The Guilty (52 page)

‘Chad Koda did,’ Felicia said. ‘Or he found out soon after.’

Striker nodded. ‘And so did Oliver Howell. He thinks this was all one giant cover-up. That’s why we’re all here, Mike . . . Oliver Howell thinks you murdered his
father.’

Striker and Felicia left Rothschild and the kids under the protective care of Patrol and headed down Kerrisdale’s main drive. Striker needed some time away with Felicia.
A place where they could be alone to organize all the jigsaw pieces of this puzzle.

So much, there was so much.

He stopped at the local Starbucks on 41st, the one across from the Bank of Montreal, and purchased a pair of coffees and two pastries. ‘Any kind,’ he told the clerk. ‘Just
throw them in the bag.’

Food in hand, he returned to the car.

They drove down to Maple Grove Park and watched the children laughing and giggling and jumping into the public pool. For a brief moment, memories of taking Courtney here returned to Striker
– the time she had first learned to swim, the time she had finally gotten the nerve to jump in by herself – and he smiled at those memories.

They calmed his mind.

‘We have to go through this one more time,’ he finally said to Felicia. ‘In detail. So we have it right.’

She agreed. She put down the file she was re-reading, then grabbed her pad of paper and a pen.

‘From the beginning,’ she said.

Striker nodded. ‘Essentially, what we have here are two files that are connected. And sadly, I think it all started with the death of Harry Eckhart’s first son.’

‘Joshua?’

Striker nodded. ‘When the boy died, Harry broke down. He got into financial trouble, did some dumb things – who knows what. But in the end, he needed money, and he needed it
bad.’

Felicia nodded. ‘And since he was in charge of burning the drugs, he started selling some of them back to the Satan’s Prowlers, through Sleeves and Chipotle.’

‘Exactly. But the operation got too dangerous to do alone.’

‘So he brought in an old friend,’ Felicia said.

Striker nodded. ‘Chad Koda. Which was a perfect fit because, aside from trusting the man, Koda – through his ex-wife Sharise Owens – connected them to Keisha
Williams.’

‘And Williams is how Koda got the toy duck.’

Striker held up a finger. ‘Williams was killed for more than just her job as the toymaker,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget, she was also a chartered accountant. Her real role
here was to move the money.’

‘Risky work,’ Felicia said. ‘She rolled the dice. She lost.’

‘Came up snake eyes,’ Striker said.

‘You think Harry and Koda manipulated her?’

Striker shrugged. ‘Who knows how she got involved. But once she started moving that money, it was over for her. She was involved. Culpable.’

Felicia scribbled all this down furiously, using mostly shorthand. ‘For all we know, she might have thought it legitimate in the beginning. After all, these were two cops she was dealing
with, one of which was living with her cousin. Which also ties in Dr Sharise Owens.’

‘Partly,’ Striker said. ‘But we’ll get to her later.’

He picked up some of the paperwork they’d obtained from the Source Handling Unit, skimmed the pages, and then nodded. ‘Next, we have Archer Davies. The man’s an ex-soldier from
the British Army. He’s moved to Canada to start a new life with a new woman. He joined the VPD, and soon had his own source.’

‘Carlos Chipotle.’

Striker opened the man’s file. ‘Yes, Chipotle – a man who quickly finds himself in hot water when the gang catches him double-dipping. He owes the gang money and he can’t
pay. And these are the Prowlers we’re talking about. They don’t mess around. So if Chipotle can’t come up with the money quick, they’ll kill him. And he knows
that.’

‘And he can’t come up with the money.’

Striker nodded. ‘So where does he go? To the VPD. To
Archer –
offering information about Harry and Koda’s little operation in exchange for protection and
indemnity.’

‘Big mistake,’ Felicia said.

‘The biggest. The Prowlers find out. Before you know it, Chipotle’s family is blown sky-high by Sleeves and Chipotle’s on the run.’

‘Which leads to him being grief-stricken, coked-up, and flaunting a machine gun down by the river.’

Striker nodded sadly. ‘And Archer ends up getting injured – which is real bad because it looks like Harry and Koda have worked something out to silence him, fearing what Chipotle
might have told him.’

‘And Archer eventually dies from his wounds.’

