Текст книги "Snakes and ladders"

Автор книги: Sean Slater

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Thirty-Three

‘I’m liking Bernard Hamilton less and less,’ Striker said as he drove across the Boundary Road perimeter and entered the City of Burnaby. ‘And I never liked him in the first place, so that says a lot.’

‘Maybe he’s just respecting Larisa’s privacy,’ Felicia suggested.

Striker cast her a hard glance. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Feleesh. Bernard Hamilton does nothing that doesn’t serve his own purpose. We’re out here trying to save this woman, and he knows that. Yet he’s done nothing to help us. If anything, he made things harder.’

He drove up Willingdon, turned east on Parker Street, and made his way down to Larisa’s rancher. Seeing it felt odd. The last time he’d been here, it had been night, deep and dark. Now, in the soft hue of the nine o’clock morning light, with pale blue sky backing the lot, the entire place looked different. The vinyl siding was actually painted a dark blue colour, not grey, and the slab of stucco above the vinyl was an off-cream colour, dirtied and worn from time. Inside the front room, the window drapes were pulled shut.

Striker looked at this and frowned.

‘Did Car 87 make entry?’ he asked.

Felicia skimmed the computer. ‘The call says no.’

‘Then she’s been home.’

He climbed out of the car and felt his shoes slip on the frosted asphalt. When he reached the sidewalk, Felicia got out, too. They hiked up the cement walkway to the front alcove, where Striker hesitated.

The door wasn’t closed, like he’d originally thought; it was open a crack. Before leaving last night, he had made sure the door was closed and the entire place locked.

‘Be ready,’ he told Felicia.

When she nodded and took her position on the left, Striker knocked on the door. Three solid knocks.

‘Larisa!’ he called out. ‘It’s Detective Striker from the Vancouver Police Department. It’s Jacob. Are you home?’

When no one answered, he pushed the door open and looked inside. The moment he did, the winter wind picked up and pushed the door all the way open. What he saw surprised him.

The place had been torn apart. Looked damn near ransacked. All the coats had been removed from the closet and were lying on the floor, pockets pulled open. All the drawers to the hutch had been pulled out, with the contents of each one dumped on the kitchen floor. And in the living room, all the cushions from the sofa had been torn off and the underside felt cut away.

‘Someone made entry here,’ Striker said. He drew his pistol and stepped inside the foyer; Felicia did the same. Three steps later, he stopped.

‘Take the rear,’ he said.

‘Outside?’

‘Yeah. If someone’s in here, they’re going to fly.’

An uncertain expression formed on Felicia’s face. ‘We should get another unit here, Jacob. A dog, maybe.’

‘There’s no time.’

‘But—’

‘I can clear the place, Feleesh, just take the rear.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You need two people. It’s not safe.’

Striker said nothing for a moment, he just met her stare, saw that her mind was made up, and he nodded.

‘Okay, together then, but now.’

She nodded.

They moved throughout the house, calling out police presence as they went. What they found in the kitchen and bedroom was no different to what they’d found in the living room. It had been torn apart – drawers opened, cupboards searched, and everything dumped on the floor. Left on the ground was everything from money and jewellery to papers and underwear.

In the office, the filing cabinet had been emptied. Everything had been rifled through, yet nothing had been damaged.

It was a search, not a mischief.

Striker made a mental note of what they saw, room by room.

They cleared the entire place. Made sure no one was still there, hiding in one of the closets, or in the crawl space. They even checked the attic. Then, when they were certain no one was left in the house, Felicia called Dispatch and had a call created for a Break and Enter.

She hung up and looked around at the mess of the living room. ‘It doesn’t look like anything’s been taken,’ she noted. ‘You know, this might not be a Break and Enter. This might be more of Larisa’s mental breakdown.’

Striker met her stare. ‘You think Larisa did all this?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe. Who knows what her state of mind is right now? The house was a pigsty when we got here yesterday. Cupboards were open then. Papers left lying about. Clothes everywhere. Today is the same, only worse.’

Striker shook his head. ‘Not this. This is different.’

Felicia just looked around and studied the room. ‘I’m playing devil’s advocate here. But you’ve got to admit, she’s been doing a lot of weird stuff lately.’

‘Someone else was here, Feleesh. And whoever they were, they were looking for something important.’ He moved through the living room and studied the contents dumped out of the drawers. On the carpet, in the middle of the floor, was an open DVD case. It caught his attention.

It was empty.

He looked around, saw no disc, then moved back to the office. On the floor in the office were more empty cases. He looked all around the room and again could not find the missing discs.

‘He took the DVDs,’ he said. ‘The DVDs are the only thing I can see missing.’

