Snakes & Ladders (37 page)

Striker cursed. Without another word, he left the front counter and began searching through the shop. He started in the rear, checking both washrooms and finding them empty. Then he began making his way among the patrons. There were fewer than ten in total, and only four of them were women. Two Asian, one black, and one white woman. She was over six foot.

Striker tried to contain his temper.

Larisa was gone; they had missed her.

Again.

He was about to leave Arabic Beans when his eye caught the row of monitors along the far wall. There were five in total, and the first four all faced towards him, each displaying a stark white Google screen from the Firefox web browser.

The last terminal was turned to face the wall.

Striker walked over to the area. He searched the chair and floor for anything that might have been dropped. A purse. Some ID. Anything to show that Larisa had been here. Anything to lead them to a new location.

But he found nothing.

He reached out, grasped hold of the monitor, and turned it so he could see the screen. What he saw was alarming. The screen was white, just like the others, but the application running wasn’t Firefox, but Microsoft Word. Typed across the screen was one brief message. When Striker read it, his heart plummeted:

When the reward was over, and after the Girl had left him, the Adder left the soft comfort of the bed and approached the bar. From it, he took a bottle of sparkling mineral water – Sémillante, from France – and uncapped it. As he drank some down, the bubbly fluid tingling the back of his throat, the Adder thought of the Girl. He could still feel her warmth against his body. Her wetness all around him. Her tender sweet taste on his lips. Now that she was gone, he felt like something was missing.

It was very, very odd. He could not understand it.

He got dressed and exited the Special Room. He found the hatch in the floor, opened it, and started down the rungs of the ladder. He’d made it less than a quarter of the way down when he heard the Doctor and the Girl, speaking somewhere above him.

‘Did you please him?’ the Doctor asked.

‘I think so.’

‘You
think
?’

‘Well . . . yes, he seemed pleased.’

‘Did he ejaculate?’

Pause.

‘Answer the question, girl.’

‘He doesn’t . . . he doesn’t always—’

Slap!

Then . . . crying.

‘Come here,’ the Doctor ordered.

‘Please . . .’

‘Lift up your skirt.’

There was another moment of silence, and then the Girl let out an uncomfortable sound. ‘Please, you’re hurting me—’

‘Shut
up
! . . . Look, there – he ejaculated.’

The Girl made no reply, only another uncomfortable sound.

‘Do not make me do this again. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Doctor.’

There was silence. No more conversation. Just the sound of footsteps walking away down the hall.

The Adder did not move from the ladder. He stayed there, rooted to the spot like a gargoyle, and replayed the dialogue in his head. Over and over again. And a strange feeling rose up inside him. One he didn’t like. The Doctor was stirring things up. Old things within him. Bad things.
Feelings
.

It was the Doctor’s fault.

Like a distant, growing thunder, the laughter started in the Adder’s head. And he closed his eyes, as if this would somehow shut out the sounds. Before they could expand on him again – before they could crash down on him like cold lightning – he climbed back down the ladder, opened up the dumbwaiter, and grabbed his recording equipment from the shelves. He shoved it all into a burlap sack, along with a drill, screw-gun and some screws.

Then, with the burlap sack slung around his shoulder, the Adder crouched down low and climbed inside the dumbwaiter. He then began climbing up the old chute, one bracket at a time. He headed for the second floor.

For the room that was forbidden.

Striker and Felicia spent the next half-hour checking out the rest of Metrotown Mall, but Striker knew in his heart it would be a wasted effort. Larisa had seen Bernard Hamilton of Car 87, and she had hightailed it as far from Burnaby South as her legs would carry her.

Their one big chance, destroyed.

While Felicia did another run around of the main level, Striker attended the security office and spoke to the two guards inside. He emailed the office a copy of Larisa’s picture and told them to scour the footage and see if they could find her.

He had little hope of success.

By the time he was done and leaving the small office, Felicia was already outside waiting for him. She had two cups of Tim Horton’s coffee in her hands and a tired but determined look on her face. Striker took one of the paper cups from her, said thanks.

‘Any luck?’ he asked, already knowing the answer.

‘She’s gone,’ was all Felicia said.

