Snakes and ladders

He felt at a loss, and he wondered if his guilt was clouding his vision. Despite the oddity of the camera being set up outside the window and the subsequent altercation with the suspect – evidence which was all circumstantial, by court standards – there was no physical evidence of foul play. At least none he could detect on the body, or anywhere in the primary crime scene.

Suicide was still not out of the question.

Especially not when considering this was Mandy Gill. Striker knew her well. He had for several years, ever since he’d met her at one of his daughter’s Sports Day rallies. Mandy had been sixteen years old then, just a few years older than his daughter, Courtney. She had been living in the Dunbar area, not overly far from his own place. She had been a sweet young girl, polite and gentle, but she had already been suffering from depression problems, even back then.

There were reasons for it. Biochemical issues aside, the poor kid’s mother had died from cancer the previous winter, and her father had been a cold, distant man who had eventually found his way back to jail on aggravated assault charges. With no siblings for support, Mandy had been alone in this world.

Just like she had been found tonight.

The thought pained Striker. ‘I should have done more,’ he said softly.

He stood there and thought of all this, and didn’t move until Felicia called out to him: ‘Look at this.’ She was in the kitchen, scouring through the cupboards.

Striker crossed the room, the garbage that covered the floor crunching beneath his shoes. Once beside Felicia, he saw the tray of plastic bottles in her hand. There must have been over forty of them.

‘Jesus, that’s a lot,’ he noted.

‘It’s all Effexor,’ she said.

‘Effexor? Let me see that.’ He took one of the bottles and read the label. On it was the same pharmacy name and prescription number as the Lexapro. The combination of the drugs told him what she’d suffered from.

‘She was bipolar depressive,’ he said.

Felicia looked up. ‘How do you know?’

He gave her a hard look. ‘Personal experience – they put Amanda on the same stuff, after her first suicide attempt.’

Felicia looked back at him, her face taking on a concerned look. She said, ‘Oh,’ and then became quiet. For a moment, the silence of the room was uncomfortable, and Striker’s thoughts filtered back to his wife and all her depression problems.

It was a memory that would never fade.

He prayed that Courtney was different from her mother – God knows she had the same stubbor

He moved over to the window and gave her a call. She answered on the fifth ring.

‘Hey, Pumpkin,’ he said.

‘Oh, hey, Dad. Let me use my psychic powers here – you’re go

‘Fu

‘You definitely are. I was giving you an out.’

He laughed softly. She knew him too well. Knew the job.

‘It’s a bad call, bad day,’ he explained. For a moment he considered telling her it was Mandy, but then he reconsidered. This might not have been a close friend of hers, but it was someone she knew. He’d tell her in person. It was better that way.

‘Dad?’ she asked.

‘How’d it go with therapy today?’

‘I didn’t go.’

Striker said nothing for a moment, then continued, ‘Look, Courtney, we’ve been over this before. You need to go to therapy. It’s not an option. Without it, you won’t regain full function. Even A

‘I don’t like A

Striker took in a deep breath. He caught Felicia staring at him, eavesdropping openly on their conversation like she always did, and he turned away. ‘Look, don’t call her that. I don’t like it. It’s not respectful. And besides, the woman’s only trying to help you.’

Courtney let out a bemused laugh. ‘Help? You call that help? It doesn’t help anything. And what would you know anyway? You’re not the one going through this!’

‘I’m not, am I? You’d be surprised to know—’

‘I have to go, Dad, the bath is ru

‘Courtney—’

The line went dead.

Striker felt his fingers tighten on the phone as he stood there listening to the silence. Finally, he dropped his hand and stuffed the iPhone back into his i

Amanda all over again.

He turned around and met Felicia’s stare. ‘If you want to be a part of the conversation next time, just come over.’

Felicia didn’t bite. ‘She mad at you again?’ she asked.

‘She thinks I’m the Antichrist.’

‘Well, all women think that.’

She laughed softly at her own joke; Striker did not. He examined the room and saw nothing but the sad signs of mental illness: counters covered with old dirty dishes; spoiled food on the tables; heaps of unwashed clothes in every corner; and stacks of newspapers piled up randomly all around the room. The entire place looked like it had been flooded and then drained, with everything left lying where it landed.

He crossed the room to the kitchen area and looked at the piles of papers on the countertop. They were bills for an old cell phone. And for credit cards. Letters from creditors. Job application forms coupled with received rejection forms.

Everything in the room signalled the downward spiral of depression, and no one had caught it. Striker was in the process of making a list of what he was seeing when a short, portly cop with white bushy eyebrows appeared in the doorway. His stomach hung way down low and he waddled more than walked. He took a few steps into the room and spotted Striker.

‘Shipwreck.’

Striker looked over at the man. ‘Hey, Noodles.’

Noodles. Real name: Jim Ba

That was the police way.

‘You friggin’ detectives,’ Noodles growled. ‘You’re ruining my social life.’

In the sombre setting of the room, it was all Striker could do to force a grin. ‘You need friends to have a social life, Noodles.’

‘I was sitting there with Jack Daniel’s when you called.’ He dropped his tool box and gear just inside the door. ‘Why the hell didn’t you just call Marty? He’s already on duty.’

‘This one is important to me, Noodles. I wanted the best here.’

The Ident tech raised an eyebrow and made a whatever face, but clearly liked the compliment. ‘The best, my ass,’ he said. ‘You can blow as much sunshine up my ass as you want, Shipwreck, but it don’t change nothing – you owe me one for this.’

‘Pick your poison.’

‘Jack Daniel’s. Gentleman’s blend.’

‘Done. Now get to work. Time is important.’

Noodles said nothing; he just did his own visual assessment of the scene, then opened his camera box. Striker relayed the whole experience to him, in exact detail, then guided him around the room, from the body of Mandy Gill to the kitchenette and, last of all, to the window area where the camera had been set up on the ledge.