‘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.
Harry parked his car at the corner of Burrard and Pacific and stared at the spectacle before him. Chad Koda’s place. Blown sky-high. It was unreal. Explosions going off
here and there. People dying in fiery blasts. What the hell was this – Mexico?
Harry closed his eyes.
He had been to Koda’s house. He had
just
been there.
His fingers gripped the steering wheel so tightly that the small muscles around his knuckles hurt. He had to will them to let go. So many thoughts rampaged through his head. The past connections
were many – too many to discount. A headache was growing behind his temples, a ringing filled his ears. Once, twice, three times – and then he clued in.
He grabbed the cell from the seat and jammed it to his ear.
‘Detective Eckhart,’ he got out.
‘Hi, Dad!’
In two words, the thickening shroud of tension dissipated, and suddenly Harry felt like he could breathe again. ‘How you doing there, son? You being a good boy for your mom?’
‘Yeah. Mom says I can have ice cream for dessert, if you say it’s okay too. Can I? Can I please?
Please?
’
Harry laughed softly. Six-year-olds. Christ. ‘Only if you save some for me.’
‘I will, I
will
!’
‘Put your mother on the phone.’
‘Can I play Minecraft?’
‘Twenty minutes. No more. Now put your mother on the phone.’
The phone clicked, and for a moment Harry thought the line had gone dead. Then a soft, feminine voice filled the receiver: ‘Hey, sweetie. Coming home now?’
‘Not for a while.’
She turned silent for a moment, as if sensing his tension. ‘Everything okay?’
He took in a deep breath. ‘Listen to me carefully, Sandra. Really carefully. I want you to take Ethan and go to your sister’s place tonight.’
She let out a worried sound. ‘What – why? Harry, what’s going on?’
‘I’ll explain later.’
‘But—’
‘Later, Sandra.’
She made a nervous sound. ‘Okay, Harry, okay. We’ll go.’
He could hear the fear in her voice, the jitteriness, and he worried about her driving this way. ‘It’s all precautionary, Sandra. That’s it. Just precautionary.’
‘I’ll . . . I’ll call you when we get there?’
‘Yes. Make sure you do. I love you, Sandra. And like I said, I’ll explain it all to you later.’ He hung up without waiting for a response. When he put the cell on the passenger
seat, it dropped from his clumsy fingers. They felt numb.
He
felt numb. Numb all over. Because deep down he knew the truth.
It was happening. Really fucking happening.
The past had finally caught up to them.
It was after nine when Striker and Felicia finally finished going over the details at Chad Koda’s house, but it felt like midnight. Striker was sorting through the twenty
or so pages of notes he’d written down during the investigation and feeling bombarded by numerous streams of evidence, most of which didn’t seem to connect. He was halfway out the front
door when they bumped right into Harry.
Striker looked at his watch, then back at the older cop.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
Harry just swore. ‘Goddam press is
everywhere
.’
‘Get used to it.’
Harry looked back outside at the stream of reporters gathered at the edge of the yellow line, cursed again, then pushed past Striker and Felicia into the foyer. Once inside, he stopped like
he’d been smacked back by some invisible force. Gaped at the destruction.
‘Jesus mercy,’ he said.
Strewn across the foyer, separating the rest of the house, was a thick slash of police tape, and on the other side of it forensic searchers, dressed in blue booties and matching lab gowns, were
conducting a grid search of the room.
Felicia reached out and touched Harry’s arm. ‘You can’t go in there right now.’
Harry just nodded on autopilot, but said nothing. After a long moment, he turned his eyes away from the crime scene and met Striker’s stare. ‘Is this connected to the toy
shop?’
‘Why are you here, Harry?’ Striker asked.
‘Chad Koda was an old friend of mine.’
Striker was surprised by this news. He took a quick glance at Felicia, then back at Harry. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’
Harry just raised an eyebrow. ‘I haven’t actually spoken to Chad in, well, years, I guess . . . but when I saw the explosion on the news, I recognized the house immediately. I headed
right up.’
Striker said nothing for a moment, waiting for Harry to continue with more of an explanation. When he didn’t, Striker summed it up. ‘This is a very strange situation, Harry. You have
a direct connection to Keisha Williams, another direct connection to Chad Koda, and through the both of them, an indirect connection to Dr Sharise Owens.’
The words just hung there, and Harry’s eyes never left the destruction in the living room.
