‘That’s not fair.’
‘You’re right. It’s not fair.’
He made a hard turn at Belmont Avenue, so hard the tyres slipped on the frosty street. He drove a half-block down. On the right-hand side sat a huge lot, gated, with tons of maple and Japanese plum trees.
The Ostermann house.
The front gate was already open. So was the front door.
Striker pulled the car inside the gate and parked on the roundabout. When he shut off the engine and stepped out of the car, the girl with long black hair and pale skin walked out of the front door. She spotted them and stopped short, her face turning hard.
She said nothing to them.
‘Good morning,’ Striker offered. ‘It’s Dalia, right?’
The girl said nothing at first, she just looked back at him with a cold empty stare. Striker didn’t like it. Her eyes seemed damn near vacuous. Disconnected. He gave Felicia a quick glance, which she returned.
‘Yes, Dalia,’ the girl finally said, her voice low and neutral.
She bundled up her coat, a long black lambskin number that came down to her knees, then tied the accompanying sash. After looking back inside the house, she turned around and fixed them with a stare that suggested she was surprised to see them still standing there.
‘Is your father home?’ Striker asked.
‘The Doctor is out.’
Striker found her wording odd. Not Dad or my father. It was the Doctor.
He moved up the walkway to be closer to the girl, and Felicia joined him, flanking Dalia from the opposite angle. At this closer distance, the girl looked different. For one, she had tons of make-up plastered all over her face. Her skin was pale, no doubt. Practically ghostly. But the concealer made her look one step away from being a modern-day vampire. When Striker took a closer look, he saw that beneath the white make-up, there were blemishes – as if her skin was marred in some way, bruised. Below her right eye. And near her chin. Like she’d been smacked a few times.
She caught his stare and turned away, hiding her face.
‘I will tell him you came by,’ she said over her shoulder.
Felicia was the first to speak. ‘Where is your father?’
‘At work.’
Before they could ask more, Lexa Ostermann walked out through the front door. She was buttoning up the long coat she wore, and upon seeing them, she stopped. For a moment, her face remained expressionless, but then her natural graces took over once more. She looked past Felicia, directly at Striker, and smiled.
‘Well, it is a good morning, I see.’
Striker smiled. ‘Good morning yourself, Mrs Ostermann.’
‘It’s Lexa, for you,’ she said.
‘What should I call you?’ Felicia cut in. Her voice was dry, business-like.
Lexa only smiled at her, said nothing, then turned her attention back to Striker. ‘Please, from now on don’t be so formal.’
‘I’ll try to remember that,’ he said.
She stepped right into his personal space and stared into his face. When she smiled, she looked ten years younger, Striker noticed, and that magnetism pulled at him.
‘How are you?’ he asked. ‘Last night you seemed a little . . . tense when we left.’
The smile on Lexa’s face remained, but her lips tightened and her eyes got a faraway look in them. ‘So what brings you out my way, Detective Striker?’
Felicia stepped forward. ‘Sorry to break up this scene from The Bridges of Madison County, but we’re here to speak with your husband.’
Lexa’s cheeks reddened from the comment. ‘Oh. I’m . . . I’m sorry. You missed him.’
‘Missed him?’ Striker asked.
‘Yes, he had much to do today, I’m afraid. He left far earlier than usual. Around six o’clock, I think. Didn’t Dalia tell you?’
Dalia, who had been standing there silently, said nothing. She then took the opportunity to make herself scarce. Without so much as a word, she slipped in between the group, crossed the driveway in front of the undercover police car, and hopped into the passenger side of a green Land Rover.
‘Quite the chatterbox,’ Felicia noted.
Lexa said nothing. She looked back at Striker and put on her best smile. ‘I will tell Erich you came by the moment I see him, Detective Striker.’
‘And when will you see him?’ Felicia persisted.
Lexa’s eyes never left Striker’s. ‘In a few hours. I’ll see him at the clinic.’
That made Striker blink. ‘What clinic?’ he asked.
‘Why, Mapleview, of course.’
‘Mapleview? I didn’t think your husband worked there. You mean, you work together?’
She nodded softly. ‘Yes. Well, now we do. It’s how Erich and I met, actually – through our professions. Long ago, before Erich even started the EvenHealth programme, I was a psych nurse at Riverglen.’
Striker thought this over. ‘Riverglen, huh? Interesting. But you no longer work there?’
‘No, now I do more private than public work. The pay is better, the hours are less and, more importantly, it’s all day shifts now. I stopped pulling nights after I turned forty. It was just too hard – though, with your profession, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that.’
Striker raised an eyebrow. ‘I know nights.’
‘I bet you do.’
Felicia stepped forward to get Lexa’s attention. ‘When exactly are you going to see your husband, Mrs Ostermann?’
‘Well, when he gets to the clinic.’
‘Which will be?’
‘Sometime this afternoon, I would guess. Erich usually does his paperwork in our home office Thursday mornings. The rest of the week, he spends the mornings at Riverglen. He avoids the worst of the rush-hour traffic that way – coming back from Coquitlam at the end of the day can be a real grind.’
‘But he did end up going to Riverglen today?’ Striker asked.
‘Yes, but he should be at Mapleview after two or so.’
‘We can’t wait till then,’ Striker said to Felicia. ‘We’ll have to head out there to see him.’
At hearing this, Lexa made an uncomfortable sound. She took in a deep breath and her face turned hard. She looked directly at Striker. ‘Erich doesn’t like being disturbed when he’s in the middle of his work – he takes it very, very seriously.’
‘So do we,’ Felicia said dryly. ‘Suicides and missing people are generally rated fairly high on our list.’
Lexa Ostermann didn’t so much as acknowledge the comment. She kept her eyes focused on Striker and continued speaking. ‘I only ask that you don’t . . . upset him right now. Erich is under a lot of pressure with his caseload at Riverglen, not to mention all the private work he’s doing with EvenHealth. He’s very tired. And he’s stressed out. He hasn’t been sleeping well of late, so he upsets rather easily.’
‘I’ll do my best to keep things on the level,’ Striker assured her.
Lexa nodded as if she was grateful for this, but her expression remained one of concern.
Striker felt for the woman. He said goodbye to Lexa, and they returned to the car. They climbed inside, backed out of the driveway, and then reversed so Lexa and Dalia could drive their Land Rover out of the front gate.
The last thing Striker saw before leaving was the look on Dalia’s face through the windshield. Her expression was as hard as rock and her eyes were cold and empty and seemed very far away.
‘Something’s wrong with that kid,’ Felicia said.
Striker knew it, too. He felt it deep down in his chest.
Thirty-Seven
The mental health centre known as Riverglen was old, having been built in the early nineteen hundreds. Fresh layers of white paint had been added to the old wood trim of the windows, and the crumbling blocks of surrounding red brick had been spraywashed clean. But no matter how much work the government put into the hospital, no matter how hard the politicians tried to make the facility look like a modern-day, healthy and happy place to live, an air of despair cloaked the facility, as visible as the storm clouds that were sweeping in from the north.