The Survivor (45 page)

‘Exactly. And they hadn’t counted on Shen Sun watching from the shadows. My witness, Phyllis, saw him there. Monitoring what they were doing. He knew something was up. Later, he did a thorough investigation of the house, figured out their plan and reported it to his bosses.’

‘The Shadow Dragons?’

Striker shook his head. ‘First off, don’t confuse the gangs. The Shadow Dragons are nothing but a feeder gang for the real baddies – the Triads. More specifically, the 14K Triads – the strongest faction of the worldwide gang. They’re the one every East Asian criminal wants to be a part of. They have all the power, all the history, all the
respect
. In Canada, their main liaison officer is Sheung Fa, who acts as kind of a bridge between the Shadow Dragons of Vancouver and his boss in Macau – the guy everyone calls Shan Chu. The Dragon Head.’

Felicia made a lost sound. ‘My head is spinning. When did you work all this out?’

‘When I finished talking to Phyllis and was waiting for you. It came together slowly, when I realised what the stasis-foam was being used for – and when Phyllis told me about the Asian guy watching the police from the bushes. That was Shen Sun Soone. So when Pevorski’s married name came up as O’Riley, all the connections were there. Kwan, Chow, MacMillan and O’Riley were stealing from the Triads, and Shen Sun Soon and his Shadow Dragons were sent to deal with it.’

‘So this was all just one big payback? Nothing more?’

‘Oh, it was payback,’ Striker said grimly, ‘but that and a whole lot more. This is the Triads we’re talking about. The 14K. Follow them back throughout their history and they have one main rule: disrespect the gang in any way and you will lose what is most precious to you.’

‘Your children?’

‘Your firstborn,’ Striker said. ‘It was a message being sent – to those who were guilty, and to the rest of the criminal underworld: steal from us –
disrespect
us – and this is what it will cost you.’ He let out a sour laugh. ‘Jesus, we thought Kwan was delirious back at the hospital, yammering on and on about the house being on fire, and dragons rising up all around her.’

‘She was telling us exactly what we needed to know.’

‘It also makes sense why some of the parents weren’t too willing to meet us. They were afraid. Of us and the gangs. Some of them still have other children to lose.’

Felicia looked ready to say more, but Striker’s cell went off. He snatched it from his belt and stuck it to his ear. ‘Detective Striker, Homicide.’

‘Shipwreck, it’s me.’

‘Meathead?’

‘Yeah. We’re at Shen Sun’s father’s place, down here on Raymur.’

‘And?’

‘It’s all over,’ he said. ‘We got the fucker. He’s
dead
.’

Eighty-Seven

Once on scene at Raymur, Striker made his way towards the group of ERT cops standing around the fallen gunman on the front lawn. He was almost there when his cell phone rang. He hoped it was Courtney, calling to see if he was all right, calling to say hi, or even argue – he just wanted to hear her voice again.

‘Detective Striker,’ he said.

The voice that responded was high-pitched and nervous, jittery. ‘Detective Striker, it’s me. It’s Joyce.’

It took Striker a second to place the name and voice. Joyce Belle was the mother of Naomi, one of the girls on Courtney’s last softball team. He hadn’t spoken to the woman in over six months. Not since Courtney and Naomi had stopped being friends over liking the same boy. It alarmed Striker that she was calling. His first thought was of Naomi – was she one of the fallen? His mind frantically raced back through the names of the dead, but he couldn’t recall if Naomi had been one of them.

‘Joyce,’ he acknowledged. ‘Did Naomi . . . make it home okay?’

‘Oh, she’s fine, she’s fine, thank Christ she’s fine – thanks to you.’

Striker let out a sigh of relief. Stopped walking. His head was pounding. ‘Look, Joyce, not to be rude, but I’m at a crime scene right now—’

‘Oh, no problem, no problem at all,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t normally even call you, especially when you’re at work, but Naomi just got home, and well, I thought I should tell you. Do you know where your daughter is?’

Striker thought of the two cops guarding his house. ‘She’s at home. Why?’

Joyce cleared her throat. ‘Well, Naomi just got home from the mall. She says that not a half hour ago, she saw Courtney down there at the Skytrain exchange. Says she was all dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood and heading down to Commercial Drive for the Parade of Lost Souls. Said she was pretty drunk.’

Strike paused. ‘I thought they cancelled that thing because of the shootings?’

