Текст книги "The Guilty"

Автор книги: Sean Slater

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

Thirty-Five

Still wearing the grey workman’s suit and a pair of white latex-free surgical gloves, the bomber stood in the kitchen area of Chad Koda’s house and finished taping the entire bay window with thick transparent duct tape. It was a necessary step if he was going to remove the pane and take his place in the preplanned observation point. Now all he had to do was break the outer edges and knock the entire square out onto the rear deck. But before he could begin the process, Molly’s tight voice flooded the radio waves once more:

‘Target approaching from the south. One block out.’

He closed his eyes. One block? He pressed the plunger. ‘Are you sure it’s him?’

‘Follow radio command.’

He sighed. ‘Copy. One block out.’

‘Exit,’ came the reply.

The bomber said nothing. He just stood there going over things in his head. This was too soon. He wasn’t ready yet. And still Molly persisted:

‘You need to exit. Now.’

He said nothing.

‘Now!’

He turned down the volume. Grabbed the crowbar. Began smashing out the glass edges of the pane. When he was near completion and the entire window started to tilt and buckle outwards, he gave it one solid push and the whole structure fell on the deck with a loud, hard, flat sound.

Breathing heavier now – as much from anticipation as exertion – he took the crowbar and raked it all around the windowsill, ridding the frame of any remaining glass shards. It was critical. Even one of those shards could kill him if directed the right way from the bomb’s percussive force; each one was like a glass arrowhead.

Experience had taught him well.

Sweating, shivering, he stopped. And then he smiled.

Done.

It was done.

He turned around and took one final look at the setup before him. The doctor was strapped to the chair, in just the right viewing angle from the front entranceway; the ducks were perfectly positioned on the kitchen island beside her; and, if he moved out to the back patio, he’d be able to discreetly watch the moment unfold from his observation point, then escape in the utility van.

Everything was set.

Almost.

As a final step, he removed a second remote – the one intended for the police to find – from his workman’s suit and placed it in the doctor’s lap.

Molly’s voice came across the radio once more – a barely audible yell:

‘You must exit the building! Now, now, NOW!’

From the front alcove, he heard the excited sound of Koda’s dog barking. It was a young, spritely golden retriever. Oddly, this was the one part of the task that bothered him. He didn’t want the animal to get hurt. He never liked it when animals got hurt.

Koda’s voice penetrated the front door. ‘Down, Jake, down!’

The dog scratched at the wood and barked again; keys jingled.

Out of time.

He grabbed his toolbox, the crowbar, and the remote activator, and quickly made his way across the hard stone tiles of the kitchen floor. He opened the back door and stepped outside. As he closed the kitchen door, he heard the rattle of the front door as it opened and banged into the wall behind it. Then, the scuffling sound of claws on wood.

The dog was coming.

He hurried across the yard until he reached the laneway where the utility van was parked. He obtained his position directly beside the telephone pole, then waited and watched for the moment to come.

It happened quickly.

In one magical moment, the look on Chad Koda’s face turned from relaxed weariness to shocked disbelief. He came to a full stop halfway between the foyer and kitchen, stared at the woman tied to the chair, and then dropped all his mail.

To the bomber, the moment was all-encompassing. No happiness filled him, just a deep sense of satisfaction out of the knowledge that they would be one step closer to the completion of this horrible job.

He gently thumbed the activator and remotely armed the bomb. When Koda hurried forward and removed the duct tape from the doctor’s mouth, she began screaming something – fast, garbled words. And Koda’s head snapped from the woman in the chair to the two wooden ducks sitting on the kitchen island.

He knew.

He damn well fuckin’ knew.

The bomber wasted no time. He burst forth from his place of cover and raced down onto the back deck, until he was less than thirty feet from the open area where the window had been removed. Until he was staring inside the room at Koda and the woman and the ducks.

Once there, he breathed in deeply.

Closed his eyes.

And hit the switch.

The fusing system arced. And in one giant blast of light and smoke and swirling debris, Chad Koda, the doctor and the ducks were consumed by the explosion, and the bomber felt himself flailing backwards . . . backwards . . . backwards in the percussive blast of the bomb.

It was bliss.

