Текст книги "Snakes and ladders"
Автор книги: Sean Slater
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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 29 страниц)
Sixty-Two
When Striker’s iPhone went off on the car’s dashboard, he snatched it up like it was a bomb ready to go off, and read the screen. He was hoping to see Larisa’s name, or an email notification. Instead he saw the name Jim Banner across the display.
Striker hit the Talk button and put the phone to his ear.
‘Noodles,’ he acknowledged.
The technician sighed. ‘God, I hate that nickname.’
‘Just be happy you didn’t choke on Fish Balls. Now what do you have for me?’
‘How about another partial print, for starters?’
Striker leaned forward in the seat. ‘Where?’
‘We recovered one from apartment 109 in Hermon Heights – the suite across the road from Sarah Rose’s place, the one you thought this guy might have been watching you from.’
‘I knew it,’ Striker said. ‘And?’
‘Nothing earth-shaking, but we got some relatively interesting findings. I dusted all the areas you wanted – the electrical outlets, the window and frame, the plug end of the extension cord – and we got something. One single print on the inside of the front window. When I was doing it, one of the neighbours came by. Told me that suite’s been vacant for over six weeks, ever since the last renter moved out.’
‘And the print – you run it?’
‘Can’t. It’s just a partial,’ Noodles replied. ‘Nothing good enough to send through the database. But I did use it for a comparison.’
‘With whose?’
‘Billy Mercury’s. And once again, it doesn’t match.’
Striker thought this over. Just because the print was on the inside of the window, and just because it didn’t belong to Billy Mercury, that didn’t prove anything. Anyone could have been in that suite over the last six weeks. A squatter. Some neighbourhood kids. The landlord. Anyone. Or it could belong to the previous tenant.
They needed corroboration.
‘Did you compare it with the prints found on the fridge at the Lucky Lodge?’ he asked.
‘There’s the key,’ Noodles said. ‘The print might not match up with Billy Mercury’s prints, but it’s a perfect match with the one I found on the fridge at the Lucky Lodge.’
Striker felt a bolt of energy surge through him. What were the odds of finding two partial prints at two separate crime scenes that matched?
The answer was zero.
‘What about the can of varnish?’ Striker asked.
‘We got a good print there too. But it’s not the same.’
‘Not the same?’
‘Doesn’t match the print on the window, doesn’t match Billy’s.’
Striker frowned. There was no doubt that the varnish had been used as an accelerant on the door. ‘Run the print through the databank when you get time and let me know the results either way. For all we know, it could come back to a checkout girl. And swab everything for DNA. We need something here, Noodles. Gimme some magic.’
‘The only tricks I know involve a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a pair of air stewardesses.’
Striker smiled into the phone. ‘Just call me the moment you know.’
He hung up the cell and relayed the entire discussion to Felicia, paying particular attention to the fact that the partial print from the fridge back at the Mandy Gill crime scene matched the print from the window at the Sarah Rose crime scene.
The news seemed to shock her.
‘It has to be connected,’ she admitted. ‘The odds are too high.’
‘Which means that there’s a very good chance Billy Mercury wasn’t acting alone.’
‘Jesus.’
Felicia rubbed her face, massaging her temples. She brushed her hair back over her shoulders and shook her head as if she just couldn’t believe it. Without warning, she opened the car door.
Cold wind swept into the car, sucking away the heat.
‘I need some air,’ she said.
She climbed out, and Striker got out with her. He took his coffee cup with him. They walked down the long stretch of Kootenay Street, just below the highway overpass, where it was dark and quiet. They talked. After going over everything from beginning to end one more time, Felicia stopped walking and turned to face him.
‘Only two people stick out to me – Dr Ostermann and Dr Richter.’
Striker agreed. ‘Dr Richter is nowhere to be found. And I don’t like the way Ostermann is constantly avoiding us and skirting around our questions. There’s more going on here. You can bet your pay cheque on that.’
Felicia shivered, but nodded in agreement. She bundled up her coat, then snagged the coffee cup from his hand and slurped some back. She kept the cup.
‘Ostermann has proximity to everyone involved,’ she noted. ‘The timelines also correlate; he was seen driving like a madman through the area five minutes after you got into a fight with the suspect at Mandy Gill’s crime scene. He’s been resistant to our questions from the beginning. He had a sharp pain in his side that first night we spoke with him – maybe from a high fall. And last of all, we’ve caught him lying to us about working at Mapleview. Which is odd. Why lie about something so trivial?’
‘He says it was all a misunderstanding,’ Striker said, and they both laughed. After the moment had passed, he continued speaking. ‘This is all excellent insight, but it’s also all circumstantial.’
