LITMIR.BIZ

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for a week, easily. Jinnah stuck out his hand. “You got a deal, buddy.”

      They shook on it. On the walk back to the crime scene, Jinnah was already writing his story out loud, bouncing it off Graham. “It’s a murder with a message: Beware.”

      “Yeah,” muttered Graham. “But who’s the message for?”

      “Too bad he wasn’t found in a strip club.”

      “What the hell difference does that make?”

      “Craig, Craig — it’s one of the greatest headlines in journalism yore. ‘Headless Body Found in Topless Club.’ Great, hmm?”

      “Charming.”

      “I was thinking of something like: ‘Under the spreading oak tree, the village junkie stands — but not on his head.’”

      “Real sensitive. His parents will love you.”

      “They always end up loving Jinnah in the end, my friend….”

      They almost made it back safely behind the tape, but just as they were a few metres shy, a TV reporter and her cameraman leaped out from behind a tree and barred their path.

      “Sergeant Graham! Have you any suspects yet?”

      Oh shit, thought Jinnah. Caitlin Bishop.

      “I have no comment.”

      Graham tried to brush past Caitlin, but she had positioned herself squarely between him and the tape. Jinnah felt a pang of conscience. He had taught Caitlin that trick. It seemed another lifetime ago that Caitlin had been a shy, mousy intern at the Tribune, being mentored by the great Jinnah-ji. She had talent and promise — ah, such promise! Jinnah sighed. Then she had thrown it all away for a job in television news. It only pained Jinnah slightly that she now made almost exactly twice as much as he did.

      “Was he a dealer or a junkie?” Caitlin asked as Jinnah smiled politely at his former protegé.

      “No comment.”

      “Is this in any way linked to last month’s major bust down here?”

      To Graham’s credit, he didn’t miss a beat. His “No comment” was in exactly the same tone as his previous utterances — which was something Jinnah hated. Unlike so many other cops, Graham never gave that dramatic pause that said “yes, but I can’t say so,” unless he wanted to.

      “May I say I find that hard to believe?”

      Part of Jinnah admitted that he would have made exactly the same comment. But the rest of him knew this woman was endangering his exclusive. He was about to say something when, fortunately, Graham was rescued by Constable Bains.

      “Sergeant, we need you over here.”

      Bains, one of Vancouver’s few Indo-Canadian policemen and built like a brick ashram, had lumbered up behind Caitlin and was politely but firmly leaning against her, prompting her to take a step back. Graham saw the crack of light and dove to safety without answering the last question.

      Caitlin pouted for a second then turned her perfectly capped teeth on Jinnah. “Jinnah!” she said in a voice that was a pale imitation of Hakeem’s saccharin tones. “What were you and Craig talking about all by yourselves?”

      Jinnah was not fooled by Caitlin’s studied coquetry for a moment. “He offered to buy me a one-way bus ticket out of town. Then released me on my own recognizance.”

      “Very funny. Spill. What do you know?”

      “TV has been very bad for your patience level. You know, you used to be so much more polite when you worked in print.”

      Before Caitlin could reply, Jinnah turned and walked away.

      “Hey. Where are you going?” she cried.

      “I have a doctor’s appointment,” said Jinnah, blowing Vancouver’s premiere pit bull a kiss.

      * * *

      Rex Aikens had earned the sobriquet “Dr. Death” long before Jack Kevorkian came along, and came by it honestly. There were few ways of shuffling off the mortal coil (or having it shuffled off for you) that Aikens did not know of. His lab was as sterile as a double vasectomy and impeccably neat. But Jinnah always found the wide, white room with the gleaming stainless steel fixtures too cold, as if the Grim Reaper himself was putting a hand on his clammy skin. Nothing seemed to work against the chill; not wearing a sweater under his leather jacket, not even the warmth of Aikens himself, who, despite his profession as Vancouver’s top forensic pathologist, was a cheerful fellow.

      “This is a day to mark on the calendar,” Aikens said, putting down the phone as Jinnah sat shivering on a stool. “I must go out and buy myself a lottery ticket.”

      Jinnah smiled. He loved Aikens’s voice, which retained just a touch of the lilting Irish accent he’d largely left behind along with his youth in Dublin.

      “It is indeed a rare day when we can speak frankly without worrying about what Those Who Work Above may hear,” agreed Jinnah.

      “Those Who Work Above” was the code Jinnah and Aikens used to refer to the police, who worked in the upper storeys of the building where the forensic lab was located. Usually, they frowned on Aikens having these off the records with Jinnah. But Aikens found it useful talking things over with Hakeem. The reporter had a keen eye for detail and good instincts. Pity he was so damned squeamish about autopsy photos.

      “Well,” said Aikens. “Where do you want me to start? I have but with a cursitory eye o’erglanced the victim.”

      “Start with the cause of death, Rex.”

      “Excellent question,” Aikens’s eyes gleamed behind his thick, black-framed glasses. “Would you believe me if I said beheading?”

      “No,” said Jinnah. “Not unless the kid was so stoned that he was unconscious when the murderer did him.”

      “Got it in one, old boy,” said Aikens. “Toxicology’s not in yet, but the poor lad shows every sign of having a sizable amount of heroin in his bloodstream. I think I should illustrate this over at the light table.”

      “Oh, for God’s sake, Rex!” groaned Jinnah. “I just ate.”

      “Come come, Jinnah. I think I may have shown you worse.”

      Jinnah reflected briefly on the lunches he had lost in the line of duty as he followed Aikens over to the light table, where a series of X-rays and photographs were hanging, all neatly marked “Golway, Thaddeus.” Jinnah squinted, feeling his stomach rebel at the sight. Aikens pointed to an X-ray of the boy’s severed head. Jinnah looked away.

      “Now, now, my man,” Aikens’s triangular eyebrows were knit together in a frown, making them look like two twin, bushy peaks. “Observe and learn.”

      Jinnah forced his eyes open and immediately regretted it. The sugar and cream-charged coffee churned and curdled in his stomach, desperately trying to escape. But he held it down, trying to focus on the pure mechanics of the murder and not the person. Not yet.

      “A single, swift stroke with an extremely sharp, heavy blade. Unless I miss my guess, something akin to an executioner’s axe.”

      “You’re kidding!”

      Jinnah now had another grisly detail to add to his mental reconstruction. The Dark Figure now clutched a headsman’s axe.

      “You’re saying this was an execution-style killing, Doc?”

      “Yes, in a somewhat more medieval manner than we are accustomed to, Jinnah.”

      Jinnah grunted. At the end of the day, did it matter whether it was by Rambo knife, ceremonial sword, or meat cleaver? A beheading was a beheading.

      “Could it be a cult thing, hmm? A ritual slaying?”

      Aikens frowned, sending

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