daughter whenever they happened to ask him what developments had turned up that week.

It was now Thursday evening, and he had ended up yelling again at Judy when she had started going on about something really childish. He remembered it was concerning her latest crush, Doug Farrell. He was sorry for having yelled at her, especially when he realized he should have congratulated her on her choice of ‘boyfriends’! After all, young Farrell was her own age and seemed like a pretty down to earth young man? But when he got close to making an apology, the moment changed. He had said the wrong thing, suggesting that it might be a good idea to forget about boys, and dating, and all that ‘silliness’ for the time being, and she had run out of the house before he had a chance to say anything else to her.

*

When Judy had left the bungalow, Jake sat stewing to himself in the backyard lounge. Come on Jake, get your shit together! Christ! This case is driving me crazy! Were they dealing with a ghost! What could they do?

It was still early in the evening so he thought about giving Iggy a call. In the past, whenever Jake started to get too worked up over the job, he could always count on his partner to get him back on the straight and narrow. It might only take a couple of beers, (in the old days, it might have included a doobie or two) . Sometimes maybe they’d run through a few old tunes they liked. Since Suzie was working late tonight, he made up his mind and made a quick call to his partner. Then he grabbed his ’64 Fender Jazz bass guitar and drove out to Iggy’s.

Iggy and Heather lived further south down the 97 Highway from him in the community of Southland, about a ten minute drive away. Over the years Iggy and his wife had made some really cool improvements to their three bedroom bungalow. What was once a detached two car garage had since been converted into an awesome sound studio and it was here that Iggy held his weekly guitar lessons as a part time job (hobby?).

Iggy saw there was a light on inside the studio so he went directly there upon arriving. He heard a sweet guitar riff coming from the building and he recognized it from a new tune Iggy had been working on . . . a blues number, that sounded a lot like something the great B.B. King would perform.

He entered the sound area and plugged his bass into the Fender Bassman amp that he always kept here. After a quick look at Iggy’s fingers moving over the fretboard of his Gibson Les Paul, he confirmed his partner was playing the break in D Major 7th. He set his volume control button at 4 and began playing along with Iggy, his mind now in another world . . .

*

They spent the next two hours jamming and talking about everything except the case. The minute Iggy had answered his phone call from Jake earlier that night, he intuitively knew Jake needed a change in venue. It worked every time.

So they each had a beer, played some tunes, and talked about an upcoming job they had booked at The Shack. Jake was able to release his demons and he drove back home around eleven. His daughter was still out but Suzie had just arrived home from the office. Jake could tell she was beat. They both went to bed and roughly ten minutes afterwards, they heard a car arriving in their driveway. They caught the sounds of Judy saying goodnight to Doug along with the odd giggle. Trying not to eavesdrop, they stifled their own chuckles and finally fell asleep.

9

FRIDAY MORNING, MAY 11th, JAKE awoke to a steady cold rain that was befitting his foul mood, a carryover from last night and his spat with Judy. Okay, fine. She’d have to get over it. In the meantime, he’d call the professor as soon as he was at the precinct and then he would put some questions to him. He also wanted to call Jenny Hastings at the newspaper office. Somebody was leaking information, Goddammit, and it was bugging him to no end!

But five minutes after talking with Iggy, he was settled, much calmer, and his earlier anger had dissipated greatly. Iggy had correctly told him that it really wasn’t a big deal, the matter of the leak. Besides, what would be gained by finding out who was responsible?

The more Jake thought about it, Iggy was right. Maybe Jenny came to the quick conclusion herself that a serial killer was hunting young Asian women, and maybe she let this slip to the prof. So what? It could have been other people. Maybe Tommy Ling let the cat out of the bag to the dentist who in turn mentioned it to Zhao? Hell, it may even have been his daughter Judy, saying something to her friend Doug! So unless the Chief had a beef concerning the leak, Jake decided not to bother going after Jenny, Zhao, or anyone else about it. For now.