Felicia shivered and took another sip of Striker’s coffee. ‘Circumstantial, fine. But how much do we need?’
‘What we need here is motive.’
Felicia nodded. ‘That’s what interrogations are for.’
Striker didn’t disagree. ‘You’re bang-on right about that – but not just yet.’
‘Why not? Now’s as good a time as any.’
Striker only smiled at her. ‘You don’t go big-game hunting with a mag that’s half full of bullets.’ He took back his coffee cup and sipped it, then let out a long breath that fogged the air under the street lamp. ‘No, we’ll finish our investigation first, gather as much evidence as we can on Ostermann, and then we’ll go after him fully loaded.’
‘Guns a-blazing,’ Felicia said.
Striker smiled back.
‘I never fire blanks.’
Sixty-Three
The Adder entered the Special Room. He had been in here over a dozen times in his life. And every time for his reward.
The room was different from the others. Certainly different from his own dwelling. Thick silk drapes, blood-red in colour, framed the bay window at the far end of the room. The glass of the window was tinted – easy to see out, impossible to see in. Flanking the window was a pair of high-backed leather chairs, red-brown in colour, matching the mahogany bar that was set at the opposite corner. On the countertop of the bar were several bottles of booze. Twenty-five-year-old Bowmore. Fifteen-yearold Grey Goose. Forty-year-old Rémy Martin. And types of hard liquor the Adder did not even recognize. There were also several bottles of mineral water, all for him.
He touched none of it, just as he never had.
Sitting in the centre of the room was a king-sized bed. A fourposter, covered with thick heavy sheets of high-count cotton thread and big puffy pillows that were so deep, you fell right into them.
The Adder stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. His eyes flitted to the old bronze lamp on the desk, then the luxurious chandelier above, and then the mirror on the far wall. These were all beautiful items.
And all perfect for secretly hiding a camera.
He looked around the room but found none. He never did.
He unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall to the thick white carpet below. Then he did the same with his jeans and underwear. When he saw the image in the mirror before him, it was bony thin and terribly white. There were scratch marks all down its arms – from the well, he knew – and two of the fingernails from the left hand were broken off.
The sight was interesting, and for a moment it stole his attention.
Then the door behind him opened and shut. And the Adder knew that she was there. She came up behind him, wrapped her soft hands around his ribs, and his body automatically tightened.
‘You’re cold,’ she said.
Then her body pressed into him from behind. He could feel her firm breasts against his back. Her flesh on his flesh. Her warmth invading his body.
He turned around and met her eyes, and was sucked down deep into their stare. She kissed him with an open mouth, her tongue slipping on his. Touching, tickling, caressing. And then she gently pushed him back to the bed.
He let her. He fell back on the thick cotton sheets. And then she climbed on top of him. Her hips straddled his, her long dark hair spilling all around him like heavy thread. She stared deep into his eyes.
‘Did the Doctor put you in the well again?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re cold.’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me warm you.’
She reached down between his legs and grabbed hold of him, squeezed him, made him stiff. Then she lowered her hips and took him inside her. And the Adder did what he thought he was supposed to do – though his thoughts were still far away, where they needed to be. Not here, not now. But on Larisa Logan.
‘Warmer now?’ she asked.
He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the immediate.
The Girl let out a soft sound, a moan that escaped her thin bluish lips. And she tightened down on him; he could feel it. A throbbing sensation was pulsating through him. Because of her. She was warm and wet and wonderful.
‘I love you,’ she said, again and again.
The Adder did not reply. Did not even try.
I love you . . .
He wished he understood that.
Sixty-Four
Striker and Felicia went to meet Noodles at the Ident Lab at 312 Main Street. As always in this city, there was no parking to be found, so Striker left their car on Cordova Street in the Patrol Only parking – an action which always drove the road cops crazy, but Striker couldn’t help it.
Things had to get done.
He and Felicia walked down the laneway which divided the main building from the annexe. Once inside, they made their way to the Ident Lab. The unit was old and run-down and screamed of makeshift necessity. On the left side of the hall sat the Blood Drying Room, where all soaked materials were tagged before being swabbed. Up ahead they saw the chemical lab, where Noodles had undoubtedly applied the ninhydrin to bring up the print.
To the right of the chemical lab was the main Ident office, where most of the paperwork got done. In this area, it wasn’t all that different from Homicide. Rows and rows of thrown-together cubicles cluttered the office, each one seeming far too small for the amount of clutter the desks owned.
In the last one was Noodles.
