Текст книги "Snakes and ladders"

Автор книги: Sean Slater

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Eighty-Two

Felicia hung up the phone. ‘Nothing comes back,’ she said.

Striker cursed. ‘Nothing?’

‘Zilch. The only address the registrar’s office has on file is their house on Belmont.’

Striker thought this over. ‘What about using EvenHealth as an entity?’ he asked.

‘Already one step ahead of you. EvenHealth as an entity comes back to every clinic the programme is associated with – and there’s more than two dozen all across the city. Not to mention the rest of the Lower Mainland. How many clinics there are out there in total, I have no idea.’

Striker frowned. It left them with nothing. All they had was a house where Lexa and her children had fled from, and a pair of speeding tickets from the Whistler Village area.

He met Felicia’s stare. ‘If you were Lexa Ostermann and you needed somewhere to store some extra cash and ID, where would you go?’

‘A PO box.’

‘Agreed. But a post office box is only accessible during business hours. Normal people like you and me could always wait till the next business day, but someone involved in a scam like this would have to run at a moment’s notice. So where else would you go?’

Felicia was quiet for a moment, then shook her head. ‘There’s only one other place I can think of – where she works. The clinic her husband owns.’

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘It’s time to go to Mapleview.’

At exactly ten-thirty, Striker parked the undercover cruiser by the roundabout and stepped out. With the morning sun now rising high overhead, and backed by brilliant blue sky, the modern clinic of Mapleview looked pleasant enough. But all Striker could think of was when they’d come there to kidnap Dr Ostermann and intercept Billy Mercury. That had happened at three o’clock yesterday afternoon.

It felt like a lifetime ago.

‘I’m starting to hate this place,’ he said.

‘You’re preaching to the choir,’ Felicia replied. She started up the old cement stairs, and Striker went with her. The moment they walked through the wired-glass double doors into the antechamber of the facility, the receptionist behind the desk looked up. Her face took on a pleasant look, and she smiled at them.

‘Detectives,’ she said. ‘Good morning.’

Striker smiled. Obviously she hadn’t heard the news of Dr Ostermann’s demise and the family’s disappearance.

‘Good morning back,’ he said. He approached the front desk, smiled at the woman, reached out and gently touched her hand. ‘You know, in all the pandemonium yesterday, I never did get your name.’

She smiled at his concern. ‘It’s Pam,’ she said. ‘Well, Pamela. Pamela O’Malley.’

‘I’m actually surprised to see you in here today.’

She looked around and shrugged. ‘Everyone else called in sick, and someone has to be here for the patients.’

‘It’s very decent of you.’

‘Yeah, good job,’ Felicia added.

Striker met the woman’s stare. ‘How are you coping, Pam? If you need a card for Victim Services, I can give you one.’ He looked around the room as if suddenly realizing where he was, and grinned. ‘Actually, if you need some therapy, I guess you’re probably covered.’

When the receptionist smiled and chuckled at his comment, Striker got down to business.

‘I need to speak with one of your staff members,’ he began.

‘Dr Ostermann still isn’t in yet.’

‘Actually, I was looking for Lexa.’

The smile on the woman’s face fell away. ‘Mrs Ostermann isn’t in yet either. She doesn’t normally work till the afternoon.’

‘You almost say that with relief,’ Striker said. When the woman didn’t know how to respond, he smiled at her and lowered his voice. ‘It’s okay. I’ve dealt with her only twice – and that’s been enough for me. But duty calls, you know.’

The receptionist laughed softly. ‘Yes, Mrs Ostermann can be a bit . . . demanding at times.’

‘She’s a pill,’ Felicia said boldly.

The receptionist laughed again.

‘So she hasn’t been in here today?’ Striker clarified.

‘No. She shouldn’t be in until one o’clock. And you can pretty much set your watch by it. Mrs Ostermann is always extremely punctual and orderly with everything she does. Even the group sessions. God forbid one of them comes in even a minute late. She kicks them out and sends them home.’

Felicia asked, ‘Which group is that?’

