Snakes & Ladders (12 page)

Dr Ostermann said nothing. He moved to the corner of the room where there was a liquor cart and poured himself a glass of amber-coloured booze. He brought it to his lips, drained the glass, then refilled it.

‘I must say,’ he began. ‘I’ve had the unfortunate experience of having my patients commit suicide on previous occasions, you know. Yet no officer has ever asked me questions like this, so forgive me if they don’t
sound
standard.’

‘That’s fair enough,’ Striker replied. ‘But this time there are unique details we need to rule out. Your vehicle was seen in the area at roughly the same time as her death. You were also her doctor. Time and connection, that’s why we’re here – to gain some history on Mandy Gill, because right now we have nothing.’

Dr Ostermann made a sad face. ‘That’s because there’s not much to know, I’m afraid. Mandy didn’t have any family. Her mother’s name was Janelle. She passed away years ago, not that it mattered. All ties had been severed between them years before. When Janelle and the father broke up, she just packed up her things and moved out east. Left everyone behind.’

‘Mother of the Year,’ Felicia said.

The doctor only nodded. ‘It was quite sad. After her father’s incarceration all Mandy had left was one cousin, and he perished in an explosion – a fact I’m sure you’re already well aware of.’

Striker nodded but said nothing to that fact. ‘What about friends?’ he asked. ‘Did she have anyone close to her?’

The doctor said nothing for a long moment. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘Mandy was close to only one other person that I know of – another patient of mine, in fact. It was a relationship I never approved of from the start, and I did everything in my power to put a stop to it.’

Striker and Felicia shared a quick glance.

‘Who?’ Striker asked.

The doctor bit his lip as he mulled it over. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t say anything at this point in time – patient confidentiality and all.’

Striker stepped forward. ‘I’m not going to lie to you, Doctor. There are some things about the death that are concerning to us – things I cannot discuss. But I really would like to speak with this other patient of yours who knew Mandy. It’s absolutely crucial.’

Dr Ostermann sipped his drink. Swallowed. Let out a fluttery breath.

‘I understand that, Detective. I do. But this particular patient of mine is very . . .
fragile
right now. And this will most definitely come as a shock to him. There’s no telling how he’ll react.’ He frowned. ‘Not well, I presume. Let me talk to him first. I’ll inform him of what has occurred. Then I’ll explain to him that you will be in contact.’

‘I would appreciate that, Doctor. As I’ve said, this is very important, and time is critical.’

Dr Ostermann looked up at the clock. It was now just after ten. He extended his hand. ‘Very well. I will call you first thing in the morning then.’

‘As early as possible,’ Striker replied. He thanked Dr Ostermann for his time and gave the man his card. Then looked at Felicia, and they took their leave. At the door of the library, Striker stopped. He turned back and met the doctor’s stare one last time.

‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘Do you ever work at Mapleview?’

Dr Ostermann shook his head. ‘No. I work at Riverglen now. I also do some outreach programmes. Actually, I do quite a few of them with many different Mental Health Teams. Strathcona, for one. Am I not in your police database?’

Striker ignored the question. ‘Must be a difficult job at times.’

‘The career of a psychiatrist is never easy, Detective. There always seems to be another tragedy waiting around the corner.’ Dr Ostermann gave them both a quick look and forced out a waxy smile. ‘My profession is much like yours, I fear. In some ways, our paths are quite similar. We’ll talk tomorrow, either here or at Riverglen.’

Felicia said goodnight, but Striker only nodded.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ll find you.’

They were leaving.

Striker reached for the front door of the Ostermann house when it suddenly opened on him and a cold powerful wind blew inside, filling the foyer with an immediate chill. Stepping through the front door were the two people Striker had seen in the photographs on the mantelpiece, back in the library.

The first one through the doorway was the young man. Maybe seventeen. He moved with the awkward laziness of every teenage boy Striker had ever known – a kid whose body was growing too fast for his mind and coordination to keep up with. His wild, jet-black hair looked blown all over the place – or maybe that was the way it naturally stood – and his deep green eyes focused on Striker with a look of ambivalence.

‘Ah, the children are home,’ Dr Ostermann said. He gestured to the young man. ‘This is my son, Gabriel.’

‘Nice to meet you, Gabriel,’ Striker said.

Felicia said hello, too.

Gabriel said nothing at first; his eyes just moved from Striker to Felicia, then stayed there for a long moment. He smiled.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Hello.’

‘And this, of course, is Dalia,’ Dr Ostermann continued.

Striker turned his eyes from the young man to the young woman. In some ways, they looked similar. In others, completely different.

‘It’s good to meet you,’ Striker said to the young woman.

She just looked back at him, saying nothing. Finally, she nodded slowly, as if only now making the connection that he was standing in front of her.

Striker found the moment odd. When he gave Felicia a quick glance, the expression on her face told him that she felt the strangeness, too. He looked once more at Gabriel, then at Dalia, and felt an underlying tension in the foyer as they looked back at him.

But they didn’t really
look
back at him; they looked at nothing. The boy’s green eyes were piercing and focused; the girl’s were black and hollow and distant, and they looked right
through
him. Analysed him.

He didn’t like it.

‘We really should go,’ Felicia finally said.

Before Striker could respond, the girl spoke up. ‘Why are they here?’ she said to her father.

‘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.

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.

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.

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.