Felicia looked around the place, then frowned. ‘Lots of things don’t add up here, Jacob.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like Larisa running, for one. I mean, I can see her running from a home invader, or even the psychiatric ward, but not from us. Think about it. You’re her friend; she was calling you. Asking for your help. So why not just come forward to the police if she knows something? Why run?’

Striker put his pistol back into its holster as he thought this over. Larisa running. Bernard acting all strange. Coming to her place. Twice, in fact.

A sinking feeling hit him in the chest.

‘I got an idea why,’ he finally said.

Thirty-Four

Despite the bad traffic and icy road conditions, they made the drive from Larisa’s house in Burnaby all the way down to the Main Street headquarters in less than twenty minutes. Once on scene, they parked out back in the east lane – only rookies parked out front; that was where every complainant waited for the next poor patrol guy to appear.

They walked past the annexe and into the main building, then took the stairs up to the third floor. The concrete walls were painted a God-awful yellow colour. It was supposed to make the building brighter, more cheery, but there was no colouring up this place. It was one huge, depressing slab, and the paint looked like piss.

Striker had always hated it.

He reached the third floor. This was the primary information area. Records. Crown Liaison. CPIC – the Canadian Police Information Center. Transcription. And of course, Warrants.

Striker fished the key from his pocket. All the other doors in the building had been upgraded with the swipe-card system, but not here. This door still used the old-fashioned lock and key, and half the time, the lock was buggered. Striker slid the key in, fiddled with the lock, then yanked the heavy door open.

Inside, the floor was covered with brown threadbare carpet. Matching this were tinted brown windows on every wall. Above their heads, bare fluorescent tubes hummed in the cold winter air. Felicia squinted against the glare of one of them and cursed. ‘The quicker they demolish the building, the better,’ she said. ‘Why the hell are we here anyway?’

‘To see Lilly.’

‘Lilly? That old battleaxe? God, why?’

‘Confirmation.’

Before she could ask more, Striker walked ahead, circling Records and bypassing the other units, most of which were nothing more than ramshackle cubicles with inkjet-printed signs: TRANSCRIPTION. CPIC. CROWN.

As always, the entire floor was busy with people running this way and that, and the never-ending sound of keyboard clicks and phone trills filled the air. The floor was run entirely by women, and the high-pitched chatter of female voices was like backdrop music.

When they reached Warrants, Striker spotted Lilly. As always, her hair was brushed too high and she had plastered on too much make-up – a common occurrence that seemed to be worsening with every new-found wrinkle on her face.

They reached her cubicle, but Lilly ignored them and kept typing. When Striker cleared his throat and asked, ‘Still happy as always, Sunshine?’ she looked up with a pissed-off expression covering her face. Then, as recognition filled her eyes, she stopped typing and smiled.

‘Well, I shoulda known trouble was coming. Got my period first thing this morning.’

‘So I’m off the hook then?’

Lilly snorted more than laughed, and Striker moved up to the cubicle. He pushed the drop-off bins out of the way and leaned his arm on the top of the counter. Lilly glanced at the drop-off bins and scowled.

‘Knock those off and I’ll knock you off,’ she said.

Felicia crossed her arms in irritation, but Striker just smiled, amused.

Lilly was an old-timer up here. Pushing sixty-five, she had long since passed the eighty-factor quota required in order for her to retire with a full pension. Still, she hung around in this dingy office, chugging away like an old diesel engine that refused to break down.

In the harsh, artificial light of the office, her face looked tired. Her eyelids drooped down over her cold blue eyes and her hair, which was sometimes dyed brown or even red, had grown long enough to show grey roots.

‘What do ya want, Shipwreck?’ she asked.

‘Warrants. The freshest you got.’

When Lilly gestured to the bin, Striker made an uh-uh sound. ‘The freshest, Lilly. And not just the criminal ones – I want them all.’

She made a weary sound, then struggled to her feet. ‘You’re always work,’ she said. ‘Wait here.’ She grabbed her cane – required ever since her hip surgery – and wandered off down the hall.

Striker watched her go and smiled; Lilly never changed.

‘God, she’s a miserable old witch,’ Felicia said.

‘Hey, be nice. That’s just Lilly.’

‘No, that’s just you – making excuses for everyone. Like you always do. She’s a hag, half the time. And she’s well past her retirement factor. Why doesn’t she just quit, for God’s sake?’

Striker turned to face Felicia. ‘Because she has nowhere else to go in her life. No kids. No family. And her husband died six years ago. Lilly doesn’t even have a dog. This is it for her. If she ever left here, what would she do?’

‘Get a life maybe. Take some personality classes.’

Striker said nothing back. Felicia was right, in part; Lilly could be grumpy and annoying and even overbearing at times. But the woman had a good heart. You just needed to know how to melt the layers of ice around it.