‘They did,’ she explained. ‘But then they put it back on in memory of those who were killed – kind of like a mass teenage catharsis for the kids.’

Striker cursed under his breath, wondered what the hell had gone wrong. ‘Joyce, hold on for one second, will you?’

He cut across the road to the Emergency Response Team and borrowed the radio from Jake Holmgren, Team Leader. He got on the radio, then asked Dispatch to raise the units outside his house. Within thirty seconds, her response came back:

‘I have no one on that detail.’

Striker felt his mouth go dry. ‘There should be two cars on my place – one out front, one out back. We stationed them there this morning.’

‘Let me check the local log,’ she said. The sounds of typing filled the air and then the dispatcher came back on. ‘Here we are. They were released from the detail at fourteen hundred hours.’

Striker’s fingers tightened hard on the phone. ‘By whose order?’

‘The Deputy Chief,’ she said. ‘Laroche. I think it was a manpower issue.’

Striker swore and threw the portable back to Holmgren. He turned away from the group and got back on his cell. ‘Joyce, you still there?’

‘Yes, I’m here.’

‘You’re right, it’s her.’ Striker pinched the bridge of his nose as he spoke, felt the headache coming on like gangbusters. The Parade of Lost Souls. Christ, it was anarchy down there. And if Courtney was drunk, he’d kill her. He didn’t need this. Not now. He checked his watch, saw that it was fast approaching eight o’clock, and realised that the huge Halloween bash would already be well underway.

‘I have to go, Joyce,’ he said, ‘but thanks for calling. I’ll head right up there and see if I can find her.’

‘Don’t hang up!’

The shrillness of her voice startled him, and Striker held the phone away from his ear for a second. When he brought it back, he said slowly, ‘Joyce, is something wrong?’

‘She wasn’t alone,’ the woman said breathlessly. ‘She was with that friend of hers – Raine.’

‘So?’

‘You’re looking for her, aren’t you?’

‘No, not that I’m aware of.’

Joyce paused, then said: ‘You know who Raine is, right?’

‘Well, I’ve never actually met her.’

‘Raine is her nickname. Her real name is Riku. Riku Kwan.’

Striker felt a stab of cold in his chest. ‘
What?
How the—’

‘Patricia wanted Raine to keep some of her heritage,’ Joyce explained, ‘so she legally named her Riku. But everywhere else, she was listed as Raine, because Patricia wanted her to fit in as well. I thought . . . I thought you knew this. I thought
everyone
knew this.’

Striker made a frustrated sound. Nothing in the case had been easy from minute one.

Felicia, watching him from the debriefing, caught his expression and gave him a
What’s up?
look. He ignored it, told Joyce to let him speak with Naomi, and got all the details. When he finally hung up, Felicia had left the ERT pack, moved closer, and was still watching him.

‘What was that about?’

Striker gave her a weary look. ‘That was the mother of one of Courtney’s friends. Apparently, Courtney’s been out drinking all afternoon and she’s buggered off to the Parade of Lost Souls.’

Felicia shrugged, grinned. ‘She’s fifteen, what else is new?’

‘She was with Riku Kwan.’

The grin fell from Felicia’s face. ‘Riku? But how . . . why would . . .’

‘Courtney’s friend Raine
is
Riku. Raine’s her goddam nickname. She’s been within reach all along.’

‘Holy shit. Give me the details, I’ll call it in.’

Striker handed Felicia his notebook. While she got on her cell and called Dispatch to have this latest information broadcast, Striker tried to clear his mind. He marched up the hill towards the group of ERT guys and spotted Meathead, his six-foot-four frame towering above the rest of the men. Meathead spotted him, too, and stepped away from the group.

‘You can buy me a bottle later,’ Meathead said to Striker. ‘Jack Daniel’s. Legendary Blend.’

Striker looked past where the group was standing and stared at the mangled mess of flesh lying on the grass. The entire body was riddled with bullets – stomach, chest, and face completely blasted away. Striker winced. ‘You turned him into Swiss-cheese, man.’

‘I hate cheddar.’ Meathead laughed at his joke.

‘We wanted him alive.’

‘No choice. Fucker drew on us.’

‘He drew on you? Twelve guys?’

Meathead pointed towards the apartment. ‘It’s a murder-suicide, Shipwreck.’

‘And his family?’

‘Let’s just say there won’t be any more Father’s Day cards sent here.’

Striker looked at the door for a long moment, couldn’t help but feel something was wrong. He marched towards it.

