The Girl in the Moss Read online

  She had family in this kid. Ginny was showing Angie that while her past behavior had scored her enemies, it had also made her friends. There were people out there who were grateful, who respected her. That meant the world to Angie. Especially now. It fed her fire to achieve that dream of opening her own PI agency. A firm that would help others find answers during rocky periods of their lives.

  Trepidation, nerves, excitement churned through her belly. “I should be furious at you, Ginn.”

  Ginny laughed a little nervously, and then her voice caught on a snare of emotion. “I know this is going to happen,” she said. “You and my father belong together. So if you want to get mad, go right ahead, but I’m going to help this happen behind the scenes.”

  The waitress, Babs, appeared at Angie’s table. “Hey, hon, got your order. One fried chicken sandwich and a side of piping-hot fries.”

  Angie shot a look at Babs. “Ginn, I gotta go. Just . . . don’t do anything you can’t take back, okay?”

  She hung up and moved her notebook aside to make room for her food.

  CHAPTER 28

  Mind and emotions spinning, Angie closed her laptop as Babs set her food down. The server’s gaze ticked immediately to the row of photographs on the table. “You want any ketchup or vinegar or hot sauce with that?”

  “No, thanks, but a coffee refill would be great.”

  “You betcha.” She hesitated, then said, “So you’re that PI, eh? I hear you’re looking into that woman’s drowning from twenty-four years ago, the one found in the shallow grave.”

  This was what Angie had been angling for—to get Babs talking of her own accord.

  “Who told you I was a private investigator?”

  She wiped her hands on her apron. “Oh, everyone knows. Right from when you checked into the motel. Town like this? Osmosis, I tell ya. That’s how information gets around.” She nodded at the photos. “What do those guys have to do with it?”

  “You know them?”

  A snort. “Who doesn’t? Those Carmanagh and Tollet males have been tight for generations. Half of ’em grown up in the woods along the river. Fishers, hunters, loggers. They know the land, those boys. Right there in that picture, you got the troublemakers. Those twins and Wallace. Feed off one another. You don’t mess with that gang.”

  “Capable of doing someone harm, you think?”

  She pulled a face and shrugged. “I dunno. Wouldn’t put it past them. There’s some whacked-out rumor that one of that bunch, or all of them, killed a kid back in high school. Now there’s no proof, mind.”

  Angie’s pulse spiked. “Serious?” she whispered. “They killed someone?” She glanced around as if to feign concern over who was listening, then leaned forward and said, “Who? What happened?”

  “Babs!” It was the guy who’d been reading the paper at the counter. “Can I get a check over here?”

  “One sec,” she said to Angie and scuttled off.

  Angie took several hungry bites of her sandwich and stuffed hot fries into her mouth as she watched Babs working the till. She was famished.

  The two old gents near the door packed up their chess set and went to the cash register as well. They paid for their coffees and waved goodbye to Babs as they exited.

  With the diner empty, Babs scuttled back.

  “Take a quick seat,” Angie said. “Tell me what happened to that schoolkid.”

  “His name was Porter Bates,” she said, sliding into the booth across from Angie. “He was a right bully. Hated gays, lesbians, blacks, the First Nations kids. Always picking on the underdog, always in trouble. He had it in for one of the Tollet boys.”

  “Which Tollet?”

  “Axel. He’s the Tollet twins’ younger brother. He was a slow learner. He’d been held back several grades, had some writing disability. Like dyslexia but to do with the actual holding of a pen and writing.”

  “Dysgraphia?”

  “It had some name like that. Porter used to call him a fag. Poor Axel. He just used to hang his head down and take it like a giant kicked puppy.”

  “Is this Axel behind the bar here?” Angie slid one of the screenshots over to Babs.

  “Yeah, that’s him. Driver for Sea-Tech Freight now. Wallace and Jessie are real good to him. Axel is how it all happened, or so the story goes.” Babs cast an eye over her shoulder to be sure they were alone. She leaned forward. “Porter Bates and his two lackeys apparently lured Axel out to this quarry north of town. It’s a real dark and spooky place. Dangerous with deep black water. Some of the older guys used to go out there to shoot targets and drink and mess about. When the Tollet kid got there, Porter and his mates jumped him and gangbanged him.”