‘Oh, all the groups. But especially the SILC classes – are you familiar with the programme?’

‘Yes, we are,’ Striker said. ‘Does she confer with Dr Ostermann before sending his patients home? These are, after all, his sessions, right?’

‘Yes, they are. But Mrs Ostermann does fill in.’

Striker found this interesting. ‘Fill in? A nurse holds the session in place of a qualified psychiatrist?’

For a moment, the receptionist’s face tightened, as if she was worried she had said too much. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t—’

‘Hey, it’s okay,’ Striker told her. ‘I’m not going to press Mrs Ostermann on anything. You got my word on that. I just find it surprising.’

‘It’s not without its merit,’ the woman replied. ‘Mrs Ostermann does have extra training.’

‘What kind of extra training?’ Felicia asked.

‘I don’t really know, for sure. But she took much of her training in Europe, and she’s not one to talk about it. Not one to talk about anything, really. Especially not with staff.’

‘Where in Europe?’ Striker pressed.

‘The Czech Republic.’

He nodded. ‘How would you know that when she never talks about it?’

‘Dr Ostermann did once. A long time ago. Over a year maybe.’

Striker rested his arm on the front counter and tried to look casual. ‘Really? And you remember it.’

The woman’s face took on a distant look. ‘It’s kind of hard to forget. Dr Ostermann was talking to Dr Richter about what courses were considered transferable from overseas. During the conversation, he mentioned that Mrs Ostermann had grown up in the Czech Republic and had had problems transferring her university credits.’

‘Which university?’

‘Charles, I think. I’m not sure exactly where it is.’

‘It’s in Prague,’ Striker said. ‘Charles Bridge.’

‘And what next?’ Felicia asked.

The woman’s cheeks reddened further. ‘Next? Oh, Mrs Ostermann got angry. Very angry. I’d never seen her so . . . enraged – she is a very private person, you know.’

Striker nodded at this.

Private, he thought. And full of secrets.

He took out a business card and wrote down his cell number on the back. When he handed it to the receptionist, he made sure they had eye contact. ‘If Lexa or her children return here, I need you to leave the building right away. Do you understand me, Pam?’

The woman looked confused. ‘Leave the building?’

‘Immediately,’ he stressed. ‘Make an excuse. Leave to check on one of the patients. And then, the first chance you have, I want you to leave the building and call my cell. Right away. Do you understand?’

The woman nodded slowly.

‘And if Dr Ostermann comes in?’

Striker smiled wryly.

‘Then I don’t think my number’s gonna help.’

Eighty-Three

After fully debriefing the receptionist on what had happened with Dr Ostermann’s suicide and the subsequent disappearance of his family, Striker and Felicia asked to see Lexa’s office.

The receptionist, still looking rattled, nodded daftly. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a key. ‘She locks it,’ she said, and led them down the hall. When they rounded the east corner, they came across one room with a dark red door. ‘This is Mrs Ostermann’s office. She wanted it on the east side of the facility; all the other doctors are on the west.’

‘I didn’t realize the facility was so big,’ Felicia said.

‘It’s actually not,’ the receptionist said. ‘It’s just a strange layout.’ She unlocked the door for them. Before moving out of the way, she fixed Striker with a hard stare. ‘Please . . . if you’re going to take anything, let me know. I should at least keep a record of things.’

‘Of course, Pam,’ Striker said. ‘Have you ever been in there before?’

She shook her head. ‘No one has. Like I said before, Mrs Ostermann is a very private person. She doesn’t even allow the other doctors inside. It is always under lock and key, and to be honest, I think she would fire me on the spot if she ever saw me in there – no matter the reason.’

Striker nodded. He said goodbye to Pam, then went inside the office with Felicia and closed the door behind them. As he turned around, he scanned the room.

It was very drab, and surprisingly, very sparse. Just a black walnut wood desk, a burgundy leather chair, and a computer terminal. No plants or flowers decorated the shelves. No pictures or diplomas adorned the walls. There weren’t even any photographs of her family.

Felicia saw the oddness of it too. ‘Talk about taking minimalism to the extreme.’

