by Sean Slater
For a moment, Laroche seemed even smaller than his fivefoot-seven frame. Moments later, a camera crew from one of the unaccredited news groups was caught trying to sneak in between the houses from the south side of the laneway. Laroche went rushing over, and Striker turned and spotted Sergeant Mike Rothschild entering the strip.
‘How you holding out?’ Rothschild asked.
‘I need to check on Felicia.’
‘Burnaby General. Go there. I’ll take over the scene here.’
‘Thanks, Mike. I owe you one.’
The sergeant grinned. ‘Just get out of here before Hitler there knows you’re gone.’
Striker didn’t have to be told twice. He walked back to Kootenay Street where they had dumped the wheels, and climbed inside the cruiser. Moments later, he was headed down Boundary Road for Burnaby General Hospital. Where Felicia and Dr Ostermann had been taken.
It was less than ten minutes away.
Fifty-Seven
The Adder was shaking. Shaking so hard he could hardly hold on to the rungs of the ladder as he made his way deeper and deeper into his room. When his feet touched concrete, he raced across the room and slid the disc into the player so hard and fast he nearly jammed the machine.
The DVD began playing and the screen came to life.
On it was the woman cop. Standing in the laneway. Watching the big detective move slowly up the stairs. She was beautiful – the Adder could see that in his analytical, separated way – with her long brown hair draping down the caramel skin of her neck. She was in her prime, no doubt, bursting with beauty and energy and radiance. Like a star going supernova.
The Adder watched her, standing there, completely unaware of the hidden threat. Then the bullets came.
One – a miss.
Two – another miss.
And then three – the most perfect, wonderful shot he had ever seen. A lightning bolt from an angel. And suddenly Detective Felicia Santos was reeling. She arched backwards, landed hard on the pavement, and lay there with a stunned look in her pretty eyes.
The camera angle was bad, and the Adder had to zoom in to see the expression on her face. And that was when he discovered the God-awful truth of what had happened. She opened her eyes, and touched her chest . . .
The vest.
The goddam Kevlar vest.
‘NO!’ he screamed. ‘NOOOO!’
Shaking all over, uncontrollably, he took the disc from the tray and snapped it in half, slicing his hand as he did so. Then he stepped forward and kicked the cabinet. Hard. The entire thing swayed back and forth, as if it would tip over and come crashing down on the concrete.
The Adder could not have cared less.
His moment of pure, untainted beauty – stolen from him in an instant.
‘No,’ he said again, though softer this time. And now there were tears leaking from his eyes. Big salty drops rolling down his cheeks.
It was unfair.
So terribly unfair.
Soon his head began to pound, to throb. It was as if there was a worm inside his skull, eating away at his brain tissue. And then the sounds came back, flooding him, deluging him, drowning him in great, awesome waves.
The laughter.
Then the snapping and cracking.
And then the silence. That horrible, horrible silence.
With unsteady hands, the Adder scrambled for his iPod. Jammed in the headphones. Hit Play. And listened to the white noise. Turned it up to full volume.
But this time, it did little good.
The sounds of the outside world did not matter now, for they were overpowered by the ones that echoed inside his head. All he could hear was the loud cracking sounds of ice and that coldness washing all over him again.
Relax, he told himself. You have to relax.
But it did little good.
He was unravelling.
Fifty-Eight
By the time Striker made it to Burnaby General Hospital, his heart was racing and his mood was darkening quicker than the five o’clock skyline. No matter how many times he tried to erase the memory of the MyShrine taunt the Adder had left him, the image remained.
He parked the undercover cruiser out front in the Police Only parking, climbed out, and walked in through the Emergency Room front doors. Inside, the hospital was packed. A line of weary-looking patients snaked along the hall, and another group lined up all the way to the entrance doors. It was busy, but still nowhere near the chaos that ruled at St Paul’s.
