Noodles nodded in agreement.
‘What kind of ID?’ Striker asked.
‘Just the standard stuff. Driver’s licence, BCID, some bank cards, and of course, an old Saint Patrick’s Student ID Card. His primary residence is listed as Kerrisdale — Balsam Street. I’ve already sent the ID upstairs for prints and trace evidence.’
Striker thought of the gunmen. It looked like they were connected to the school in some way. Ex-students maybe. ‘You run him, Noodles?’
‘Yeah. And he’s got nothing. No history, criminal or otherwise.’
Striker frowned. ‘Completely negative? Tattoos and all?’
‘Fucking everything.’
Striker looked at White Mask’s ribs. On the left side was a series of thick white serrated scars, each about three inches in length.
‘What about those marks?’ he asked. ‘He’s got some on his inner arm too. Really odd scar formation.’
‘They look odd because he got them when he was still growing.’ Noodles looked back at the corpse, gave a shrug. ‘I dunno, Shipwreck. The guy’s a complete non-entity in the system. And by that I mean every damn database: CPIC, LEIP, PIRS and PRIME. Haven’t checked across the border yet, but I’ve done enough of your job. You can do that later.’
Striker turned silent for a moment. The fact that this kid had no police history, criminal or otherwise, was disturbing, if not unbelievable.
Noodles strapped on a pair of latex gloves. He nodded towards Felicia, who stood across the room with a pissed look still marring her pretty features, and said with a smirk, ‘What’s with my Spanish fantasy? Seems kind of sour. Or is she just picking up the better parts of your personality?’
‘The world should be so lucky.’
Noodles laughed. ‘You two at it again?’
‘Like the Inquisition.’
‘Jesus, isn’t this your first day back?’
Striker sighed. ‘Call me when you get some results.’ He wrote this latest information into his notebook. By the time he’d closed the book and stuffed it back into his pocket, Felicia had joined them.
‘Hey, Noodles,’ she said.
‘My Persian Princess.’
‘I’m Spanish, not Middle Eastern.’
Noodles shrugged as if to say, What? After that he went to work on the body. Felicia addressed Striker. There was no warmth in her voice.
‘Grid search done, Boss. No teeth found, Boss. Anything else, Boss?’
‘No, that’s all,’ he said. ‘Due diligence done.’
He turned away from Felicia and Noodles and marched steadily back across the room to the north-east corner — the one area he’d been avoiding since he’d entered this damn cafeteria. That was where the other gunman was still lying.
The shooter Laroche had deemed ‘possibly innocent’.
Black Mask.
Twenty-One
As Striker approached the body of Black Mask, he searched the floor for the machine gun. It had been an AK-47. A Kalashnikov. He was certain of that — or at least he had been — but as he scanned the area, it was nowhere to be seen. He recalled seeing it fly over the serving counter behind the hot food racks, right after he’d plugged the shooter.
But nothing was there. Just blown-apart pop cans, jars of Jell-O, and Saran-Wrapped sandwiches.
Doubt lingered in Striker’s mind, like the beginning of a migraine. He shrugged it away, pretended it didn’t exist, then spotted another round on the floor near the serving counter. It was longer than the one Felicia had found, and pointier, tapered near the front. The cartridge was grey steel, the bullet jacketed with dull copper plate.
An AK-47 round.
The find killed Striker’s doubts. The gun must have been secured by the first attending officers, he rationalised. Had to be. Sure as hell couldn’t leave a machine gun sitting around unattended. Not in a school of all places. It was a detail he would have to investigate later.
Even if a part of him didn’t want to know the answer.
The lighting above Black Mask was dim, because the overhead fluorescent lights had been shattered by the ricochet of gunshot blasts. It was fitting, if not poetic. Black Mask, out of the light, dead in the shadows.
The body was lying in the exact same position as the last gunman — on his back, hands out to the sides, face up towards the ceiling. Yellow crime scene tape formed a box around the tertiary crime scene, looking like an evil Christmas ribbon. Striker gloved up with fresh latex.
‘I’m not finished over there!’ Noodles called out.
‘You never are.’
‘Don’t fuck with it, Shipwreck!’
Striker was too deep in thought to respond. Red Mask had taken the time to de-face and de-hand the other shooter, White Mask — the one with the Quenton Wong ID in his pocket — but not this gunman. So why? It didn’t add up. Striker leaned over the body and studied it. This gunman’s physique was less muscled than the other. Thin. Not fully developed. It was not implausible that he was a teenager. A student.
Striker studied the mask of the fallen gunman. It was pitch black in colour, moulded to fit the face, with two horizontal slots for eyes.
Two bullets had struck Black Mask, one just left of the centre of his head — a perfect lethal shot — and one in the chest bone. Striker inspected the path of the first round. The fatal bullet had entered through the gunman’s left cheek, the shock of the impact shattering one third of the black hockey mask.
Striker recalled what Laroche had told Felicia: ‘The boy might have been innocent.’
Impossible, Striker thought. And yet, the words haunted him.
With gloved fingers, he reached out and gently peeled the mask up and over the gunman’s head. Dried blood had stuck the plastic to the young man’s face like a second skin, and it came off with a soft pop sound.
He was exposed.
Striker studied the face. The shooter was definitely a teenager. One he had never seen. Asian, young — maybe sixteen. Something tugged at the back of Striker’s mind.
‘Felicia,’ he called. She was standing by Noodles; the two were going over something. She stopped talking and looked over.
‘Yeah?’
‘Get Caroline.’
Felicia didn’t respond verbally. Maybe it was the tone in his voice. She nodded and left the cafeteria. When she returned with Principal Myers five minutes later, Striker saw that Caroline’s eyes were clearer now, but her face remained ghostly white. She walked across the cafeteria on wobbly legs.
‘Over here,’ Striker called.
Felicia marched along, unruffled and unconcerned; Principal Myers followed slowly, as if every step was painful. Her eyes scanned the cafeteria, stopping on every covered body that filled the room. The grief on her face was damn near palpable. Striker could tell what she was thinking:
Which ones of my kids are under those sheets?
Hardened cop or naive civilian, it was too much for anyone to assimilate.
Principal Myers came to within a foot of the crime-scene tape, where Striker was crouched, and she shivered as if cold.
‘Caroline-’