Striker walked over to the desk and opened both drawers. Not much was inside them, except for basic office supplies and a short row of file folders. Striker went through them all, carefully reading each one. All of them contained numerous patient files, but none of the names stood out to him. He took down the names so they could run them through the system later.

Then he looked at the computer. The screen was black, but when he moved the mouse the screensaver vanished. No password. No logon. Just right to the desktop. Striker started browsing through the system. He found nothing, not even one file.

‘A new computer,’ he said.

‘Or a fresh install,’ Felicia added.

He looked around for an external backup drive, but found none. He then scanned the office shelves. They were filled with medical and psychological textbooks. They all looked brand new. Like they had never been touched.

He opened one – The Diagnostics and Statistics Manual – and felt the inflexible give of the book’s spine. None of the pages had been marked up, and no hidden papers were tucked inside the book.

He went through all the books, flipping the pages of each one and finding nothing inside. When done, Striker put the last book back, and paused. At the end of the shelf sat a lone file folder. Red in colour. He picked it up. On the tab were the words: Medical Billing Codes. He opened it up, saw the list of codes, and showed it to Felicia:

10-14141ML-MG900412,

09-29292TIG-SR730128,

and more. The list was several pages long.

‘Strange,’ he noted. ‘If these are Medical Service Plan codes, why not just print them out from the government website? Why go to all the bother of writing them down yourself?’

Felicia looked them over. ‘And what do they mean, for that matter? Look at them, they’re all in a different format.’

Striker was confused. ‘I don’t follow you.’

‘Most computer programs use similar codes,’ she explained. ‘Look at PRIME, for example. Everything there is separated by four-digit codes: 2117 is a Suspicious Circumstance. 2118 is a Suspicious Person. 2119 is a Suspicious Vehicle. They are all listed in a pattern. But not these numbers. They’re all over the map – as if they’re from more than one system.’

Striker looked back at the numbers, and saw she was right. They took the file folder with them, left the office, and stopped at the receptionist’s desk on the way out. Pam was still sitting there, looking lost and out of place.

Striker approached her. ‘Do you have a book on Medical Service Plan codes?’

Pam blinked as if coming out of a dream. ‘Medical Service Plan? Well, no. No, we don’t. We would never have use of it.’

‘Why not? How do you bill?’

‘Because everything here is private. All the medical goes through Riverglen.’

Striker frowned at that; they would have to look the codes up later. He started to leave, then stopped.

‘Are you familiar with MSP codes?’ he asked.

The receptionist nodded. ‘At the other clinic, I do all the billing – and they’re completely covered by medical.’

Striker open the folder. He showed the list to Pam. ‘Are these Medical Service Plan codes?’ he asked.

The receptionist looked at the list for less than a few seconds. ‘Not that I recognize.’

Striker closed the file.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think so.’

Eighty-Four

Striker and Felicia pulled out of the Mapleview parking lot and headed north on Boundary Road. He drove right to the lane behind the Esso gas station on Hastings Street. It housed an On the Run coffee shop, and was a common place where Patrol grabbed coffee after their morning briefings.

‘More caffeine?’ Felicia asked.

Striker nodded. ‘I need one. It helps me think.’

They exited the vehicle, grabbed a couple of coffees, and returned to the lane. They stood outside the car, drinking in the frosty air because Striker liked it that way. The cold always invigorated him.

‘Everything we know so far about Lexa Ostermann has been a lie,’ he said. ‘From the way she presented herself as the frightened victim at her home, to the role she’s been playing at the clinic.’

Felicia sipped her coffee. ‘Hey, give the psycho credit. She was good at it. She definitely made it look like Ostermann was the one in control of their household, and it was the exact opposite.’ She shook her head. ‘My God, when I think of her lashing that poor man and him screaming out, “Red. Red! Red!” it turns my stomach.’

‘Personally, I would have picked stop for a safety word. Creates less confusion.’

Felicia laughed, and Striker continued.

‘The point is we thought we knew the woman, and she had the wool pulled over our eyes. It makes me wonder what else we don’t know about her that we think we do. The vital stuff.’