Striker could not help but scowl as they headed back to the car. ‘This is such bullshit,’ he griped. ‘That fuckin’ Bernard. He’s royally screwed it for us on this one.’

Felicia nodded. ‘I wonder who his source is.’

Striker took a sip of his coffee. It was too sweet. As usual, Felicia had put sugar in it. ‘There is no source,’ he said. ‘Never was.’

‘Then how—’

‘Hamilton was eavesdropping on our conversation when we went over the air,’ he said. ‘He heard you on Dispatch, then he listened in when we switched to Info and requested a Burnaby unit to attend here. He caught on. Figured out we were coming for Larisa.’

‘You really think? That’s pretty devious.’

‘I know it is, and I know Bernard.’ Striker thought of how they had also coincidentally run into Bernard at 312 Main Street when checking for warrants. There were too many coincidences with the man. He turned to Felicia. ‘Run a history of Bernard’s unit status. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks he was closer than we were when we made the call to Burnaby. It’s how he got on scene so fast.’

Felicia grabbed the computer and ran the Remote Log. After a few seconds, she nodded. ‘You’re right, he was already out here at the same time we made the call. He put himself out at Boundary and Adanac Street.’

Striker glanced over at her. ‘Recognize the location?’

‘Mapleview,’ she said.

‘Exactly. He was probably there looking for Larisa. Or trying to get information.’

‘But why? Why would he care so much?’

Striker gave her a bemused look. ‘You still don’t get it, do you? Bernard
doesn’t
care. When was the last time you saw him put in this kind of work for any other mentally ill patient?’

‘Well, never.’

‘Exactly. Bernard just wants to be the one to
save
Larisa. Think about it. She’s a former employee of the Vancouver Police Department. A Victim Services worker, no less. And she’s been through hell and back. Now Bernard Hamilton – caring community cop and all-around godsend – comes along and rescues her from her mental illness. Think of how he’d spin that one.’

Felicia nodded. ‘More glory in his bid for Cop of the Year.’

‘Exactly. The worst part is he knows he’s actually putting her in greater danger – and ruining our chances of getting her back safely. But he doesn’t care. Because he wants to be the one who scores on the arrest.’ Striker felt his entire body grow tight with anger. ‘He’ll never get that award. Not ever. Because everyone knows what he’s all about. He doesn’t care about Larisa or any of them.’

‘He cares about the publicity,’ Felicia said.

‘He wants publicity, I’ll make sure he gets some,’ Striker said. ‘Starting off within the department.’

Felicia gave him a curious look, and he smiled at her darkly.

‘Later,’ he told her. ‘When the time is right.’

A half-hour later, at exactly eight o’clock, they drove back over Boundary Road municipal border and entered the City of Vancouver.

‘We’re looking at this the wrong way,’ Striker said. ‘Let’s stop trying to find out
where
Larisa went and find out
why
.’

Felicia gave him an odd look. ‘We already know why.’

‘Do we?’ he asked.

‘The medical warrant.’

He shook his head. ‘There’s something else she’s running from here, something besides the medical warrant. There has to be. Think about it. The woman emailed me and told me she believed Mandy was murdered. She also had Sarah’s name written down in her place. At the time, we thought it was all part of her mental illness. But now I wonder.’

Felicia nodded. ‘It was almost like she had proof.’

Striker thought of all the opened DVD cases they had found on the floor of Larisa’s ransacked rancher.

‘We need to find out what that proof was,’ he said.

Felicia opened up the laptop with a renewed sense of energy about her. ‘Let’s go over everything one more time.’

Striker pulled over to the side of the road. He opened up his notebook, then the file folder of all the evidence he had collected back at Larisa’s rancher. There was a ton of stuff. Stories. Articles. Newspaper clippings.

One thing stuck out more than all the rest. It was the article from the Vancouver
Province
newspaper about the man who committed suicide at the Regency Hotel. Someone had used a thick pen to write
LIES! LIES! LIES!
across it.

Striker read through the article, saw that the victim’s name was Derrick Smallboy. The man was said to have suffered from depression, addiction and fetal alcohol syndrome.

A hell of a trio.