The portly Ident tech was sitting far back in his chair with his feet up on the desk and a frozen gel pack laid across his eyes. When Striker got close enough to him, he gave his chair a kick.
‘Trying to get rid of the wrinkles there, Princess?’
Felicia laughed at this. ‘Botox works better.’
Noodles just removed the bag from his eyes and blinked a few times while trying to get used to the light. He threw the cold-pack on the desk, sat forward in his chair, and rubbed his eyes.
‘Been reading prints all damn day,’ he said. ‘My eyes are seeing stars.’
‘Any news on the print you found on the can of varnish?’
‘It’s being sent through the database as we speak. I’ll let you know if there are any hits.’
‘And the DNA?’
‘Swabbed from the gun, the can, the pill bottles, the windows – God, you name it. I’ll let you know if we get any hits on those too, but that’ll take a few weeks, as I’m sure you already know. As for the palm prints, well, take a look for yourself.’
Noodles pushed his chair out of the way and showed Striker the two samples. Both were palm prints, and only partials at that. One from the Mandy Gill crime scene, one from the apartment across the street from Sarah Rose’s unit.
The first print, from Mandy’s crime scene, was well detailed, with lots of good ridge detail and areas where the bifurcation and endings were easily apparent. But the second print, the one from Sarah’s crime scene, was indistinct, blurry – as if the hand had been dragged across the window surface, catching only the barest bit of skin.
Striker stood back and changed the subject. ‘Any news on the gun?’
‘It’s a Browning 9-mm pistol.’
The news made Striker’s hopes drop. The Browning nine-mil was standard issue in the army. Good for close-quarters combat; quick and easy to draw. Plus the mags held thirteen rounds. All in all, it meant the same damn thing to him.
Another dead end.
Felicia saw the frown on Striker’s face and asked, ‘What? What does that mean?’
‘It means that, in all likelihood, Billy Mercury stole the gun from the 7th Regiment when he got discharged – it means it will probably lead us nowhere but back to the army. And a stolen pistol at that.’
‘I’ll look into it and let you know what I find,’ Noodles said.
Striker appreciated it.
He was about say more when his cell vibrated against his side. He picked it up and read the screen, expecting to see Laroche’s or Courtney’s name. But what he saw made his heart skip a beat. He had received an email from: Larisa. He opened up the file and read the message.
I trusted you and you sent the Mental Health Team after me.
‘Oh shit,’ Striker said.
He immediately thought of Bernard Hamilton from Car 87, and anger rose in his chest. He looked at Felicia, then showed her the message. ‘What did I tell you – she thinks we sent the Mental Health Team after her.’
He typed back:
Not true. They were there on their own separate call. We never knew till later.
He sent the email and waited. But there was no immediate response. He added:
Where are you? We will meet you.
He hit Send. But again, there was no response. And he waited for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, just when he was about to close the email program and stuff the phone back into his jacket pocket, it vibrated again. He opened the email, read the screen and was disheartened by the words:
I trusted you, Jacob.
After that, nothing else came back. And after another long moment, Striker knew the discussion had ended. He closed off his email program and put his cell away. He leaned back in the chair and felt like screaming. Partly because he was frustrated, but partly because of the guilt. What Larisa had written was not entirely untrue. She had trusted him, reached out to him, and he had failed her.
‘She won’t listen to me now,’ he realized. ‘The trust is gone.’
Felicia nodded. ‘I’m not surprised. Don’t forget, Jacob, she’s paranoid right now. She thinks the whole world is out to get her. We need to ping her number and find out where she is.’
‘That’s the problem. She’s not sending it from a cell phone; she’s at a computer terminal somewhere. Using email. Who knows where?’
‘I have a contact with Shaw and some other service providers. Let me see if we can trace it for an IP address. Then maybe we’ll get a location of that terminal.’ Felicia grinned and stuck out her hand. ‘Come on, baby. Give momma the phone.’
Striker hesitated while looking at the message. After a moment, he relented and handed the cell to her. Felicia opened up the email program, pressed the Details button, then looked at the email sender’s address:
‘It’s a Gmail account,’ she said. ‘I have a contact there.’
Before Striker could reply, Felicia was on the phone to her contact. Striker spent the time going over the prints with Noodles one more time, making certain there was nothing they had overlooked. Ten minutes later, when she finally hung up, she had a smirk on her face. She said nothing.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Whenever you need something, you just come to momma, baby.’
Noodles laughed at this; Striker did not.
‘Come on, Feleesh. What you got?’
‘She’s at a coffee shop in the Metrotown Mall. A place called Arabic Beans.’
Striker swore. That was Burnaby. ‘We’ll never get there in time.’