Jake looked at their Murder Book. While inserting the notes he had taken from their conversation with Ron Harris, the locksmith, he figured the easiest way to perhaps get lucky was to check first with a few boat dealers in the Okanagan area. Maybe he could run across a business that had a customer who was looking to replace a key. One that might fit a 225 horsepower Johnson Evinrude boat motor. He spent the whole remainder of the day doing that, to no avail.

Iggy in the meantime, stayed at the office and simply reviewed their work to date, searching for some small piece of information they might have missed that would give them the break they needed. That, too, was in vain.

When Jake finally returned to the precinct it was almost eight o’clock. He was about to leave for home when he thought it would be a good idea to pick up something for a late supper, so he called the house to see who was home. Judy answered, and he was able to make some points with her when he offered to pick up a Hawaiian pizza, her favorite. She passed the phone to her mom, Suzi’s order was taken, and he finally left for home, his overall mood somewhat assuaged.

*

The rain that had visited the Okanagan Valley all day had dissipated and it had turned out to be a very mild, if somewhat cloudy evening. While Jake was enjoying his drive home, he was savoring the aroma of the pizzas that were sitting in cardboard containers in the front seat beside him.

At the same time as Jake was driving home, a speedboat was racing approximately twenty miles south of his location across a narrow arm of the lake, moving directly east from Peachland. The craft travelled at roughly twenty knots toward the opposite shore. Specifically, it was headed for a small piece of land that rose just one hundred yards offshore known as Rattlesnake Island.

The figure in the boat was alone, save for a corpse which had been wrapped in a large, black garbage bag. He was in a twenty-three foot Chris Craft Bowrider, sitting in the stern ahead of the twin 225 HP Johnson Evinrude engines which powered the boat, while the body lay under the prow that rose from the water. At his current speed, it was only a five minute boat ride from the Municipality of Peachland to his destination, and he cut back on the powerful engines as he warily approached a granite-topped islet.

He was looking for tourists that sometimes visited here at night, in search of the fabled lake monster Ogopogo. The serpent was said to have a secret underwater lair, deep beneath the lake in the very area where the Bowrider was now coasting to a stop. Considering the rain that had plagued the area for the previous ten or more hours, he did not anticipate anyone being out on the water at this hour.

Seeing nobody around, he moored the craft to a small rock that jutted outward from the shore and carefully lifted his cargo onto the little island. He scanned the small parcel of rock noting it was in the shape of a crude circle. It sloped gradually upwards until it peaked at about eight feet above the surface of the lake at the centre, creating a diameter of approximately one hundred feet. Satisfied, he moved onward.

The small island held no outbuildings, in fact, nothing. Just bare granite. Yet this place was special to him. He looked to the dark sky and dragged the garbage bag and its contents to the center of the island, held his arms outstretched, palms upwards, and he began to murmur inaudibly to himself.

*

Arthur was very well versed with the legend of Ogopogo. It was the story of the fabled monster that had first inspired him when he moved here last year from Oregon, and it was all a perfect fit to what he wanted to accomplish. According to legend, the lake monster had the ability to terrorize a community over the years and had maintained the respect of the native population at the time.

He looked forward to his weekly rituals with the young Asian women. The only misgivings he had in his ‘work’ to date was that he had still not figured out a way to present these acts as ‘live’ sacrifices to the legend, just as the natives had done so long ago! It would have simply been too risky to have these rites completed with the possibility of witnesses being present, people who did not understand what he was doing, why the sacrifices were necessary.

Nobody today would understand and they would probably try to stop him. So it was necessary to have the sacrifices completed at his own location and then brought to the Lake for Ogopogo to witness after the fact, as it were. Aside from that however, his activities were going as planned and he was becoming increasingly confident in his ability to thwart the authorities. In turn, each new project was becoming more bizarre and bolder in its presentation. Tonight’s presentation would be no exception.

