‘We recovered one from apartment 109 in Hermon Heights – the suite across the road from Sarah Rose’s place, the one you thought this guy might have been watching you from.’
‘I knew it,’ Striker said. ‘And?’
‘Nothing earth-shaking, but we got some relatively interesting findings. I dusted all the areas you wanted – the electrical outlets, the window and frame, the plug end of the extension cord – and we got something. One single print on the inside of the front window. When I was doing it, one of the neighbours came by. Told me that suite’s been vacant for over six weeks, ever since the last renter moved out.’
‘And the print – you run it?’
‘Can’t. It’s just a partial,’ Noodles replied. ‘Nothing good enough to send through the database. But I did use it for a comparison.’
‘With whose?’
‘Billy Mercury’s. And once again, it doesn’t match.’
Striker thought this over. Just because the print was on the inside of the window, and just because it didn’t belong to Billy Mercury, that didn’t prove anything. Anyone could have been in that suite over the last six weeks. A squatter. Some neighbourhood kids. The landlord. Anyone. Or it could belong to the previous tenant.
They needed corroboration.
‘Did you compare it with the prints found on the fridge at the Lucky Lodge?’ he asked.
‘There’s the key,’ Noodles said. ‘The print might not match up with Billy Mercury’s prints, but it’s a perfect match with the one I found on the fridge at the Lucky Lodge.’
Striker felt a bolt of energy surge through him. What were the odds of finding two partial prints at two separate crime scenes that matched?
The answer was zero.
‘What about the can of varnish?’ Striker asked.
‘We got a good print there too. But it’s not the same.’
‘Not the same?’
‘Doesn’t match the print on the window, doesn’t match Billy’s.’
Striker frowned. There was no doubt that the varnish had been used as an accelerant on the door. ‘Run the print through the databank when you get time and let me know the results either way. For all we know, it could come back to a checkout girl. And swab everything for DNA. We need something here, Noodles. Gimme some magic.’
‘The only tricks I know involve a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a pair of air stewardesses.’
Striker smiled into the phone. ‘Just call me the moment you know.’
He hung up the cell and relayed the entire discussion to Felicia, paying particular attention to the fact that the partial print from the fridge back at the Mandy Gill crime scene matched the print from the window at the Sarah Rose crime scene.
The news seemed to shock her.
‘It has to be connected,’ she admitted. ‘The odds are too high.’
‘Which means that there’s a very good chance Billy Mercury wasn’t acting alone.’
‘Jesus.’
Felicia rubbed her face, massaging her temples. She brushed her hair back over her shoulders and shook her head as if she just couldn’t believe it. Without warning, she opened the car door.
Cold wind swept into the car, sucking away the heat.
‘I need some air,’ she said.
She climbed out, and Striker got out with her. He took his coffee cup with him. They walked down the long stretch of Kootenay Street, just below the highway overpass, where it was dark and quiet. They talked. After going over everything from beginning to end one more time, Felicia stopped walking and turned to face him.
‘Only two people stick out to me – Dr Ostermann and Dr Richter.’
Striker agreed. ‘Dr Richter is nowhere to be found. And I don’t like the way Ostermann is constantly avoiding us and skirting around our questions. There’s more going on here. You can bet your pay cheque on that.’
Felicia shivered, but nodded in agreement. She bundled up her coat, then snagged the coffee cup from his hand and slurped some back. She kept the cup.
‘Ostermann has proximity to everyone involved,’ she noted. ‘The timelines also correlate; he was seen driving like a madman through the area five minutes after you got into a fight with the suspect at Mandy Gill’s crime scene. He’s been resistant to our questions from the beginning. He had a sharp pain in his side that first night we spoke with him – maybe from a high fall. And last of all, we’ve caught him lying to us about working at Mapleview. Which is odd. Why lie about something so trivial?’
‘He says it was all a misunderstanding,’ Striker said, and they both laughed. After the moment had passed, he continued speaking. ‘This is all excellent insight, but it’s also all circumstantial.’
Felicia shivered and took another sip of Striker’s coffee. ‘Circumstantial, fine. But how much do we need?’
‘What we need here is motive.’
Felicia nodded. ‘That’s what interrogations are for.’
Striker didn’t disagree. ‘You’re bang-on right about that – but not just yet.’
‘Why not? Now’s as good a time as any.’
Striker only smiled at her. ‘You don’t go big-game hunting with a mag that’s half full of bullets.’ He took back his coffee cup and sipped it, then let out a long breath that fogged the air under the street lamp. ‘No, we’ll finish our investigation first, gather as much evidence as we can on Ostermann, and then we’ll go after him fully loaded.’
‘Guns a-blazing,’ Felicia said.
Striker smiled back.
‘I never fire blanks.’
Sixty-Three
The Adder entered the Special Room. He had been in here over a dozen times in his life. And every time for his reward.
The room was different from the others. Certainly different from his own dwelling. Thick silk drapes, blood-red in colour, framed the bay window at the far end of the room. The glass of the window was tinted – easy to see out, impossible to see in. Flanking the window was a pair of high-backed leather chairs, red-brown in colour, matching the mahogany bar that was set at the opposite corner. On the countertop of the bar were several bottles of booze. Twenty-five-year-old Bowmore. Fifteen-yearold Grey Goose. Forty-year-old Rémy Martin. And types of hard liquor the Adder did not even recognize. There were also several bottles of mineral water, all for him.
He touched none of it, just as he never had.
Sitting in the centre of the room was a king-sized bed. A fourposter, covered with thick heavy sheets of high-count cotton thread and big puffy pillows that were so deep, you fell right into them.
The Adder stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. His eyes flitted to the old bronze lamp on the desk, then the luxurious chandelier above, and then the mirror on the far wall. These were all beautiful items.
And all perfect for secretly hiding a camera.
He looked around the room but found none. He never did.
He unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall to the thick white carpet below. Then he did the same with his jeans and underwear. When he saw the image in the mirror before him, it was bony thin and terribly white. There were scratch marks all down its arms – from the well, he knew – and two of the fingernails from the left hand were broken off.
The sight was interesting, and for a moment it stole his attention.
Then the door behind him opened and shut. And the Adder knew that she was there. She came up behind him, wrapped her soft hands around his ribs, and his body automatically tightened.
‘You’re cold,’ she said.
Then her body pressed into him from behind. He could feel her firm breasts against his back. Her flesh on his flesh. Her warmth invading his body.
He turned around and met her eyes, and was sucked down deep into their stare. She kissed him with an open mouth, her tongue slipping on his. Touching, tickling, caressing. And then she gently pushed him back to the bed.