Snakes & Ladders (2 page)

Striker reached the door, shouldered it open and went inside.

The foyer was dark, and the walls held the smell of old dampness. Striker avoided touching them. Everything was quiet and calm. The nearest hall light was burned out, and the only other light that existed was down at the far end of the corridor.

It flickered strangely.

Striker walked down the hall and took a closer look. What he saw was not surprising for this area – the light wasn’t coming from a bulb, but from the flame of a candle, flickering in the draught. He reached out, pawed the wall, and hit the light switch.

Nothing
.

The building had no power.

In his coat pocket was a flashlight. Striker fished it out and turned it on, then made his way up to the third floor on steps that sounded weak and hollow. At the top, he turned left and surveyed the hall. Through the yellow gloom, he spotted a man in a blue uniform.

Patrol cop.

Striker shone the beam on him. The cop was young. Asian. Looked no more than twenty years old and fresh out of the academy. Definitely out of his element. He had his own flashlight out and was shining it nervously around the hall. When he spotted Striker, he let out a heavy breath.

‘Hey,’ he got out.

Striker stepped up to the doorway. ‘You got a name?’

‘Yeah, Wong. I’m on Charlie shift. Team Two-Ten.’

Striker looked at the man’s badge number and saw that it was 2864 – over a thousand numbers higher than his own badge number. It made him feel old. He nodded at the young constable. ‘I’m Detective Striker from Homicide. Where is she?’

‘Just . . . just over here.’ The kid shone his flashlight into the nearest room. Unit 303.

‘Have you touched—’

‘Nothing. I didn’t touch a thing. Not a single thing.’

Striker was pleased to hear that; the kid had been taught well.

He turned his attention to the room before him. Everything was still, and darkness hung about the air in different shades. In the centre of the room, lying back in an easy chair, was the body of Mandy Gill.

The rest of the room was empty.

Striker frowned and looked at Constable Wong. ‘Where’s your partner?’

‘Partner? I . . . I don’t have one. I’m one-man.’

‘You mean you’re at a Sudden Death
alone
?’

The kid shrugged. ‘I had to be. There was no one else to go. Thought someone else would clear by the time I got here. But so far, you’re the only one.’

‘You got balls, kid. Next time wait.’

Constable Wong never took his eyes from the body. ‘She looks . . . fresh.’

Striker nodded sadly. The kid was right; the death looked somewhat recent.

‘She’s listed in the directory only as Gill,’ the young cop offered. ‘But I haven’t had a chance to confirm anything yet. I could run out to the car for the laptop, if you want.’

‘There’s no need to,’ he said. ‘You’re right about her identity. Her name was Mandy Gill and she was nineteen years old.’

‘Oh, you already researched her?’ the cop asked.

Striker shook his head sadly. ‘I
knew
her.’

The body of Mandy Gill had been discovered by accident. The original call to the Lucky Lodge had come in as a Suspicious Person complaint from an anonymous caller. A shadowy figure had been seen lurking in the bushes behind the dilapidated building, somewhere close to Union Street.

That in itself was nothing out of the ordinary – SusPers were a dime a dozen, especially in the Strathcona area – but lately, over the past nine months, the City had been having problems with an arsonist. Because of this, the area from Union Street to Pender had become a top priority. So a unit had been dispatched immediately.

Newbie cop Wong drew the short stick. Working a one-man car, he had attended the scene and stumbled across the sudden death.

Mandy Gill
.

Striker stepped into the small apartment, being mindful of where he placed his feet. The air was just as cold inside the building as it was outside, and he found that disheartening.

He looked around. The suite was minute, built into two separate rooms: one washroom and one common room, which was complete with a kitchenette, sitting area, and one shabby, single-mattress cot, which was tucked away in the far corner.

All in all, it was a sad statement of this girl’s life.

Dirty dishes filled the sink. A carton of milk was left on the stove. And old newspapers and junk mail littered the counters and floor.

After a long moment, Striker stepped into the centre of the room and stopped avoiding what needed to be done. He shone his flashlight on the dead girl before him and really
looked
at her.