*

Finished with his personal mantras, Fredericks’s thoughts now shimmered like the moonlight on the water, as a slight breeze caused clouds to race away now and then from the bright disc overhead. This was the way it went after every sacrifice. At times his mind seemed to return to reality and then the monstrosity of what he was just completing was too much for him to comprehend. Yet, as he struggled to understand the utter evil of the act he was in the midst of committing, his other persona would then take over and scold him for being so weak.

Ogopogo now got back to the job at hand. He unstrapped the backpack that he wore, emptied its contents, and reverently began his work. When he was finished and ready to leave, he reached in his pocket for the keys to the Bowrider and was concerned to note that only one key remained on the fob. He was positive that he had the pair of them secured to the small key chain when he took his last subject to the Floating Bridge in town. He searched the whole area carefully for the missing key but saw nothing. A minor setback, he thought. To date, he had been meticulous in his activities. He would have to be more careful in the future. Otherwise satisfied with his work, he powered up the twin 225’s and made off into the darkness of the lake.

*

It was approaching nine a.m. Saturday when Jake got the call from Henderson. His office had just received word from dispatch that another young Asian female body had been discovered. He listened in horror as his Captain described the most recent atrocity. It would be necessary for him and Iggy to get to the murder site as soon as possible, so Jake called Iggy, briefed him on the situation and told him he’d pick him up this time, since it was on his way to the scene. He left in a hurry driving south to Iggy’s house.

This time it was another public locale, easily accessible, and it was a popular site for tourists from all over the province, indeed, the country!

*

Jake and Iggy sat in the prow of an RCMP hovercraft as they sped from the Peachland Marina toward Rattlesnake Island. Some time in the early hours of the morning a cold front had moved in from the northwest, bringing a period of rain with it. Because of the location of the crime scene, they had decided to enlist the help of the RCMP, knowing their Captain would go along with the move. The hovercraft worked perfectly for their needs.

There was still a light rain falling when they had first left, although it had now turned to almost a drizzle and the two detectives had donned department-issued raincoats for the trip on the water. As they neared the scene, they could see a couple of other boats tied up closely together near the rocky shore of the islet. Once again, they recognized the familiar figures of Tommy Ling along with the two Forensics officers, John Briggs and Henry Allen. Jumping off the hovercraft, the detectives scrambled up the granite slope of the shore and they were abruptly both brought up short in their tracks when they were confronted by the horrific scene only fifty feet ahead of them.

In the approximate center of the small piece of land, a female body lay spreadeagled, naked on her back. She was lying completely within a crude circle that had been painted around her in what appeared to be blood. Again, her eyes had been removed. This time however, a different indignity had been performed. Through each of her wrists and ankles, four large ten-inch pitons had been driven into fissures that had been formed perhaps millenia ago in the granite beneath her. The pitons were the type commonly used by mountain climbers in the area. The overall effect was that of somebody who had been crucified in a prone position.

When the detectives had crawled up the small granite islet to the point where they were only a foot from the bottom circumference of the ring, they could see additions had been painted in blood to the crude circle. Starting from the top right, or two o’clock position of the sphere, there was a drawing of a projected arrow. As well, emanating from the bottom right side of the circle, there were smaller letters, also written in blood, reading from left to right:

g o p o g o

Jake studied the drawing as a whole, trying to make sense of it.Tommy Ling came over and stood beside the detective, having picked up on his thoughts. Tommy was also clearly puzzled.

“Go Pogo?,” queried Tommy. “What the hell does that mean?”

Iggy then approached them.

“Ogopogo,” he simply stated. “The lake monster of legend. The circle is used to represent the letter ‘O’ and the projecting arrow transforms the letter to the male gender symbol. Presumably our killer is telling us he has total power over these females. Also, I guess he’s making the statement that he, like Ocopogo, the elusive legendary lake creature, will never be vanquished.”

Iggy turned and left the body, Jake following him.

