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him the glasses. "The roost is on the left, high among the shadows."
    Adjusting both lenses to his aging eyes, Robert scanned the square hole beneath the angular roof. Perched on a beam that swung bales of hay, a pair of owls, like vampires, slept away the day.
    "Barn owls," Zinc said. "They hunt these fields. They're the only species with that heart-shaped facial disc. The one on the left is Jack. The other's Jill."
    Robert laughed. "I see the pail."
    "So, what brings you here? Good or bad news?"
    "Depends on how you view your stay in purgatory?"
    "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Everything's in limbo till this is decided. What's the stumbling block?"
    "Your brain," DeClercq said bluntly.
    Across the road on the next farm, three laughing kids and a puppy built a jolly snowman. As they piled one ball on top of another, the Chief Superintendent wondered why God killed such innocence? Ah Jane, he thought.
    "The Hong Kong Police have cleared you, Zinc. The Maui authorities accept their report. It took five years but the Cutthroat case is finally resolved. The threat of prosecution is behind you now.
    "Commissioner Chartrand and I hoped that would clear the way for your return to the Force. Unfortunately, the government has cold feet. Too many cops shooting natives and blacks has them spooked. The thought of a brain-injured cop with a gun has several shitting their pants. Chartrand's a political puppet: he doesn't hold the strings. We have to lobby the holdouts one by one, so it'll be a while longer before you know. With so many wannabe recruits knocking on our door, the argument we're facing is to replace you with the best."
    "I appreciate your honesty," Zinc said.
    DeClercq clapped a hand on his shoulder. "The battle's not over yet. You're sure returning to the Force is what you want?"
    Across the road the brand-new snowman put the ragged scarecrow to shame.
    "Cutthroat cost me my mother, son, fiancee, job, and health. The fact he was killed in that alley does nothing for the pain, seeing how he took Carol with him by knifing her in the heart.
    "The Force stripping me of my shield was the final cut. Depression's a pattern of learned helplessness, and I refuse to be helpless. Proving I can come back has kept me sane. I've worked the farm hard to keep in shape. I've remastered the motor skills blunted by the ricochet fragment entering my brain. I get occasional headaches and must suppress epilepsy, but drugs have kept me from having a fit these past four years. True, I'm handicapped, but I'm still a good cop. I want back in and will go down fighting to prove it."
    DeClercq nodded.
    He'd do the same.
    "I have to return to Vancouver. Special X has a volatile case. A prominent New York feminist was found mutilated in Lynn Canyon. Chan radioed me a few miles south of here. Regina's sending a chopper to pick me up.
    "Months ago I made a promise I may have to break. A woman named Elvira Franklen asked me to provide a "real sleuth" for a Mystery Weekend to be auctioned off in aid of Children's Hospital. Chan said he'd do it, but now that's changed. With Jack MacDougall on holidays, I need him for this case. The mystery takes place this weekend. So I have a favor to ask."
    Across the road the puppy and kids were playing tag.
    Watching DeClercq watch them, Chandler could read his mind.
    He knew the Chief Superintendent would never get over Jane.
    DeClercq—in vain—had killed five men while trying to save his daughter.
    Children's Hospital, Zinc thought.
    "When do you want me in Vancouver?" he said.
    Grand Guignol

    Vancouver 
    11:35 A.M.

    Yes, they still use toe tags.
    The cop who had accompanied Marsh's body from the suspension bridge to VGH morgue broke the continuity seal on the locker, allowing the autopsy attendant to wheel out the corpse. The mortuary room at Vancouver General Hospital is the best in the province, a fifty-foot-square dissecting theater of off-white tiles over a stone terrazzo floor. Adjacent