Striker made his way down the hall to a patient room that consisted of six beds, separated only by hanging drapes. Felicia was in the sixth one. Striker was surprised to see her already in the process of tightening her suit belt, and wincing from the pressure. She looked up and spotted him. A look of relief fell across her face, and she smiled.
‘Hey, Tiger.’
Striker walked over and helped her with her coat. ‘You’re done?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah. Fast Track – it pays to be the police.’
‘And what did they find?’
‘The body of a twenty-year-old woman,’ she said with a grin.
‘Hell, I can find one of those.’
She smiled at his comment and when she did Striker felt something tug at his heart strings. At thirty-two years of age, Felicia was almost ten years his junior. It was not a lot of time, but enough to feel the difference. Sometimes she seemed generations away from him. And then, at times like these, time didn’t even exist.
‘How are you?’ he asked, the humour all gone from his voice. ‘Really, Feleesh.’
She shrugged carefully. ‘Some of my ribs are bruised, especially around my breastbone, but nothing got broken. Not even a hairline fracture. Trauma plate took the full brunt of it. I think I’ll have the thing framed and put on the wall . . . I got lucky this time.’
‘Not as lucky as me,’ he replied.
She reached out and touched his face. Striker grabbed her around the waist and gently pulled her close and gave her a long soft hug. He buried his face in her hair. Breathed in. Smelled that familiar vanilla scent.
She felt so, so good. He never wanted to let go.
Felicia pushed him back softly. ‘Jacob, people are looking.’
‘Let them look,’ he said. ‘Hell, let’s give them a show.’
She laughed at that, then winced. ‘My ribs.’
When he finally pulled back from her, her cheeks were slightly red from blushing and she stood there looking awkward. Striker wanted to kiss her. Right there in the hospital.
But something else broke into his mind. He turned his eyes from Felicia to the rest of the unit and saw that each and every bed was already filled with someone he didn’t recognize. He frowned.
‘Where the hell is Dr Ostermann?’
Felicia frowned. ‘The good doctor checked himself out as quickly as he could. I told him to wait here for us, that we would need a written statement from him and all that, but he kept saying he was worried about his staff – it seemed like a line to me.’
‘A convenient one.’
‘Either way, he took off outta here once he was done. When the nurse was checking me over. He left.’
Striker didn’t like it. Honest men didn’t run. And he didn’t buy the fact that Ostermann was worried about his staff. For one, he didn’t seem like that kind of boss. For two, they’d already told him everyone was fine. He was about to comment on it when his cell went off. He looked down at the screen and saw the name Jim Banner displayed. He picked up.
‘What you got for me, Noodles?’
‘How’s Felicia?’ he asked.
‘She’s okay, she’s right here with me.’
Noodles let out a relieved sound, then got right down to business. ‘I managed to pull another print off the fridge in unit 305,’ he said. ‘A palm print.’
‘It comes back to Mercury, right?’
‘Actually, it comes back to no one.’
This startled Striker. Mercury was a soldier. His prints were
on file. ‘You mean the print wasn’t good enough?’ he asked.
‘No, I mean the print doesn’t belong to Billy Mercury.’
Striker felt his mood darken a little further. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.
‘That’s it.’
‘Then I’ll get back to you later.’
Striker hung up the phone and relayed the information to Felicia. She didn’t seem concerned one way or the other. ‘A thousand people might have been in that suite,’ she said. ‘We never knew for sure if the print belonged to the suspect. Obviously, it doesn’t.’
Striker said nothing; he wasn’t so sure. He stood there, brooding, and thought of everything from the bad print to the way Ostermann had run out of the hospital. And the more he thought about it, the angrier he got. After a long moment, he met Felicia’s stare again.
‘You done here?’ he asked.
‘I was twenty minutes ago.’
‘Good, then let’s go find Dr Ostermann . . . The man has a lot of explaining to do.’
The moment they were back in the cruiser, Striker started the engine and Felicia turned on the heater. The sun was still out, but just barely. It was half-past five, and the oncoming winter evening was invading everything in its path.