The drizzle continued unabated as Briggs and Allen secured a tarp over the body. There was nothing else to be gained in the way of evidence at this time, since the earlier rain would have washed away any hope of fingerprints or boot prints. The Forensics team had called for more manpower and equipment that would be needed to free the body from her steel restraints. Under the circumstances, Iggy and Jake decided to return to the precinct and catch up on minor tasks until the Medical Examiner’s report was available in the morning.

Once again, Iggy and Jake were left to ponder what type of creature they were dealing with. Why was he committing these acts and specifically what could they possibly do to try to understand more about what was motivating this animal!

*

Monday arrived and with it, the sun returned to Kelowna. The moods of the detectives were somewhat lifted with the pleasant change in weather and they attacked their Murder Book on the cases of the three young female Asians with a renewed vigor. The serial killer Ogopogo, now so named in the press due to the cryptic notation left in blood at the scene of his latest crime, would be the focus of their attention for the unforeseeable future. The two sat at their adjoining desks facing each other while they discussed the Rattlesnake Island situation. Iggy studied one of the photos in the murder book.

“See the way he had to twist her body like that, Jacob? It was necessary for him to situate her in such a way so as to utilize the three large natural cracks in the granite for his pitons, while at the same time respecting the limited space of the island. All the while, it was necessary that she be placed in a spread eagle position as much as possible. What a sick bastard!,” exclaimed Iggy.

They had just received a copy of the autopsy report from Tommy Ling and they were making comparisons to the first two murders of Connie Wong and Lynn Chan.

“Each of the three homicides are a bit different, and yet they all have commonalities,” said Jake. “They were all murdered on a Friday, all have had their eyes removed, post mortem, and they have all been sedated heavily with opium. Moreover, all have been placed in open locales where they were guaranteed to be found very soon after being placed at the chosen sites. The first two were tortured with burns and raped, this one wasn’t. Chan had her fingertips removed, the other two didn’t. Wong was suffocated, Chan was exsanguinated, and according to Ling, this one was drowned. But death occurred approximately six to ten hours prior to the discovery of her body like the other two.”

Jake continued to read the report. “And check this, Iggy. Tommy notes her fingernail scrapings revealed traces of wood which turned out to be oak. Weird. Apparently, death had occurred prior to those pitons being driven through her limbs. And her lungs contained fresh water with chlorine. A swimming pool, maybe? So what does all of this tell us Ig?”

“Aside from how sick this puppy is?,” Iggy asked rhetorically. “I think he’s escalating the variety of his MO to simply taunt us. Or maybe to increase his pleasure? There is one other important thing we can take from this one Jake. It appears each of these murders was committed on a Friday night. So the question is, why Friday? I hate to admit it, but we need help, Jake. Let’s get some feedback from our RCMP profiler,” Iggy suggested.

“Okay. You call the doctor and arrange that. I want to make a call to our professor friend at UBCO. He still hasn’t sent us the list of Miss Chan’s friends. And hey, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier, but Connie Wong and Judy were pretty close. I’ll get Judy to make a list of Connie’s friends for me tonight as well, and see if there are any people in common with them”. He picked up the phone and called the university. After speaking with Sharon Jones, he was angered to learn Zhao had called in sick yesterday, and had been off for the past two days.

“No point going up to UBCO, Ig,” said Jake. “ Professor Zhao’s off sick,” he said and again picked up the phone and dialed another number, raising his index finger to Iggy as his call was answered. “Hey Jenny, Jake here, what’s happening?,” he asked.

“Hey Jake, whatcha’ got for me?,” she asked. Once again Jenny didn’t bother with small talk and this riled Jake.

“It doesn’t work that way Jenny, especially when you leak information that we have a serial killer in our midst before we release it to the public!,” he said crossly.

“Whoa Jake, what are you talking about?”

“Come on Jenny! I saw that interview with Professor Zhao on TV the other night!”

“Yeah well, you should remember he was the one to use the term serial killer, not me!,” she retorted. She was met with silence, which she broke. “Jake, I did not prompt Zhao into saying that. Trust me,” she pleaded.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. So the reason I’m calling, I need a favor from you. I’m assuming you know where the professor lives?”