Thirty-Six

Striker and Felicia reached the District 2 Courthouse, located at Triple 2 Main Street. All proceedings had long since ended and the building was now empty, save for the odd sheriff left wandering the halls and the night-time security guards, most of whom were killing time by reading books and chugging coffee.

Striker and Felicia entered the foyer. Lying down on one of the benches was Jay Kolt. On the ground next to him was a brown leather briefcase and, on top of it, a folded trench coat. Kolt saw them coming, let out a groan, and sat up, adjusting his glasses as they approached.

‘My friggin’ back,’ he said.

‘Thanks for seeing us,’ Felicia offered.

Kolt nodded but did not smile. He got right down to business. ‘This suspect of yours, he’s using an electrical torture weapon?’

‘It would appear so,’ Striker said.

‘Opened or closed?’

Striker had no idea what the man was talking about, so Kolt explained.

‘An open device is essentially a rod with two wires coming off it. One wire is always taped in the victim’s mouth. If the victim is a man, the other wire is placed around the testicles; if it’s a woman, then the wire is often connected to a pad of steel wool, which is then inserted into the vagina.’

Felicia’s face tightened. ‘Sick.’

Kolt smiled. ‘It’s not exactly an aphrodisiac. This completes the circuit for an open device. On the other hand, a closed device is essentially wireless, like a cattle prod or a violet wand.’

Felicia shook her head. ‘Violet wand?’

Kolt grinned, almost mischievously. ‘Small handheld device. Used by S&M lovers to give each other shocks – that is an aphrodisiac. A sexual stimulus.’

Striker looked at Felicia. ‘That doesn’t sound like any of your toys.’

She gave him one of her cross looks – definitely a warning – and he let the joke go.

Kolt continued: ‘A picana looks like a long metal stick with two electrodes at one end. The electrodes are of different polarity, of course, and the circuit completes when they’re driven into the victim’s flesh. Essentially, it’s like a longer version of a stun gun, but one that delivers much more voltage – up to thirty thousand volts – all while keeping the amperage down.’ He looked directly at Striker. ‘Is this more along the lines of what you saw?’

‘I’m not sure. I only saw pieces of the device, not the entire thing.’

Kolt blinked behind his thin glasses. ‘Then how—’

‘The totality of the evidence suggested it,’ he explained. ‘The chair was metal and had straps. The floor beneath it had water stains. And sitting beside the chair was a bucket of water, a crescent-shaped piece of rubber with wires coming off it, a yellow sponge, and an industrial-size battery.’

Kolt nodded. ‘Electrical torture.’

Felicia spoke up: ‘But why all the gear? That’s what I don’t get. Why not just use a TASER instead – they deliver up to two hundred thousand volts.’

‘It’s because of the current,’ Kolt explained. ‘By keeping the amperage down, the torture can go on for hours. Days, even. And with little fear of the victim dying.’ He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers. ‘Odd though, normally the use of a picana involves two people – one to apply the baton and the other to regulate the voltage.’

‘I only saw one suspect down there,’ Striker replied. ‘The other person had to be the victim.’

Kolt took off his glasses and began cleaning them with a silk rag from his coat pocket. ‘One person can operate a picana. It’s not unheard of. Just unusual. The operator would have to be very . . . skilful.’ He put his glasses back on, and continued. ‘The thing with a picana is that it’s also a very powerful psychological tool. A lot of insurgents use them – like the Taliban. But most of the domestic cases I’ve seen have been linked to either the cartel or the mafia. Or the high-end gangs from the south or the east – the Tongs, the Triads, the Banditos.’

‘What about around here?’ Felicia asked. ‘There must be some persons of interest.’

Kolt was quiet for a bit. ‘A lot of the gangs do use electrical torture,’ he said. ‘But an actual picana? That is rare. The only one I can think of is the Satan’s Prowlers – they were known for using one against the Renegades a while back, but we’re talking ten or more years ago, and I believe that was back East in Toronto.’

Felicia nodded. ‘Well, one of them might have turned active again.’

Kolt let out a long breath. ‘I sincerely hope not. The kind of person that uses a picana is generally either a fanatic or a professional – someone with a specific cause. Definitely not your ordinary everyday criminal.’