Striker heard that and stopped talking. Turned silent for a while. The more he thought it over, the more surreal it all felt. So many links in this nightmare chain. He took a moment to sip his
coffee and watch the children frolicking in the pool. Their high-pitched shrieks of joy and excitement. Their laughter.

Their
innocence.

After a moment, he looked over at Felicia. ‘You got all that?’

She read it all over and nodded slowly.

‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘Make one hell of a novel.’

Oliver needed to discard the dead cop.

He drove slowly along Crown Street, searching for a good dump site. To the east was the sprawling suburbia of the Dunbar area, but to the west was the wilderness of the Pacific Spirit National
Park. He pulled up next to a natural hollow that was three feet deep and filled with reeds and further covered by shrouds of bush.

This was the place.

From the cop’s tool belt, Oliver took the gun – a SIG Sauer P226 – the radio, the pepper spray, and the handcuffs. He then glanced at the police laptop. On the screen, the
small GPS icon flashed in the bottom right-hand corner of the task bar.

He was online.

Oliver immediately undocked the laptop and threw it into the bushes. Then, with his shoulder screaming in pain, he dragged the cop’s body out the passenger side of the vehicle and dropped
it into the hollow where it was quickly hidden by bush and reed. Someone would find the body, he knew, and probably within days. But so what?

It would all be done by then.

Ten minutes later, after a quick stop at Tim Horton’s coffee shop, Oliver made his way towards Striker’s house. The smell of the freshly brewed coffee filled the car. Four large cups
– double cream, double sugar – sat in a cardboard cup holder on the passenger seat, along with a second tray of chocolate milks, a couple of egg salad sandwiches, and a large box of
miscellaneous doughnuts.

He drove down Camosun Street until he saw the undercover police car out front of Striker’s house. He pulled over and attached the Black Knight suppressor to the SIG Sauer pistol. Once
secure, he laid the pistol on the passenger seat and covered it with the box of doughnuts. Then he pulled up in his marked patrol car, rolled down the window, and smiled.

‘Got some coffees,’ he said. ‘Compliments of the boss man.’

The patrolman in the other car was a dead ringer for Ricky Gervais. He smiled. ‘Thank Jesus. I’m falling asleep here and the day’s not half over.’

Oliver handed him one of the paper cups. ‘I hope I bought enough. All I got was four coffees, plus my own.’

‘That’s perfect – all we got is four.’

Oliver sipped his own coffee. ‘Where’s the rest of them?’

The Gervais cop removed the lid from his cup. ‘House and lane. Want me to call them?’

Oliver shrugged. ‘Tell whoever’s inside to come grab theirs. I’ll drop the rest off to the mates out back.’

The Gervais cop took out his cell, made the call, and a short moment later, the front door opened. The cop that emerged from the house was tall and thin with long bony arms. He crested the cop
cars, then nodded at Oliver. ‘You from the odd side?’

Oliver wiped away the sweat from his brow. ‘Yeah. Call-out.’

They both nodded.

The cop accepted the coffee and thanked Oliver. When he sat down in the passenger seat, next to the Gervais cop and said, ‘Fuck, I hate guard detail,’ Oliver acted. He drew his
pistol and shot the driver first, then the passenger. Two quick blasts. Both head shots.

Thwip-thwip!

And it was done.

Oliver watched the cop in the passenger seat slump forward against the dashboard. He felt nothing. It was all immaterial now. Just one more road block dealt with on the way home.

He exited the cruiser, climbed on top of the dead cop in the driver’s seat, and drove the car thirty feet down the road. He parked out of view, on a side street, and then walked down to
Striker’s house.

The front door was unlocked.

Inside, watching cartoons in the den, were the two children. The boy – Cody was his name – did not so much as glance back when Oliver entered the room. The Girl – Shana –
turned and studied him for a moment. Her eyes fell to his uniform and a relaxed look spread across her face.

Oliver smiled at her. ‘Shift change, little ones. Where’s your father?’

‘What?’

‘Your father. Your
dad
.’

‘He’s out killing bad guys,’ the boy said, and he made a pretend gun with his fingers, which he started shooting.

The girl rolled her eyes. ‘He went out.’

Out?
The word made Oliver’s jaws clench. ‘When’s he getting back?’

‘Who knows?’ the girl said. ‘He never tells us anything.’