“Just a sec, Jake,” then after a few beats he heard the rustling of paper.“Here we are!,” and she provided him with Zhao’s civic address. “Now you owe me one!,” She just doesn’t quit, thought Jake, chuckling to himself as he took note of the address.

Jake thought back to the interview and realized that Jenny was correct. She may, though, have indicated to the professor before they went on air that it was her belief the police were, in fact treating the murder as a serial killing. But he didn’t think so. He had known her for quite some time and, dammit, he trusted her. In any case, it was all irrelevant now, because as soon as the news of the Rattlesnake Island killing was out, everybody would know it was obviously done by the same individual.

Once Iggy confirmed that Dr Strong was available to meet with them, they left the station and made their way to the RCMP detachment on Richter Street, downtown Kelowna, only three blocks from the Police quarters. Considering the nice weather, they opted to walk the short distance rather than drive. On the way there, they were stunned to witness a group of at least a hundred or more young people gathering about the park area which stretched the short distance between the RCMP building and their own precinct.

As they neared the group Jake recognized many of them as students from Judy’s High School and also UBCO. He also noted the majority of them were Asians and a lot of them were carrying signs which proclaimed demands of a similar nature: NO JUSTICE FOR ASIAN WOMEN !, STOP THE KILLINGS !, etc. It was obvious they were preparing to march in protest in what they saw as a lack of action on the part of local law enforcement. Jake couldn’t blame them for taking such action. The deranged killer was winning at this point and there didn’t seem to be any way of stopping him.

They had to pass through the group of kids and young adults to enter the RCMP office and in doing so, Jake was further dismayed when he spotted a familiar face looking at him. The young girl eyed him closely as she walked beside several of her friends who were beginning to chant WE WANT JUSTICE! WE WANT JUSTICE! in time to a young man who was beating a snare drum as he led them in a march around the square. He could see the anger in his daughter’s eyes as the group retreated from his line of vision.

10

WHEN THEY WERE SEATED IN Dr Strong’s office, Iggy and Jake quickly got down to the reason for their visit. Strong of course had been briefed on the latest murder at Rattlesnake Island by Captain Henderson. He was not yet privy however, to the results of Tommy’s autopsy. Iggy now provided their murder book to the RCMP profiler and the two detectives sat down and waited as Strong poured over the material contained in the large file.

When he finished, he passed the document back to Iggy and sat back in his chair, his hands forming a church steeple in front of himself. “So,” he began. “It seems our friend has personified the local legendary lake monster. Interesting.”

“But the act of crucifixion on the victim,” said Iggy. “Up to now there has been no reference to religion, has there,” this was a statement, not a question. “So why now?,” he asked Strong.

“I don’t think religion, at least in the conventional sense, plays a part in his MO. But certainly, by staging the unfortunate young victim as he has done, he is definitely portraying The Crucifixion. In my opinion, the killer is conflating Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to the sacrifices the indigenous people made to the lake monster of lore. Whether he is doing this subconsciously or not, he is providing us with another clue to the rationale behind all of this insanity.

“While we have examples of religious killings galore, I am not aware of any serial killings being carried out either against a specific religion nor by a killer who asserted that his religion ‘enabled’ or ‘encouraged’ him to commit his atrocities. There are, of course, many examples of so called family honor killings in some East Indian or Muslim faiths.”

“So is it safe to rule out religion as a motivator?,” asked Jake.

“We can never be certain in this science,” said Strong. “But you could go with the odds and bet on it. Remember, this ‘crucifixion’ was not a method of killing the victim. She was already dead when the atrocity occurred. I suspect our boy has selected this method of showing off his victim simply because it is different and it is ‘out there’. Grossly flamboyant, and guaranteed to get him headlines. Just as he suffocated the first victim, then changed to bleeding out the second one. Now this. If allowed, I’m sure he’ll continue to vary the methodology of his approach and the manner of death, escalating the weirdness of his selections. And just a note on your ‘why now’? In case you haven’t noticed, he is killing on a specific schedule. Every Friday night, since this started.”