Striker wrote all this down in his notebook.

‘Anyone come to mind?’ he asked.

‘Fanatics?’ Kolt asked. ‘No. But professionals that are capable of this? Many. There was a guy named Burns who worked for the Satan’s Prowlers back East. Everyone called him Sleeves. He did some time for torturing one of the Renegades. Check him out.’ Kolt stopped talking for a moment and eyed Striker up. ’Whoever you’re dealing with, this guy has some rather unusual experience. Be ready for it.’

Striker didn’t like the sound of that. He wrote ‘Burns (Sleeves)’ down in his notebook, then his cell went off. He drew it from his belt, put it to his ear.

‘Striker,’ he said.

The man on the line was Inspector Osaka. His tone was low, his words clipped and direct: ‘We got another explosion.’

‘Where?’

‘Pacific Avenue,’ he said. ‘Chad Koda’s house.’

Thirty-Seven

By the time Striker and Felicia reached Pacific Avenue, it was well after eight. The entire strip was blocked off with patrol cars and police tape, and the red and blue gleam of emergency lights filled the darkening skyline.

Halfway down the block, on the east side of the street, was Chad Koda’s residence. As Striker approached it on foot, he was surprised to see that the exterior of the house looked no different from before. The structure appeared to be sound, and no smoke filled the air, indicating there had been no resultant fire. Aside from the shattered windows, everything looked relatively unchanged.

Then he went inside.

The moment Striker walked through the front door, the waxy, smoky smell hit him. In the living room, the sofa’s upholstery was destroyed, and in the kitchen, the dining table had been overturned. All the windows on the south and east sides of the house had been blown out, with giant parts of the old plaster imploded, like moon craters in the wall. The remains of a cooking island sat centre stage, looking now like the blown-apart entrance to a World War Two bunker.

Without a doubt, it was the epicentre of the explosion.

Through the strange white smoke that was slowly thinning, Striker looked down the hall and spotted Inspector Osaka. The man walked gingerly towards them, his narrow eyes filled with concern. ‘What a goddam nightmare,’ he said.

Striker looked past the inspector. Somewhere back there, down near the end of the hall, a dog was barking wildly and scratching at the door. ‘That a dog? It’s lucky to be alive.’

Osaka let out a long breath. ‘Yeah, great. Our only guaranteed survivor is a golden retriever. The Chief will be happy to hear it . . . I locked the dog in the bathroom to keep him out of the way.’ He looked around the room, assessing. ‘Definitely no gas leak this time. And the second explosion in one day.’

Striker nodded gravely. ‘We got a bomber on our hands.’

Osaka pointed to the den area. ‘Parts of a fusing system have already been located by the search team – the components were stuck in the rock and stone of the fireplace.’

‘I want to see those components,’ Striker said.

Osaka muttered, ‘Yes, yes,’ as if it was a good idea, but the bewildered expression remained on his face. ‘Corporal Summer has them now. She’s out back, escorting one of the victims into the ambulance.’

Felicia looked from Striker to Osaka. ‘One of the victims?’

‘We have two. One male – Chad Koda – may yet survive the blast, though he’s in a real bad way. The female – name unknown at this point – did not.’ His expression darkened. ‘She really had no hope of it.’

Striker looked through the windowless frame and spotted the ambulance driving down the alley. A second later, red emergency lights filled the air and a siren wailed. ‘You got a guard on Koda?’

Inspector Osaka nodded. ‘Two. From Patrol.’

‘How bad is he?’

Osaka shrugged. ‘He’s alive. And damn lucky to be. From what I know, he’s concussed and bloodied and shaken to shit – the blast knocked him right out. But he seems to have pulled through without his vital areas being hit by shrapnel. It’s a miracle, really.’

Felicia looked at all the damage. ‘How is that even possible?’

Striker studied the kitchen island. ‘This is how.’ He tapped on what was left of the island counter top. ‘Two-inch granite. Solid oak cabinetry. The thing’s been damn near obliterated, but it took the brunt of the blast. The bomb must have been placed on the other side.’

‘Or maybe it was on top and he knocked it off before it exploded,’ Felicia suggested.

‘Could be.’

