REX STRIKER. Book Two: A Dead Man’s Alibi

Chapter One: The Man Who Died Twice

London, Ontario — October 15

The trouble with dead men is that they have a nasty habit of staying dead.

Usually.

I was about to discover that London, Ontario, had an exception to the rule.

My name is Rex Striker. I’m forty-two years old, a senior crime investigator with the London Police Service, and I’ve spent enough years looking into the darker corners of human nature to know that the truth rarely walks through the front door. It prefers a back alley, a locked room, or a telephone call at three in the morning.

That Thursday, it came through my office door wearing a cheap raincoat and the expression of a man who’d seen a ghost.

My partner, Chuck Bartlett, stood behind him, holding two coffees and looking like he’d misplaced his last remaining reason for optimism.

“You’re going to want to hear this, Rex,” Chuck said.

I leaned back in my chair.

“That depends. Is it good news, bad news, or another complaint about the parking situation?”

“Somebody’s dead.”

I glanced at the stranger.

“That’s usually bad news.”

“Not for this particular somebody,” Chuck replied. “He’s already been dead for eleven years.”

I stopped smiling.

Outside my office window, the grey October sky hung over London like an old wool blanket. Rain swept across the city, turning the streets slick and the headlights into long white smears. Beyond the buildings, the Thames River valley lay beneath the low clouds. London had a way of looking respectable in the rain. The old brick buildings, the university grounds, the churches, and the busy downtown streets all seemed to suggest that whatever sins the city possessed, they had been washed away overnight.

I knew better.

Every city has two faces. One it shows the tourists, the neighbours, and the people walking their dogs. The other it reserves for the people who know where the bodies are buried.

Sometimes, as I was learning, the bodies weren’t where anybody thought they were.

“Sit down,” I told the stranger.

He remained standing.

“My name is Daniel Mercer,” he said. “I’m a solicitor.”

“That explains the raincoat. Lawyers have an allergy to sunshine.”

Chuck placed one coffee on my desk.

“Don’t encourage him, Daniel. He thinks he’s funny.”

“I am funny.”

“You are something,” Chuck said.

I ignored him and looked at Mercer.

“Tell me about the dead man.”

Mercer reached into his coat and produced a photograph. He laid it on my desk with the careful precision of someone handling evidence that might explode.

The picture showed a man in his late fifties, with thinning silver hair, a narrow face, and eyes that seemed to look straight through the camera.

I recognized him immediately.

Not because I’d known him personally. I hadn’t.

But I’d seen his face in police files, newspaper photographs, and a murder investigation that had once shaken London to its foundations.

“Arthur Vale,” I said.

Mercer nodded.

“Arthur Vale died on October 14, 2015. His car went over the embankment near the old railway bridge outside the city. The vehicle caught fire. The coroner identified the remains through dental records.”

“I remember the case.”

“Then you remember that the police concluded it was an accident.”

“I remember that the police concluded a lot of things.”

Chuck pulled up a chair.

“Vale was a property developer,” he said. “He had his fingers in half the redevelopment projects in the city. He also had a talent for making enemies.”

“That talent was considerable,” Mercer replied.

I studied the photograph.

Arthur Vale had been investigated for financial irregularities, suspicious land transactions, and possible links to a group of businessmen who seemed to make money regardless of which way the political wind blew. Nobody had ever convicted him of anything serious. His death had ended several investigations almost overnight.

And now his solicitor was sitting in my office, telling me the man had come back from the grave.

“Where is he?” I asked.

Mercer swallowed.

“At my office.”

“Alive?”

“As far as I know.”

“That’s encouraging.”

“No,” Mercer said. “You don’t understand. He’s been dead for eleven years. And last night, he walked into my office and told me he wanted to confess to a murder.”

I put the photograph down.

“Whose murder?”

Mercer looked at Chuck, then at me.

“Detective Inspector Paul Hensley.”

The room seemed to grow colder.

Paul Hensley had been a London police detective. Twenty years in the service. A good investigator, by most accounts. He had disappeared in 2015, several weeks before Vale’s supposed death.

His car had been found near the river. No body. No definitive explanation. Eventually, the case had gone cold.

If Arthur Vale was alive, and if he knew what had happened to Hensley, then we weren’t dealing with an ordinary murder investigation.

We were dealing with a decade-old lie that might have swallowed an entire police career.

“Why didn’t you call this in?” I asked Mercer.

“I did.”