“We were going to ask you about that,” said Iggy. “Is this common?”

“We see it frequently,” said Strong. “Although the time frame between cases often varies. In some situations, it has been as infrequent as a special annual event. Others, once monthly, coinciding with every full moon. But another fact we have observed is that usually, not as a hard fast rule, but generally, we see the killer escalating the time frequency. It will change, say, from annually to monthly, or monthly to weekly. I wouldn’t be surprised to find our guy was previously acting out less frequently, and has now progressed to the present rate. We believe this is caused by his desire to experience the sexual pleasure it gives him on a more frequent basis. Like a drug user, yes?”

The profiler continued. “Now, back to the methodology of the killings, there have been numerous cases in the past, going as far back as medieval times, of serial killers who have taken on the persona of legendary monsters such as vampires, werewolves, and so on. There have even been lion men and leopard men in Africa who dressed in the skins of these animals while hunting their human prey. They even simulated methods of killing people by the use of leopard claws or lion’s teeth to maim and/or maul their victims.”

“I understand that the victim in Washington State had been strangled ?,” asked Iggy.

“That is correct. She was strangled to death. A common enough MO and it more or less confirms the ‘escalation’ theory we have regarding the increased variation in the manner in which succeeding victims have died, going from the ubiquitous to the aberrant. This fellow needs to make a statement. The more bizarre, the better!” Strong got up from behind his desk, signalling the meeting was over. “That’s all I can give you at this point gentlemen. Frankly, it seems obvious this guy is trying to personify the legendary Ogopogo monster, and like I mentioned, I’d probably rule out any reference to religion as a motivator. But all of this weirdness will certainly make good copy for the media, so you should be prepared for some heavy fallout from the public as news of this emerges.”

“I’m afraid it’s already started!,” Jake proclaimed, nodding to Strong’s corner view of the park.

Below them the crowd had now increased two fold, growing by the minute. A leader had apparently been appointed from the time since Iggy and Jake walked through the throng and she brandished a loudspeaker which she was using to incite the gathering crowd of young people.

The leader: “WHAT DO WE WANT?”

The crowd’s response, equally loud, “JUSTICE!!”

The leader: “WHEN DO WE WANT IT??”

The crowd : “NOW!!!!”

*

Iggy and Jake steered clear of the protesters as they walked back to the precinct, only to find that the horde, unintentionally or not, had followed them all the way back, loudly chanting their demands and waving their signs. At one point, Jake began to feel embarrassed because his daughter Judy was taking part in the demonstration. But he quickly checked his feelings when he thought about why she was there and the obvious anger she shared with her Asian friends. As much as he didn’t want to single her out, he nevertheless approached her just as they all reached the precinct.

“Judy, we need your help!,” he yelled, cupping his hands over her right ear, competing with the chanting crowd. “Can Iggy and I speak with you inside for a moment?” He gestured towards the precinct doors.

She looked to the leader of the crowd, somewhat beseechingly, then gave her shoulders a slight shrug and followed her father into his domain. Once they got settled in the Homicide room, Jake told her what they needed. He then gave her a length of foolscap paper on which she quickly wrote a number of names, her own included. When she was finished, she handed the paper back to her father.

“Dad, earlier you told me that the person who was committing these killings was probably some loner from Vancouver.You guys really have no idea who it is, do you?!” A statement, not a question. She gestured to the roars coming louder now from outside the Homicide room. “They’re not going away, Dad. Please, you’ve got to find this creep!,” she pleaded and then returned to her companions.

Jake looked at the list of names Judy had supplied. None of them jumped out at him, aside of course, that of his own daughter. After consulting the card in his wallet, he picked up his telephone and called the home number for Doctor Zhao. Once again, the phone rang several times and eventually went to the professor’s voice mail. After having to leave another message, which only further increased his anger towards the man, Jake slammed the phone on its cradle and again he referred to his notes in the murder book.

