The Guilty (13 page)

Striker gave Felicia a nod. ‘She shouldn’t be alone.’

‘I’ll talk to her.’

‘Keep her away from the windows.’

‘I know the routine, Jacob.’

‘And the knives.’

‘I
know
.’

When Felicia was gone, Striker paused for a moment and closed his eyes. He wished he could close off his ears too, because the sound of the children’s weeping was gut-wrenching. Instead,
he steeled himself and got to work. He scanned the rest of the apartment and had a hard time believing that six people actually lived there. The place was small – tiny. Certainly not much to
look at. Just a narrow strip of kitchen, where a half-eaten sandwich remained on the counter; another two bedrooms at the end of the hall; and a small living room that consisted of nothing but an
outdated TV set, a threadbare chesterfield, and some old beanbag chairs thrown in the corner.

The TV was on. The local news.

Striker crossed the room and turned it off for fear of what footage might be displayed. As he did this, the sound of weeping caught his ears. It was coming from the opposite side of the
apartment.

One of the bedrooms.

Striker walked down the hall. When he opened the first door and saw nothing but a pair of empty bunk beds and one single bed, he moved on to the next bedroom. When he opened that door, he
expected to see one of the children crying, but instead there was a small black man sitting on the bed.

He was older, mid-forties, and balding in a horseshoe pattern of curly hair that was greying at the sides. He was holding a family picture, weeping openly, and looked up at Striker with lifeless
eyes. ‘Why?’ he asked between sobs. ‘Keisha was good, she was so good. Always
so good
.’

Striker stepped into the room and left the door open behind him. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he offered. ‘I’m Detective Striker with the Vancouver Police Department.
And you are?’

‘Gerome,’ the man said between sobs. ‘Her brother.’ His face took on a desperate, wild look. ‘Are they sure it’s her? I mean, do they really know for certain?
One hundred per cent?’

Striker said nothing at first. His mind flashed through the facts of the case: Keisha Williams was the shop owner. She was black like the victim. She had left for work fifteen minutes before the
explosion had gone off. She hadn’t returned home. And wasn’t answering her cell phone.

‘DNA tests will need to be done,’ he finally said. ‘But with the information we have at this point, I believe it’s her. I’m sorry.’

The man on the bed looked like he’d been stabbed in the heart. For a moment, he looked ready to cry again, but then he gathered himself. Stiffened. Set his jaw. When he stood up from the
bed, Striker saw that he was short – barely 165 centimetres – and he looked even more weak and fragile in his broken-down state. He gently placed the picture of Keisha and the children
back on the dresser, then angled it to face the room.

Striker spent fifteen minutes discussing with the man everything from the woman’s job, her relationship with her cousin, and her past personal relationships. The answers were all
straightforward. As far as her brother knew, Keisha Williams had loved her job as a toymaker, and she had gone into work seven days a week. Yes, Sharise Owens was her cousin. And yes, the two women
were close.

Always had been.

As for more intimate relationships, Keisha Williams’ deceased husband, Chester, had been the only man for her. The two had met at a toymakers’ convention in Seattle two decades ago,
and had been married happily ever since – until a drunk driver had ended their hopes and dreams.

‘Any other men since then?’ Striker asked. ‘Any at all?’

A dark look distorted the man’s features. ‘There was one.’ He spat the words with venom. ‘
Solomon . . .
But she got away from him.’

Striker took notice of the wording.

‘What do you mean,
got away
?’

The man wiped away a tear. ‘He beat her. In front of the children. I don’t know all the details – Keisha wouldn’t talk about it. And every time I tried to get her to open
up, well, it just created a distance between us. So I stopped.’

Striker nodded. Looked around the room. ‘Was this her bedroom?’

‘It is.’

‘I have to search it.’

Gerome looked like he resented it, but made no objection. He just nodded in a resigned sort of way, as if he understood that this had to be done. ‘I’ll check on the children,’
he said, and left the room.

The moment he was gone, Striker got to work. He approached the dresser and looked at the picture of the once-happy family. In it, five children – all of them younger – smiled wide.
They were half giggling, as if sharing some kind of joke. Three girls and two boys. A big family. In behind the children stood a tall bald man with a full beard and a great, wide, captivating
smile.

