‘Right, right, right.’ The manager spoke the words to Striker, but his eyes lingered on Felicia – as they had since the moment she had introduced herself. It was a fact she noticed and was clearly uncomfortable with. ‘Just follow me, Detectives. I’ll steer ya right.’ The manager walked on stoically, constantly patting down the left side of his moustache.
When they reached the control room, the manager stopped walking and made eye contact with Felicia. He gestured to a line of technicians that were monitoring displays on the far wall. ‘This is my squad. The men I go to battle with every day.’
‘Great,’ she said.
‘They monitor burning times and heat levels – a process which is absolutely critical for plant efficiency. This incinerator gets up to fourteen hundred degrees Celsius.’
‘Sounds hot,’ Felicia said.
‘Oh, it’s hot, Detective. Real hot. Not many things are hotter – unless you want to take a trip to the sun!’
Striker grinned, enjoying the moment.
‘Felicia likes hot places,’ he said.
She cast him a look of daggers, but said nothing, and the manager continued talking. ‘Yep, when my squad here is done with the waste, there’s nothing left but metal and ash. We recycle the metals, of course; magnets in Conveyor Line 3 do that – they separate up to two tons a day, which makes us only the second plant in all of North America to meet the 14001 standard of the ISO.’ He leaned closer to Felicia and explained: ‘That’s recycle talk for the International Organization for Standardization. Green Planet stuff.’
‘You don’t say,’ she said.
‘I’m the emissions chief here. I got to be on top of things.’
Striker grinned again. ‘Felicia likes it when men are on top of things.’
She cast him another dark stare, and he smiled at her.
For a moment, the manager was diverted when one of his technicians requested some assistance. He pardoned himself and stepped away. While he was preoccupied, Striker moved closer to Felicia. ‘That was so interesting what he said about the ISO.’
‘Don’t even start.’
‘I never realized acronyms were such a turn-on for you. Did I mention I work for the VPD.’
‘Stop it.’
‘In MCS.’
‘It’s not funny, Jacob, this guy gives me the creeps.’
‘My favourite sandwich is a BLT.’
Felicia let out a frustrated laugh. ‘Joke all you want, chowderhead, but I’m pretty sure I saw this guy in Silence of the Lambs.’
She’d hardly spoken the words when the manager returned. He splayed his hands and nodded vigorously. ‘Sorry for the delay, folks, but that was a close one, boy. Just averted what was damn near a catastrophe.’
‘A veritable Chernobyl, I’m sure,’ Felicia said dryly.
Striker had had enough of the tour and he stepped forward. ‘This facility really is impressive, but what we need to see are your personnel records.’
The wide grin slipped from the manager’s face and was replaced by a defensive look. He sucked in his upper lip and half his moustache disappeared. ‘Personnel records? Oh boy . . . company’s pretty strict with that stuff. You got a warrant?’
Striker said nothing; he just gave Felicia a glance.
She stepped closer to the site manager and placed her hand on his forearm. Gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘We understand the need for sensitivity. Believe me, we do. But this wouldn’t be for court purposes – it’s merely investigative. And it would save me hours of work. You’d be doing me a really big service here.’
The defensive look on the man’s face fell away. ‘Well . . . all I’m saying is we’d have to keep this confidential.’
Felicia smiled. ‘Of course. We wouldn’t have it any other way.’
Minutes later, Striker and Felicia stood in the records office as the manager sat in front of them and navigated through the computer system until he was in the Human Resources folder. He brought up the plant personnel records. ‘Everything’s electronic nowadays, Detectives.’
Striker read the names, one by one. When he saw the Bs, he put a hand on the manager’s shoulder. ‘Stop right there.’
On the screen was the name Striker was looking for: Brice Burns.
Sleeves.
Felicia saw it too. ‘He was on the payroll.’
Striker got the man to check the Cs as well and found an entry for Carlos Chipotle.
Felicia smiled. ‘We got them both here.’
Striker asked, ‘What were these guys’ roles at the plant?’
The manager read the date. ‘Wow, we’re talking a long time ago here.’ He clicked on a sidebar tab and a mini window popped up. ‘Says here they were both Level 3 Operators.’
‘Which means?’
‘They worked the forklift. Unloaded cargo.’
Striker smiled at that; finally, he was starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. He looked at the screen and saw that the dates of employment were short – less than sixteen months in all. He pointed at the screen. ‘We need copies of all the Vancouver Police Department shipments that occurred on these dates, and we need them now.’
Striker looked up at Felicia and saw the excited expression on her face. It was clear she had made the connection too. They had now linked Sleeves and Chipotle and Koda to the burning facility – Sleeves and Chipotle by way of employee records, Koda by being the sergeant in charge of ERT’s Red Team.
They were finally getting somewhere.
Seventy-Three
Once Striker and Felicia pulled up out front of Main Street Headquarters, Felicia stuffed the burn records into a file folder, carried it with her, and the two of them hurried up the front stairs. Striker cut past the Public Service counter and adjoining Ident booth, where a woman was being fingerprinted.
He used his keycard to swipe in to the property office.
Striker found the clerk he was looking for. Larry Smallsy was a tall man with thinning white hair and John Lennon spectacles. Striker had known him for ten years and liked doing work with him because of two things: Smallsy was easy-going, and he operated within the bounds of common sense, not policy and procedure.
‘Larry!’ Striker called.
The property clerk, seated at his desk, looked up from a far-too-healthy looking bran muffin. ‘Hey, Detectives.’
Striker approached his desk. ‘I need to see sixteen months of your burn records from ten years ago, and I need them now.’
Smallsy said nothing. He just removed a bag of Wet Wipes from his desk, began cleaning the sticky bran crumbs from his fingers, and bobbed his head. Once his fingers were clean, he got up and wandered down the back corridor.
Striker gave Felicia a nod, and they followed.
As they went, Striker absently assessed the property office. The place was a dump. Crammed to the roof with box after box of old evidence, infested with cockroaches, and loaded with rat traps in every corner, the place screamed of disrepair.
It matched the rest of the downtown station.
Felicia sniffed loudly, then made a face. ‘Everything smells damp and mouldy down here, Smallsy. And there’s no room to move. It’s a wonder you can even do your job.’
‘Yeah, well I’m Larry friggin’ Potter,’ he said. ‘I keep everything organized.’
Up ahead, Smallsy stopped at a long counter that was fronted by numerous shelves of archives. From the uppermost row, he pulled down three ledgers. When he laid them down on the counter and opened them up, Striker saw that the pages of the books were more yellow than white, and coffee stains decorated the edges. He looked at the headings of the books. They were all the same:
Evidence Transfer – Montreaux Incinerator.
Striker grabbed the file folder from Felicia. From it, he removed a wad of papers. He placed them down on the counter top, next to the ledger. He ran his finger down the pages, one by one. When he came across the corresponding date, he stopped. Compared. And found discrepancies.