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contemplating an input model on one of the corkboard walls. Inputting was step one in generating a profile.
    "What's with the protesters? And U.S. TV crews?" DeClercq shook the rain from his parka and hung it by the door.
    "Media circus," Chan said, "and feminist feeding frenzy. North Van GIS referred the vultures here. I've already given a statement to quell their appetite."
    "Some of the faces I recognize from the Headhunter case. Let's hope we don't have a repeat of that. Riots we can do without."
    "Amen," said Chan.
    Balding, with a foxlike face and quizzical eyes, the Inspector was the first nonwhite to join the Mounted Police. While training at "Depot" Division in 1961, he was nicknamed "Charlie" by the ghost recruits. Ostracized, Chan was the butt of hazing and racist jokes, but being Chinese, had persevered by "taking the long view." When Hong Kong's Triads chose Vancouver as their main heroin port, he was the only Mountie who could speak Cantonese. Forming the Asian Gang Squad was his idea, after he drove the Five Dragons from the West Coast. When the Force began selecting members for college degrees, he studied random processes and probability at UBC. Graduating with honors, Chan computerized the RCMP, programming the Headhunter dragnet in 1982.
    The Violent Crimes Analysis Section was also his idea. By definition, serial killers and rapists repeat their crimes, so this subsection of Special X looks for common threads in crimes of violence coast-to-coast. The investigating officer in every case must fill out a sex crime and murder analysis form. The form is a checklist of 211 questions eliciting details a computer can categorize. How did the offender first approach the victim? What kind of weapon and/or bindings were used? Is fantasy or ritual evident in the crime? Because this data is compared and cross-referred, a VCAS mindhunter needs only a desktop computer to establish links. Bang, bang, bang, mix and match, there's the thread.
    Chan was using the computer on DeClercq's desk.
    "So?" the Chief Superintendent said. "What have we got?"
    "Looks like a stalking team."
    The Inspector rounded the desk to join DeClercq at the corkboard wall. The input model was split into four sections. The first section was a collage recording the scene of the crime. Aerial photographs followed Lynn Canyon up the mountainside, while 8x10 color glossies detailed the body and the bridge. There were maps of the North Shore area, crime scene sketches noting distances and scale, and a weather report that overlapped a chart of the neighboring homes.
    "The vagrant who called it in," said Chan, "heard two people on the bridge. Footsteps, no talking, so we don't know their sex. The victim wasn't killed where her body was found. If she was murdered in someone's home, the killers may live together or at least one lives alone. The murder site is somewhere the team feels safe, because this killing took some time. The victim was tied spread-eagled and her face was ritually skinned."
    "Could be one killer and an accessory after the fact."
    "I doubt it," Chan said, moving along the wall.
    The second section was a collection of forensic reports. Preliminary morgue shots of the cleansed wounds circled a fax containing Macbeth's autopsy results. Toxicology and serology tests were underway, but analysis of the stomach contents would take a few days. The food was on its way to an expert in California. The estimated time of death was early Monday morning, two and a half days ago. The cause of death was asphyxia and stabbing. As yet Ident had turned up nothing at the scene.
    "Strangling and stabbing combined means two killers," said Chan. "See the ligature around her neck? One killer pulled both ends of the cord while the other stabbed, or each pulled an end while one of them used the knife. No weapon was recovered from the canyon."
    "What do we know about the victim?" asked DeClercq.
    "Not much," Chan replied. He moved to the third section of the wall. It