The Guilty (33 page)

‘He was the guy working with Sleeves at the incinerator.’

Felicia nodded. ‘Sang says to come down to IGTF right away’

‘He got something good for us?’

Felicia raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m not really sure. All he said is, “You’re not going to like it”.’

Detective Jimmy Sang was taking a course on human trafficking at the main detachment on Heather Street. That was good news to Striker and Felicia, and they went to meet him.
Once in the cafeteria, Striker grabbed a table while Felicia purchased three coffees.

Not five minutes later, the detective joined them.

‘Thanks for seeing us,’ Striker said. After the basic introductions were done, he opened the police laptop and got right to the meat of the conversation. ‘So what’s this
information we don’t want to hear?’

Sang met Striker’s and Felicia’s stares. ‘Sleeves is suspected in more than just one child death,’ he said. ‘Ten years ago, one of his bombs killed two little girls
and their mother. The children were just nine and twelve years old.’

‘In Toronto?’ Felicia asked.

‘No. Right here in the Lower Mainland.’

The news stunned Striker. He had never heard of this.

He thought back to ten years ago. That was right about the time he’d taken one of his leaves of absence from the police department in order to deal with his wife Amanda’s growing
depression problems. They’d left town for a bit. Gone down to Arizona for some family support.

Recollections of a bombing just didn’t come to mind.

He looked back at Sang and shook his head. ‘This file just gets stranger and stranger by the minute.’

‘You haven’t heard the strangest part yet. The woman and her daughters that Sleeves killed – they were Chipotle’s family.’

Upon hearing the news, Striker sat back in his chair and stared at nothing in particular. He closed his eyes and tried to process the ramifications of what Sang had just told him. Finally he sat
forward again. ‘I’m a bit confused here. I looked all through Sleeves’ history and he’s never been charged with
any
of these murders.’

Sang took one of the coffees, added four sugars.

‘There’s a reason for that,’ he said. ‘Almost no one talks in the biker world, so getting witness statements is damn near impossible. The bomb that went off at
Chipotle’s house and killed the wife and daughters, it was planted by Sleeves.’

‘But
how
do you know?’ Felicia asked.

Sang made an uncomfortable face before saying, ‘Intel from one of our own. We managed to get a guy inside. On a different matter entirely. But this is what he heard, the talk around the
club.’

Striker didn’t question the agent’s identity. That was information Sang would never divulge.

Felicia pointed to the dates on the computer screen. ‘Ten years ago, huh? Interesting. Right after the bombing, Sleeves disappears for almost an entire year – he goes right off the
radar.’

Striker suggested, ‘Maybe the gang told him to lay low. Maybe he went into hiding.’

But Sang shook his head. ‘No. The reason he disappeared is because he blew himself up in the explosion. Pretty bad too. Scars all over his hips and back and arms. Damn near obliterated
himself.’

‘Too bad he didn’t finish the job,’ Felicia said.

Striker pulled the laptop over and ran Carlos Chipotle through the system. He frowned at what he saw.

‘The bomb call’s not in here.’

Sang nodded. ‘It happened just across the Vancouver border in Burnaby. So it’ll be a federal file. The RCMP.
Mounties
.’

Striker ground his teeth because it was just so typical. The biggest problem with modern-day policing was the lack of free and open communication – different databases, privatized cases,
invisible files. Hell, some reports existed only on paper.

For an investigator, it could be maddening at times.

Striker looked at Sang. ‘You’ve got access to Fed paper, right? Can you do a search for us? Get us a copy of the murder file on the Chipotle family?’

Sang stood up from the table. ‘Give me ten minutes.’

Striker and Felicia waited. Soon, ten minutes turned into twenty, and twenty turned into thirty. But Sang eventually returned. In his hands was a hard copy of the report. To Striker, it looked
like the holy grail. And upon seeing it, a few drops of his frustration ebbed away.

‘Thank God,’ Felicia said.

‘This is just the investigative summary,’ Sang warned. ‘It’s
brief
.’

Striker didn’t care; he was happy to have anything. He took the report from Sang, and he and Felicia began poring over it.