Felicia agreed. ‘We need to send another unit.’
Striker shook his head. ‘Absolutely not. She sees one of their cruisers and she’ll freak.’
Felicia’s eyes stayed on his. ‘We have no choice in the matter. She may be delusional, Jacob, but Larisa knows something. You said that yourself. And if you’re right – if there is more than one person involved here – then she’s in a lot of danger, too. She could get herself killed before we have a chance to catch her again.’
Striker said nothing as he thought it over.
‘I agree with Felicia,’ Noodles said. ‘And you’re running out of time.’
Striker shook his head and gave in. ‘Fine. But a plainclothes cop only. No goddam uniforms. I mean it. She sees one of them, she’ll bolt on us. Even worse, she’ll know we sent it and she’ll never trust me again.’
Felicia grabbed Noodles’s portable radio, then went over the air, asking if there were any plainclothes units out east near the Boundary border. When the answer was negative, she switched over to the Info channel and asked them to see if there was a plainclothes unit in Burnaby South, near the Metrotown Mall. There was one, and Felicia relayed the message to them.
‘Be discreet,’ she said. ‘This woman is super heaty.’
‘Copy,’ the unit replied.
Striker cut in. ‘Give me your cell-phone number and I’ll send you a photo of the target.’
The Burnaby South cop gave Striker his number, and Striker flipped through his iPhone photos till he found the one of Larisa the Sarj had downloaded from her personnel file back at the Victim Services Unit. He brought it up and sent the attachment. Moments later, when Felicia handed the radio back to Noodles, she looked at Striker and smiled.
‘It’s done,’ she said.
Striker didn’t smile back. He couldn’t – he was sick to his stomach. If Larisa spooked on this one and got away from them, there was no telling what might happen. Thoughts of suicide even crossed his mind.
He stood up from the chair and grabbed his keys from his jacket pocket.
‘Come on,’ he said to Felicia. ‘We’re going there, too. Code 3.’
Sixty-Five
Normally the drive from Main Street to Burnaby’s Metrotown Mall took a good twenty minutes. With Striker driving lights and siren the entire way, they made it there in less than ten, and ended up intercepting the plainclothes cops from Burnaby South.
Striker spotted their undercover cruiser turning off Kingsway and driving into the underground parkade. It made him shake his head; he had hoped for an undercover operative, not a plainclothes cop in an unmarked Ford. A white Crown Victoria stood out in the parkade like a lighthouse at sea. It was no good. If anything, it was detrimental. And to make matters worse, Larisa had spent three years working for Victim Services. She knew what an undercover police sedan looked like. Hell, she used to drive around in one of them while en route to calls.
‘Just get them the hell out of there,’ Striker said to Felicia. ‘Larisa will make them in a second, if she sees them.’
Felicia agreed. She got on her cell, called Burnaby South Dispatch, and had the unit pulled. Less than a minute later, the Crown Vic peeled out of the underground, leaving in its wake a loud squeal of tyres and a patch of rubber on the parking lot surface a foot long.
It was a fuck you from the other unit.
‘That idiot,’ Striker said. ‘Get their unit number. I want to deal with them later.’
While Felicia got the number from Dispatch, Striker drove them into the central part of the parkade and dumped the wheels behind a tall support pillar, hoping to blend in with the grey concrete. When Felicia got out and stared at the size of the parkade, a worried sound escaped her lips.
‘We got our work cut out for us on this one,’ she said. ‘This mall is huge. If she’s left the coffee shop, we’ll never find her in here.’
‘All the more reason to get going,’ Striker replied. He pointed to the escalator. ‘Arabic Beans is on the northwest side of the mall, below the movie theatres – the older ones, not the new Cineplex. You go round the Skytrain ramp and come in from the south; I’ll cut through the mall and come in from the north.’
‘And if I find her, then what? Take her down right there?’
Striker thought it over. ‘No. Don’t let her see you. Call me on the cell, and let me approach her on my own. If she runs, then take her down. We have to. It’s for her own good.’
Felicia nodded. Without a word, she spun about and hurried for the escalator. When she reached the top and disappeared from view, entering the first floor of the mall, Striker turned around and ran for the north-side elevators.
He hoped they weren’t too late.
Despite the fact that Christmas and Boxing Day sales were long over, and all the New Year’s Day sales had ended three weeks ago, the mall was jam-packed with people. Gangs of teenagers with their baggy pants and skateboards hung out near the McDonald’s alcove, and adults with their children flooded the Gamespot counter. Everyone was making exchanges and new purchases. It being seven o’clock and dinner time for the late crowd, the Food Court was jammed.
