Snakes & Ladders (23 page)

He stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him, locking out the receptionist and patients. In his hands was a dark green file folder with some black writing on the tab.

Striker could not make it out.

Dr Ostermann walked over to his desk, slid open the drawer, and dropped the file inside. As he turned to face them, closing the drawer, his eyes caught the open cabinet, and he stopped what he was doing and just stared at it. Without saying a word, he walked across the room, stopped facing the DVD player, and looked at the DVDs. He picked up the empty case marked Billy Mercury and opened it. When he saw no DVD inside, he turned to face them and the skin of his cheeks was slightly pink.

‘Were you . . .
watching
this?’

Felicia said nothing.

Striker stepped forward. ‘Stop answering my questions with ones of your own, Doctor.’

Dr Ostermann’s face turned from pink to red, so deep that even the top of his thinning hair showed blush. The contrast made his eyes look like green ice. ‘I beg your pardon, Detective Striker?’

‘Beg nothing. You heard what I said.’

Dr Ostermann snapped the DVD case closed and put it away. ‘There was never any question
asked
of me.’

‘It was implied.’ Striker stepped up to the desk so that he was within arm’s reach of the man. ‘I didn’t come all the way from Vancouver to Coquitlam for a social visit, Doctor. And I think you know that. You were supposed to call us this morning; you didn’t.’

‘I just told you, it’s been a very busy morning. I’ve had many things on my mind. Many patients to tend to. They come first.’

Striker steeled his voice. ‘I wish I could say the same for Mandy Gill.’

Dr Ostermann froze, and silence filled the room. Striker was happy to wait it out. He gave Felicia a quick but casual glance to make sure she kept quiet, too.

He wanted Ostermann to sweat on this one.

‘The reason I haven’t called back,’ the doctor finally explained, ‘is because I haven’t yet been able to reach my patient. And I’m not about to give out this person’s
personal and private
information until such time that I do. It’s as simple as that.’

Striker nodded. ‘That’s fine then, Doctor. And here’s my response to you: you can either fess up this guy’s name, or I will head down to the court house, bang up a warrant, and then come out here and take your whole office and Records Section apart.’

Dr Ostermann’s face paled. ‘No judge would allow that.’

‘Actually, I think they would. And think of how the media would eat that one up: “
Dr Ostermann, psychiatrist for the poor,
refuses to help the Vancouver Police Department’s investigation on
the possible murder of a poor mentally ill woman – a patient of the
EvenHealth programme, no less.
” Man, I can just see the headlines now.’ He looked back at Felicia and smiled. ‘Or we could just seize any files and be done with it.’

Dr Ostermann stepped back. ‘
Seize
my files? Under what grounds?’

‘Exigent circumstances,’ Felicia said.

Striker nodded. ‘Exactly. You have a patient who we think might have been murdered – not committed suicide, as previously thought – and there’s a connection to one of your other patients. A man who might also pose an extreme risk to others. That’s exigent enough for me. Hell, it’s one of our prime duties as police officers – Protection of Life.’

‘That would never stand up in court.’

Striker shrugged. ‘Maybe not. But I’m more than willing to fight that a year or two down the road – after I seize your files here and at EvenHealth.’

‘EvenHealth?’

Felicia stepped forward. ‘Work with us, Doctor.’

Dr Ostermann’s face paled even more and he leaned back against the desk. ‘I wonder. What would your Inspector say to all this? Or perhaps your Deputy Chief. He and I know each other, you know. I am a well-known contributor to the Police Mutual Benevolent Association, and have been for many years.’

Striker grinned. ‘The chief would care as much as the media would if, say, this thing got leaked and they learned we were seizing your patients’ files.’

Dr Ostermann said no more, and a distant, horrified look filled his eyes, as if he was picturing the nightmare that could unfold.

Striker gave Felicia a quick glance, saw the concern in her eyes, and knew she would give it to him later. But for now, he had the upper hand, and he knew it. He met Dr Ostermann’s stare and said, ‘So what’s it going to be, Doctor? Are we going to help each other out, or not? We are on the same team, after all, right?’