The file was straightforward. The murder of the Chipotle family was believed to be a gang-sanctioned killing. A bomb had gone off in the Chipotle basement, killing the wife and two daughters.
Carlos – the obvious target – had been in the garage at the time, and as such, had narrowly escaped a fiery death.

Then he had gone missing.

In the report, two things caught Striker’s eye. One, Sleeves was never mentioned. In fact, he was not even entered as an entity, much less a suspect in the bombing. And his name did not
appear in any of the text pages.

Second, and almost impossible to ignore, was the associated file number at the bottom of the last page. It was a Vancouver Police Department file number – for an investigation into the
police-involved shooting death of Carlos Chipotle, which had happened sometime later the same day.

Felicia looked at the number. ‘Well, Chipotle didn’t go missing for very long.’

Striker said nothing. Carlos Chipotle must have fled the scene, he rationalized, and gotten into a gunfight with police. But where and when and how? Striker read the date and realized that the
homicide report would likely be in paper form only. He felt a strange swirl of excitement and frustration all at once.

‘Every lead turns into two more,’ he said.

Felicia also noted the date. ‘Archives?’ she asked.

Striker didn’t have time to answer her question; his cell phone rang. He looked at the screen, saw the name Niles Quaid on the display, and hoped to God they had discovered something
pertinent. He answered the call.

‘Niles, what you got for me?’

The man’s voice was tight, his tone low.

‘Sleeves is gone,’ he said. ‘We lost him.’

Harry and Koda pulled into the parking lot of the A&W burger stand and left their undercover cruiser parked by the north wall. Once out of the car, Koda began pacing the
lot. His hands trembled as he popped another T3 into his mouth and chugged back some Red Bull. Harry took a long look at the can, then at Koda, and shook his head.

‘You’re already jittery enough,’ he said. ‘You really need to drink that shit?’

‘I’ll drink what I drink.’

‘I still don’t think you should come. Given all that’s happened.’

Koda threw the can on the ground. ‘I told you, I’m fucking
coming
.’

Harry offered no response. He just gave his SIG Sauer a firm tug and made sure the pistol was snug in its holster. Then he opened the back of the police car and grabbed his second piece, a
smaller snub-nose forty-cal he’d seized off a gang member at the Pink Palace strip club two years ago. He tucked it in the back of his waistband, then draped the tail of his coat over the
butt. He turned to Koda. Smiled. Offered the man a sense of calm.

‘Nothing’s going to happen, Chad,’ he said. ‘We’re just here to find out what really happened back at your place . . . and to
negotiate
.’

Koda grabbed a second can of Red Bull from the car and picked at the stitches on his nose.

‘Got to be ready for anything,’ he said.

The parking lot off-ramp led to the north alley of Hastings Street. Together, Harry and Koda walked down to the roadway, then crossed Semlin Drive to the Hing-Woo warehouse. The doors were
closed and locked, just like before, and the lights were out. Everything was quiet. They circled the building into the rear lane and waited under the overhang of the loading bay.

Koda opened the can of Red Bull. ‘Smells like goddam soy sauce back here.’

‘It’s a Chinese food warehouse.’

‘Fucking stinks. Always fucking stinks around here – where the hell is that rat anyway?’

‘He’ll come. He needs money. Now relax.’

Koda turned on him. ‘
You
fuckin’ relax – it wasn’t your goddam house he blew up! Your ex-wife he killed! He’s coming back on us, man. I keep telling
you.’

Harry eyed Koda carefully. ‘You let me do the talking, Chad.’

Koda drank some more Red Bull and mumbled under his breath. Harry did not react. Ignoring the man, he took out his cell phone and dialled the number his brother Trevor had given him back in
Source Handling.

Sleeves answered immediately.

‘What?’
came the response. Out of breath.

‘Where are you?’ Harry asked.

‘Close by.’

Harry closed his eyes. ‘
Where
is close by, Sleeves?’

‘I’m on Hastings Street.’

‘Well, we’re in the loading bay. Like we said.’

‘I know. I can see you.’

The line went dead.

Harry didn’t like the sound of that. He swept his eyes around the alley, searching for possible bombs, and saw nothing. He looked at Koda and said, ‘Be ready.’

Then they waited.

