Snakes & Ladders

by Sean Slater

  He climbed to his knees. Then to his feet. And made his way towards the ladder. He climbed the rungs numbly, mechanically, until he reached the hatch. As he undid the latch, a sense of surreal awareness came over him. It was time to play the part again. To put on his outer-world face. His mask. To become one with the facade of the upstairs world.

  His reward was waiting.

  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 belo
w. 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:

  L.Logan@gmail.com.

 
‘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.’