‘Like her name,’ Felicia said.

‘Exactly. Name, date of birth, place of birth – all those details.’

Felicia took out her phone. ‘I got a contact in Victoria,’ she said. ‘I’ll look into her maiden names.’

Striker was glad to hear it. Victoria was the central location for the Vital Statistics Agency, the place where legal name changes and marriage records were kept for all of British Columbia.

‘Check the marriage records, too,’ he suggested.

She gave him one of her I’m not an idiot stares and waited for the call to be answered.

Striker let her be. Dealing with any form of the Canadian government, be it Stats Canada, Canada Revenue, or the Vital Statistics Agency, was always an exercise in frustration. Furthermore, he needed Felicia to do it, because he didn’t have any contacts there. To make use of his time while he waited, he called Central Dispatch once more to see if there had been any hits on the Ostermann family.

Sue gave him her trademark response. ‘Have I called you?’

‘No.’

‘Then there’s your answer.’

Sue Rhaemer was more on top of things than a cherry on a sundae, and she had never let him down once. He could tell by her tone she was irritated he was even questioning her.

‘Thanks, Sue,’ he said. ‘I’m just desperate here, is all.’

‘You owe me a Coke.’

‘Over ice,’ he said.

He hung up the phone and looked at Felicia. She was still dealing with her contact at the Vital Statistics Agency, and the look on her face was one of tentative hope. When she began writing information down in her notebook, Striker felt a glimmer of optimism. She hung up and smiled at him.

‘Well?’ he asked.

‘Anytime you need info, you just come to momma, darling.’

Striker laughed. ‘I’ve heard that before. Come on, Feleesh.’

‘Fine, fine. But get this: Lexa married Dr Ostermann exactly ten years ago this month.’

‘Ten years ago?’ Striker asked. He thought it over. ‘That would mean that Gabriel was only eight when they got married, and Dalia was five. So the kids were either born out of wedlock, or—’

‘They’re not siblings,’ Felicia finished. ‘At least not by blood. I verified it through Vital Stats. Gabriel was born a lone child to Wilma and Erich Ostermann eighteen years ago. Wilma died of cancer six years later, and barely two years after that, Erich remarried to Lexa.’

‘What was Lexa’s maiden name at the time?’

‘Smith.’

Striker found that unsurprising. After Lee, Smith was the most common surname in all of North America – definitely the most common among Caucasians. It made searching information on her more of a hassle, and he doubted the validity of the name anyway.

‘Is the name legit?’ he asked.

Felicia shook her head. ‘Phoney as a three-dollar bill. If you go farther back into the name records, she was originally named Jarvis from a previous marriage that lasted only three years – but that marriage took place fifteen years ago.’

‘Which would match Dalia’s age.’

Felicia nodded. ‘Exactly. Lexa has had a list of names over the years. And it doesn’t stop there. She had requested a previous name change even before that – when she first came to Canada by way of Toronto. Her immigrant name was Novak.’

‘Novak?’ Striker said. He thought of the name for a brief moment, then brought out his iPhone. ‘I don’t know a whole lot of Czech names, but I do recognize Novak.’ He punched the name into the Google search engine, then nodded when he saw the result. ‘Big surprise. Smith is the most popular name in Canada, Novak is the most common name in the Czech Republic. Where did she emigrate from?’

‘Berlin,’ Felicia said.

‘Yet the receptionist back at Mapleview said Lexa was from Prague.’

‘And Lexa was none-too-happy about her knowing.’

Striker Googled Charles University, and got the number. He looked at his watch and saw it was slowly approaching noon in Vancouver. It would be around 8 p.m. there.

He called up the Information and Advisory section of Charles University and was relieved to find a person who was fluent in English. Less than ten minutes later, he got off the phone and gave Felicia a hard stare.

‘She went there all right, under the name Novak – and for eight years.’

‘Why so long? Did she change her programme?’

Striker offered a grave stare. ‘She didn’t go there for a nursing degree, she’s a friggin’ doctor. She minored in psychology.’