Striker studied the scene and was about to say more when he spotted the thick, white tarp on the other side of what remained of the kitchen island. Blood stuck to the kitchen tiles all around it, looking thick and tacky. The entire area was sectioned off by yellow police tape.

Striker stared at the lump under the tarp.

The deceased.

Osaka saw Striker looking at it, and spoke. ‘The victim’s left side of her neck was torn right open. The explosion almost took her head off.’

Striker nodded. He moved carefully around the island, then crouched down low and gloved up with fresh latex. He snapped the material against his wrists, then carefully pulled back the edge of the plastic tarp. What he saw hit him hard. Damaged as the body was, identification was still possible.

The victim was Dr Sharise Owens.

Felicia made a surprised sound. ‘Is it her?’

Striker nodded.

‘Dear God,’ Osaka said. He closed his eyes and his face tightened. Moments later, he was on the cell with Acting Deputy Chief Laroche. He moved to one of the back rooms and closed the door for privacy.

Striker was glad for the distance. He took the time to study the body.

The first thing that he noticed was how much of the woman remained intact. Yes, she had taken damage from the percussive force; portions of pulverized flesh made that obvious. But the majority of her body remained whole. There was even a strap still hanging from one of her mangled arms. The condition of her body was surprising, given the force of the bomb. Striker determined she must have somehow been shielded from the worst of the blast.

Maybe by the heavy wood and granite from the kitchen island.

Minus the gaping meaty gash in her neck, Dr Sharise Owens looked identical to the picture the triage nurse had shown him from the hospital personnel records – long straight hair, dyed a lighter brown. High cheekbones. Lean and muscular build. She was even wearing a white hospital coat, though it was now soaked in blood from the breasts down and blackened on the left side.

Striker looked at the doctor’s coat. More specifically, at the fabric of the shoulder region. On it was the same medical emblem they had seen before. A caduceus – two snakes wrapped around a staff, wings extending from the top.

Red wings.

Striker pointed at the wings with his pen. ‘There it is – we were on the right track after all.’

Felicia nodded. ‘The tattoo our rave girl thought she saw.’

Striker examined the body a while longer, then covered it up. He stood up and looked out into the yard, where Corporal Summer was talking to a few members of the search team. On the deck, lying flat, were the remains of the kitchen window. It had been taped up completely, so it still held together well. Striker wondered if the bomber had done this to break the window quietly. It seemed like an awful lot of unnecessary work when a thrown spark plug would also have sufficed.

Perhaps there was another reason.

He detailed this oddity in his notebook.

As he put the book away, Corporal Summer returned from the backyard area into the kitchen. She saw them both and nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Detectives,’ she said, and there was a weariness in her voice.

With two ongoing explosion scenes to control, assess, and catalogue, Striker understood her lack of exuberance. She must have been exhausted. He turned and faced her. ‘You located part of the fusing system?’

She nodded. ‘An electrical one.’

Felicia asked, ‘Have your teams located any bomb parts at the first scene?’

Corporal Summer shook her head. ‘None yet, I’m afraid. But I still have crews sifting through the wreckage. It will take days. My fear is that we lost much of what we were looking for when the Fire Department put out the flames – so much evidence was washed down the sewers. The lab tests will tell us if there were any explosives residues on what was recovered.’

‘I know there’ll be residues,’ Striker said. ‘I just want to know what kind. Maybe it will give us something to go on.’

‘I understand that, and I’ve put a rush on the testing. Most of it’s being sent to private labs. But any true identification will still take at least forty-eight hours. There’s just no way around it.’

Striker understood the time issues. He scanned the room. On the eastern wall, where the window had been blown out, was a long black smear. He moved towards it and examined the discoloration. It looked like millions of tiny black dots. Like a shotgun blast.

‘Is this bomb residue?’ he asked.

Corporal Summer shook her head. ‘It’s not actually from the explosives – it’s carbon powder, a substance left over from the battery.’

‘So part of the fusing system,’ Felicia said.

‘Yes. And it’s already been swabbed for the lab.’

Striker looked around the room once more. ‘What about this haze? The smoke is the same colour as back at the toy shop, but I thought that military explosives usually give off a black smoke.’