“When?”

“At six this morning.”

“And?”

“The officer who answered told me to contact the coroner.”

Chuck gave a low whistle.

“That’s a creative response.”

“I then called my senior partner,” Mercer continued. “He told me to keep quiet until he could speak to Mr. Vale privately.”

“Your senior partner sounds like a man who enjoys making poor decisions.”

“He disappeared two hours ago.”

I looked at the clock.

Nine seventeen.

“Where’s your office?”

“On Richmond Street.”

“Did you leave Vale alone?”

“No.”

“Did he leave?”

Mercer hesitated.

“That’s the problem.”

I stood.

“He’s gone, isn’t he?”

Mercer nodded.

I reached for my jacket.

“Chuck, get the car.”

Chuck drained his coffee.

“I knew retirement was overrated.”

“You’ve never retired.”

“I’ve been considering it for years.”

“Consider it on the way.”

He headed for the door.

I turned back to Mercer.

“One more question. How did you know Vale?”

Mercer looked down at the photograph.

“I handled his estate.”

“After his death?”

“Yes.”

“Then you should have a death certificate.”

“I do.”

“An autopsy report?”

“Yes.”

“Funeral records?”

“Yes.”

“Eleven years of paperwork proving he was dead?”

Mercer raised his eyes.

“Detective Striker, I have enough paperwork to bury him twice.”

I slipped the photograph into my pocket.

“Then let’s find out who’s been collecting the rent.”

The rain had turned Richmond Street into a grey river.

Chuck drove. I watched the city pass through the passenger window, looking for things that didn’t belong. A black SUV sitting too long at an intersection. A man under an awning who wasn’t looking at his phone. A car that made three consecutive turns behind us.

Paranoia is a useful quality in a homicide investigator. The trick is knowing when to put it away.

I wasn’t putting mine away today.

“Eleven years,” Chuck said.

“That’s a long time.”

“Long enough to change your driver’s licence photograph.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that if Arthur Vale is alive, somebody has been helping him stay that way.”

“Or somebody wants us to believe he is.”

Chuck glanced at me.

“You think it’s an impostor?”

“I think a man doesn’t fake his death, disappear for eleven years, and suddenly stroll into his solicitor’s office to confess to killing a police detective without a reason.”

“Maybe guilt finally caught up with him.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“I believe guilt is usually quieter than this.”

We passed the busy shops and restaurants along Richmond Street. London was waking up around us. People hurried beneath umbrellas, delivery trucks occupied loading zones, and a cyclist swore at a driver who had forgotten that red lights applied to everybody.

Ordinary life.

I sometimes envied people who could experience it without wondering whether the fellow in the next car had a murder weapon in his glove compartment.

“Did you ever work with Hensley?” Chuck asked.

“Not directly. I was transferred into major crime shortly before he disappeared.”

“Good reputation?”

“Mixed.”

“That’s police talk for something.”

“Hensley was ambitious. He believed the department had people who were taking money from developers. He thought Vale was at the centre of it.”

“And then Hensley disappeared, Vale died, and everybody went home.”

“Not everybody. Someone had to write the reports.”

Chuck turned onto a side street.

“Tell me something, Rex. If Vale really is alive, why confess now?”

I watched a pedestrian struggle with an umbrella that had turned inside out.

“Maybe he thinks someone is coming for him.”

“Who?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

We reached the solicitor’s building at nine thirty-two.

It stood between a financial services office and a restaurant that advertised breakfast all day. The building was a narrow four-storey structure of red brick and pale stone, old enough to have character and renovated enough to charge ridiculous rent.

Mercer hurried ahead of us.

“Third floor,” he said. “Suite 304.”

The elevator smelled of damp wool and disinfectant. Chuck studied the numbers above the door.

“If this turns out to be a dead man with a convincing costume, I’m going to be very disappointed.”

“You’ll survive.”

“At my age, disappointment is a serious medical condition.”

The elevator doors opened.

The hallway was empty.

Suite 304 stood at the end. A brass plaque beside the door read MERCER, HOLT & ASSOCIATES.

Mercer unlocked it.

The reception area was neat, modern, and completely deserted.

A receptionist’s desk stood beneath a framed photograph of the London courthouse. Beyond it, glass partitions divided the offices. The lights were on, but the place felt abandoned.

“Where was Vale sitting?” I asked.

“Inside my office.”

“Show me.”

Mercer led us down a corridor.