Striker took a moment to scan the area.
Larisa Logan was Caucasian. At five foot seven and one hundred and forty pounds, she blended in well with most crowds. The last time he saw her her dark brown hair had been shoulder length and straight though it could be worn many ways. As if to make spotting her even more difficult, she also wore glasses and, sometimes, he recalled, coloured contacts.
She was a hard target.
Striker saw no sign of her in the Food Court, so he made his way down the east–west walkway. He found the mall doors, exited the building, and began rounding the building along the Kingsway boulevard.
Outside, the night was as dark as a day-old bruise. The sidewalk was frosted over. Only the street and walkway lamps illuminated the area, turning everyone more than twenty feet away into silhouettes.
Striker passed a few clusters, making sure he saw the face of each person and paying even closer attention to any lone individuals that sneaked off the path. When he rounded the bend and came within sight of the coffee shop, Arabic Beans, his heart clenched and his hopes evaporated.
Sitting outside Arabic Beans was an unmarked Crown Victoria sedan. A Vancouver Police car. Its red and blue lights were flashing and its spotlight was turned on.
‘What the fuck?’ escaped his lips.
Before Striker knew it, he was running. Racing down the long strip of corridor towards the coffee shop. He passed the Happy Gate Sushi shop and the Muffin Inn, and finally the Save-on-Foods store.
When he came to within fifty feet of Arabic Beans, he spotted Felicia coming the other way. The hard look on her face told him that she felt the same confusion. What the hell was going on? And just as importantly, who the hell was in Arabic Beans?
Striker got his answer less than ten steps later.
The tinted glass door to the coffee shop slowly opened and two figures emerged. The first one was a short Asian woman Striker recognized but could not place. The second figure was easily distinguishable, and the sight of the man made Striker’s blood hot. With his long ponytail hanging down from his balding head, and wearing a bright red dress shirt with matching tie, was Bernard Hamilton of Car 87. The Mental Health Team.
They were here for the warrant.
Striker ran right up to the man. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he demanded.
Bernard Hamilton smiled. Smiled like he wasn’t surprised in the least to see them. ‘We’re looking for Larisa.’ He winked. ‘Got a tip she might be here.’
‘A tip? From who?’
Bernard just kept smiling. ‘Never identify a source,’ was all he said.
Striker looked around for Larisa, did not see her.
‘Where is she?’ he asked.
‘Not here,’ Bernard said. ‘I checked out the entire place. She left long before we got here.’
Striker looked at Felicia, whose face appeared as tight as his chest. ‘Watch the front,’ he told her, and headed into the coffee shop.
The place was small and dark with a mirror behind the front bar that reflected back the blue lights of the Arabic Beans neon sign in the window. Behind the bar stood a tall thin black man. He was washing mugs.
Striker approached him and got his attention. ‘You see a white woman in here? Five foot seven. A hundred and forty pounds. Brown hair?’
The man put down the mug and frowned. ‘I see lots dem people in here,’ he said. His voice was deep and smooth, and he spoke the words slowly, with all the patience in the world. His accent reminded Striker of the Hondurans he’d dealt with in the skids so many times during his time in Patrol. ‘Dis is Metrotown, man. Always real busy.’
Striker fished out his iPhone and opened up his photos folder. He scanned through the pictures, found the one of Larisa and showed it to the man. The barista took a long look, then shook his head.
‘Never seen da girl.’
‘You got video surveillance?’
‘Naw, the owner’s too cheap for dat, man. We’s lucky to have lights on in dis place.’
Striker cursed. Without another word, he left the front counter and began searching through the shop. He started in the rear, checking both washrooms and finding them empty. Then he began making his way among the patrons. There were fewer than ten in total, and only four of them were women. Two Asian, one black, and one white woman. She was over six foot.
Striker tried to contain his temper.
Larisa was gone; they had missed her.
Again.
He was about to leave Arabic Beans when his eye caught the row of monitors along the far wall. There were five in total, and the first four all faced towards him, each displaying a stark white Google screen from the Firefox web browser.
The last terminal was turned to face the wall.
Striker walked over to the area. He searched the chair and floor for anything that might have been dropped. A purse. Some ID. Anything to show that Larisa had been here. Anything to lead them to a new location.
But he found nothing.
He reached out, grasped hold of the monitor, and turned it so he could see the screen. What he saw was alarming. The screen was white, just like the others, but the application running wasn’t Firefox, but Microsoft Word. Typed across the screen was one brief message. When Striker read it, his heart plummeted:
Car 87?
Betrayed me again!
I can’t believe it.
You were my only hope, Jacob.
My only hope.
