by Sean Slater
‘It’s nothing,’ he said.
The girl’s eyes never shifted. ‘It’s obviously something, or they wouldn’t be here.’
The doctor’s face turned red with embarrassment. ‘It’s none of your business, child. It’s regarding the clinic.’
Gabriel’s eyes suddenly lit up. ‘Are they here about Billy—’
‘ENOUGH!’ the doctor roared.
The girl and boy didn’t so much as flinch; they just stood there and said nothing. As if hearing the commotion, Lexa quickly appeared at the top of the stairs.
‘Children, children,’ she said softly.
She came down the stairs into the foyer and ushered the two youths away from their father – away from Striker and Felicia. As she did so, she stole a quick glance at Striker and said, ‘I’m sorry, there is just . . . a lot of stress, right now.’ Her beautiful face was hard, and her eyes almost watery.
Striker put on his best warm smile. ‘You’re talking to a father who has a teenage daughter – I know.’
Lexa said nothing more. She guided Gabriel and Dalia away from their father towards the kitchen area. Striker watched them move down the hall, fleeing more than walking, with Lexa looking back over her shoulder a few times as they went. There was a strange expression on her face, one Striker couldn’t define.
He didn’t like it.
When he turned his eyes back to Dr Ostermann, the man looked like a victim of high blood pressure. His face was red and the veins in his neck looked close to the surface of the skin. He fumbled off his glasses, wiped his brow with his sleeve, then looked back and forth from Striker to Felicia and back again.
‘I apologize for that,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to be so . . . so . . . vocal. But I cannot – I will not – have my patients’ privacy breached. It’s unethical and it simply cannot be allowed.’
Striker said nothing.
Felicia said, ‘We understand.’
The doctor nodded, as if thankful. ‘I will call you first thing in the morning – after the appropriate contact has been made.’
Striker took the hint and said goodbye, as did Felicia. The moment they stepped outside, the front door closed behind them. They returned to their car and drove up to the gate. When it opened, they pulled out on to the road and drove down the snaking route of Belmont Avenue. It wasn’t until they were almost a mile away that Striker felt the pressure lessen.
Felicia was the first to speak. ‘Nice family.’
‘Sure. If you’re one of the Mansons.’
They drove towards 41st Avenue. That was where the office of Car 87 was located, the Mental Health Team car. It was also the location where the staff personnel files were kept.
Which was a necessary step.
If Dr Ostermann did work with the Strathcona Mental Health Team, it meant he was also linked to Car 87. And to work with Car 87, everyone required a portfolio of their personal history, which included everything from emergency contact numbers to a criminal records check. Dr Ostermann would have his file there, and Striker wanted to see it. There was more to Dr Erich Ostermann than the man was showing them.
Striker could feel it.
Felicia looked at the way they were headed. ‘Aren’t Car 87 headquarters south of here?’
Striker nodded. ‘We got one quick pit-stop to make first.’
When he took a left on 12th Avenue, Felicia understood. They were going to Vancouver General Hospital.
That was where the morgue was located.
Twenty-Two
The Adder sat on the grey concrete of the floor in the dimness of the room, and felt the cool dampness of the walls invading his core. No matter what he did, he was never warm. Not here in this room. Not anywhere. He was always cold.
Cold like the water in the well.
He stared at nothing for a long time, and listened to the sounds that came from above. The Doctor was up there. In the study. And dangerously close to the edge again.
The Adder tried not to think about it.
He stood up from the floor and walked to the far wall, where the cabinet stood. Behind it were his beloved DVDs and the back-up hard drive. More than anything, he wanted to watch his movies. To relive that wondrous moment. That instantaneous miracle.
The Beautiful Escape.
But he could not turn his thoughts from the detective. The man was a force like no other. And the man was in pain. The Adder could see that just by looking at him. Bad things had happened in the man’s life. He had researched it, researched this man. More than anything, the Adder wanted to release him from the chains of this world. To set him forever free.
And to watch the bliss in his eyes when it happened.
He didn’t understand it himself. The greater the challenge, the more beautiful the release. It was odd. And the mere thought of such a moment was so powerful that it sucked him away. And time passed. When he finally awoke from the reverie, his face was bleeding and he realized he had been scratching it again.
It was unimportant.
He moved over to the cabinet and turned on the computer. Pale blue light – as cold as the blood in his veins – artificially tinted the room. The Adder signed on to the computer.
Logon: William
Password: Flyaway
He hit Enter and the Windows screen flashed up. There was no screen saver. No saved image on the desktop. Just an icy white screen, because that was how he felt. All icy white.
He double-checked his internet options to be sure that privacy was set to maximum. Then he logged on to the relay computer he kept off-site. It was a necessary tactic. If the cops ever did manage to trace his IP Address – which was almost impossible considering he used proxy servers and ran his requests through other unprotected Wi-Fi users – poor eightynine-year-old Martha McCallum would find the cops kicking in her front door in the middle of the night and searching her crawlspace.
And even that did not matter. The computer was set to delete All History every night using the KillDisk program.