He was about to say more when Lilly came hobbling back. Her face was tight and her hip looked to be paining her. When she reached the cubicle she muttered, ‘Here,’ and slammed the pile of papers down on the counter. ‘Any fresher and I’d have to slap it.’

Striker picked up the pile and started paging through it.

‘What are you looking for?’ Felicia asked.

‘Larisa Logan.’ He handed her half the stack. ‘Get looking.’

‘In warrants? She may have issues, but she’s no crook, Jacob.’

‘I know that, Feleesh. Just look.’

Felicia said nothing more. She licked her thumb, then started paging through the different warrants. They were both halfway done when she made a surprised sound and held up one of the papers.

‘I got it. She’s right here.’

Striker put down the stack of papers he was sifting through and moved closer to Felicia. He scanned the top of the warrant and found the words he was looking for: Form 21.

He pointed this out to Felicia.

‘A Director’s Warrant?’ she said.

He nodded. Now it all made sense.

A Director’s Warrant was the medical equivalent of an arrest warrant. Essentially, it gave police the legal right – and the duty – to apprehend someone under the Mental Health Act. A Form 21 meant that a psychiatrist had ordered one of their patients to be returned to their care for further mental health assessment. Which, half the time, was politically correct jargon for imprisoning and medicating the hell out of them.

To Striker, the Form 21 signified one thing. It was proof that Larisa had gone over the edge – so far, that her own doctor believed she was now possibly a threat to herself or to others.

It made him deflate a little.

‘This is why she’s run away from us,’ he said. ‘She knows about the medical warrant. It’s why she wants our help but won’t come forward.’

Felicia nodded. ‘Because the second we see her, we have to apprehend her and take her back to the hospital.’

‘Not just any hospital,’ Striker corrected. ‘Riverglen.’

‘The insane asylum.’

‘Mental Health Facility,’ Striker corrected. ‘Gotta be PC nowadays.’

Felicia raised an eyebrow. ‘New term, same old shit.’

Striker agreed, even if he didn’t say it. ‘No matter what route Larisa takes, she loses. And she obviously realizes this, otherwise she’d come in to see us.’

‘It also means she’s unstable, Jacob.’

Striker took the warrant, photocopied it, and returned it to the fresh warrants bin. When he turned around, Felicia had a lost look on her face.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘I ran her in the car,’ she said. ‘None of this came up.’

Striker nodded. ‘Because it hasn’t been entered in the system yet. CPIC can be up to six weeks behind at times.’

‘Six weeks?’

Striker gave her an irritated glance. ‘Yes, six weeks. Sometimes more. Jesus Christ, Felicia, get your head in the game. You should already know this. What are you, a homicide detective or some piss-kid rookie?’

Felicia said nothing back, but her cheeks flushed red. ‘You need to seriously chill out, Jacob,’ she finally said. ‘Take a pill.’

Striker barely heard her. ‘Most warrants aren’t walked through the courts,’ he continued. ‘Only when there’s been a history of violence. And Larisa hasn’t tried to hurt herself or anyone else, so it won’t be expedited.’

‘She hasn’t tried to hurt anybody yet.’

Striker turned and said goodbye to Lilly, then gave Felicia a curt nod and headed back down the narrow corridor of brown threadbare carpet. Before heading out through the exit, he ran right into Bernard Hamilton. The man stopped hard, looked surprised to see him, then put on his usual waxy smile.

‘Striker, Santos. How goes the battle?’

Striker didn’t bother to step out of his way. ‘I know about the warrant, Bernard.’

Bernard Hamilton kept the smile on his face, but his expression tightened. ‘What warrant?’

‘The Form 21. Which tells me why you were out at Larisa’s place last night and this morning. And why you created the CAD call. You want to apprehend her yourself – even though you know what we’ve been doing here. You’re trying to pad your goddam stats.’

The smile fell from Bernard’s lips. ‘What I’m trying to do here, Striker, is locate one of our patients – for her own well-being.’

‘Her own well-being? Really? You gonna seriously hide behind that?’ Striker took a step closer to the man. ‘Tell me, Bernard. Why didn’t you inform us of the warrant when we saw you this morning? You knew we were looking for her.’

‘I . . . I didn’t know at the time—’

‘The warrant came out last night. Car 87 gets first knowledge of anything related to mental health. So you of all people would have known first.’

Bernard’s face reddened. ‘There’s privacy issues here.’

‘Since when do privacy issues supersede protection of life?’

‘I’m not getting into this.’

‘No, you wouldn’t, would you, Bernard? What does a woman’s life matter when compared to your apprehension statistics?’

Hamilton’s eyes darkened. ‘Larisa Logan has a warrant out for her. She needs to be taken into custody. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Which would have happened already if you hadn’t screwed us.’ When Bernard’s face took on a confused look, Striker grew angry. ‘Larisa Logan was waiting to see me when you tried to nab her. Now she thinks I called you there. She thinks I screwed her. And she’s out there on the fly because of it. Good job, Bernard. Top ten as always.’

