Snakes & Ladders (21 page)

‘I do not talk
at
you.’

‘You do, and you don’t even see it. You often treat me like I’m some civilian here to take statements for you and drop your evidence off at the lab. Well, I’m not a civilian, Jacob. I’m a
cop
. A homicide detective, no less. And when you don’t treat me like one, yes, I do begrudge it.’

Striker turned on to Northwest Marine Drive and continued west. ‘I guess we’ll agree to disagree then.’

‘What else is new? Once again Jacob Striker has the final say.’

He gave her a hot look. ‘Well, you know what I begrudge? You uprooting my life. One minute, you’re close and with me, the next moment you’re gone and running.’

She looked back at him for a long moment with a look of shock on her face, then her expression hardened. ‘Are we talking about our professional life here, or our personal life?’

‘Is there a difference any more?’

‘And you wonder why it failed,’ she said.

‘Yeah. Well, just don’t run out on me
professionally
, if things get too hard one day here, too.’

‘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.

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.

This was Riverglen – an institution for the mentally ill. It was listed under the government’s Mental Health and Addiction Services, for those who bothered to look for it.

Felicia pointed to the belfry high atop the central roof. ‘Gives me the creeps, this place,’ she said.

Striker nodded. ‘Right below that is where they gave people the shock-treatment therapy.’ The moment he said the words, he regretted them. Felicia already had a problem with these places, he didn’t want to make it worse.

‘I hate this place,’ she said softly. ‘My grandmother was brought here, way back in the days when everyone called it The Hallows. The things they did to make her
better
. Christ. They drugged her, strapped her down, gave her electric shocks. I don’t remember much of it – I was so little then – but I remember enough. Like her hair falling out from the stress, and her body turning rake thin.’

‘I had no idea,’ Striker said.

Felicia looked over at Striker and her eyes were hard. ‘She was a lot better off before ever going in here. And once she was committed, she never left. It was a tragedy.’

‘Psychiatry’s gotten a whole lot better since then,’ Striker offered.

But Felicia didn’t seem moved by the comment. She glared at the building before her, then shuddered. Striker parked the car, gave her a nod and they climbed out.

Outside, the wind from the Pitt River funnelled into the hospital grounds and caused the bushes flanking the walkway to flap and flutter. Felicia bundled up her long charcoal coat and marched ahead. Striker joined her. Together, they hiked up the old stone steps of the entrance and stepped between a giant pair of freshly painted white pillars before entering the foyer of the mental hospital.

Riverglen.

They had arrived.

Inside, the place was no different. An aura of despair filled the halls. Once past the front security station, Striker and Felicia were led by a guard to the east wing of the facility, then down a long narrow corridor towards the office of Dr Erich Ostermann.

Striker took note of their surroundings as they went. The walls were high, easily ten feet, and the windows were small, allowing little natural light to break the gloom and offering absolutely no view of the land outside. Just being there was depressing.

‘This place is fucking barbaric,’ Felicia said.

The guard, a short fat guy who looked to be in his mid-fifties, gave them a queer look when he heard the comment, but Striker just nodded at the man, and they all kept going.

The office of Dr Ostermann was located in the corner of an L-shaped hallway. In the east wing, leading off the hallway, was an entirely separate room – a common area where several patients were sitting, dressed in pale blue gowns.

Striker looked into the room. It was small, rectangular and, unlike the halls, had natural light and even a few windows overlooking the mountains to the north. Some of the patients were playing backgammon. Some were reading books and talking in pods. But most of them were huddled around an old tube TV in the far corner of the room. On the TV was a cooking show.

The whole scene reminded Striker of an old folks’ home. As they waited for Dr Ostermann to return, Striker watched the patients.

In the nearest corner, a group of four people were playing cards. One of the participants, a tall thin white guy who looked like he hadn’t shaved in days, suddenly stood up from the table and yelled out, ‘Fuck you, you FUCKERS!’ He ripped off his shirt and threw it on the floor.

Striker looked at Felicia, saw the tense look on her face.

‘Strip poker?’ he asked.

Before she could even respond, one of the security guards stood up from his station in the corner of the room and called out, ‘
Henry!
You’d better calm down over there. I mean it!’

The man was unafraid. ‘He’s got a knife at the table!’ he cried out. ‘A knife! Can’t have that – it’s against the rules, it’s DANGEROUS!’

The guard looked over at the table, saw the paper plates and bran muffins, the squares of butter and plastic knives. ‘It’s okay, Henry. It’s all fine. He’s allowed to have that one. It’s plastic. So just
relax
.’

‘It’s DANGEROUS!’

‘Just be good and I’ll give you some of your favourite snacks again.’

‘M&Ms?’

‘I promise,’ the guard said.

‘Peanut?’

‘Of course.’

Henry didn’t respond at first; he just gave the guard a hot stare, stuck out his jaw, and then finally put his shirt back on. He left the other patients playing their card game and hung out by himself near the room entranceway. He turned his eyes towards Striker and Felicia, and caught their stares.

‘What the fuck you two lookin’ at?’

Striker said nothing; Felicia just grabbed his arm and turned him away.

‘Don’t provoke him,’ she said. ‘He’s mentally ill.’

Striker wasn’t planning on it. Before he could respond, a woman behind them asked, ‘Can I help you two?’

They both turned to face her.

Seated at the reception desk in front of Dr Ostermann’s office was a woman dressed in an all-white hospital uniform. She looked thirty or so, and harsh, with her hair pulled back into a tight bun and little to no make-up on her face. She did not smile.