Shadow Tag, Perdition Games

by L E Fraser

  Inserting the mention of a brother into her delusion wasn’t strange, Sam knew. Mussani never went anywhere without guards. What made no sense was Fadiya’s assertion that the brother turned out the lights and blindfolded her. Not hiding your essence behind false modesty had been a stringent rule.

  “How many brothers does he bring with him when he visits?” Sam asked.

  “There is only one,” Fadiya said with confusion. “Is that not also odd, Sister Sam?”

  Her bewilderment was understandable. Three guards had always protected Mussani, even behind the gates. A devote follower wouldn’t imagine him with only one.

  “There is something else strange,” Fadiya whispered. “The brother speaks to me.” Her eyes narrowed with disbelief. “He gives me instructions on how to please Father, and he warns me to be silent.”

  This ‘delusion’ disturbed Sam. A brother wouldn’t dare speak for Mussani, especially not a guard. Guards had been carefully chosen, their positions conferring prestige and power, and all had taken a vow of silence. The logical explanation was that someone with security clearance was impersonating a brother in order to escort the man into Fadiya’s room. They could be looking for an accomplice, as well as a rapist.

  “The brother who brings him—is it always the same one?” Sam asked.

  Fadiya nodded. “I don’t understand why he’s still in service. Mussani hears him speak. Why wasn’t there a public reckoning and banishment?”

  At the compound, ‘banishment’ had been a euphemism for murder, although only Mussani’s inner circle had known the truth. Had a guard dared to speak, Mussani would have held a punishment ceremony, where the offender would receive forty lashes minus one. After that, Mussani would privately execute him and grind the meat from the corpse to feed the dogs.

  The next question was tricky, and Sam paused to think how to phrase it. “During the, ah, ceremony, does Mussani act differently than you recall from Bueton?”

  She lowered her head. “He doesn’t say he loves me now.” Tears dripped down her cheeks and splashed onto the acrylic table. “Sometimes, he says cruel things and calls me terrible names. Sometimes he hurts me.” She lifted her skirt.

  An ugly green bruise with swirls of yellowy brown marred her smooth thigh. Based on the discolouration, Sam gauged it to be about a week old. Higher, closer to the curve of Fadiya’s hipbone, was a fresh reddish bruise. It looked like a thumbprint.

  There would be no reason for Fadiya to self-inflict the injuries to support her delusion. Mussani had prohibited battery assault during his sexual ceremonies. He hadn’t engaged in direct violence, at least not until he was bored with the woman. Whenever a woman disappeared, he held a grand event and proclaimed that God had deemed her worthy to transcend. In reality, Mussani would have tortured his victim for weeks, inflicting as much pain as possible, before discarding her corpse in a shallow grave in the woods.

  Sam didn’t know enough about Fadiya’s case to rule out self-harming, but the girl’s allegiance to the cult suggested differently. Members had considered their physical bodies to be temples for their Messiah’s enjoyment. Health and fitness were as important to them as their twisted spiritual journeys.

  “I want to transcend, Sister,” Fadiya whispered. “But Father refuses to recite the Creed. When I beg he grows angry.”

  Sam wasn’t surprised—an impostor wouldn’t know the words. Without a manifesto, cult experts had only been able to speculate on the meaning behind Bueton’s secret creed.

  She sat back in her chair, thinking. She was convinced that a rapist was imitating Mussani, and now she suspected that he had an accomplice employed by the clinic—the ‘brother’ who escorted him to Fadiya. This was all conjecture unless Fadiya identified her assailant and a DNA test proved he’d fathered her baby. Sam wasn’t sure she had the clinical qualifications to help Fadiya reach that goal.

  The girl’s indoctrination was disturbingly resilient after years outside Bueton’s gates. In every word Fadiya uttered, Sam recognized Mussani’s proselytization techniques. It would take skill to lead her into abandoning her allegiance—skill that Sam wasn’t convinced she had. On the other hand, a therapist needed specific knowledge of the rules and sacraments in order to break the cult’s hold on Fadiya’s cognitive processes. Sam was the only one left alive who understood them. Maybe she could help this poor girl, but first she needed to learn more about the impostor. She considered various strategies and remembered that Mussani’s South African accent had mesmerized many of the cult members. She was curious to see if the impostor mimicked it.