Dr Ostermann’s posture sagged and he let out a tight breath. ‘Same team. Yes. Yes, of course.’ He moved gingerly around his desk and sat down in the high-backed leather chair. He opened the drawer. Pulled out the green file folder he had been carrying when he entered the room. He flipped wearily through the pages, then dropped the whole thing on the desktop.

‘His name is Billy Stephen Mercury,’ he finally confessed. ‘As I am sure you well know. He has been a patient of mine for quite some time now, ever since his return from overseas.’ His eyes flitted to the DVD player, then back at Striker. ‘We are off the record here?’

‘Of course.’

He nodded. ‘Billy was a soldier, suffering badly. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, just like the DVD says. Barely sleeping. And self-medicating to deal with the pain. Delusional. One step away from being psychotic. When he was here, he was a very hard patient to deal with at times.’

Felicia asked, ‘
When
he was here?’

‘Yes, when. The medications helped greatly. And Billy did progress. He was released because of this – as part of the outpatient programme. And for a while, he was doing quite well on his own. We always kept tabs on him, of course. He had to see one of our psychiatrists regularly. But that was mostly to reassess the medications and make sure they were working. Make sure he was taking them as prescribed. The majority of his healing came through one of the EvenHealth programmes.’

‘Which particular programme?’

‘We called it SILC – Social Independence and Life Coping skills. The programme was designed to help some of our more stable patients gain their independence through what we called the trinity approach – regular counselling, group therapy sessions, and home visits. For some – for
most
– of the patients, SILC worked quite well. But for Billy, well, there were setbacks.’

‘What kind of setbacks?’ Striker asked.

‘Medication-related, mostly. Which sounds simple enough. But the medication was the only thing controlling his delusions. The group therapy sessions . . . these were aimed at the depression.’

‘And where exactly is Billy now?’

Dr Ostermann splayed his hands. ‘That’s the problem. I can’t get a hold of him. He is supposed to call into the office daily, but I’m afraid to say he hasn’t done so for quite some time. Almost a week.’ The doctor shook his head sadly. ‘This . . .
unreliability
was one of the reasons why he was removed from the group.’

‘Removed from the group, but not from the entire programme?’ Striker clarified.

‘Of course not, this is a rehabilitative programme, not a punitive one.’

‘You said,
one
of the reasons?’ Felicia noted.

Dr Ostermann nodded slowly. ‘Well, yes, there were other reasons as well.’

Striker pressed the issue. ‘What were they, Doctor?’

‘Billy had certain . . . obsessions.’

‘With what?’

‘More like with who,’ Dr Ostermann replied. He looked away from them for a brief moment and his lips puckered. ‘Billy was obsessed with Mandy Gill.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Striker said. ‘You’re only telling us this now?’

Dr Ostermann raised his hands in surrender. ‘It was never in a violent way,’ he insisted. ‘These were completely non-violent obsessions, I can assure you of that. Billy was never a . . . violent person.’

‘He was a soldier,’ Striker pointed out. ‘He is at least familiar with violence.’

Dr Ostermann tilted his head as he spoke. ‘Billy may have been a soldier, but he was a communications officer first,’ he explained.

‘Communications officer or not, he is still trained for violence,’ Striker replied.

‘Did he have obsessions with any of the other patients or staff?’ Felicia asked.

‘Well, yes. There was another, yes.’

Striker felt his blood pressure rising. ‘Names, Doctor.
Names
.’

‘She was another one of the patients. Her name is Sarah Rose.’

The surname meant nothing to Striker, but the first name made him pause.
Sarah?
Wasn’t that one of the names written down on the large piece of paper back at Larisa’s home? He looked at Felicia, and she nodded; she too had made the connection.

‘Sarah was the only one who really looked out for Billy,’ Dr Ostermann continued. ‘The only one who genuinely cared for him. I guess she was Billy’s only, well,
friend
. They became close. Too close. A romantic relationship, I believe – which was strictly against the rules of the therapy. I was forced to remove them from the group. It was for this very reason Sarah broke off their relationship.’

Striker couldn’t believe his ears.

‘Broke off their relationship?’ He swore out loud. This was more than a mental health nightmare, it was a possible drugfuelled
domestic
. He calmed his mind down and focused on the basics.