  “What?”

  “Sodomized him.”

  A chill rippled over Angie’s skin as the horror of it sliced through her.

  “Axel had just turned thirteen, and whatever happened out there, he didn’t come back to school for the rest of that year. The story goes that Wallace Carmanagh got wind of what Porter did. So Wallace and the Tollet twins, and maybe Garrison, jumped him on a trail in the woods one day. They trussed him up like a rodeo calf and took him out to the quarry. He was never seen again. Just vanished. I used to know Porter’s sister at school, Fallon Bates—she’s Fallon Rickley now. We were in the same class. She told me Wallace and the Tollet guys drowned her brother.”

  Angie slowly lowered her sandwich to her plate. Her gaze locked with the server’s. “Was Porter Bates’s disappearance investigated by law enforcement?”

  She gave a huff. “Oh yeah, for sure. Divers went down into that quarry water and everything, but I tell ya, it’s black as pitch down there, thick with debris and metal bars and old vehicles. No one knows just how deep that water is. The muck at the bottom is, like, meters thick. They never found his body. Hank Jacobi—he was the top cop back then—he dropped it. I figure Hank had plenty enough worrisome run-ins with Porter Bates to figure sometimes justice ain’t all black and white. Sometimes there is evil, and justice is done in strange ways, and whatever happened, Porter Bates got what was due.”

  Angie stared, a cold thought unfurling in her brain as she recalled Wallace’s words.

  That Jasmine Gulati was bad news. She needed a warning. If there were banjos out there, it would’ve been to teach Gulati and her friends that you don’t come badmouthing locals, I don’t care who you are.

  “So,” she said, “Wallace and the twins wanted to teach Porter Bates a lesson, so they drowned him.”

  Babs shrugged. “No proof. Just a story.”

  Angie inhaled and calmly said, “What about Porter Bates’s two buddies? Were they questioned about what happened to Axel?”

  “They denied everything. No one pushed further. If you ask me, no one wanted to put poor Axel through more shit by making the fact he was raped public. Poor guy. Wallace and everyone, the Tollet family, they didn’t want anyone to know he was buggered. He kinda went into himself after that. As a teen he started building himself a cabin out on Tollet land on the south side of the Nahamish, not far from where Budge lives now. He moved out there not that long after. Still lives there when not staying at the Sea-Tech accommodation while on shift for Wallace.”

  Angie slid another photo toward the waitress. “Babs, do any of these guys own or play a banjo?”

  “Not a musical bone in the Tollet or Carmanagh bodies. But him”—she pointed—“Tack McWhirther. He could play like a wizard. Guitar and piano, too.”

  A bell tinkled as the diner door opened with a blast of cold sea air. A young couple entered. Babs got to her feet. “Need to go.”

  “Wait.” Angie placed her hand on the woman’s arm. “Porter’s sister, Fallon—is she still around?”

  “Yup, lives in a house off the airport road.”

  “Thanks for your help.”

  Angie chewed the rest of her food in silence as she watched Babs seat the couple and bring them menus. It stuck in her craw—if those men had indeed drowned a kid in high school
, they were capable of drowning someone again. It spoke to MO. If they’d killed a boy in the past, they were bound to one another by old secrets worth killing for again.

  After paying and thanking Barb for her meal, Angie slung her bag over her shoulder and ducked out of the diner. Salty brume off the sea swirled, making halos of light. She ran across the road and through the motel parking lot and stopped dead at the sight of her Mini Cooper.

  Angie blinked into rain running down her face, trying to process what in the hell had happened to it. The windows, all of them, front, back, and sides, had been smeared thick with greasy brown muck. Feces?

  Her back taillights had been smashed in. Pieces of red plastic glinted in the wet puddles on the pavement. Her heart started thumping. She scanned the lot, peering into the dense sea fog.