It pained his heart to do so.

Mandy Gill was sitting back in an old easy chair that was made from threadbare fabric. She was positioned to look out of the only window the room had – a cracked pane that faced west. In her hand was an empty vial of pills, and in the corners of her mouth was the white crust of pill paste. Her chest was completely still.

Even in the unforgiving glare of the flashlight’s white beam, it was apparent that all the colour had drained away from her dark brown skin, turning it more of an ash-grey colour.

Striker leaned closer and studied her face. The underlying musculature was slack, and her eyes were wide open and milky, staring through the window at a world that was as cold to her now in death as it had been in life. An empty expression marred her face, and it struck Striker like a physical blow.

Mandy Gill looked sad, even in death.

Striker killed the thought. He turned and located Constable Wong, who was standing quietly in the doorway.

‘When did you arrive on scene?’ he asked.

‘Huh?’

‘How long you been here?’

‘Uh . . . twenty minutes, maybe more.’

Striker nodded. ‘Did you clear the place?’

Wong jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘All the other apartments are unoccupied. In fact, she’s not even supposed to be in here. This place was condemned over a month ago. Everyone was supposed to have moved out by now. Who knows why she’s even here.’

‘She’s in here because she had nowhere else to go. You got the manager’s number?’

‘In the car.’

Striker forced a smile. ‘Well, we can’t read it from here.’

Wong clued in and left the room. When Striker heard the young constable’s police boots clomping down the steps, he focused his attention back on the dead girl before him. He tried to think of her as ‘the body’ or ‘the deceased’.

As anything but Mandy.

It was impossible. His conscience would not allow it. Memories hit him, and all of them sad. He had hoped she would escape this place. This area. This rotten city altogether. But like so many others before her, she hadn’t left. And in the end, she’d found her own way out.

The only way she knew.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘I should have done more.’

He reached out and gently touched her face.

And he frowned.

She was still slightly warm.

A thought occurred to him. He stood back up from Mandy Gill’s body, walked into the kitchenette, and approached the stove. On it sat a carton of milk. He touched it.

It was still cool.

Not a lot of time had passed since the woman’s death – too much for any hope of resuscitation, but not a lot in terms of a crime scene. And every Sudden Death had to be considered a crime until ruled otherwise. He took out his pen and notebook, and wrote down:
Time?
When he looked back up again, his eyes found the throw-rug on the floor and lingered there.

The rug was an old thing, probably something Mandy had snagged from the Salvation Army or the First United Church. Green threadbare fabric, just like the recliner, with dirty yellow flower designs.

But the colour and pattern were not what stole Striker’s attention – it was the strands of the carpet. The indentations in the weave. And the more he looked at it, the more he realized that the chair had been moved from its normal resting spot. Now it was angled westward. Facing out of the window.

It was odd.

Had Mandy wanted to watch the setting sun during her death? The timing would seem to suggest so. And if not, what had she been looking at?

Striker approached the window. Outside, the dusk was slipping slowly by. In the coming twilight, streaks of blood-orange sun blistered the charcoal sky, making the world look warmer than it actually was.

Three storeys down, the next neighbouring lot was vacant.

Striker scanned the area. The lot was filled with construction debris from the demolished house. He was about to focus his attention back on the room and begin sorting through Mandy’s articles when something outside the window caught his eye – a glint of something metallic in the sun’s fading rays. On the ledge, just outside the window, was a small object with a circular glass front.

A camera
.

It was facing inside the room.

Striker grabbed on to the window and tried to lift it, but time and rot had caused the frame to swell. As a result, the window was wedged tight. Impossible to open.

Whoever had placed the camera on the ledge had done so from the outside.

Striker considered this. He leaned forward for a closer look, then heard a soft, raspy sound behind him. He spun around, not knowing what to expect.

After a short moment, he relaxed. It was just air escaping the body – a normal occurrence during the beginning of decomposition. Relieved, he turned back to focus on the window once more. What he saw shocked him.

The camera was gone.