Oliver steeled his nerves and refused to allow his emotions to get the better of him.
Evaluate. Act. Reassess.
If Rothschild was not here, he would simply go to Plan B: Why run after
Rothschild when he could simply make Rothschild come to him?

Oliver smiled at the children. ‘Well, too bad for Dad. Because I brought doughnuts and chocolate milk!’

The boy finally turned away from the TV set. ‘
Awesome.
’

Even the girl smiled.

Oliver looked at the children and their happy eager faces. He allowed them to dig into the treats he had brought. As they ate, he offered them a wide captivating smile.

‘Who wants a ride in the police car?’ he asked.

Striker sat in the car, staring at the SIG Sauer, and frowned. This pistol Hal had given him didn’t feel right. It didn’t have the special order, rubberized grip he
was accustomed too. And it was brand new. The slide had barely been broken in. He ejected the magazine and expelled the last round from the chamber.

Felicia sat beside him, finishing the last of the notes she had made on the file. When done, she let out a long breath and looked back at Striker, ready to continue going over their
chronological sequence of events.

‘So where were we?’ she said. She glanced back to the last line. ‘Archer is shot in the gunfight – blown up by the breach – and everyone thinks it was Chipotle who
tagged him.’

Striker nodded absently as he racked the slide a few times; it needed oil. ‘At some point, either during the battle or just after it, Koda figured this out – or at the very least, he
suspected it.’

‘You think?’

‘One hundred per cent. How else does Sharise Owens end up being the surgeon called out? Something had to happen there.’ He removed the slide from the base of the pistol and put it on
the dashboard. ‘Besides, it makes sense from Harry and Koda’s standpoint. Think about it – Koda’s in charge of this whole botched takedown, and because he and Harry are
already worried about being investigated for the trafficking operation, the
last
thing they want is more heat coming their way for a cop-on-cop shooting . . . this slide needs
oil.’

‘I got some in my bag – hold on.’ Felicia went to the trunk and returned with some gun oil and a clean rag. She handed it to Striker. ‘So Harry and Koda get Owens to
doctor the report.’

Striker oiled the rail guides as he spoke. ‘You can see why – the shooting was an
accident.
As far as Harry and Koda were concerned, it was a good choice of action: Archer
would be taken care of. Rothschild would get a commendation. And a public investigation into a cop-on-cop shooting would never occur. So they got Owens to alter the report. Just a few amendments
here and there . . . but ones that changed everything.’

‘But she made mistakes.’

Striker nodded. ‘Not destroying her original tapes was one of them. She may have been an excellent doctor, but she wasn’t used to being a cover-up artist. And she screwed up in the
written report as well – she changed the locations of the entrance and exit wounds, but she didn’t change the wound sizes. That discrepancy alone proves that the entrance and exit
locations were reversed.’

Striker looked up and saw Felicia grinning at him.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Everything’s connected. Except for one thing – we know
why
Oliver and Molly Howell did this, but we don’t know
how
they found out.’

‘Actually we do,’ Striker said. ‘They can request any report we have – so long as it hasn’t been stolen or misplaced or destroyed.’

‘Through the Freedom of Information Act.’

Striker nodded. ‘Exactly. Well, Oliver got them. And when he compared the police reports, the medical reports, and the medical tapes, he realized pretty quickly the same things we did
– that everything didn’t mesh.’ Striker grabbed the slide and re-attached it to the base of the pistol. ‘From there on, everything snowballed.’

Felicia took back the gun oil. ‘So when Oliver kidnapped Sharise Owens down by the river, it wasn’t so much about torture as it was about information.’

Striker agreed. ‘It was an interrogation session – to corroborate what he already suspected. And what she told him only reinforced his belief that this was one massive
cover-up.’ Striker racked the slide a few more times to get the oil moving.

Felicia went quiet for a long moment as Striker continued to rack the slide.

‘But why Osaka?’ she finally asked.

Striker stopped playing with the slide. ‘He was the Internal Investigator in charge of the shooting.’ Striker frowned. ‘Fact is, Archer was shot by one of our own men. And
mistake or not, Osaka dropped the ball on that file. There were reasons for the mistake – this was at a time when Osaka was already dealing with the Stanley Park Six incident. The man was
swamped
.’