  All was quiet apart from a soft rush of waves in the distance and the sound of rain dripping. She moved to the front of her car. The headlights and front windshield had been smashed, too. A rock had been placed on the dash with something under it. Angie reached into the side pocket of her bag and took out a pair of blue crime scene gloves—cop habits died hard.

  She reached through the broken window and lifted the rock. A piece of wet paper lay folded underneath. She unfolded the paper and read the words scrawled in black capital letters.

  GO HOME BITCH BEFORE SOMEONE GETS HURT

  CHAPTER 29

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21

  Fury fired through Angie, and her hands were fisted on the wheel as she drove a new Subaru all-wheel drive model out of the auto rental lot in what passed for downtown Port Ferris.

  She’d left her damaged Mini Cooper in the motel lot and scheduled a tow company to haul it to a repair shop once the police had taken a look at it. She now aimed straight for the RCMP detachment on the hunt for Constable Darnell Jacobi.

  While waiting at the rental dealer, she’d gotten a call from the data tech at Coastal Investigations. Wallace Carmanagh had a record. Aggravated assault seventeen years ago. He’d done some time for it. The CI tech told Angie the assault occurred after a road rage incident. A female resident of a nearby First Nations reserve had cut off Wallace on the highway near Port Ferris. He’d honked and driven his truck up her rear in response. She’d flipped a bird at him and purposefully slowed, which had enraged Wallace. He’d followed the woman off the highway into a parking garage, where he’d struck her with a baseball bat taken from her car. He then took the bat to her sedan, breaking all the windows and the head- and taillights.

  This put this sick SOB Wallace Carmanagh at the top of Angie’s list for vandalizing her vehicle and leaving that threat. He was also clearly capable of violent assault on a woman. And Jasmine, a woman, had made him mad. Like the driver of that car had made him mad.

  According to the CI tech, Jim “Budge” Hargreaves also had a record. A drunk driving charge. He’d been facing additional charges for leaving the scene of a vehicle accident he’d caused while driving under the influence, but those charges had been dropped by then investigator Hank Jacobi, Darnell’s father. This was twenty-five years ago. Roughly one year before Rachel Hart had filmed Budge Hargreaves drinking in the Hook and Gaffe with then-rookie cop Darnell.

  Hank Jacobi was also the cop who’d dropped the Porter Bates case.

  Angie was not liking this nepotistic web of connections.

  Wind whipped dead leaves and debris across her windshield as she pulled into a parking bay outside the tiny police station. A Canadian flag snapped alongside a provincial flag atop the building. Adjacent to the complex was the fire station.

  Angie entered the reception area.

  No one manned the counter behind a screen of bulletproof glass. She hit a bell several times. Finally a cop in uniform came by, yellow stripes down the sides of his pants, a bullet suppression vest over a pale-gray shirt.

  “Can I speak with Constable Jacobi?” she said when he asked if he could assist her.

  “I’m Corporal LaFarge. Constable Jacobi is busy. Can I help you?”

  “I need Jacobi. Tell him Angie Pallorino is here to see him about the human remains found on the Nahamish and a related vandalism incident.”

  The young man’s face changed as he appraised her. He nodded and disappeared down a corridor.

  Seconds later Jacobi appeared. He unlocked the side door. “Ms. Pallorino. I heard you were in town in a private investigative capacity.”

  “Yeah. Osmosis.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing. My car was vandalized last night. A note with a threat was left inside. I’d like to report it for the record, and I’d like on record that I was verbally threatened by Wallace Carmanagh at his business premises yesterday evening.”

  He heaved out a sigh. “Come this way.”

  Jacobi listened to Angie and filled in the requisite paperwork. He set his pen down. “I’ll get someone around to look at your car. This is an upsetting thing for everyone,” he said, holding her gaze. “Having the past dug up like this.”

  “I imagine it must be. You’d crossed paths with Jasmine Gulati, too.” Angie took out the screenshot of Darnell Jacobi and Budge Hargreaves in the pub. She set it in front of him. He regarded it in silence. His eyes narrowed. A small vein pulsed at his temple.

  “It must have dawned on you when you responded to the call about the remains on the Nahamish that they could have belonged to Gulati.”

