Feets...don't fail me now.
I'm sorry. I had to.
VANCOUVER -- We're likely to get fresh news this week about the feet. At least, so says RCMP Constable Annie Linteau, the poor soul responsible for dealing with the monsoon of media calls from around the world about the feet-stuffed shoes washing up on our shores.
Any more?
No.
Okay. I'll call back.
Actually, Ms. Linteau sounds a little star-struck by some of the calls she's been getting. The king of talk, CNN's Larry King, wanted her on his show to chat about the story. So did Mr. King's CNN colleague, Nancy Grace. Constable Linteau graciously declined the invitations. Jay Leno may be harder to turn down.
Sooooo, Annie...have you seen Hancock yet?
Why, no, Larry, I haven't.
Greatest movie of all time. Make sure ya do.
Constable Linteau says there will be a news conference this week to report on what, if anything, investigators and the coroner's office have learned about the possible origins of the five feet.
We're thinking humans. Human legs if you want to get specific.
We could find out how long some of them might have been floating before being discovered. Whether there are any indications that the feet were severed, which could point to the involvement of a gang that has taken to lopping off feet as a sort of depraved, ritualistic coup de grâce.
Maybe they just fell off?
Most everyone now agrees that five feet discovered in a relatively short period of time would appear to be no coincidence. Theories abound. It's the sick joke of someone who has access to cadavers. They are the feet of those involved in a marine accident of long ago. Or the tsunami that hit southeast Asia four years ago. It's the University of B.C. engineers.
Personally, I like the gang theory. There are so many of them operating in Greater Vancouver now, it makes sense that they would begin trying to distinguish themselves from one another. So one decides to chop off the feet of its victims. Macabre, yes. But as attention-getting signature moves go, it doesn't get much better.
While the feet are getting lots of attention these days, however, there is another emerging head-scratcher with far more serious implications.
Over the past four years, young, healthy men, with no known problems or associations with nefarious people, have gone missing. All in southwestern B.C. This little-known fact was brought to the public's attention thanks to the industriousness of a community newspaper reporter named Sandra Thomas, who works for the Vancouver Courier.
Using archives from newspapers around the province, Ms. Thomas started with a list of 60 men who had been reported missing in the past four years. She whittled the list down to 40 after eliminating those with a history of mental illness or serious health problems, or who had either been known to police or had links to gangs.
Of the 40 remaining, she discovered about a dozen were later accounted for, most found dead. The remaining men, all apparently content and happy at the time of their disappearance, seemingly have vanished without a trace. So few clues have been left behind, in fact, it's as if the men were snatched by aliens.
John Kahler, 29, of Langley was attending a 4x4 truck festival near Mission, B.C., when he disappeared. He had been partying with friends until the early hours of Nov. 4, 2007. Hours later his white Ford truck was found stuck in a sinkhole, running, the windshield wipers still going, the radio on. The doors were open and Mr. Kahler's cellphone was inside. The RCMP don't have a single lead or clue about what happened to the man. His disappearance is, in many respects, typical of many of the others.
The Sinkhole Killer! Run with it, Johnson!!
Right away, chief!
Constable Linteau, the RCMP's spokeswoman on the washed-up feet, is now getting a growing number of calls about the missing men. Some of the disappearances, she said, are being investigated by Metro Vancouver's integrated homicide unit. And authorities are checking to see whether the five found feet could be connected to any of the missing men.
But at this point, there is no missing men task force planned, no efforts under way to see whether the disappearances are linked somehow or if they could be the work of one person.
Which I find odd.
If it were nearly 30 healthy young women who had mysteriously gone missing in Metro Vancouver in the past four years, I somehow doubt the response would be as lacklustre. For now, what happened to the men remains one of two great mysteries currently befuddling police here. And to me, it's the one on which they should be focusing their efforts.