‘How bad is he?’ he finally asked.
‘Koda? I don’t know. Alive. They took him to St Paul’s.’
‘I’m heading up.’
Without so much as another word, Harry turned and walked back out the front door. He took the front steps two at a time, rounded the sidewalk, and headed up the block.
Striker said nothing; he just stepped onto the front porch and watched Harry step under the yellow line of police tape at the end of the block. The second he did, a swarm of media reporters
buzzed around him. Flashes went off; cameras panned; feeds started.
Harry paid them no heed. He pushed aggressively through the mob, knocking one reporter on her ass and sending a cameraman tripping over the kerb. He climbed into his Honda CRV, did a U-turn, and
was gone.
Felicia came up beside Striker.
‘That was screwed,’ she said.
Striker agreed; he was about to discuss the situation with her further when one of the forensic searchers located something in the living room and called over Corporal Summer. With gloved hands,
she opened a clear plastic bag, and the searcher dropped the piece of shrapnel inside.
Striker couldn’t help himself. He moved back inside the house, and Felicia followed. They were soon joined by Inspector Osaka at the entrance to the living room, where all three of them
met with the bomb specialist.
‘What have you got?’ Striker asked.
Corporal Summer held up the plastic bag. Inside it was a chunk of green rectangular plastic, less than an inch wide and two inches long. Connected to it was a long wire and a shiny silver
box.
‘Is that a motherboard?’ Striker asked.
She nodded. ‘With a transmitter attached. It looks like it came from a cell phone.’
Felicia studied the find. ‘So it’s a remote detonator, is what you’re saying.’
‘Part of one.’
Corporal Summer spoke the words with concern, and Striker understood why. ‘Hold on a second,’ he said. ‘If the detonator was found right here in the living room, then where was
the bomb triggered from?’
Summer lowered the bag and met his stare. ‘Inside the house.’
‘
Where
inside the house?’
‘Most likely somewhere in this vicinity.’
Striker blinked in near disbelief. ‘Then whoever set it off would have been blown up in the explosion.’
‘Almost certainly.’
The conclusion drawn from Corporal Summer’s words was easy for everyone to see; there had been only two bodies in the area at the time of the explosion – Dr Sharise Owens, who had
been strapped to a chair, and Chad Koda, who had miraculously survived the blast.
Inspector Osaka looked uneasy. ‘Are we honestly considering whether Chad Koda might have been responsible for this?’
Striker frowned. It sounded ludicrous – and it went completely against their theory that a bomber was out there, using numbered dolls to count off his victims. Still, as outlandish as the
notion seemed, it would have been irresponsible of them not to consider and rule out all alternative theories.
‘Let’s talk it out,’ he suggested.
Felicia nodded and went over all they had.
‘Chad Koda broke up with Dr Owens years ago after she aborted his child. And he was still quite emotional about that when we talked to him today, so he definitely had motive. Meanwhile,
the detonator is right there in your hands, so he definitely had the means. Add in the fact that he miraculously survived the blast, and alarm bells have to go off.’
Striker remained less convinced. ‘That’s a pretty far leap.’
‘It’s just a theory,’ she replied. ‘But remember that doctor at Fort Bragg? He killed his family, then stabbed himself to make it look like he’d fought off a bunch
of home invaders to save them all.’
Striker remembered the case. ‘You’re talking about Jeffrey MacDonald,’ he said. ‘The man was a medical doctor and a practising physician – he knew how to safely
injure himself. It doesn’t appear that Koda had the same expertise. Plus, to stab yourself is one thing. It’s a
controlled
action. But to half kill yourself in a bomb blast is
an entirely different matter. Koda could easily have died here tonight.’
‘Maybe he was supposed to,’ Felicia replied.
Her words were soft spoken, and they intrigued Striker.
‘A murder-suicide?’ He hadn’t thought of that. But he still remained unconvinced. ‘Koda may have had the motive and the means, but do we seriously think he had the
ability
to pull something like this off?’
‘Without a doubt,’ Osaka said.
It was the first thing the inspector had said with any force. Striker looked at the man in slight surprise. ‘He’s a
realtor
, sir.’
‘And a retired cop. Hell, he was a sergeant in ERT. Red Team.’
The words stunned Striker. This was the first time he had ever heard this information. ‘A retired cop? Red Team? How the hell do you know this?’
Osaka shrugged. ‘Simple,’ he said. ‘I worked with the man.’