His office contained a large desk, two leather chairs, filing cabinets, and a window overlooking the street. A half-empty glass of water stood beside a leather folder.

A chair had been pushed back from the desk.

On the carpet lay a single grey hair.

Chuck crouched beside it.

“Could be his.”

“Could be yours,” I said.

“Mine is distinguished silver. That looks like cheap grey.”

I examined the desk.

The folder contained copies of property deeds, financial statements, and a list of numbered corporations. Someone had drawn red circles around several entries.

Mercer watched me.

“He brought those documents with him.”

“Did he explain them?”

“He said they proved Hensley’s murder had been arranged by people who still held positions of influence.”

“Names?”

“He refused to give them to me.”

“Why?”

“He said he didn’t know whom he could trust.”

I looked at the glass of water.

“Did he drink from this?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t touch anything else.”

I called our forensic team and requested an immediate examination of the office. Then I walked to the window.

The street below looked ordinary.

A delivery van pulled away from the curb. A woman carried a paper bag into the restaurant. A man in a dark coat stood beneath a nearby awning.

He wasn’t using a phone.

He wasn’t smoking.

He was looking directly at the building.

I turned away from the window and counted to five.

When I looked again, the man was gone.

“Chuck.”

My partner joined me.

“What?”

“Someone was watching the building.”

“Who?”

“That’s the question.”

He peered through the glass.

“You want me to go after him?”

“No. I want you to look at the entrance and tell me whether anyone leaves.”

Chuck took up a position near the corridor.

I examined the documents again.

One company appeared repeatedly: Blackthorn Development Group.

The name meant nothing to me at first. Then I remembered an old investigation into a redevelopment project near the western edge of downtown. The project had involved disputed property purchases, missing financial records, and a city official who had resigned abruptly after a newspaper began asking questions.

Blackthorn had been one of the companies involved.

The project had eventually collapsed.

Millions of dollars had vanished into a maze of holding companies, consultants, and offshore accounts. No criminal charges had followed.

The old files had been closed.

I hated closed files.

They were like locked cupboards. People assumed that if the door stayed shut long enough, whatever was inside would stop smelling.

“Mercer,” I said, “who owned Blackthorn?”

“Arthur Vale had an interest in it.”

“Who else?”

“I don’t know.”

“Try harder.”

He rubbed his forehead.

“Vale mentioned a man named Elias Crowe. He said Crowe handled the money.”

That name landed like a stone in a still pond.

Elias Crowe had been a respected financier and property investor. He had also been questioned during the old corruption investigation. Nothing had ever stuck to him. He had given interviews about civic responsibility, donated money to cultural institutions, and served on several charitable boards.

He was the kind of man whose photograph appeared beside smiling politicians.

He was also the kind of man who could make a problem disappear without ever touching it himself.

“Is Crowe still alive?” Chuck asked from the doorway.

“Very much so,” Mercer said. “He gave a speech at a charity dinner last week.”

Chuck looked at me.

“Well, that’s convenient.”

“Nothing about this is convenient.”

I turned another page.

Someone had written a date in the margin.

October 15, 2015.

The day after Arthur Vale’s supposed death.

Beneath it were three words:

THE ORIGINAL AGREEMENT.

I felt the old instinct awaken. It began as a tightening behind the ribs, a quiet warning that the pieces were forming a picture I hadn’t yet learned to recognize.

“Where’s the original agreement?” I asked.

Mercer shook his head.

“He didn’t tell me.”

“Then why write it down?”

“He said that if anything happened to him, I should give the documents to the police.”

I looked at the lawyer.

“Did he tell you what would happen if nothing happened to him?”

“No.”

“Did he say why he trusted you?”

Mercer went pale.

“He said I was the only person left who could help him.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” Mercer whispered. “It isn’t.”

I studied his face.

He was frightened, but fear came in different varieties. Some men feared the consequences of what they’d done. Others feared what somebody else might do to them.

Mercer looked like a man who had discovered that the past was still alive and knew his address.

“Did you know Paul Hensley?” I asked.

He hesitated.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Professionally.”

“That’s vague.”

“He came to see me several times in 2015. He wanted information about property transfers involving my clients.”

“Did you give him any?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Confidentiality.”

“Did he tell you he was investigating Vale?”

“Yes.”

“And you said nothing about this when Vale came to you last night?”

Mercer looked away.

“I was afraid.”

“Of Vale?”

“Of what he represented.”