Chester
, Striker figured.

The father.

Wrapped in Chester’s left arm stood Keisha Williams. Big golden hoops hung from her earlobes and a red floral shawl draped across her shoulders. She looked wonderfully alive. Happy. The
sight of them was difficult to see. A once-perfect family destroyed by a drunk driver in the past and now by a highly suspicious explosion today.

Life could be cruel.

Striker put down the picture and started going through the drawers, one by one. They were sparse, filled with few clothes. And the apparel that was there was clearly old, but clean and folded
neatly. Keisha Williams may not have had a lot of money to spend on herself, but she clearly respected what she had.

Striker finished searching the drawers. He found nothing but clothes, a few cheap necklaces, and some pill bottles with
Zestorol
on the label. He used his iPhone to Google the
medication name, and learned it was a blood pressure drug.

He moved on.

In the closet, he found much of the same. Old shoes that had been recently polished, faded jeans ironed and draped over hangers, and two women’s suits, one of which still had a Value
Village tag on it. On the top of the shelf was an organizer. Striker pulled it down.

As he fanned it open, several of the tabs caught his eye: Gas Bill, Phone Bill, and Rent Receipts made up the first partition. Taxes, Child Credits, and Family Allowance Receipts made up the
last half. At the very back of the organizer was a letter-size envelope.

Striker took it out and looked at it.

On the front was the name ‘Solomon’ in thick black felt, and right beside it someone had written ‘VPD 105419 – CHRO’. Striker immediately made the connection:
Vancouver Police Department. File number 105419.

A
Criminal Harassment Restraining Order.

He removed the paperwork and read it through. Within two pages he saw an image that gave him a bad feeling. The photograph was a booking shot of a short-haired Caucasian male with narrow eyes, a
square prominent jaw, and a wide thick forehead. He looked very Eastern Bloc.

Solomon Bay.

Striker was surprised to see the man was white; he’d assumed he’d be black.

As he studied the photo, Felicia entered the room. ‘These poor kids,’ she said softly. Her voice struggled for emotional neutrality.

Striker offered no response. He just stared at the photograph in the file. At the man’s hard face. At his distant stare. At his dark eyes – glazed and lifeless and hollow.

Felicia saw the file. Then the photo. ‘Who is that?’

‘Solomon Bay,’ Striker said. ‘Our next lead.’

‘Run him,’ Striker said the moment they climbed back into the undercover cruiser. ‘Solomon Bay. Put him at age forty.’

Felicia nodded and typed the name into the system, then hit Enter. After a short moment, the computer beeped and the feed came back. She read it out loud: ‘Solomon Elijah Bay . . . Oh man,
this guy has a
ton
of history in PRIME.’

‘What kind of history?’

She clucked her tongue a few times as she scanned the page. ‘Most of the files are disturbance calls and assaults. Some consensual fights too. Looks like he spent a few nights in the drunk
tank . . . Likes to drink and fight, this guy.’

Striker thought of the man beating Keisha Williams in front of her children and his fingers curled into fists. ‘Let’s hope he feels like fighting when I find him.’

Felicia patted his arm. ‘Calm down there, Iron Mike.’

She compared the Criminal Harassment papers they’d found in Keisha Williams’ bedroom with the files on the laptop. ‘Says here, Williams met Solomon at the Ministry of Child and
Family Services. Who knows what the hell he was doing there. Soon afterwards, the two of them started dating . . . He’s thirty-six years old now, and by the look of things, a real prick. Goes
by the nickname Sunny.’

Striker stared at her, deadpan. ‘You gotta be kidding me.
Sunny Bay?
Sounds like a goddam timeshare.’

Felicia raised an eyebrow like she couldn’t believe it either, then she returned to reading the information. ‘Look here. Keisha Williams has Sharise Owens listed as her cousin in
this report too . . . And here she is again in this one – hell, Owens is the one who called 911 for police assistance.’

‘Thus the restraining order,’ Striker said.

Felicia nodded. ‘Both women have a connection to this man.’