“Whoa, Jake,” said Iggy. “Chill out dude! What’s eating you?”

“Let’s take a ride, Iggy,” said Jake.

Jake simmered down somewhat and fastened the safety belt on Iggy’s unit asking his partner to take a run down to Mission. There was just something about Professor Zhao’s attitude that really pissed Jake off, so he decided to take the bull by the horns and pay him a personal visit. If nothing else, he’d at least get a list of Lynn Chan’s friends for comparative purposes in the investigation of the case.

The drive to Mission, a high end luxury community in the Southwest section on the east side of the lake was muted. Iggy sensed Jake was allowing the case to get to him and he knew the best way to handle Jake at this time was to simply let him do his thing, whatever he had in mind.

The gated community was located just off Lakeshore Drive and featured mostly desirable, waterfront properties. At the security entrance they badged a young rent-a-cop and proceeded on their way. Nearing Zhao’s address, they remarked on the obvious affluence in the neighbourhood. They were further impressed by the large two story, Tudor style home that sat on a one acre lot bordering the lake on the west and Hobson Rd on the east. A crushed white-gravel circular driveway took them to the front formal entranceway. All was quiet as they got out of their vehicle. Not even the normal residential sounds of children playing or the odd dog barking could be heard. Jake rang the doorbell and they could hear its muted chime softly resounding from somewhere inside the house. After several unsuccessful attempts, including some loud raps, they ventured around to the back door.

Jake stepped behind a large boxwood hedge that bordered the rear of the residence in order to peer into what he thought was the kitchen area of the house. And at that moment all thoughts of anger, distrust, and maybe even jealousy, that had been building up inside him over the past few days regarding Zhao quickly evaporated. They were immediately replaced by one of horror, for before his eyes he saw a figure slowly rotating at the end of a nylon rope that was attached to a light fixture in the kitchen ceiling. A chair lay overturned beneath the body.

The man was clearly dead and it was definitely the good professor.

*

When the Forensics team arrived, Iggy and Jake stood aside as Briggs and Allen once again began their grim, investigative work. It was only a matter of a few minutes before Tommy Ling joined them to complete the circle of the group that had become eerily too familiar over the past two weeks.

In the meantime, the two detectives had donned latex gloves provided by John Briggs along with sock-style paper shoe coverings to protect the scene. They decided to check out other rooms in the house and they first went downstairs to the study. Not really knowing what they were looking for, they each took separate bookshelves and began their quest. When Iggy opened a beautiful oak roll top desk, he was surprised by what he found. Inside the piece of antique furniture he ironically saw an instrument that, from Iggy’s limited knowledge in such things, was the latest in technology. The purpose and workings of the device puzzled him since it was a personal computer, something about which he knew very little, other than that they were quite expensive. He had read somewhere that people used them for writing, receiving, and storing information through something that was called the Internet. It was all beyond his pay grade.

He called Briggs over to inspect the item and see if maybe he could open it for him. It was well known in the precinct that Briggs and Allen had both taken crash courses last year in computer training. When it became evident that the introduction of the Internet was definitely here to stay, the two Forensics men had initially agreed to take the courses. Once exposed to the science of computer technology they were hooked. They had easily borne frequent hazing from others in the department since then and indeed, Jake gathered they were actually proud to be addressed by uncomplimentary descriptives such as nerds or geeks!

“What have we got Nat?,” Briggs asked as he approached the detectives. When he saw the computer he was impressed. “Wow, a new PC! This is a Mac PowerBook 170 laptop!,” exclaimed Briggs. Jeez,the guy sounds like a kid on Christmas morning! thought Iggy.

“Yeah, if you say so,” said Iggy. “Can you break into this sucker for us, John? Maybe see if he might have written anything interesting lately?”

“Well, the user normally has a secret password that has to be entered in order to access anything. Look under the machine,” Briggs suggested. Iggy lifted the laptop and sure enough, there he found a slip of paper that had been taped to the bottom of the device on which a single word was written: chanl.