I stepped closer to the desk.

“Start talking, Mr. Mercer. Fear is understandable. Keeping secrets from a homicide investigator is less useful.”

He took a long breath.

“Paul Hensley told me that the Blackthorn transactions were part of a much larger arrangement. He believed that money had been diverted from public contracts into private accounts. He said the arrangement involved people in business, politics, and law enforcement.”

“Names?”

“He gave me one.”

“Who?”

Mercer stared at the floor.

“Chief Inspector Malcolm Reeves.”

Chuck straightened.

Reeves had retired years earlier. He’d been a senior officer during the time Hensley disappeared, a man known for discipline, polished shoes, and a remarkable ability to make inconvenient investigations lose momentum.

He’d also attended Arthur Vale’s funeral.

“Are you certain?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“How did Hensley know?”

“He said he had a recording.”

“What recording?”

“I don’t know. He never showed it to me.”

“Where is it now?”

“I don’t know.”

I looked again at the date on the documents.

October 15, 2015.

Exactly eleven years ago today.

Someone had chosen this date deliberately.

“Chuck, I want Reeves located. Quietly. No calls to his old colleagues, no messages through department channels until we know who’s clean.”

Chuck nodded.

“And get me everything we have on Blackthorn, Vale, Hensley, and Crowe. The original files, not just the summaries.”

“That’ll take a while.”

“Then start now.”

He headed toward the door.

Mercer’s telephone rang.

All three of us looked at it.

The sound seemed unnaturally loud in the empty office.

Mercer stared at the screen.

“I don’t recognize the number.”

“Answer it,” I said. “Put it on speaker.”

He hesitated.

I nodded toward the phone.

He accepted the call.

“Hello?”

For several seconds, there was only static.

Then a man’s voice came through.

Low. Calm. Almost amused.

“Mr. Mercer. Have you given Detective Striker the papers?”

Mercer looked at me.

“Who is this?”

“That’s not important.”

“It is to me.”

“Then let me make it important. You have until noon to return the documents to the place where you found them.”

I leaned toward the phone.

“This is Detective Rex Striker. Identify yourself.”

A short laugh.

“Still playing the hero, Striker?”

My hand tightened around the edge of the desk.

The caller knew my name.

That wasn’t surprising by itself. My name appeared in newspaper articles, court records, and the occasional public statement. But the way he said it suggested familiarity.

He sounded as if he’d been waiting for me.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Someone who knows how this story ends.”

“Then save me the trouble. Tell me.”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

The call disconnected.

Mercer looked as if he’d forgotten how to breathe.

Chuck returned from the corridor.

“What happened?”

I told him.

He studied the telephone.

“Can we trace it?”

“We’ll have communications specialists examine the available records. Don’t assume the number identifies the caller.”

I picked up the leather folder and carefully closed it.

“One thing is certain,” I said. “Someone knows we’ve got these papers.”

“Which means someone was watching the office,” Chuck replied.

“And someone wants the documents back.”

“Perhaps we should give them to him.”

I gave Chuck a long look.

“That’s why you’re my partner. You keep me humble.”

“Somebody has to.”

I turned to Mercer.

“Did Vale leave anything else? A message, a key, an envelope?”

Mercer shook his head.

“Nothing.”

I looked at the empty chair.

Arthur Vale had entered this office claiming to be a dead man. He’d confessed to the murder of a missing detective, delivered evidence of an old financial conspiracy, and vanished before anyone could ask him the questions that mattered.

It was either the most elaborate confession I’d ever encountered or a trap designed specifically for people like me.

I preferred traps. At least they admitted there was something dangerous waiting at the other end.

My phone vibrated.

A message had arrived from an unknown number.

There was no greeting. No explanation.

Just a photograph.

I opened it.

The image showed a man standing in front of a brick wall, his face turned slightly toward the camera. His silver hair was longer than in the photograph Mercer had shown me. He wore a dark coat and held a folded newspaper beneath one arm.

Arthur Vale.

Alive.

Beneath the image were six words.

ASK CHUCK WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT.

I read the message twice.

Then I looked at my partner.

Chuck had gone very still.

The colour had drained from his face.

“What night?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

“Chuck.”

He stared at the photograph.

For the first time since I’d known him, my partner looked less like a veteran detective and more like a man standing at the edge of a grave he’d spent eleven years trying not to visit.

“Tell me,” I said.

Chuck slowly lowered himself into the chair beside the desk.

