Snakes & Ladders (16 page)

‘Good morning, Sunshine,’ he offered.

She stepped right past him. ‘Where the hell’s this message?’

Before he could even answer, she walked into the house, kicked off her boots, and crossed into the kitchen. By the time Striker had shut the door and caught up with her, she was already paging through MyShrine.

‘The Adder?’ she asked.

‘It’s a type of snake,’ he explained. When she gave him one of her annoyed looks, he added, ‘A poisonous one.’

‘I know it’s a poisonous snake, Jacob. I didn’t grow up in a friggin’ commune. Who is this guy?’

Striker shrugged. ‘It’s untraceable.’

Felicia put down her coffee and shook her head. Her eyes stayed heavy on the screen and her jaw was tight.

‘I don’t like this,’ she said.

‘No one does. But there’s no real threat here, just a wise-ass message. And that’s the way I’m taking it for now. He’s just another loon.’

‘Or he could be our guy.’

Striker nodded in agreement. ‘I realize that. I understand the coincidence and timing. But the more you go over things, the more you realize that’s a pretty big could.’

‘How so?’

Striker joined her at the table. ‘Well, for one, the message was sent
after
we’d been seen on TV. If it had come in before the news segment, I would have given it a little more credit, but now, well, it could have been anyone in close proximity to a television set.’

Felicia thought this over, but her face remained hard. ‘Still, we should take some precautions. I mean, what if it is him? We just go around doing our job like a pair of sitting ducks?’

‘No, we watch our backs. Like we always do.’

She said nothing for a moment. She read the message once more, then twice, and frowned. ‘It’s like this is a game to him,’ she said. ‘He’s a sick fuck. And he’s
bold
. Who knows, he might even come after us.’

Striker smiled at that.

‘If only we could be so lucky.’

It was just after six a.m. when Striker and Felicia decided to leave his little bungalow on Camosun Street and head for the downtown core. Courtney was still fast asleep in her bed, and Striker had considered waking her up to say goodbye. He missed her, as always, and he felt like they never had enough time together. Felt like he was failing her as a father.

That thought was always with him, clouding his thoughts.

In the end, he had opted to let her sleep. The girl had been depressed lately, upset over her injuries and the lack of progress in her rehabilitation. This morning, she seemed to be getting some much-needed rest.

He didn’t want to disturb that.

He left a note on the computer, telling her not to touch it because of police-related reasons, then left the house with Felicia by his side. As they stepped into the Ford, Striker took a long last look at his cosy little rancher.

Felicia noted this. ‘Holy Jeez, she’ll be fine, worrywart.’

Striker frowned and she laughed at him. He climbed inside the car, started the engine, and they headed for police headquarters. Not the downtown one, but the building on Cambie Street. It was their next best step in finding Larisa Logan.

It was where Victim Services was located.

Cambie Street was not far from the Dunbar area, so they made it there in less than ten minutes. When they arrived on scene at 0615 hours, the parking lot out front was unusually empty. Echo shift had already gone home for the night, Alpha was out on the road, and Bravo had not yet arrived.

Striker ditched the car and headed into the foyer. The building here on Cambie was owned by the Insurance Corporation of BC, not the Vancouver Police Department, and this pissed off a lot of the cops. Underground parking was shared with ICBC civilians – and, therefore, insecure – the elevators broke down every second week, and the entire building had a ramshackle, compartmentalized feel to it.

It made sense why. The building had been designed for the nine-to-five business crowd, not the twenty-four-hour/seven-days-a-week needs of a police department. Talks of relocating to a newer address out east were forever ongoing, but for now this was all the Vancouver Police had. Insufficient premises to go with an insufficient crime budget.

It was typical for the City of Vancouver.

In the end, Striker didn’t much care. The Cambie building was mostly patrol. He spent most of his time down at the 312 station, and a lot more of it out on the road. All he cared about with regards to the Cambie building was that it housed Victim Services.

That was Larisa Logan’s unit.

Sargheit Samra, the old bear, was the sergeant in charge of the Victim Services Unit, and had been for just over a year now. Before being transferred to the VSU, he’d spent damn near eight years working Alpha shift, so he’d become something of an early riser – the crazy hours were something he never could readjust from. For this reason, Striker hadn’t bothered to call ahead; he was betting on the fact that Samra would already be on scene.