‘They also have a connection to Chad Koda,’ Striker reminded. ‘We can’t forget our realtor friend either. There’s something
off
about that guy . . . Any
connection between Chad Koda and Solomon Bay?’

Felicia shook her head. ‘None I can find.’

Striker thought back to the scene at the steel barn by the cement plant. He turned to face Felicia. ‘This Solomon guy . . . does he have any ties to organized crime? Or anything like
that?’

Felicia scanned the numerous pieces of information they had acquired. ‘Not that I can see. He looks like your stereotypical abusive prick. Oh wait – he did work for BC Gas for a
while. As a gas fitter. So he has some training in related matters.’ She looked up at Striker. ‘A guy with that kind of training could easily rig an explosion.’

‘How many times did Sharise Owens report Solomon?’ he asked.

‘Three. But there are a lot of other calls with him listed as the Subject of Complaint and the Suspect Chargeable. Odd though, they just suddenly stop after a while.’

Striker looked at the screen. It showed three domestic assault charges and six harassment files in a span of six weeks, and then nothing. ‘Maybe he’s in jail.’

‘I’ll see if they locked him up,’ Felicia said.

As she called Corrections, Striker read through the restraining order. Moments later, Felicia got off the phone. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Solomon’s not in any of the pens
– federal or provincial.’

‘Well,
something
happened to the guy. Pricks like him don’t just stop.’

‘I know. I’ll keep searching.’

Striker pointed to the man’s last known address. ‘Portside Court. That’s out east. By the Burnaby border.’ He turned the wheel and hit the gas. ‘I hate
wife-beaters. This prick’s gonna regret it when he gets out of line.’

Felicia’s voice dropped a level. ‘
When
he gets out of line?’

Striker cracked the knuckles of his left hand and nodded.

‘We can only hope.’

Harry sat in the undercover police cruiser and gazed vacantly down the long stretch of Pacific Avenue. Out there, beautiful girls in Lululemon tights walked back from yoga
classes while others rollerbladed in mini-shorts and bikini tops down the seawall.

Harry saw none of it. His mind was busy, preoccupied with bad thoughts from bad times.

Pieces of a past better left forgotten.

The explosion at the Granville Island Market had rattled him. Shook him so hard that it flung out all his feelings of grief and depression. In their place now were some new feelings. Concern.
Trepidation.

Disbelief.

Could it all be connected?

Keisha Williams. The toymaker. Dead. It scared him.

When Harry had seen her remains on that cold steel slab at the morgue, he’d gone lightheaded. Felt his blood pressure spike. And he had damn near keeled over right there in the room. Even
now, sitting in the cruiser, that numb jittery feeling spilled all through his legs.

He looked down at the two photographs he was holding and felt haunted and desperate all at once. The first photo was of his deceased son Joshua, and had been taken just two weeks before the
boy’s death. The second one was of Ethan, taken just one year ago.

Harry prayed to God that nothing bad was in store for this son. He couldn’t take losing another child. Losing Joshua had broken his heart in every way possible. Calcified the tissue and
scarred the membranes. It was a wonder the organ even beat any more.

But it did. And that was solely because of Ethan.

Ethan was what mattered now. The boy was
everything.
And nothing would ever come between them, Harry knew, because he would not allow it. He believed in that. He had faith in that.

So why would this numb uncertainty not leave him?

He closed his eyes. ‘Oh Christ. Please oh fucking please.’

He rubbed his hands over his face as if this would erase the emotional turbulence he was experiencing, but it did nothing. The past was like a bad dream that recurred every so often. Even when
he thought he’d finally learned to suppress it, suddenly, unexpectedly,
bang –
there it was again. And Harry would realize once more that it was never truly gone. It was just
lying there dormant, somewhere below Life’s skin. Like a malignant fucking tumour.

He tried to suppress it. Tried to kill it so many times. But the past was not pencil that could be erased; it was ink – there forever, indelible, though just a little more faded with every
passing year.

When Harry could take the thoughts no more, he took in a deep breath and shouldered open the car door. He climbed out onto Pacific Avenue and slowly made his way down the block towards the old
heritage home on the south side of the road.