The survivor

Thirty-Four

Striker felt hazy as they drove for coffee. He blamed it on the lack of sleep, but knew there were deeper issues. He aimed the unmarked cruiser north and glanced east. Daylight was breaking across the sky, fighting through the thin wisps of cloud. The growing light made everything feel less harsh, almost pretty. Even in the Skids. It reminded him it was actually morning, and he called home to see if Courtney was up. She wasn’t. He wondered if she would’ve picked up anyway after reading the call display and seeing it was just dear ol’ Dad.

Probably not.

She was pissed at him. Again. Like she always was for anything he did. Whether it was because he wouldn’t let her go to a late-night party, or because he had two legs and breathed oxygen — it didn’t seem to matter. There was no logical explanation half the time, and no chance of avoiding her emotional outbursts. The fiasco with Felicia last night had only made everything worse. With Courtney at home. And with Felicia at work.

The memory fluttered through his brain, made his blood pressure rise. He pushed it away, drove the cruiser down to the Powell Street diversion and cut through the Starbucks drive-thru. He ordered an Americano for himself, black, and a lemon poppy-seed muffin. When he asked Felicia what she wanted, her response made him laugh.

‘Grande caramel latte, cream cheese muffin and a chocolate croissant.’

‘That’s all?’

‘It’s a start.’

He blinked. ‘You’re serious? You want that for breakfast?’

‘I need fat and sugar and carbs, Jacob, and I need them now.’

He made the order, got them through the drive-thru, and turned back down Powell Street towards the police station. He parked the cruiser in a Patrol Only parking spot on the south side of Cordova — where non-patrol cars were always parked, despite the nonstop email warnings — and headed for the 312 Annexe with Felicia at his side.

Once out of the elevator, they walked into Major Crimes. It was one large carpeted rectangle, divided by four rows of cubicles. Flanking the room were three soundproofed interview rooms, each one connected to a viewing room with cameras and recording equipment. Above the first door, a tiny white light was flashing.

Someone was in a session.

Striker cut down the aisle towards his desk. The work space he and Felicia shared was in the rear of the room, the northeast corner, which suited him just fine. It was away from the hustle and bustle of the front desk, and on the odd occasion when one of the white-shirts came down, he was far enough away to avoid them.

Their cubicles were on opposite sides of the walkway, his facing north and hers south, which made it easy for rehashing; all they had to do was turn around and talk.

Striker sat down, grabbed his muffin from the bag and took a bite. He handed Felicia the rest of the goods, and she immediately took out her chocolate croissant. He watched her devour it as if she had been fasting for days — and this was after she’d already crammed down the cream cheese muffin in the car. She took a long sip of her latte and let out a satisfied breath.

‘Good orgasm?’ he asked.

‘Sweet, sweet glucose.’

Striker picked up the phone and dialled the extension for the Forensic Video Unit. It was picked up on the second ring, and he immediately recognised the nasally whine of Ich.

‘You sound tired, tech-boy,’ Jacob said.

There was a pause. ‘Detective Striker?’

‘Got my audio?’

Ich made an uncomfortable sound. ‘Well, actually… no.’

‘ No?’

‘It got pushed to the back of the line. When Deputy Laroche closed the file.’

Striker cursed so loud that other Detectives in the room looked over. He ignored them as Ich continued: ‘Laroche said Project Herald was top priority now, that I was to put all my resources on the wiretap.’

Striker closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose. Project Herald was one of the Deputy Chief’s babies, his own little addition to the war on proceeds of crimes involving organised gangs. The premise was simple — take away their toys and anything else that makes being a gangster fun. That way, the younglings would find the criminal life less appealing. Of course to take things away meant lots of wiretaps and surveillance, and that took resources. The project was a good thing. On a normal day, Striker would have had no problem with it.

But today was anything but normal.

Laroche had obviously changed the priority on the video tape yesterday, after believing the case was closed — but he had never reversed it. Now that they had found the dead body of Que Wong in the Fraser River, it left them with an unknown headless shooter back at the school. All bets were off. And Laroche should’ve reprioritised the Active Shooter call.

Striker tried not to get angry. ‘The file isn’t closed, Ich. It’s as hot today as it was yesterday. I need that audio, and I need it now.’

‘But Laroche-’

‘Fuck Laroche. Just get it going — I’ll take any heat for it.’

‘Your call, Detective.’

‘You’re damn right it is, and I say get it going. And Ich — I need it today.’