As a last wall of defence, the Adder always used his Anonymous-Sender account because the host company purged their servers every twelve hours. Even if the cops did get a warrant – which was highly unlikely – the information would be gone by the time they executed it.
Everything was one hundred per cent safe.
And yet still, it was not enough for the Adder. Over confidence had been the downfall of many before him. So he spoofed his IP Address regularly. And he changed the way he did things every single time so that there would be no pattern. With all the steps the Adder had taken, he was confident he had created a nonentity on the net and an email host with no traceable account.
It made him smile every time he logged on.
With everything set in place, he was ready. He took one last look at the hatch above the ladder, making sure it was secured and locked in place – for an action such as this would enrage the Doctor – and then he began typing his email.
Addressed To: Homicide Detective Jacob Striker
Subject: Snakes & Ladders
Twenty-Three
The Vancouver morgue is located on the north side of Vancouver General Hospital, behind the police and ambulance parking area. No signs show the way. There’s just a pair of grey doors leading to a cargo elevator. That’s it.
Striker had been there too many times to count. Long-forgotten memories bombarded him, one after another, whenever he came here – the murder victims, the car accident casualties, and of course the never-ending string of suicides.
Like his wife’s. He would never forget the day he came here to identify Amanda. The walls had seemed warped and the lights far too bright and the body cleaners smelled like Lemon Pledge. That was a memory that refused to leave him. He doubted it ever would.
They took the elevator down two levels into the morgue and Striker moved over to let Felicia stand by the doors. Her claustrophobia was always two seconds from exploding, and she almost jumped from the booth when the doors were half open.
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Striker followed. Once in the hall, the stale smell of old paint and dampness hit him. The building was old. The morgue, equally so. He walked down the long dim corridor, turned right, and stopped at a drab grey door. This was the main entrance to the morgue.
Where he had identified Amanda.
The moment hit him hard. So many memories. All bad. This was a sad and despondent place, one he never wanted to see again. And yet here they were, like always.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
On the nearest examination table lay the body of Mandilla Gill. Nineteen years young. A plastic white sheet covered her body and neck, but her face was exposed, which was abnormal. Clearly, the Medical Examiner, Kirstin Dunsmuir, was prepping the body for examination.
Striker looked around; didn’t see the woman anywhere.
‘You see Dunsmuir?’ he asked Felicia.
‘The Death Goddess?’ Felicia shook her head. ‘No. And I’m thankful for it. Small miracles, you know.’
Striker didn’t disagree. Were it not for the heaviness of the moment, he might have smiled at that. Felicia didn’t like Kirstin Dunsmuir, which was unsurprising. Most people didn’t like Kirstin Dunsmuir. And he was included in that group. The woman was colder than the stiffs she worked on, and equally fun at parties.
He killed the thought. He gloved up with fresh latex and moved towards the body on the steel table. In the harsh brightness of the examination lights, Mandy Gill’s skin looked almost ashen. Her face was slightly deflated from the draining of fluids, but the muscles around her eyes were still somehow tight. Striker had hoped the woman would look more peaceful in death, but she did not.
He pulled back the sheet and studied the body below. The prep work had already begun.
Felicia saw this, too. ‘Dunsmuir’s probably tagging the undergarments right now. Maybe we should wait for her before touching anything – you know how she is with this stuff.’
Striker didn’t really much care. ‘I’m not touching anything just yet. I’m just looking at a few areas.’
‘For what?’
‘Signs.’
He reached up, grabbed hold of the examination light, and tilted the face of it downwards, so that the brightness of the light shone directly on the body. Lividity – the pooling of the blood – was showing like a faint purplish line now, running all along the lower fifth of Mandy Gill’s body. Her facial muscles were stiffening, mainly the eyelids and cheeks.
Rigor was setting in.
Striker looked past all of this and focused on the skin. He swept his eyes around the most common injection areas first – the shoulders, the arms and wrists. When he saw nothing out of the ordinary, he started back at the toes, then slowly, patiently, worked his way up the body, looking for anything that stood out as irregular.
When he reached the neck, he found it. A small mark, almost imperceptible, even with the bright glare of the examination light – definitely impossible to detect back in the dimness of the victim’s room.
‘Right here,’ Striker said to Felicia. ‘Left side, just lateral to the base of the neck. Over the first rib area.’ He pointed out the area of skin to Felicia, and she shook her head.
‘I don’t see it.’
Striker took out his pen and pointed to a small precise area where the skin had a slight mark on it.
‘See that?’ he said. ‘The tissue is slightly swollen here. Just barely, but when compared to the right side, you can see there’s a difference.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, I believe, she was injected here.’
Felicia made a face. Looked again. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive. And the swelling indicates Mandy was alive when it happened – otherwise there’d be no immune response. If you look close enough, there’s a small mark right here.’
He pointed and Felicia shook her head. ‘Since when do injections leave a mark like that?’ she asked.
Striker gave her a dark look. ‘They don’t – unless someone’s resisting and the needle tears the skin.’ He was about to say more when a cold voice filled the room.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Striker looked up to see a very unhappy Kirstin Dunsmuir. One look at the medical examiner and Striker could see that she’d had more work done to her face. Cosmetic surgery. The woman was addicted. She crossed her arms over her breast implants and sneered at them through her collagen-filled lips.