Corporal Summer explained. ‘They do, usually; you’re right about that. This smoke is definitely a whiter colour. It signifies a cleaner burn – signalling that this was probably some form of commercial explosives.’

‘So not HME?’

‘No. Home-made explosives would be greyer in colour – usually.’

From the den, one member of the search and canvass crew called out that there were more possible components. Corporal Summer excused herself and left the kitchen. When she was gone, Striker turned to Felicia. Her eyes were focused on the kitchen island.

‘Any thoughts?’ he asked.

She gave him a dismal look. ‘Just the one question we all have – why?’

‘Learn that and we’ll find our suspect.’

‘That easy, huh?’

Striker laughed wearily. ‘This entire file’s like a tangled fishing line. It’s knotted and loopy, but if we follow the thread, we should end up on the other side.’ He took out his notebook and flipped through the pages. ‘At the two explosion scenes, we got two dead women – both black and, more to the point, cousins. We also got one injured male, white, who is the ex-husband of our second victim.’

Felicia nodded. ‘An ex-husband who is still emotionally charged over Owens aborting their son. Also, somewhere out there is Solomon Bay – a violent ex-boyfriend with a restraining order against him.’

‘Who no one has seen in years,’ Striker said. ‘And from this morning, we got parts from a picana, some scuba gear, and one gunman who’s an expert shooter.’

‘Expert?’

‘Don’t kid yourself, Feleesh. That bastard wasn’t too far from tagging me back there in the barn – and that’s a two-hundred-metre shot. By pistol, not long gun.’

‘Which leaves us with what?’ Felicia asked.

Striker let out a bemused laugh. ‘Take your pick. A mad bomber. A professional hitman. A domestic gone wrong. A hate crime. An abortion issue. And we haven’t even touched on organized crime groups yet.’

Felicia’s eyes took on a distant look, and Striker continued speaking. ‘Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. Let’s stop wondering about possible suspects and look at the victims. Who – and what – are they?’

Felicia listed them out. ‘A trauma surgeon, a toymaker and a realtor. Not the most likely of combinations. Not the easiest links to connect.’

‘Of course not,’ Striker said. He offered Felicia a grim smile. ‘Nothing’s been easy so far. Why start now?’

He left Felicia’s side and took a cursory look around the kitchen and then the den. He stopped hard when he saw one of the craters in the west wall. Stuck within the plaster was what appeared to be a doll of some kind.

Striker gloved up and gently removed the piece.

Felicia neared him. ‘What you got there?’

‘The remains of a doll.’

Stunned and yet excited, Striker showed her the toy. It had been almost destroyed by the blast. The upper and lower parts were completely gone. All that remained was the torso, which was chipped and covered in debris. It was dressed in the tattered remains of a policeman’s uniform.

Striker turned it over, saw that there was a small hole in the back of the doll and the frayed remains of a string hanging down.

‘Look at that,’ Felicia said.

Striker nodded. ‘It looks like a pull-string of some kind.’

‘Maybe like one of those Chatty Cathy dolls,’ Felicia suggested. ‘You pull the string and it talks.’

‘I’m not touching that string, not till it’s cleared.’

Felicia stared at the frayed rope. ‘You think that could have been used as a triggering device?’

Striker thought it over. It seemed unlikely. And even less likely to be used as an explosives base – if the doll had been packed with explosives, nothing would have been left of it.

‘It’s for something else,’ he finally said, but he had no idea what. ‘We’ll give it to Noodles for a good forensic examination.’ He paused in thought before continuing. ‘You know, I found another one just like this back at the first crime scene, but since the blown-up business was a toy store, I didn’t think much of it. Till now.’

A wariness took over Felicia’s stare. ‘Was that last one exactly the same?’

‘Exactly,’ he started to say, but stopped when he saw the red number painted on the front of the doll. ‘Wait a second . . . the last doll had a big red five on the front.’

Felicia leaned closer for a better look. ‘This one’s a six,’ she said softly.

Her words sent a chill through Striker, for their relevance was obvious. The numbers may have been out of order, but the bomber was counting out his victims, one by one. Altogether it told Striker one very important thing:

There were at least four more to go.