The survivor

Seven

Fifteen minutes later, Striker stood ten feet back from the Honda Civic, where the driveway met the lane. The harsh fall winds had lessened, but they were just as cold, and went right through him as if his coat were nothing but porous cheesecloth.

He dialled his daughter, put the cell to his ear and listened to a busy signal. His pulse escalated. It was the third time since the shootings that he’d tried to call Courtney, and the third time he hadn’t been able to reach her. He wondered if her voicemail was full.

‘For Christ’s sake, pick up.’

Courtney hadn’t been at the school when the shootings occurred; Striker knew that. Principal Myers had already told him she’d skipped class — yet again — and he had little doubt she would be at one of her two favourite malls, Oakridge or Metrotown Centre. Striker didn’t know what he was going to do when he found her: hug her, or rant and rave. He’d already called his neighbour, Sheila, and she was now scouring the malls looking for Courtney.

But so far no word had come back.

He swore, and slid the BlackBerry into the pouch on his belt. He tried to focus, to get his head back into the game. Work was always the best diversion; it had gotten him through the worst of the last six years, and besides that, he was damn good at it.

He assessed the scene.

Inside the garage, the interior light was now turned on, revealing the true extent of the damage the Honda Civic had taken. The rear window was partially shattered. The rest was full of holes and spider-veined. The driver’s side window had been blasted right out.

One of the bullets was still embedded in the frame of the windshield.

The sight brought Striker a small sense of comfort. He would have smiled, if not for the bleakness of the situation, and also because a bad feeling gnawed away at the back of his mind.

They were missing something.

He could feel it. Sense it. Something important. Right here in front of them. The car itself felt like a puzzle, but one with a missing piece. He stood there like a statue, and studied the scene before him. The seconds ticked by slowly.

Felicia walked into the garage from the yard.

‘Courtney’s not answering my calls,’ Striker told her. ‘Send her a text, will you?’

‘She probably won’t even read it if I send it,’ Felicia said. ‘Sometimes I think she’s got more anger at me than at you.’

‘I don’t think that’s possible.’

Felicia offered him a grim smile. She sent the text, then put her phone away and looked at the car.

‘Good find, Jacob. Really. The alley was a good call.’

He nodded half-heartedly. Breathed in. Coughed.

The garage stunk. The death of the old man — now known as the deceased, Henry Charles Vander Haven — was fresh and not overly pungent. But the car itself reeked of gas and a combination of something else he couldn’t define. The fumes were overpowering, made his head light and his lungs heavy. The fumes were the only reason Striker had opened the garage’s bay door, instead of keeping everything secure from public view.

Striker understood the significance of the fuel. Red Mask had been planning on torching the vehicle; of that there was no doubt. But something must have startled him, changed his plans, made him improvise. Striker wanted to know what. Maybe the gunman was injured. Maybe one of the shots had made a critical strike.

He turned to Felicia. ‘You talk to the wife?’

‘The woman’s a basket case,’ she said, squinting against the vapours. ‘Not that anyone could blame her. Got Victim Services and the paramedics with her now, but it ain’t helping much.’

‘She tell you anything?’

‘Yeah. Hubby here’s got a brand new Lexus. LS600. Flagship of the fleet, apparently. It’s glossy black with lots of gold and chrome.’

‘Get a plate?’

‘Fox-lima-lima three forty.’ Before Striker could say more, she held up a hand. ‘Already broadcast it. Everyone out there’s on the hunt.’ She studied the car. ‘What you get in here?’

Striker moved further out of the garage, away from the fumes. ‘Go run the plate of the Civic.’

‘Already did over the air. It’s stolen. Obviously.’

‘Run it again. On our computer.’

Felicia gave him a queer look, then walked over to the undercover cruiser. She hopped in the driver’s seat, rotated the terminal, punched in the plate, then hit send. Ten seconds later, the computer beeped

when the feed came back: ON FILE.

Felicia turned back to face him. ‘Like I said, it’s stolen.’

‘The car’s not stolen, the plates are,’ Striker corrected. ‘Look when.’

She did. ‘Stolen just this morning. Seven hundred block of Howe Street. That’s the north end of District One.’ She scanned the report. ‘Without keys. No witnesses. No video. No nothing.’

Striker was silent. He moved back inside the garage, up to the driver’s door, and stared through the front windshield. Through the cracks and lines he made out the Vehicle Identification Number — the serial number unique to every vehicle.

‘Run this VIN for me,’ he called out to Felicia. He read out the eighteen letters and numbers, and she typed them into the computer, then read them back for confirmation. Again she hit send.

‘It comes back the same,’ she said, a few seconds later. ‘A ninety-four green Honda Civic, two-door. Stolen.’

‘When was it stolen?’

She looked at the screen, and her brow furrowed. ‘That’s odd… says here the car was stolen over nine days ago.’

‘That’s because it was.’

‘How-’

‘This is a different car from the one the licence plates were stolen from, just the same year and manufacturer.’

Felicia drummed her long clear fingernails on the terminal. ‘Why go to all the bother of stealing this car a whole week ago when they could just have stolen it today? Either way, the cops are gonna run the plate and find out it’s stolen. Makes no sense.’

‘It made sense to them. There’s a reason.’

Felicia’s dark eyes narrowed. ‘If anything, it actually increases their chances of getting caught — they had a stolen car with them for over a week.’ She stopped drumming her fingernails on the computer terminal, let out a tired sound, climbed back out of the cruiser. ‘Any ideas, Sherlock?’