A minute later, Harry spotted saw the small, wiry outline of the man called Sleeves. He was at the west end of the lane, and he did not move. He took a long moment to scan his surroundings, then
slowly, cautiously, moved forward, checking out every nook and cranny as he went. When he reached the loading zone, his eyes found Koda’s face, then his scar.

He smiled darkly. ‘Nice zipper – I got one in my pants.’

Koda trembled. ‘I should fucking kill you—’

Harry intervened. Placed a hand against Koda’s chest. Firm. Decisive. Controlled. ‘We’re here to talk. Nothing more.’ He looked back at the ex-Prowler. ‘Right,
Sleeves?’

The grin left the man’s face. ‘You sold me out.’

‘No one sold anyone—’

‘Hundred grand. That’s what it’ll cost you.’

Harry held up his hand. ‘We’ll talk money later. But first, there are some ground rules. Rule one: You take the cash, you leave town, and you never come back. Rule two: You never
contact either one of us or our families again. Rule three: You never demand money again; this is a one-time payment. And Rule four: you never breathe a word about this to anyone. As far as
you’re concerned, nothing ever happened – and I mean
nothing
.’

Sleeves’ eyes turned hard. ‘The payment just went up.
Two
hundred grand.’

Koda took a half-step forward. ‘Are you completely insane?’ he spat.

Sleeves was unmoved by the man’s emotional state. ‘Either you pay, or I’m sure Striker will – with a little help from Crown Counsel.’

Koda’s face flushed until his stitches looked like black train tracks on red desert sand. He threw his can of Red Bull on the ground and balled up his fists. ‘You twisted little
fuck! You think we’ll be the only ones going down? We’ll
all
be fucked!’

Harry made no verbal reply, for he understood the situation perfectly. If Sleeves went to Striker, it would mean jail time for all of them. And jail time for Harry would mean the death of his
family.

It was unacceptable.

Harry drew the snub-nose from the back of his waistband.

Took aim.

Pulled the trigger.

In one quick moment, a sharp blast of thunder filled the laneway, echoing off the tall walls of the warehouses around them. The bullet caught the ex-Prowler in the stomach. Sleeves let loose a
spit-filled gasp, wobbled where he stood, and then collapsed to his knees on the cement pad of the loading bay. His mouth dropped open, his eyes turned wide. He touched his stomach with his hand,
pulled it away, and stared at the redness that now also spilled from his hoodie.

‘You shot . . . you shot . . .
you fucking shot me!
’

Harry stepped forward, took aim once more, and pulled the trigger again. Sleeves’ head snapped backward, and blood and brain matter exploded all over the cement behind him. His body
slumped to the left and landed on the loading bay with a soft, almost-inaudible thump.

For a moment, everything was quiet.

Then Koda sucked in a deep gasp of air.

‘Holy fuck, holy fuck,
holy FUCK!
’ He gaped at Harry, then spun and looked all around the lane. ‘The noise, the noise, the
noise
– we gotta
go!’

Harry paid him no heed. He stepped up to the fallen man, took aim once more, and blasted off two more rounds.

One for each kneecap.

‘Satan’s Prowler style,’ he said.

Then he turned and exited the alley.

The rush-hour grind of Hastings Street was bad, and it was further bogged down by the road construction which seemed to be taking place at two-block intervals. Everywhere
Striker looked there were men and women wearing orange reflective vests, sweating from the nonstop summer heat and exhaust fumes. He drove past two of them, all the while scanning every main street
and alley they crossed.

‘You see Sleeves anywhere?’

‘No.’ Felicia cursed. ‘How the hell could they lose him?’

Striker made no reply. He was trying to focus on the situation at hand and not to let the frustration swell up on him. The plainclothes unit had lost visual continuity of Sleeves back at William
MacDonald Elementary School. The ex-Prowler had cut through the school grounds and failed to exit on the other side. The area had since been cleared, with negative results.

Sleeves was gone.

Striker turned south on Victoria. Less than a half-block later, Felicia looked down at the BirdDog tracker and made a
hmm
sound.

‘Interesting,’ she said.

Striker cast her a glance. ‘What?’

‘Your plainclothes friends lost track of Sleeves somewhere around the elementary school, and look at this’ – she held up the handheld tracker – ‘Harry and Koda are
just a few blocks away.’