While the car warmed up, Striker brought Felicia up to speed on everything that had happened while she was being escorted to the hospital – everything from Laroche’s accusations of Officer-Created Jeopardy to the conflicting evidence he’d found inside Billy Mercury’s apartment. When he was done with the debrief, his mind felt more settled. More focused.
And specific facts stuck out.
He looked at Felicia. ‘So with the exception of the Risperidone – which is an antipsychotic, by the way – every other medication Billy was on is the exact same as those for Mandy Gill, Sarah Rose, and Larisa Logan.’
She nodded absently as she thought this over. ‘But is that because they’re cookie-cutter referrals, or because each one of those patients suffered from the exact same disorder? Maybe those medications work most effectively in that combination.’
Striker bit his cheek as he thought. ‘That’s not what bothers me. What does is the preference of the drug type.’
‘I don’t follow.’
He explained. ‘There’s over a thousand types of mood stabilizers out there, but our victims and our bad guy were on the same type. And the same type of antidepressant as well.’
‘So? They were also all in the same programme.’
‘And therein lies the problem,’ Striker said. ‘Dr Ostermann is the one who runs the therapy group, this SILC or whatever the hell it’s called. And yet, with the exception of Billy, the one who’s providing all the medications is Dr Richter. Why is that?’
‘Is it really all that important?’
‘Maybe yes, maybe no. But this much is certain: Dr Richter is one of the main connections here – to Mandy and Sarah through their medications, and to Larisa through the counselling.’
‘And Billy?’
‘Indirectly through the Mapleview Clinic. With Ostermann. And all their rehabilitative programmes.’
Felicia nodded. ‘And no callback from Richter yet?’ she asked.
‘No, and I’ve left several messages. But in reality it’s only been twenty-four hours.’ Striker thought this over. ‘Maybe, in the end, there’s a logical answer to Richter and Ostermann being involved.’
‘There is. It’s called counselling,’ Felicia said.
Striker raised a hand defensively. ‘I’m not completely discounting their validity here, I’m just . . . analysing things. Carefully.’ Striker looked out of the window, at the sun which was now slowly falling in the west, into a darkening blue skyline. ‘There’s something else, too.’
‘What?’
‘The gun Mercury used. Dispatch broadcast that it was taken from one of the fallen officers.’
‘The unit on scene said that.’
Striker nodded. ‘Well, that was a mistake. It wasn’t even a SIG Sauer. Maybe a nine mil.’
Felicia nodded. ‘Then let’s trace it.’
Striker agreed. He got on the phone and called Noodles, hitting Speakerphone as it dialled. The technician answered on the second ring. ‘Shipwreck,’ he said.
‘The gun,’ Striker replied. ‘You have a chance to check it yet?’
‘Sure. It’s been almost two hours since the shooting, so the entire scene has been photographed, the body autopsied, the gun tested for ballistics – and oh yeah, I also discovered the cure for cancer.’
Felicia laughed at this; Striker did not.
‘I need the results on that gun, Noodles. And I need them quick.’
The man just laughed sourly. ‘Can’t run it through the registry anyway, if that’s what you’re thinking – there’s no serial.’
Striker cursed. He should have figured as much. ‘They filed it off?’
‘Filed and acid burned.’
‘Really?’ Striker thought this over. He said goodbye to Noodles and hung up the phone. Then he turned in the seat to face Felicia. ‘Doesn’t that seem a little strange to you?’
‘What part?’
‘The whole thing. Billy somehow obtains a gun—’
‘Nothing surprising there. The guy was in the army. Did time overseas. He could probably get a rocket launcher, if he wanted one.’
‘Fine, fine, I’ll give him that. But then he files off the serial numbers and acid treats the metal.’
‘So?’