‘Were Sarah and Mandy close?’ he asked.

The doctor seemed perplexed by the question. ‘Yes, I believe they were. As close as anyone could get to Sarah – she was quite introverted, you know. Almost a recluse. It was all I could do, at times, to have her attend the counselling sessions. One time, I even had to get my receptionist to—’

‘Hold on a second,’ Striker said. ‘Sarah Rose isn’t one of the
in-house
patients?’

‘Oh dear lord, no. Sarah’s depression is quite treatable.’

‘So she’s not actually here? She’s out there on her own?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Give me her telephone number.’

‘Sarah does not have a telephone, but I do have her address.’

‘Then give me that, and a photograph of the woman if you have one.’

From his desk, Dr Ostermann pulled out a file and removed a photocopy of a picture of the woman. He also pulled out an old-fashioned Rolodex, found the address, then wrote it down on a yellow Post-it note. ‘This is the most current information we have on Sarah.’

Striker took the photocopy of the woman’s picture as well as the Post-it note. ‘We can finish this discussion later,’ he said. ‘Right now, we have to check on this woman’s welfare. You had better hope, Doctor, that she’s okay.’

Dr Ostermann’s face took on a tight expression, but he said nothing back.

Striker turned and gave Felicia a nod, and the two left the office and made their way down the long dark corridors of the Riverglen Mental Health Facility. They returned to their car, got inside, and headed towards Vancouver. Destination: the Oppenheimer area. More specifically, the violent slums of Princess Avenue.

It was time to see Sarah Rose.

The Adder sat in the driver’s seat of a plain white van. A GMC with double back doors and no rear windows. It could have been a work van. It could have been a delivery van, or any one of the old privately owned heaps around town. There were a million of them.

And that was why he had picked it.

Next to him on the centre console sat a small black Nokia cell phone. It was an old model by today’s standards. No camera. No touch-screen. Hell, no screen at all. No nothing. Just a plainJane model that was pre-paid through a 7-Eleven cash card. It was untraceable. And when the job was done, he would break it into pieces and discard them at the other end of town.

He was always overly careful. He had to be. The results of carelessness could be detrimental.

His legs jittered, and he began to fidget. The waiting was always the hardest part. Especially in a van that stank of old dampness and stale coffee. He looked at the paper cup of old Tim Horton’s decaf in the tray holder – the cup so old the writing had faded. He grabbed it, unrolled the window, and threw it outside.

Cold wind blew into the cab. Hit him like an invisible hand, slapping his skin. Far above, the sun shone almost white. All at once, it hit him, and he was slip . . . slip . . . slipping away. Back in time.

Back to
then
.

‘No, not now,’ he whispered. ‘Not again.’

His hands started to shake, and all at once he could hear the laughter all around him, as if it was happening right now, right here in the cab of the van. And then the sounds of the snapping started. Those terrible, thunderous
crashing
sounds.

He reached out, fiddled with the radio, and turned the knob to a station that didn’t exist. Cranked the volume and let the static sound fill his ears. That heavenly, heavenly
noise
. . .

It overpowered the old ghosts.

For now.

Still sweating, still shaking, he looked down at the cell again. As if sensing his desperation, it finally went off and relief flooded him. Only one person had this number. The Doctor. And so the Adder picked up on the first ring.

‘Yes.’ His voice was rough, weak.

‘He’s coming. There isn’t much time.’

The Adder nodded absently as if the Doctor could see him. ‘I am already here.’

‘Be careful, you can’t be seen.’

‘No one will know.’

The Doctor started to say more, but the Adder couldn’t listen. He hung up the cell and dropped it into the pocket of his black Kangaroo jacket. Zipped the pocket. Then pulled up the hoodie. Fighting the daemons of the past, he shouldered open the door and left the van.

The target suite was to the east, down the snaking, icy slope of Hermon Drive; the Adder knew this because he had already performed his recon of the area, and he had hauled all his gear inside the command room.

‘
Those who plan will live; those who don’t life-give
.’

An old soldiers’ rhyme. The cadence brought him some comfort. Made him feel an ounce of control in a world where no control existed.