The Lucky Lodge was small for a rooming house. Each floor had only three units per side, and each unit was an SRO – Single Room Occupancy. Because of this, there were only six rooms on the third floor, and only three of them faced west – one on either side of Mandy Gill’s unit.

The window ledge where the camera had been set lay closer to the south neighbour than the north, so Striker headed for unit 305. He kept his pistol drawn and made his way towards the hall.

Without the ambience of Constable Wong’s flashlight, the darkness of the complex seemed thicker than before. Deeper. And as if to make the situation even harder for him, the blazing orange light of dusk faded completely as the sun slipped in behind the blackish western cloud banks.

Striker stood behind the cover of the door frame and angled his flashlight. It was a mini Maglite. It didn’t hold a candle to the full-sized ones patrol members used, but it was all he had. He rotated the lens to turn the narrow beam brighter and shone it down the hall.

Everything was still. All the doors were closed.

‘Vancouver Police!’ he yelled. ‘Make yourself known!’

No reply came back, only silence.

For a moment, Striker considered waiting for Constable Wong. Rookie or not, two cops always gave better odds – and that was on the assumption that there would be only
one
threat awaiting him in the other room.

But thoughts of a suspect escaping ate away at him. He readied his pistol and slowly moved down the hall. When he reached the door to unit 305, he stopped. Listened.

Nothing but silence.

He reached out and grabbed the doorknob. The steel was cold to the touch. When he turned it, the knob refused to move. It was locked from the inside.

‘Vancouver Police!’ Striker said again. ‘I know you’re in there. I need to talk to you about the tenant in the next suite. Open the door.’

Again there was only silence. And then . . . .

A
sound
.

It took Striker less than a second to identify it – the soft, scraping noise of a window being raised.

He took a quick step back, then jumped forward and kicked the heel of his foot between the doorknob and frame. Entry took only two kicks. The steel lock remained intact, but the rotting wood of the frame let loose a loud
snaaaap!
and broke inwards. The door flew back, slammed into the wall, and Striker aimed his gun and flashlight all around the room, hitting each of the four corners.

No one was there.

He quickly surveyed the room. The layout was a mirror image of Mandy Gill’s unit. Kitchenette, cot, washroom and main sitting area, all in one. The kitchen was vacant. The underside of the cot was visible with no one beneath it. And the bathroom had no one inside.

The window was wide open.

‘Fuck,’ Striker growled.

He hurried across the room to the window and looked down at the vacant lot below. With the sun all but gone, the shadows were wider and deeper. Everything was grey and black now. Impossible to distinguish.

There were many places to hide.

Striker assessed it all – from the huge commercial garbage bins of the back lane, to the underground parking lot on Gore Avenue, to the heavy row of bushes that flanked the communal area of the Prior Street Park.

Everywhere he looked there were escape routes.

He spotted Constable Wong returning from his patrol car.

‘Cover the southwest corner!’ Striker ordered. ‘Someone just took off from this room! Call for more units and a dog. I’ll take northwest!’

The young constable froze, though for only an instant, before nodding and racing south. When he disappeared behind the curve of the next building, Striker turned back and ran for the doorway. He was barely halfway across the kitchenette when his shoes caught on something. He stopped running, looked down. In the dimness of the room, the objects he had stepped on were not easy to define, so he shone his flashlight on them.

Not plastic, but wire. Trays of some kind.

Refrigerator trays.

The thought had barely crossed his mind when the fridge door came flying open. It hit Striker with enough force to send him reeling backwards. He landed hard on the floor, and rolled. He raised the gun, shoved his back tight against the far wall, and readied himself for an attack.

But none came.

He looked across the room. Racing for the window was a figure – average height. Lean build. Dark clothes.

‘Stop! Police!’ Striker ordered.

But the suspect ignored him.

Striker scrambled to his feet and dived towards the window – but the man was fast. He was already three-quarters of the way out by the time Striker reached him. He grabbed on to the suspect’s hand and yank him back. But it was too late. The suspect slipped out of reach, and Striker was left standing there, clutching one of the man’s black leather gloves.