  “Is Mussani’s accent still soothing?” Sam asked.

  “His accent is gone,” Fadiya said. “Now, he has many voices and many shapes. Sometimes he’s tall and thin, other times he’s stout and fat,” she replied calmly. “It confuses me but he’s the Messiah.”

  Sam’s blood ran cold.

  Oh my God, she thought in horror. It isn’t a single assailant.

  Eli was right. They were hunting something much more sinister—the phoney brother who ushered the men to Fadiya could be a depraved sex trader, catering to a fetish market.

  Aware that her time was running out, Sam asked, “Is it okay if I visit you again?”

  “I’d like that, Sister Sam. Will you tell Mussani I miss him?”

  The door slid open and Ophelia popped her head in. “Knock, knock! Look who I brought for a visit!” She stepped aside.

  Aazar Basha and his mother stood behind the nurse in the corridor. Aazar stared at Ophelia with something akin to disgust. “My sister is not five. Nor is she blind.”

  Fadiya reached out her hands, and her brother hurried past the nurse and over to his sister’s chair. He knelt, and spoke to her in a language that Sam assumed was Farsi.

  Sam stood to greet Mrs. Basha, who handed her a decorative tin.

  “Awb e dundawn—pistachio biscuits, to thank you for helping my daughter,” Mrs. Basha said. “May we speak in private for a moment, Doctor?”

  “Just Sam, please. I haven’t got my PhD yet.”

  “A technicality,” Mrs. Basha said. “After you, please.”

  Sam led the way into the corridor and Mrs. Basha closed the door behind them, walking a few feet from Fadiya’s room.

  “How can I help you?” Sam asked.

  “I wear the traditional burka because I choose to, not because I am forced to,” Mrs. Basha stated. “My mother does not wear it, nor does she choose to wear any form of head covering. I am liberated, my husband is enlightened, and we do not condone female oppression.”

  “I apologize if I gave you the impression that I held an opinion,” Sam said.

  Mrs. Basha waved her hand dismissively. “You misunderstand. I tell you this because I watched you last time we met. I saw that the living-donor transplant upsets you. Do you believe we devalue Fadiya’s life because she is female?”

  “My concern lies in your daughter’s mental capacity to make an informed decision regarding a potentially life-threatening surgery,” Sam said.

  “As does mine,” Mrs. Basha agreed. “Fadiya loves her brother and greatly values his work. If it is Allah’s desire, Aazar will save millions of lives. Fadiya would do anything to aid him in achieving that goal. If you can help my daughter, you will learn this for yourself.”

  “Thank you for speaking with me about your concerns,” Sam said. She smiled and held up the tin. “And thank you for the cookies. They look delicious.”

  The woman nodded and walked back to her daughter’s room.

  Sam continued down the hall to the exit doors, where a security guard glanced up from a desk positioned on the other side of the glass doors. Sam held up her Temp Staff badge and he buzzed her through.

  On the other side, she asked him, “Is there always security on this floor?”

  “Nah, we don’t have the budget,” he said pleasantly. “Originally, that was the plan, though. A guard was supposed to monitor the elevator. I
’m only up here now because Dr. Beauregard ordered it.” The man grinned. “There’s a dog and pony show every time Mrs. Basha and her son are here.”

  “So the lockdown unit is typically unattended?” She wondered if that was normal practise in private hospitals.

  The guard shook his head with a laugh. “No. Staff is in and out of the unit all day. Overnight, there are two nurses on this floor, and one is assigned to lockdown. Plus, we monitor the unit and stairwell cameras from the security office twenty-four-seven.”

  “Why isn’t there a camera in Fadiya’s room?” Sam asked.