  “You were a cop once.” He let that hang, the past tense of it, then said, “You know as well as I the tunnel vision that comes with making assumptions about a case too early.”

  “Budge Hargreaves didn’t mention a thing about Gulati, either—he’s not a cop.” Angie was pushing buttons, primarily watching for reaction.

  “Look, I don’t know what you’re fishing for here, but I don’t like the insinuations. Gulati’s drowning was ruled accidental, and you’re heading toward harassing local residents.”

  “It was your father who saw to it that additional charges following Budge Hargreaves’s drunk driving accident were dropped.” She nodded to the picture of him and Hargreaves in the pub.

  He came to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

  “One more question. Your father also investigated a case many years back—the disappearance and possible homicide of a high school kid named Porter Bates.”

  He stilled. His mouth flattened. His eyes flickered toward the door.

  “You’d have been Bates’s age when he disappeared. At the same school, even, I imagine. Around the same age as Wallace Carmanagh and the Tollet twins, who were persons of interest in Bates’s disappearance.”

  “Look, all my father had at the time were rumors. No evidence. So, bottom line, no charges were laid.”

  “Or a blind eye was turned? Maybe justice was seen to have been served after the attack on Axel Tollet?” Angie put her photo back in her bag and stood. “I hope you question Wallace Carmanagh about the vandalism to my car and the threat. I left my car in the motel parking lot for you. A tow company will collect it later.” She gave Jacobi her vehicle registration. “I’m also aware of Wallace Carmanagh’s prior assault charges. I know he wrecked a woman’s skull and legs and her sedan with a baseball bat.” She glanced at his paperwork on the table. “I’m glad you got this all on record. Thank you for your time, Officer.”

  He reached out and opened the door for her, his face expressionless, his neck muscles tense.

  “Oh—” She paused, faced him once more. “Twenty-four years ago, Port Ferris RCMP gathered Jasmine Gulati’s belongings and handed them over to the coroner’s service. I checked the evidence list. You were the rookie cop who signed off on those belongings.”

  Silence.

  “Any idea what happened to Jasmine Gulati’s journal? It should have been with the rest of the things.”

  His face tightened further. He tilted his head toward the open doorway. “Good day, Ms. Pallorino. Thank you for coming in.”

  Jacobi followed her to the
exit. But as Angie reached the door at the reception area, he said from behind, “It might not be a bad idea to leave town.”

  She reached into her pocket and surreptitiously clicked on her recorder. Slowly she turned to face him.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say, Constable Jacobi?”

  “I said, it might not be such a bad idea for you to leave town.”

  “Is that some kind of threat, sir?”

  “All I’m saying,” he said softly, “is that there are things and people in this town I might not be able to control.”

  “Are you implying that you know of certain people who might be a danger to me if I continue my investigation of the Jasmine Gulati incident?”

  “I’m saying it might be better not to stay and find out.”

  His gaze locked with hers, and silence hung thick. He reached for the reception door, opened it, and waited for Angie to leave.

  As Angie drove away in her rental, she cast a look back at the small police station. Constable Darnell Jacobi stood silhouetted in a window, watching her car depart. He had a phone pressed to his ear.

  CHAPTER 30

  As Angie gained elevation in her rental, the logging track grew steeper, and clouds roiled in thick swaths down the mountain. Rain became mixed with sleet. When she reached the eastern shore of Lake Carmanagh at the top of the watershed, the verge on her left disappeared in a precipitous drop all the way down to the gray-green glacial water. She slowed the car as visibility worsened.

  From this point the old logging track hugged the lakeshore all the way to Predator Lodge, which had been built near the western outflow of the glacial lake. The Nahamish River grew out of that outflow, fed by tributaries from the mountains as it twisted its tortuous way down to the stormy and remote west coast of Vancouver Island.

  The road turned rutted and muddier. Old-growth cedars and hemlocks grew tall with moss-covered trunks, branches dripping with old-man’s beard. Her tires started to slip, and she felt the all-wheel drive engage. Angie was suddenly grateful to have been forced to leave her Mini Cooper behind. She was not convinced her own vehicle would have handled these conditions as well as this Subaru.