Striker found the article intriguing, in a dark sort of way. ‘Run this name,’ he said to Felicia. ‘Derrick Smallboy. Age twenty-eight.’

She did, and after a moment the feed came back.

‘He’s deceased,’ she said.

‘I know that; he’s the guy from this article. Read up on him, tell me what you find.’

Felicia did. After a long moment, she looked up with a shocked look on her face. ‘Holy shit, Jacob, look at this. Says here that Smallboy suffered from depression, FAS, alcoholism, and schizophrenia. This guy was really messed up. He ended up throwing himself off the top of the Regency Hotel.’

‘I know all that.’

‘Be patient,’ she told him, and read on. ‘Says here he was enrolled in the EvenHealth programme, and was taking SILC classes.’

That made Striker take notice.

He leaned over and scanned through the report. As he learned the basics – that Derrick Smallboy had plummeted from the top of the Regency Hotel with no witnesses and no evidence of foul play – something else caught his eye.

A Lost Property file where Smallboy was listed as a complainant.

‘Bring up that one,’ he said.

Felicia exited the current report and brought up the Lost Property page. The synopsis was brief. Smallboy had lost several pieces of ID, namely his BC driver’s licence, his status card, and his birth certificate. He believed they had been stolen, but the author of the report hinted at paranoia.

‘Go back into Larisa’s main page again,’ Striker said.

When Felicia did, he pointed to one of the reports Larisa had made in August last year. It was listed as a Lost Property report, and when Felicia brought up the synopsis, he saw the same basic facts.

All of Larisa’s ID had been taken. Just like Smallboy’s. She also thought it had been stolen. But there was no proof of this. Not even a possible suspect. In the end, the report had been cleared as Unfounded.

Striker looked at Felicia. ‘You still have your contact at Equifax?’

‘You bet. TransUnion, too.’

‘Call them. Find out if there were any credit problems with Smallboy and Larisa.’

Felicia got on the phone and got hold of her contact at the credit bureau who could search both TransUnion and Equifax databases. The process was slow and cumbersome, but after almost twenty minutes, she hung up the phone with a curious look on her face.

‘Bad credit reports?’ Striker asked.

‘The worst. Non-payments. R3s. You name it. And it gets worse than that,’ she said. ‘Smallboy and Logan were both victims of identity theft. Full frauds. It’s all documented with the bureau. Someone damn well bankrupted them. Took out credit cards in their names, emptied their bank accounts – everything.’

Striker felt the energy of a new lead.

‘Awfully coincidental,’ he said.

‘That’s not the half of it,’ Felicia continued. ‘I also got him to check on Mandy Gill and Sarah Rose. Exact same thing. They
all
had their IDs stolen and they were
all
victims of identity theft.’

‘Did Larisa report the physical theft of the identification, or that someone was using her identity to obtain more credit?’ he clarified.

‘Both.’

Striker looked down at the date when Larisa Logan had reported the identity theft.

‘Larisa made a report of this on August third of last year,’ he noted.

Felicia nodded. ‘And three days later, she was committed.’

‘To where?’

‘Riverglen.’

‘By whose order?’ Striker asked.

‘Dr Riley M. Richter.’

Striker leaned back against the seat, his head swirling with information. Four victims of identity theft. All connected through the doctors of the EvenHealth programme. And now three of them were dead, one was missing.

The odds were astronomical.

‘It all comes back to the doctors,’ he said. ‘To Ostermann and Richter.’

He’d barely finished speaking the words when his cell phone rang. He picked it up, stuck it to his ear, and said, ‘Detective Striker, Homicide.’

The voice responding was smooth and soft.
Feminine
.

‘This is Dr Richter. Apparently you’ve been looking for me.’

The address Dr Richter gave Striker was for a road named Stone Creek Slope in West Vancouver, Canada’s most expensive area of real estate. Within ten seconds of driving off the TransCanada Highway and entering the district, Striker could see why.

The lots became large and more secluded. Driveways were flanked by tall rows of old-growth cedars, and most of the mansions were barely visible behind the gated driveways and high stone walls. Every house had a veranda that stared out over the cold deep waters of the strait below.