‘I . . . never knew—’

‘You would have, if you had even bothered to ask.’

Bernard offered nothing back, and Striker just stared at the man. After a short moment, Felicia touched Jacob’s arm to get him moving. He shrugged her hand away.

‘One more thing, Bernard. Anything happens to Larisa, and I’m going to make damn sure that everyone in this department knows just how badly you screwed this. How you put your stats ahead of her protection. You got that? We’ll see how far your bid for Cop of the Year goes after that.’

Bernard’s eyes widened at the comment, and Striker finally moved out of his way. Without looking at Bernard, or even Felicia, Striker stormed down the hall, kicked open the door, and made his way down the stairs.

Everything had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

Thirty-Five

Time was important, the Adder knew. Everything was progressing quickly. The items were prepared, all packed away and ready to go. And the van was filled with gas, the keys already in the ignition. It was parked, unseen, under the overhang of a weeping willow tree, at the end of a nearby dead-end lane.

He went over his checklist.

Leather mask. Check. Leather gloves. Check. Latex gloves. Check.

Video equipment . . . No.

The thought caused a frown to form on his face. How could he forget that? The camera was the most important thing.

He returned to his dwelling, opened the hatch in the floor, and climbed down the ladder into his home. When he reached the concrete below, he beelined for the east side of the room. On the wall hung a print of M.C. Escher’s Relativity – where people walked up and down stairs in all directions, in a world where gravity made no sense.

The Adder loved the image. However, his taste in art was not what made him buy the piece. What made him buy it was the size of the lithograph.

He reached out, grasped hold of the frame, and removed the picture from the wall. There behind it was an odd-sized door, two feet wide and three feet tall. Thin, made from wood.

An old dumbwaiter. It had been built God knows how long ago, and had long since been boarded up.

The Adder opened the door. Inside was the passageway leading up between the floors. It went all the way to the top of the house. Up there, the Adder knew – for he had rebuilt the system himself – were two strong platforms, each one less than one foot wide and two feet deep. The base of each was built on rollers, which rose and fell when the cords were pulled.

The Adder reached inside and grasped the cord. When he pulled it, the first unseen platform descended silently from above, revealing the array of electronic equipment. He removed the items he needed for the job.

Camera.

Relay.

Computer box with digital receiver.

And, of course, the back-up external hard drive. He always had a back-up drive. Because the thought of losing even one precious moment of the Beautiful Escape was horrifying and left him cold.

He took all the equipment out, placed it in the black leather duffel bag, and dropped it by the door. Then he raised the dumbwaiter once more, closed the door, and placed the painting back over it.

Almost set.

He crossed the room to the west side, to the only other door the room owned, and opened it. Inside was a small bathroom with a toilet and a shower but no bath. The Adder took off his clothes, revealing the marks on his back and legs – the unsightly welts he had received as part of his punishments – and turned on the water.

It was cold. Freezing cold – there was no hot water down here; never had been – but that was okay. He took the bar of soap from the rack and vigorously brushed it through his hair and across every inch of skin. Then he grabbed the horsehair brush and did the same, pressing hard, scraping it against his skin until the flesh turned pink.

He did this every time in preparation for a job. It was a necessary part of the routine.

By the time he was done, some twenty minutes later, he was chilled to the bone and his welted skin stung like it had been sandpapered raw. He climbed out of the shower, dried himself off, and redressed in a brand-new pair of unworn black jogging pants and a matching black hoodie.

One more thing.

And perhaps the most important of all.

He crossed the room to the cabinet where his computer sat, and logged on. He started the Private Search program, then navigated to his MyShrine site. Once he had logged on, he began typing. The message was brief, direct, and aimed well:

. . . I saw them first in Afghanistan and Kandahar. In human form. They came in rows, wave after wave of masks.

But I KNEW what they were. The other soldiers may have been blind, but not me. I saw through the shells. And I took them all down. A soldier. An emissary. The HAMMER OF GOD!!!

Then I was, as I am today.

There is only one way to kill a daemon. A goddam Succubus. And that is through the heart.

You’re moving downward. Into the mouth of hell, Hero. Can you kill your daemons?

I know I can mine . . .

The Adder

The Adder stopped typing. Read the message over.

And was content.

He hit the Send button and then logged off. Sometime today, Detective Striker would receive the warning. But would he get it soon enough? And would he make use of it?

It did not matter. Not in the end.

The Adder set up the KillDisk program. One wrong password and the entire hard drive would be deleted and then formatted. He logged off the computer and shut it down. Got up from the chair and headed for the ladder to the hatch above. The day may have been young, but there was still much work to do.