Even at six o’clock in the morning.

Once inside, Striker and Felicia crossed the foyer and turned right, heading away from the elevators. The Victim Services office was located on the southwest corner of the foyer, surrounded by a transparent wall of tinted glass. By most accounts, it was a tiny section. Six desks, and sometimes not enough workers to fill them. Most of the counsellors were usually busy, called out to the worst crime scenes and at all hours of the day and night. Every shift was filled with stress and anguish.

Striker didn’t envy them their job.

He gave the glass door a solid rap with his knuckles, then turned the knob and went inside. Seated behind his desk with his police boots off, reading the Vancouver
Province
sports section was a fifty-ish East Indian male. Sargheit Samra.

The Sarj
, as everyone called him.

He was a thickset man. Clean shaven. And even though he was carrying some extra cushioning these days, the thick underlying muscle bulk made his uniform fit well. Made him look like a force to be reckoned with.

Despite the fact it was a No Smoking building – a bylaw, in fact – a cigarette dangled precariously from his lips, and a steaming-hot cup of Starbucks coffee sat in front of him. Black as night, and in a paper cup, like always.

Upon seeing them, the Sarj looked up from his newspaper and a sly grin spread his thick lips. ‘Well, holy Shipwreck, look what the cat just dragged in.’ He spoke with no accent. He looked over at Felicia and smiled genuinely. ‘You still hanging out with this loser? He’ll get you a bad rep, you know.’

‘Damage is already done,’ she replied. ‘How’s life, Sarj?’

He folded up his paper and dropped it on the desk. ‘Slow this morning – and happily so.’ He gave them a dubious look. ‘Why? You two lookin’ at changing that?’

Striker closed the door behind them. ‘We’re here about one of your former counsellors. Woman who helped me out, in fact. Larisa Logan.’

The grin stretching the Sarj’s lips slipped away, and he took his feet off the desk. He sat up like he was getting ready for serious business, took a long drag of his smoke, and then spoke. ‘You really know how to kill a mood, Striker. Jesus Christ. What you want to know about her?’

‘Everything. Like why she’s messaging me, saying she has information on one of my cases.’

‘She did?’ The Sarj raised an eyebrow and stubbed out his cigarette in the plastic lid of his coffee cup. He rolled the butt thoughtfully between his fingers, as if debating something in his head. After a long moment, he gazed up at them, and suddenly he looked a whole lot older.
Tired
. ‘You know she left here, right?’

Striker nodded. ‘We’re aware.’

‘And not too long after I got here. So I didn’t have a whole lot of time to get to know the woman.’

‘Larisa didn’t spend too much time in the VSU?’ Felicia asked.

‘She’d been here for quite a while when I got transferred in. Bout three years, I guess. And by all accounts, she was one of the good ones.’

‘Good work ethic?’ Striker pressed.

The Sarj nodded. ‘The best. Had to be to work down here. Back then, the Victim Services Unit was really a hoppin’ place – as busy as it is now, but with only two girls working it. Now we got five. So Larisa and Chloe were really moving. Hell, they were overworked. It burned them out good.’

‘Chloe?’ Felicia asked.

‘Chloe Sera. Moved to one of the crime analyst areas. Burnaby South, I think.’

Striker nodded. ‘Did you two get along?’

‘Me and Larisa?’ The Sarj spoke the words like the question surprised him. ‘For sure.
Everyone
did. Larisa was a peach. Always happy, never moody. She did her work and she kept her mouth shut. Never gossiped, never complained. Hell, I wish I could say the same for the new girls – everyone feels so fucking
entitled
nowadays . . . I miss her.’

Striker crossed his arms, leaned against the wall. ‘So what happened then? What made her leave?’

The Sarj opened his packet of Lucky Strike unfiltered. Thumbed one out. ‘Bad times,’ he said. ‘Real bad. Stuff happened with Larisa.’

‘
Stuff?
’ Striker asked. ‘Jeez, don’t be so technical, Sarj, you’re losing me.’

The old bear just grunted. He lit his cigarette, sucked deep, and blew out a trail of smoke that clouded the small office. When he spoke again, his voice was gruff. ‘Her parents were killed. Her sister, too.’