Meathead stepped after him. ‘Hey, Shipwreck, you sure you wanna go in there?’

‘No.’ He opened the door and stepped inside.

The front room was hot, as if someone had turned the heat on full blast. It was the first thing Striker noticed, then the smell hit him. Meathead joined him in the foyer, and the two of them made their way to the bedroom.

Striker stopped just inside the doorway. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. Lying sprawled out on the bed were the grisly remains of Lien Vok Soone – father of Tran Sang Soone and Shen Sun Soone. He was in the supine position, eyes open, arms out to the side, palms facing up towards the ceiling, as if he’d been crucified on an invisible cross. His mouth was wide open. It looked like he was screaming. Even now, in death.

‘Jesus Christ.’ Striker brought the sleeve of his suit up under his nose. ‘What the fuck did he do to him?’

‘Skinned him alive,’ Meathead said, and for once there was no humour in his voice.

Striker moved towards the body.

‘Don’t touch nothing,’ Meathead warned. ‘Noodles ain’t been here yet.’

‘Fuck Noodles.’

‘The Deputy Chief is on the way—’

‘Fuck Noodles, fuck Laroche, fuck them all, Meathead – I don’t care any more.’

Only one light was turned on – an ordinary lamp on the nightstand – leaving the room illuminated, but still relatively dim. Striker took out his flashlight, shone it down on the bed for a better visual. What he saw almost brought up his burger. The sheets were splattered with red gooey clots and covered in thick, uneven shavings of human skin.

‘Look at the blood,’ Striker noted. ‘It’s dark, almost brown.’

‘So.’

Striker gave him a hard look. ‘It’s venous blood, not arterial. Means he lived longer through the process.’

Meathead said nothing, and Striker continued to study the body. When he shone the flashlight on the crotch and saw the peeled-away flesh and dismemberment, he closed his eyes, looked away, and turned off the flashlight. He let out a heavy breath.

‘Seen enough?’ Meathead asked.

‘Too damn much.’

Striker exited the town home, stopped just outside the front doorway, and took in a deep breath of the clean, cold air. It felt wonderful in his lungs. Like it was cleaning his insides of the terrible odours he’d breathed in.

Felicia neared, asked him what had gone on in there, but he couldn’t answer her. Flashes of the brutality bombarded him, and the scene still felt wrong.

‘Something here doesn’t make sense,’ he said roughly to Meathead.

‘What doesn’t make sense?’

‘The murder-suicide.’

‘It makes perfect sense,’ Felicia interjected. ‘Shen Sun couldn’t face his father. Couldn’t tell him that Tran was dead. Couldn’t tell him about the horrible things they’d done. So he murdered him and then killed himself. Who knows why? Some twisted form of family honour. Shame. Embarrassment.’

Meathead agreed. ‘Yeah, shit, who ever really knows why?’

Striker ignored Meathead, looked back at Felicia. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you had been in there. That man is completely stripped of his flesh. Skinned alive. It’s one thing for Shen Sun to murder his father and then commit suicide, but why the torture? That makes no sense at all. It’s something he would never do.’

Never do.

The words hung there, and they made Striker reflect on the whole situation. A thought occurred to him, a nasty one, and he turned to face Meathead.

‘Who identified the gunman?’

Meathead said nothing at first, he just scratched his head and looked at the group of ERT guys behind him.

A sinking feeling invaded Striker’s guts. ‘
Who
identified him?’

Meathead flustered. ‘It’s him, Shipwreck. He drew down on us.’

‘Jesus fuckin’ Christ – no one’s done it, have they?’

‘I think Holmgren might—’

Striker pushed past Meathead, shoved through the cluster of ERT members, and knelt down in front of the body. The face was obliterated, and it reminded him of Tran Sang Soone – White Mask – back at the high school. There wasn’t much to go on. At approximately five foot eight and one hundred thirty pounds, the physical frame of the corpse somewhat matched that of Shen Sun Soone. Lean, wiry, and that of a middle-aged man.

Striker turned back to Meathead. ‘Gimme your knife.’

‘Noodles hasn’t even—’

‘I don’t give a fuck about Ident, just give me your goddam blade!’

Meathead removed the knife from his belt and handed it to Striker, who flicked it open, slid the blade under the dead man’s shirt, and cut away the fabric. The first thing he saw was the tattoo on the man’s right shoulder – a circle, drawn crudely, with a Chinese character he didn’t recognise in the centre.