Felicia’s face took on a stunned look, but then she nodded. ‘It actually makes sense, when you put it all together. Lexa gets her medical degree over there, and comes to Canada.’

‘But not all her courses are transferable,’ Striker pointed out.

‘So she finds a man who’s also a forensic psychiatrist.’

‘Erich Ostermann. Who just happens to own his own clinic.’

‘Where she’ll have access to all the patients she wants.’

‘Not patients,’ Striker said. ‘Victims.’

Felicia thought this over for a long moment, then shook her head. ‘There’s one small problem here. Why not just take the extra courses required to make her degree recognized over here? I mean, think of it, she put in eight years towards it. Why downgrade to nursing after all that?’

‘I can think of two reasons,’ Striker said. ‘One, it’s easier to hide in the background when the police come knocking – everyone thinks of the doctor, not the nurse.’

‘And two?’

‘Because she couldn’t. Lexa Novak was already on the run.’

Eighty-Five

It was a blur, really. A muddled white haze that slowly pushed away the darkness. And William was there, calling for him to Get up, Gabriel! Get up! You must get up! And then William was shaking him. Shaking him fiercely. Shaking him so hard his entire body shook like a child’s rag doll.

‘Get up, Gabriel.’

And the clouds slowly thinned.

‘Get up!’

Slowly lifted.

‘GABRIEL!’

And he could see blue sky once more.

The Adder lifted his head off the cold, hard earth and it felt like it weighed a million pounds. As he awoke, so did the pain – a cold sharp stabbing sensation. Like a trillion needles poking the skin all over his body, from his head to his feet.

But his legs, they were the worst.

Sharp, biting pain, and yet they were also numb. Strangely, achingly numb.

It made no sense.

With all the strength he could muster, the Adder sat up and looked at his legs. They were half submerged in the icy waters of the lake, and they were whiter than the ice.

‘Get up, Gabriel!’ he heard from behind him.

Whispers.

Desperate panicked whispers.

And he knew that it was Dalia. Somewhere behind him. Up above. Her bedroom window perhaps.

He was too weak to turn around and look.

‘Gabriel, you must get inside!’

Without thought, without real intention, the Adder tried to bend his knees. Tried to remove his legs from the icy cold waters of the lake. But his muscles refused to obey the commands of his mind. They were like dead chunks of flesh attached to his body. Useless pieces of meat.

He rolled over, on to his belly, and felt the cold sharpness of the rocks against his skin. To his left, less than an arm’s reach away, were his clothes. But he could not reach for them. His mind was slowly clearing now. Ever so slowly. And his rationale was coming back in blips.

The cabin . . .

The cabin was the only chance for survival.

And so inch by inch, arm pull by arm pull, the Adder dragged his body from the lake. Dragged himself up the gravelly beach. Across the frozen lawn. Even up the slippery wood of the porch steps. The back door was still wide open, and he wondered why.

A test from the Doctor? A goal?

Or one of her many taunts?

In the end, it did not matter. He pulled himself inside, his useless legs dragging behind him. When he reached the kitchen, he saw the Doctor.

She was seated at the table, a steaming cup in one hand, her newspaper in the other. She sipped her drink, placed the cup carefully back on the saucer, and then looked down to face him. ‘Welcome home, Gabriel,’ she said. ‘I trust you have learned yet another lesson today.’

He said nothing back. He could not. And after a moment, the Doctor stood and walked away. Out of the front door of the cabin.

As he lay there, waking, returning to life, the heat from the furnace vents blasted on his torso and legs. His skin went from that strange numbness to a cold piercing fire. He ground his teeth and wanted to scream. Wanted to wail with every ounce of strength his lungs had left.

But the Adder did not.

Instead, he lay there, his mind number than his body, and he thought of the only thing left in this world that brought him any true pleasure. The final doorway. The moment of release. The only exit from this world.

The Beautiful Escape.

It was coming once more, and this time for Jacob Striker. The thought almost made the Adder smile.

It was going to be a truly wonderful moment.