“Chanl? Maybe Channel?” said Briggs, thinking they could next try ‘Channel 9’, as in Channel 9 News.

Iggy and Jake simply looked at each other. Chanl. Then it hit them both at the same time! There was the connection they were seeking. It wasn't a code word for the PW, it was the actual PW itself!

“John, type in what you see, simply chanl,’ said Jake. After Briggs entered the letters as suggested, immediately a file folder entitled ‘Lynn Photos’ appeared on the screen. Briggs positioned a moving arrow which he called a cursor over the face of the file folder by using a floating ‘ball’ encased in the lower front of the machine under the keyboard area.on the screen. The ‘ball’, when rotated, would then cause the small arrow to move where directed, horizontally or vertically. When he pressed the enter key the folder opened and a number of photographs of Lynn Chan appeared. The pictures were not lewd in any way, which surprised Iggy; rather, they were all candid shots of her fully dressed, taken in what appeared to be Zhao’s back yard. In each, she was smiling lovingly at whoever was taking her picture. They gave the impression that Miss Chan was thoroughly enjoying herself in front of the camera.

Then in a separate file, they found a number of letters that Zhao had apparently recorded for ongoing reference or, as it turned out, for posterity. There were five separate writings and each of them were dated, starting with November 20, 1991 and ending with this past Friday, May 11, 1992. In each notation, Zhao expressed his love for his young student along with the hope that she would soon be able to join him in marriage. There was nothing else on the laptop. No writings of despair, nothing in the way of a final letter before he ended his life. It did not add up.

John Briggs bagged the laptop and the three of them returned to the main scene in the kitchen. Ling was still there and he gave Jake an evidence bag that contained a folded piece of paper. “This was found underneath the fallen chair,” Ling said. “It’s a typewritten letter, apparently by Professor Zhao, confessing to the murder of Lynn Chan. He then goes on to say how he is no longer able to live with himself because of what he has done.”

“Tommy, that’s bullshit!,” said Iggy. “See for yourself what Zhao has written on his own laptop PC about Ms Chan over the past five months, and as recently as just a couple of weeks ago, supposedly on the day he killed her?,” He asked Briggs to open the laptop once again and they all waited while the dialup connection was made.

“No way did he murder her, and no way did he hang himself! He was clearly in love with Lynn Chan and he was looking forward to marrying her!” Iggy was already looking at Zhao’s death as a homicide.

“Well, John and Henry will be dusting this envelope and letter for prints,” Tommy confirmed. “That should tell us something.”

As if on cue, Henry Allen came over to the detectives from where he had been removing the rope from the professor’s supine neck.

“Two things I can tell you guys,” he said.

“First, there were no prints at all on the envelope, and I’d lay ten to one the same will be true for the letter. And check this.” He handed the rope to Jake.

“This rope is made of braided nylon. It’s commonly used in the marine industry because of its resistance to abrasion and oils, kerosene, etc. Plus, it’s very strong and flexible, easy to use. But more importantly, have a look at the knot that was used to form the noose. This is a classic ‘bowline’ knot used mostly, though not exclusively, by boaters. It’s a variant of the normal slip knot, but it’s guaranteed not to slip. We’ll have to check, but I’m pretty sure Zhao was not an avid boater. At least he doesn’t have one in his garage, nor is there anything else you would perhaps find connected to boating.”

“Interesting, Henry,” said Jake. “You’ve done some boating, I take it?”

“Yes sir, I get out as often as time permits.”

“Tell me Henry, are there many boaters around the Lake that would own a boat powered by a Johnson Evinrude 225 hp engine ?”

“Wow, hard to say. That’s a good size motor, no question. But boating is a popular recreation these days and more people are getting into it every year. I’d make a safe guess and say you’d find at least fifty or more owners falling into that kind of power.”

Jake was expecting this. “Yeah, thought so,” he said dejectedly. Nobody said it was going to be easy!, he thought to himself.