‘Two questions: one, would someone as delusional as Billy Mercury be focused on doing something like that in his current mental state? And two, why would he bother getting rid of the serial numbers in the first place? Did he think we’d never guess his identity? It was a suicide mission. He went toe-to-toe with us in a gun battle. Does it make sense from a psychological perspective?’
Felicia shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I’m not a psychiatrist.’
‘Exactly, and the one we wanted to talk to skipped the hospital the moment he got a chance.’
Felicia nodded. ‘He really hightailed it.’
Striker turned back in his seat. He put the car into Drive, hit the gas, and pulled back on to the road. But instead of heading west, he headed north. Felicia cast him a questioning stare.
‘Where we going?’ she asked.
‘Back to Mapleview. I’m seizing Mercury’s medical files.’
Fifty-Nine
Striker and Felicia parked directly in front of the Mapleview Mental Health Center, and got out. The wind was strong, blowing in from the park to the south, and it was cold. Felicia bundled herself up and got moving; Striker walked by her side.
With the sun now dipping behind the rising cloud banks to the west, the building was cloaked in purple-grey. In this dimmer light, it looked less like a modern-day mental health clinic and more like a retail store.
Striker said, ‘First we get Billy Mercury’s file, then we find Ostermann.’
Felicia was in agreement.
They reached the front steps, and Striker stopped. He got on his phone and called up Sue Rhaemer at Dispatch. He got her to send a message to the Coquitlam police. He needed a patrol unit to attend Riverglen immediately; they were to seize Billy Mercury’s file, and any other seemingly related files the officer stumbled upon.
When he hung up, Felicia frowned. ‘I know you don’t want to hear this,’ she said. ‘But we really should be getting a warrant first.’
‘There’s no time for that.’
‘The court will disagree. They’ll say there was nothing but time. After all, with Mercury dead, why rush? If we don’t do it right, some judge will throw out anything we find in that file. It will never be admitted as evidence.’
‘Like I said, Feleesh, these are exigent circumstances.’
‘Exigent? How? The man is dead.’
‘And we have doubts he was acting alone.’
She gave him one of her sceptical looks. ‘We do?’
‘I sure as hell do.’ He
explained. ‘Those two phone calls back at Billy’s place make me wonder. They were made right when we left Mapleview, and the moment we entered the block – as if someone was doing recon on us. I don’t like it. So when you break it down, we don’t know yet if anyone else was involved. But if someone else was involved, you can bet your ass the first thing they would do is start getting rid of any evidence pertaining to the case or the patient involved. I’m seizing the file. Now.’
Felicia’s sceptical look never faltered. ‘Nice speech, Martin Luther King. You just want to see what’s in that file.’
Striker only grinned. ‘Six of this, a half-dozen of that – it’s all the same.’
Felicia made no response, and Striker started up the stairs. It was cold out, and the wind was blowing worse with every minute. He pulled open the double glass doors and stepped aside.
‘After you, Princess.’
Felicia smiled. ‘Well, at least you’ve learned your place.’
She walked through the front door, and Striker followed.
Stepping in through the front doors brought Striker a strange sense of déjà vu. A lost feeling. It had been only, what, two hours since he’d rampaged through here, ordering the receptionist to lock all the windows and doors, and then kidnapping Dr Ostermann and dragging him up to Safe Haven Suites to deal with Billy. Now, it all felt like a bad dream.
And in some ways, it was.
Striker slowed down walking, looked at the clock, then leaned on the banister of the stairway. A wave of mild dizziness washed over him, and he felt like his blood pressure had just skyrocketed through the roof.
Felicia took note. ‘Hey. You okay?’
‘I just need a second here,’ he said, but he made no move to walk on.
After a few more seconds, Striker ignored Felicia’s worried stare, and looked around the place. Everything felt darker in here now. The walls seemed higher, the corridors narrower. Straight ahead was the receptionist’s desk, and behind it was a room fronted by a large glass pane. Through the glass, Striker could see an entire wall of file folders.