  “We only have video surveillance in at-risk rooms, for patients under suicide watch,” he said. “Dr. Beauregard strongly advocated against cameras. What he wants, he gets.”

  She’d read plenty of professional articles that argued against patient surveillance, claiming it negatively affected a therapeutic setting where developing trust was paramount to treatment. That might be Dr. Beauregard’s reasoning but it seemed counter-intuitive to Sam. Emily had said her partner was aware of Fadiya’s mysterious pregnancy. That should have been grounds to add surveillance inside the girl’s room.

  The guard stood. “The elevator on this floor requires security clearance. I’d like to stretch my legs, so I’m happy to take you.”

  She held out her hand. “I’m Sam McNamara, Dr. Armstrong’s practicum student.” Until the words had left her mouth, she hadn’t realized she’d decided to accept the internship.

  He shook her hand with another grin. “I know. I recognized you because we set up your Temp Badge. Saul Koen, head of security.”

  They walked toward the elevator and Saul chatted amicably about the clinic and the social committee that he spearheaded. When they reached the elevator, he flashed his keycard on the reader and pressed the down button.

  The alarm rang again—announcing the arrival of the elevator—and the doors slid open. Sam stepped inside and pressed her floor number. The doors remained open and the floor number didn’t light up. Confused, she hit it again. Nothing.

  “This is the only elevator that stops at this floor,” Saul explained. “You need authorization to use it.” He leaned around her, tapped his card on an inside reader and hit the button for the ground floor.

  “I’m going up to see Dr. Armstrong,” Sam said.

  “Sorry, no can do.” He pointed at her badge. “You don’t have clearance yet. When you talk with Dr. Armstrong, ask her to make that a priority. The downstairs guard will call her for you. Welcome to Serenity, Sam. Good to know you.” The doors slid closed.

  She rode down, reviewing what she’d learned about the security. Whoever was escorting men to Fadiya’s room was using the stairwell and he had security clearance to access the lockdown unit.

  They needed the missing camera footage.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Reece

  REECE WAITED AS his boss, Gretchen Dumont, reviewed the file on his investigation into the sudden-death cases. She flipped through the pages slowly. Her neutral expression gave nothing away. She was probably a hell of a poker player.

  Sitting across from her, with her large desk a barrier of authority between them, was like languishing in the principal’s office with his cocky brother. Ray had always perpetrated the mischief, but he and Reece were identical twins. The school administration was never certain which Hash brother had done the deed. Drugs, girls, petty crime—Ray had been into all of it during high school. But Reece had been the one who’d ended up disappointing their father the most, by dropping out of law school to join the provincial police. The ensuing argument had been so brutal that Reece had refused to go with his family to a wedding in Chicago. That pointless disagreement was the last time he saw them. They’d died in a car crash on the I-94 just outside Battle Creek. The transport driver that caused the accident had been drunk, but for reasons Reece still didn’t understand, Michigan authorities hadn’t laid charges in connection to his family’s deaths. As far as Reece knew, the drunk driver was still hauling cereal across the US and Canada.

  He had buried his entire family a week before his twenty-fifth birthday. The devastating grief and anger he’d suffered had ultimately fuelled his passion to defend the innocent. Every family of every victim deserved justice, regardless of the cost, and Reece was willing to put his reputation on the line to reopen the cases he suspected were homicides.

  He crossed his legs and folded his hands in his lap. It shouldn’t be taking this long for Gretchen to evaluate his findings. He’d identified anomalies in at least five cases so far. Granted, he’d based his hypothesis on conjecture, but he stood by his recommendation that the Chief Coroner and Chief of Police should reopen those cases.

  Gretchen stacked the sheets and closed the folder. “So, these are homicides. The tip is accurate.”

  “I’m positive there are more,” he said. “What can you tell me about the informant who gave you the tip?”

  She ignored his question. “Your theory is that the same perpetrator is responsible.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the only victim connection is that they were rude people,” she said incredulously.

  To her credit, she didn’t outright laugh. But her disbelief was obvious in the arch of her one eyebrow and the faint sneer on her full lips. Reece merely nodded.