Felicia made a surprised sound. ‘My God, how?’

‘Motor vehicle accident. Larisa was never the same after that. She wanted stress leave, I gave it to her. Shit, the tragedy aside, she had earned it. It was a bad, bad time for the girl.’

Striker thought that over.

A bad time. That seemed like an understatement.

On the far wall across the room hung a series of photographs, one for each of the counsellors in the Victim Services Unit. Larisa’s face was still up there. Dark brown hair with reddish highlights. A warm stare. And a big wide smile that was captivating, exactly how Striker remembered it.

He missed seeing it now.

He turned and met the Sarj’s eyes. ‘You talked to her at all lately?’

The Sarj looked at the picture with a lost look distorting his face, as if he had forgotten the photograph was even there.

‘No,’ he said after a long moment. ‘No, I haven’t.’ When Striker asked nothing else, the Sarj closed his desk drawer. Let out a tense sound. Continued speaking. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Shipwreck – and don’t go spreading this around – but Larisa got a little . . .
weird
on us there.’

‘Weird? How so?’

‘It’s kind of hard to explain, really. She got private.
Fiercely
private. And to some extent, I can see why – I mean, the way people gossip round here, it’s like a goddam high school sometimes. But after the tragedy with her family, she became really closed-off, really detached. Didn’t come to the social functions. Didn’t talk to anyone at the office – and it wasn’t from a lack of trying. We called her all the time, sent out condolence packages, and we each took turns dropping by her place to make sure she was okay.’

Felicia asked, ‘Did it help?’

The Sarj just furrowed his brow and sucked on his Lucky. ‘Did it help? Who the fuck knows? The more we tried to keep contact with her, the more she stayed away. One time, I remember going out there and knowing she was home – and I mean
knowing
she was there. But no matter how much I knocked, she just stayed inside the doorway there, pretending to be away. It was really, really odd. After that, I sent an email to Human Resources about her. Thought maybe they could check into it. Do some follow-up on her. See if maybe they could get Larisa some professional help for her problems.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then she left.’

‘You mean
quit
?’ Felicia asked.

‘Yeah, she quit. As in sayonara. End of April, I think. Maybe May. I’m not sure, exactly, but it was long after she’d fallen off the social ladder.’

Striker thought this over. ‘She give you a letter?’

‘Nope. Just sent an email, telling everyone how sorry she was, but that she could no longer do the job – and you know what? I don’t blame her for that, especially after what she’d been through. This place never gave those girls enough training and support for the job they did.’

‘What do you mean, training?’ Felicia asked.

‘On how to deal with all this stuff.’

‘But I thought they were all psychologists,’ she said.

The Sarj shook his head. ‘Psychologists? Fuck, no. That’s a common misconception around here. As of this last year, yeah,
now
they’re all psychologists – and that was done mainly for liability reasons to protect the department – but back then the counsellors were just a couple of young girls offering a shoulder to cry on. They got almost no training and even less support. Took the Union to get some changes on that.’

Felicia nodded as she thought this over. ‘The stress obviously took a toll on Larisa. And she broke down.’

The Sarj said nothing.

Striker agreed with Felicia’s analysis. He spoke with the Sarj some more and got all of Larisa’s last-known details – her address, phone numbers, email addresses, and contacts. But the information he received was no different from what he’d already found in the PRIME database.

In the end, it did nothing to help them.

‘I do have a photo of her on file,’ the Sarj offered. ‘Jpeg. Give me your cell and I’ll Bluetooth it to you.’

Striker handed him his iPhone and the Sarj sent him the photograph. ‘This is the latest picture we have.’

‘It’s appreciated,’ Striker said. Before leaving, he met the Sarj’s stare one more time. ‘This is a really delicate issue for us. You call me if you hear anything about her, okay, Sarj? And I mean
anything
.’

He nodded. ‘You and you alone.’

The Sarj stood up from the desk, rounded it in his socked feet, and started for the door to usher them out. At the wall, he stopped and stared at the photograph of Larisa Logan. ‘She was such a good person,’ he said. ‘And we all miss her. But over time, she just kind of . . . faded away. It’s not right.’