‘Bad cut. Was he high?’
She shook her head. ‘That’s the scary thing – he wasn’t. We’d just had his blood work done as a favour to Triage. And he was absolutely clean . . . You should’ve seen the blood; it just poured from his hand. I thought we had an arterial bleed for sure. And Billy, he just stood there and stared at it. Like it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen . . .’
Striker wrote this down, then looked up. ‘Any other strange stuff?’
‘With Billy? Lots, sure, always. He seemed to get even worse after that. Really obsessive with Sarah. Kept saying he knew she was whispering to him at night. Creepy stuff like that. Said he heard noises.’
‘What kind of noises?’
The nurse shrugged. ‘I dunno. He never really said and I never really asked. I just wanted Sarah to move out of here because of him. For her own safety. And to be honest, Billy scared the hell out of me and the rest of the staff, too. When they committed him to Riverglen, we all breathed a sigh of relief. He’s gonna kill someone one day. Her, or one of us.’
Striker stopped writing and met her stare. ‘Well, watch yourself, Janice, because he’s out.’
Her face tightened. ‘Are you fucking kidding me? They let him out again?’
Striker nodded. ‘Outpatient care.’
‘Christ Almighty.’
Striker looked at the room keys hanging on the board. ‘Did Billy actually live here, himself?’
Janice almost spit out her coffee. ‘Here? No, never. Sarah did. She was why he always came by. They were part of that EvenHealth programme, you know. For all the good it ever did them.’
That got Striker’s attention. ‘Not a fan of the programme?’
She waved a hand. ‘Please. It’s all fluff – just like the doctor who created it. Everything is image. Stats. That’s how he makes his money, you know. By getting people out of government care so it costs the taxpayer less money. He gets a percentage of costs saved.’
‘You got proof of that?’
‘It’s what people in the profession say.’
Striker said nothing. He just made a note of this, then flipped through the pages of his notebook. So many of the words seemed to jump out at him. Billy Mercury. EvenHealth. Dr Ostermann and Dr Richter.
Medications and mental illness – it was becoming a common theme.
He finally looked up and refocused on Sarah Rose. ‘No forwarding address?’ he asked.
Before Janice could respond, Felicia knocked on the door. Striker let her in. She was breathing hard from running and her eyes looked like dark fire. ‘I got it,’ she said. ‘Sarah’s latest res. It’s out east. The one place we should’ve looked in the first place.’
‘Where?’ Striker asked.
‘Where you think?’ she teased.
The sour tone of her voice gave it away.
‘Hermon Drive.’
Forty-Three
Hermon Drive was a complex of communal housing, situated in District 2, far out east in the North Renfrew area. Although dilapidated in its own right, the complex was one step up from the shit of the skids and the concrete jungles of the Raymur Street slums, but that was as far as the sugar-coating went. The road was a short slope, composed only of low-income box apartments built in the fifties. Only the poor lived here.
And that included Sarah Jane Rose.
Striker and Felicia had been here too many times to remember over the years. For all the bad calls. Anything related to drugs or mental health.
They drove towards the area. They took East Broadway all the way out, then parked a half-block away and walked in on foot. Far above, the sun did nothing to ward off the cold, and the wind blustered hard against them.
As they made their way down the sloping crest of asphalt, Striker saw several groups of kids hanging out and watching them. Teenagers, for the most part. Fewer than half of them would see Day One of grade twelve, but they were street smart. Had to be to survive around here.
A few pointed and a couple called, ‘Six up.’
Street slang for cops nearby.
Felicia smiled. ‘I think we got them fooled.’
Striker smiled at that. The only people who were ever fooled by the undercover cruisers and suits were the normal folk living in middle and upper-class areas. Criminals and the poor always knew the cops with a single glance. Criminals because they were always being arrested, and the poor because they were so often the victims.
They located 3103 Hermon Drive, and Striker slowed his pace. Half the buildings were covered with scaffolding and old green tarps from where they were repairing water damage. Striker took note of all this. The place looked ready to fall down all around them.
They found Sarah Rose’s address. It was located in a set of row-homes. The windows were all barred, and the paint was flaking and dirty. Sarah Rose’s unit was situated at the east end, beside a playground where children rarely played. Inside the townhome, the lights were all on, but there was no movement inside.
‘Want to call for a second unit?’ Felicia asked.
Striker shook his head. ‘Not yet. Just put us out.’
Felicia did. She got on her cell, called Dispatch, and let them know the address. ‘Put us already on scene,’ she added. By the time she hung up, they were walking in between the two bushes that flanked the front walkway.
Striker reached the front alcove and studied the door. It was made from solid wood, lighter in colour than the frame. When he looked at the hinges, he realized that the door actually opened outwards, which was unusual for these places. He took a moment to study the next-door neighbour’s doorway and saw that it was quite different. The wood looked darker, older. He turned to face Felicia.
‘Was there anything in the computer about a break-in here?’
‘No, nothing was listed in PRIME.’
He didn’t like the answer. The door had been fortified for some reason. Why? Was Sarah Rose afraid of something?
Or someone?
He reached out and rapped on the door. It was hard and let off a solid-sounding thunk-thunk-thunk. As they waited for a response, Striker took a quick look behind them at the building that was in a state of disrepair. Probably another leaky condo. On the other side of the road, in one of the ground-level suites, someone was watching them. A lone figure standing just behind the sheers and drapes. Striker nodded at the man, but received nothing in reply.
It was typical for the area. Police unfriendly.
‘No one’s home,’ Felicia said.
Striker rapped harder. He leaned over the railing and tried to look through the kitchen window, but the lower portion of the glass was bevelled, and the upper portion was too high to see through. He tried the front door, found it locked.
‘Any phone number for this res?’ he asked.
Felicia shook her head. ‘None listed. Tried Info, too. They got nothing.’
‘Hold the front then,’ he said.
When Felicia nodded, Striker made his way around the building, cutting through the empty playground. Once there, he frowned. The rear of the townhome belonged to a separate residence altogether. The buildings faced back to back, which meant there were no windows facing south.
And no rear entry.
The front was the only way in.
When he returned to the front, Felicia nodded to the adjoining row-home. ‘No one’s home there, either,’ she said. ‘Actually, it looks like it’s unrented right now.’
‘Big surprise.’ Striker removed a folding knife from his inner jacket pocket and opened the blade.