  “In your opinion,” she continued, “a serial killer is targeting people across the Greater Toronto Area who exhibit discourteous behaviour.”

  Aware of how outlandish it sounded, he remained silent.

  Gretchen continued to stare at him. “Hundreds of thousands of Torontonians fit your profile.”

  Reece leaned across the desk. “I believe the killer has a specific code of conduct,” he said. “If he witnesses a random act that violates it, he stalks his potential victim using drone surveillance. If the victim continues to exhibit behaviour contradictory to the killer’s code, he executes the offender and stages the crime as a suicide or an accidental mishap.”

  “These crimes require planning, purpose, and organization to conceal them as explainable sudden deaths,” she said. “If it’s not a crime of passion or opportunity, you’re talking about a psychopath. Nothing in the kill pattern supports that conclusion. These deaths lack extreme violence or sexuality that would gratify abnormal pathology.”

  Remembering what Sam had said, Reece replied, “Police making an erroneous judgment on the cause of death could be the killer’s gratification. But I don’t think we’re dealing with a psychopath. I believe it’s a vigilante.”

  “Someone correcting a social injustice?” Gretchen asked.

  “All five of these victims were not just ill-mannered; they were bullies with skewed ideologies about society,” Reece said. “They had radical right-wing philosophies and preyed on those they viewed as possessing unfavourable traits.”

  “So, the killer sees something unpleasant and does what? Gives them a second chance and stalks them with a drone? Only two of these cases reported a drone,” Gretchen argued.

  “That we know of,” Reece countered.

  “What about Annalise Huang’s ex-boyfriend?” She rummaged through the file folder. “Robbie Cormier. Did police bother to interview him, or was that too much trouble?”

  Her negative opinion of Toronto Police Services had always bothered Reece, but as usual, he chose to ignore her insinuation. “He was with his new girlfriend at the time of the murder. He’d met her at the bar after Annalise left. There were multiple witnesses.”

  “What did you uncover about this drone? Did you identify the manufacturer? Do you know which retail outlets sell them? Have you followed up to get a list of people who bought one?” She fired the questions at him. “Have you done anything productive to support your theory? You used to be a cop.” She stated cop in a disgusted tone of voice.

  He took a deep breath. Gretchen had never been shy about sharing her opinion that officers were incompetent and lazy.

  �
�The task you assigned me was to audit police due diligence in sudden-death rulings.” Reece pointed at the closed folder on the desk. “My report recommends that those cases be reopened.”

  “Because the officers in charge are guilty of gross dereliction of responsibility.” She looked immensely satisfied by the conclusion.

  “I didn’t say that,” Reece retorted. “Different divisions handled these cases, Gretchen. There was no failure on the part of any of the investigating officers. Individually, nothing stood out as requiring further investigation.”

  “Really?” she replied mockingly. “Harold Taylor had created an investigation board, complete with photographs of a drone. Are you suggesting that not one of the first responders noticed it?” She whipped open the file and shoved the photograph he’d taken of the white board across the desk. “Death by an illegal firearm requires a detective to take a look. Are you saying a detective didn’t notice this giant white board?” she asked sarcastically. “If they had bothered to investigate the bloody drone, people would still be alive. Poor policing is responsible.” She spit out the declaration.

  Her anger was puzzling. The Crown attorney’s office and the police department worked together. They shared a collaborative mandate to protect the public. Reece couldn’t understand why she was so determined to sully Toronto Police Services’ reputation. He watched her tuck her wavy chestnut hair behind her ears and straighten her skirt across her long tanned legs. When he’d met her, Reece had considered Gretchen attractive. Not anymore. Funny how your perception of beauty changed once a woman’s ugly personality surfaced.

  “What’s really going on here?” he asked.

  “When I received the tip three months ago, I requested that the lead investigator on Ms. Huang’s suicide take a second look,” she said tersely. “Detective Martina informed me that it was indisputably a suicide.” Gretchen pointed at the file. “Which you’re disputing,” she added triumphantly.