‘Why are you touching my subject?’
Striker just pointed to the area he was looking at. ‘I think she was injected here, can you take a look for me?’
Dunsmuir said nothing for a moment, her icy blue contacts staring Striker down. She strode across the floor with her blue autopsy gown flapping behind her like a cape. Once beside the table, she gave him a long hard look before seeming to relax a little. She put on her glasses, examined the skin, then nodded slowly.
‘Yes, it would appear she’s been injected.’
She stood back and put on a forced smile, one that showed every one of her capped teeth. ‘Excellent detail,’ she said to Striker, ‘and if I ever again catch you touching one of my subjects before the autopsy is done, I’ll have you banned from the lab.’
Striker felt his jaw tighten. His first instinct was to tell the woman off – he had every right to be in here. Mandy Gill was his victim first; her subject second. He could have argued that point and won.
But what was the point in that? He knew Kirstin Dunsmuir well. The Death Goddess had earned her reputation for a reason. And fighting with her would only complicate the investigation.
‘I’m sorry,’ he offered. ‘I wasn’t trying to overstep my bounds here. It’s just that . . . I knew this woman. She was a good person. She didn’t deserve this.’
The medical examiner didn’t blink. ‘If you knew her, you should remove yourself from the case.’
Striker let the comment go. ‘Look, I didn’t mean to step on your toes or break your lab policies. I’m just worried that this is more than a simple suicide.’
Kirstin Dunsmuir made no immediate reply. But Striker’s words seemed to placate her. Her posture relaxed. ‘I’m just starting my assessment now,’ she said.
‘Good. Can we get some toxicology on this one?’ Striker asked.
‘I always do tox tests – when it’s warranted.’
Striker nodded. ‘What are we looking at for timeline here?’
‘For the tox tests? I’ll expedite them. But we’re still looking at a while. Twenty-four hours, for sure.’
‘It’s appreciated,’ Striker said. The smell of the body cleaners was getting to him. So were the memories. He handed Dunsmuir one of his business cards with his personal cell number on it. ‘Call me the moment you know.’
Dunsmuir took it and said she would. Then Striker gave Felicia the nod to leave, and they did. Once back in the hall, Felicia looked over at him. Nodded approvingly. ‘I thought you were going to tear her head off in there.’
Striker shrugged. ‘More flies from honey,’ he said softly.
He walked down the hallway, the hard sound of his heels echoing against the walls. With every step, the lighting seemed to grow darker and the long corridor narrower as they closed in on the cargo elevator.
Striker couldn’t wait to get outside. He needed some space, some fresh air. A moment to think. But more than anything, he just needed to get out of the morgue and away from Kirstin Dunsmuir.
He was suffocating on the darkness.
Twenty-Four
Striker got the car going immediately. Got himself focused. Again, they headed for the headquarters of Car 87, with one purpose – to see if the clinic had a personnel file on Dr Erich Ostermann.
At this point, anything on the man would be helpful.
It was going on for eleven o’clock now, which didn’t matter as far as the headquarters were concerned because they were open twenty-four hours a day. Whether it was a nurse, a counsellor, or one of the officers i
nvolved, someone would be there.
They drove on. The traffic was surprisingly bad, given the time of night. And it thickened the further they went.
When they got stuck at a red, Striker pulled out his cell phone. He tried calling Courtney to tell her not to wait up for him, but then got directed immediately to the answering machine.
She was already on the line.
That usually meant at least a half-hour wait, so he left her a brief message, then hung up the phone. Felicia hung up her own phone as well. When she let out a long sigh, Striker didn’t like the sound of it. ‘What now?’ he asked.
‘I just tried their office. A few of the nurses are there, but Car 87’s gone home for the night. We can’t get to any of their files till morning.’
Striker cursed and thought this over.
‘Screw it. We’ll drop by the office anyway. See if anyone else there can help us. Maybe one of the nurses has access to the files.’
The light changed from red to green and Striker hit the gas. Not ten minutes later, they pulled up in front of the building, just in time to see a familiar figure emerging.
Constable Bernard Hamilton was sneaking out of the front door.
Striker knew it was Bernard. He was the only cop around that owned an entire wardrobe of pastel-coloured dress shirts, complete with matching ties. He was a strange-looking man. He was thinning badly on top, and in an effort to divert attention away from his baldness, had grown the rest of his hair into a long ponytail, which he then braided down his back.
Striker didn’t like the man. Never had. As far as he was concerned, Bernard Hamilton was a lot like Inspector Laroche – a by-the-book guy, but only when it served his purpose. Bernard Hamilton cared more about stats and commendations than honest-to-God police work, and his only goal in life was to see his face on the Officer of the Year plaque.
Whether he deserved it or not.
Striker had done the man some favours in the past, covering him when he needed a day off for personal reasons – which was, of course, not by the book. Bernard Hamilton owed him one for that, and for many other things over the years. It was time to collect.