‘Just one, but I need some time to think about it.’

Striker approached the vehicle. The Civic had already been searched once, but only cursorily. It needed more. He put on new gloves, then moved to the driver’s side door, which was already wide open. He looked around the immediate area, being careful not to disturb the dead body of Mr Vander Haven. A pack of Player’s Filter Lights was wedged under the driver’s seat against the middle console.

Strange.

When the gas fumes got to be too much, Striker leaned back out of the car and gasped for a breath of fresh air.

‘Any history on the registered owner?’ he asked Felicia.

She shook her head. ‘RO’s just some ordinary Joe from downtown.’

‘Get a hold of him. Find out if he smoked or not, and if so, what brand.’

She gave him a long look, her dark eyes holding a spark of resistance, then nodded reluctantly and turned back for the cruiser.

Striker continued rummaging through the car. He did so carefully. Vehicle searches were always a double-edged sword, not just because of the legal ramifications, but because of the difficulty in obtaining untainted evidence. DNA, microfibres, cellular material — it cross-contaminated with the slightest touch. Best case scenario would have been to leave the vehicle untouched for Ident, but Striker knew if he didn’t get in there now and search for clues, the passing time could be detrimental to finding Red Mask.

It was another no-win situation.

Striker did his best not to touch anything, not even the broken cubes of window glass. He deftly lifted the floor mats, opened the consoles, flipped through CD cases and registration papers. With two fingers, he picked up the pack of cigarettes and opened the top flap. When all he saw inside were ordinary cigarettes, he closed it and put it back down on the passenger seat.

Last of all was the key he’d found in the bloodied mud. It was a possible source of fingerprints, though everything Striker had seen so far suggested that Red Mask would not have been foolish enough to leave any prints behind.

Certainly not on the key.

Striker removed the first pair of gloves he’d touched the cigarettes with. Once he had a new pair on, he took the key from his shirt pocket and looked it over. It was black and silver with an H at the base, but there were no scuff marks on the steel, meaning it was new. He then studied the grey plastic fob and the yellow plastic happy face, looking for clues.

Felicia returned from the cruiser. ‘The registered owner’s name is Taylor Drew,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t smoke, and he says no one ever smokes in his vehicles.’

Striker looked up. ‘Good. Don’t touch the cigarettes, we’ll see what Noodles can find on them.’

She gave him one of her you-think-I’m-an-idiot? looks, and turned her attention to the items in his hands.

‘That’s what you found in the mud outside?’

Striker nodded.

‘Lucky,’ she said.

‘Strange,’ he corrected. ‘Even stranger is the fact he had a key at all. The car’s a stolen, right? Taken without keys. And there’s damage on the driver’s side lock, so we know how they got in.’ Striker held up the key. ‘But this is a Honda — the same key that starts the ignition also opens the door. So the question is, why break the lock to get in if you got the key that opens the door in the first place?’

‘Maybe the key that starts the car isn’t the same one that opens the door.’

‘Exactly,’ he said, then gestured at the steering column. ‘And why aren’t we finding a broken ignition plate and some loose wires in there?’

Felicia shrugged. ‘We’re dealing with extremely careful guys here. They know if any cop sees a broken ignition, they’ll think it’s a stolen vehicle.’

‘But the stolen plates would already tell them that.’ Striker turned the key-ring over in his hand, looked at the fob. It was a small grey thing. Completely generic. He pressed the button, but none of the doors or trunk unlocked. ‘The fob’s for something else.’

‘Garage?’ Felicia asked.

‘Maybe. Or an elevator. Or a building entrance.’ Striker looked at the yellow key-ring charm. It was connected by a short chain. He flipped it over. On the opposite side was a happy face, though someone had painted a bullet-hole between the eyes, with a red blood trail running down the centre.

Felicia scrunched up her face. ‘How quaint.’

Striker said nothing. He just kept thinking it over and rolling the happy face between his finger and thumb. He was in the same position, still thinking, when a marked patrol car pulled up. The engine was overheated, and it died with a rattle.

Constable Chris Pemberton stepped out, all six foot six and three hundred pounds of the man. Striker was six foot one and worked out hard with weights, yet Pemberton made him look ordinary. Pemberton was a five-year guy, solid for patrol, and soon to be on his way to a specialty squad.

Striker briefed him on the situation. ‘No one comes in or out except us and Ident. Keep a ledger with precise times. If Deputy Chief Laroche shows up and pushes his way in, make sure he signs the ledger. That prick has a pattern of contaminating crime scenes.’

Pemberton nodded.

‘When more units get here,’ Striker continued, ‘I want them to canvass the entire area, north and south. Witnesses, video, everything. Call my cell if you get any hits. It’s always on.’

‘Will do, Boss.’

Striker took one last look at the happy face key-ring. It was part of the solution, he knew. There was a reason for it being there, one he just couldn’t yet understand. He also wondered how Red Mask had lost it in the mud. Had he simply dropped it? Or was he hurt? Making his first mistake?

Striker placed the key in a brown paper bag, sealed it, then left it on the passenger seat for Noodles. He stood back from the Honda and peeled off his gloves, then met Felicia’s stare and didn’t bother to smile.

‘We’ve done all we can do here,’ he said.

She nodded reluctantly. ‘He’s gotten away.’

‘Not for long.’

He strode back to the cruiser, and Felicia followed. They drove out of the alley and headed south. Back to ground zero. Where the nightmare had started. Where they would have to find their next lead in the case.

St Patrick’s High.