“It was October 14, 2015,” he said. “The night Arthur Vale supposedly died.”

I waited.

Chuck rubbed his hands together.

“I wasn’t your partner then. I was working another unit. Hensley called me that evening. He said he had something important to tell me, something that couldn’t go through official channels.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to meet at an old warehouse near the railway line.”

“The same area where Vale’s car went over the embankment?”

Chuck nodded.

“Did you go?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see Hensley?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see Vale?”

Chuck looked at me.

“I saw both of them.”

The office seemed to shrink around us.

“What happened?”

Chuck’s voice dropped.

“Hensley told me he had proof that senior officers were protecting a criminal network. He said he was going to expose everything the following morning. Vale was supposed to be his witness.”

“And?”

“Vale never showed up.”

“Mercer says he did.”

“Then somebody’s lying.”

“Keep going.”

Chuck swallowed.

“I heard a car engine. Then I saw headlights moving toward the railway embankment. Hensley ran outside. I followed him, but by the time I reached the road, the car had gone over.”

“Did you see who was driving?”

“No.”

“Did you find Hensley?”

“No.”

“Did you report the meeting?”

Chuck’s silence answered before he did.

“No.”

I stared at him.

“You concealed a meeting with a missing police detective?”

“I know how it sounds.”

“Then explain how it sounds different from what it is.”

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

“Hensley told me he suspected people inside the department. He said that if anything happened to him, I had to stay away from the investigation until I knew whom I could trust. He was convinced somebody had access to police records and surveillance schedules.”

“So you kept quiet.”

“Yes.”

“For eleven years.”

“Yes.”

“Why tell me now?”

Chuck looked at the photograph again.

“Because Hensley gave me something that night.”

My pulse quickened.

“What?”

“A key.”

“Where is it?”

“I still have it.”

“Where?”

He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small envelope. It was old, yellowed at the edges, and sealed with a strip of transparent tape.

“I kept it in a locked drawer,” he said. “I never knew what it opened. I tried to find out, but Hensley disappeared, and then Vale supposedly died. I didn’t know what to do with it.”

I took the envelope.

Inside lay a small brass key with a number stamped into its head.

There was also a slip of paper.

Three lines had been written in block capitals.

UNION STATION.

LOCKER 317.

IF VALE IS DEAD, TRUST NO ONE.

I looked at Chuck.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this when we started working together?”

“Because I made a promise to a dead man.”

“Apparently, you made it to the wrong dead man.”

Chuck didn’t smile.

I pocketed the key.

Outside, the rain had stopped. A thin break in the clouds allowed a pale shaft of sunlight to fall across the street.

For a moment, London looked almost innocent.

Then my phone vibrated again.

Another message.

This time, there was no photograph.

Only a sentence.

YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT TO FIND THE ORIGINAL AGREEMENT. AFTER THAT, CHUCK BARTLETT DIES NEXT.

I read it aloud.

Chuck stared at the screen.

Neither of us spoke for several seconds.

Then he stood, straightened his jacket, and gave me the crooked smile I’d seen him wear in courtrooms, crime scenes, and hospital waiting rooms.

“Well, partner,” he said, “looks like somebody doesn’t want us to get bored.”

I slipped the phone into my pocket.

“Get used to disappointment, Chuck.”

We headed for the door.

I had a dead man to find, a missing detective to account for, a former police chief to question, and an original agreement that might explain why an entire criminal network had survived for eleven years.

And now someone had put a price on my partner’s life.

The clock was running.

I intended to find out who had started it.

And I intended to make damn sure I was there when it stopped.

Preview of Chapter Two: Locker 317

Union Station holds a secret that someone has spent eleven years protecting. Rex and Chuck arrive expecting to find an old document. Instead, they discover evidence that could destroy careers, expose a conspiracy, and rewrite the official account of Arthur Vale’s death.

But the locker contains something neither detective expected: a photograph of Rex Striker taken on the night Paul Hensley disappeared.

Rex wasn’t supposed to be there.

He knows it.

Chuck knows it.

And the man watching them from across the station knows it, too.

When the first shot shatters the station’s quiet, the investigation becomes a race against the clock. Rex must decide whether he can trust the partner who has concealed a crucial secret for eleven years—or whether Chuck has been protecting him from a truth that could destroy them both.

Because Arthur Vale isn’t the only man who has been living under a dead man’s name.

And somebody in London is preparing to collect on an old promise.