He hung up the phone and spotted Felicia out of the corner of his eye as she swivelled her chair to avoid his stare. For a moment he felt like getting into it with her, telling her about Laroche’s — her goddam mentor’s — latest actions, but he let it go. It was for the best.

He already had one angry female at home. He didn’t need another one at work.

‘I’ll work on the kids some more,’ she said over her shoulder.

‘Good idea,’ he said.

He called Noodles back to see if he’d had time to compare the blood samples of the stolen Civic and Raymond Leung yet, but the call went unanswered. Striker left a message for Noodles to call him back, then logged onto PRIME, the online Police Records Information Management Environment data-sharing system that every cop used to record and access information.

Meathead had given Striker the names of five individuals capable of crafting professional hidden compartments in the given time frame — Sheldon Clayfield, George Davis, Jason DeHorst, Sanjit Heer and Chris Simmons.

Striker ran them all through the system. Within a minute, all five came up as perfect scores, each one having been in and out of the system so many times they needed their own express lane.

The first two names, DeHorst and Davis, were eliminated quickly. The former was already incarcerated in Kent on robbery charges, and the latter was dead, stabbed to death in Pigeon Park nine months ago. The suspect of that homicide was still unknown, and Striker didn’t give a rat’s ass about it. It was just one less maggot infecting the meat of society. And two names off his list.

He read through the entries on the rest of the names, and it took some time. Heer was associated with the United Nations Gang, and his specialty was making Escalades and Beamers bullet-proof. He did the work legally, under the company name of Weldwood Enterprises, which Intel files disclosed as nothing more than a four-car garage operation, situated just off Maclure Road in Abbotsford. But Heer had no history with hidden compartments, and so Striker temporarily scratched his name off the list.

That left only two names: Chris Simmons and Sheldon Clayfield.

Both were good matches. Both had long criminal histories, both had been linked to different gangs — Simmons to the Angels, Clayfield to the Scorpions — and both had their own Autobody and Repair shops right here in the Lower Mainland. Simmons was further out, a two-hour drive to Mission. Because of this, Striker got a contact, Janet Jacobson, who worked for the Abbotsford Police, to check Simmons out. As for Clayfield, he was right here in the downtown core. Franklin Street; the 1500 block.

The location alone made Sheldon Clayfield Target One.

Striker signed onto CABS — the Criminal Automated Booking System — and punched in the name, bringing up Clayfield’s mug-shot. Staring back at him was a thin, pallid man, pushing well into his fifties. He had deep lines under his eyes and around his mouth that looked well earned by hard times. His dyed black hair was swept up on both sides like a pair of falcon wings — a ridiculous attempt to cover his bald spot.

‘Who’s that?’

Striker craned his neck and saw that Felicia had come up behind him.

‘Hopefully, he’s the man who rigged our stolen car.’ Striker rubbed his hands over his face, felt his blood pressure rising.

‘You okay?’ she asked.

‘There’s just… a lot.’

‘You need to relax.’

He laughed. ‘How can I? We got too many things going in too many directions. It’s like a bag of marbles someone dropped, each one rolling where it’s gonna roll.’

‘And we’ll work through them.’

Her calmness bugged him, and he wondered if maybe she didn’t see it all. He started counting off the problems on his fingers. ‘One, we got a headless gunman and we don’t even know his identity. Two, we got tattoos on White Mask we can’t define. Three, we got three kids we know were targeted more than the others, and we don’t know why. Four, we got someone out there who made a hidden compartment for these pricks, and we haven’t found him yet. And five, we still haven’t even heard the audio from the school feed yet because of goddam Laroche’s interfering. And all that doesn’t even include Red Mask. We have no idea where he is or when he’ll strike next.’

‘At this point, we still don’t know that Red Mask wasn’t Leung.’

‘Raymond Leung is not Red Mask, Feleesh. I know it.’

Felicia’s face relaxed for the first time that morning. She smiled and gently brushed her fingers through his hair.

‘It’s your second day back, Jacob.’

‘I know that.’

‘Relax. Or you’ll end up back on stress leave.’

He looked around the room and felt tired. Hard to believe this was only the beginning. ‘We’re falling deeper and deeper into a hole here, Felicia.’

‘It’s an investigation, remember? One thing at a time. And right now it’s ten o’ clock.’

‘So?’

‘So let’s get going,’ she said. She grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. ‘We got some parents to meet.’

The words hit Striker like a hammer.

Meeting with the parents — it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. Talking to them was going to be as hard as the shootout with Red Mask.