The Drowned Girls (Angie Pallorino Book 1) Read online

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Fuck you,” she said quietly, then took another sip from her mug, eyes darting around the place.

  “Who is your leak at MVPD?”

  She gave a little laugh, said nothing.

  Angie got up to leave, then suddenly reseated herself, setting Winston off-kilter. She leaned over the table, right up close to Merry Winston’s funny little wrecked-pixie face that Holgersen said he thought was cute. “Whoever is feeding you police information, Winston, has a serious agenda. You gotta ask yourself what that agenda might be and who it’s designed to bring down. Because if this agenda is designed to hit right up at the top of the MVPD and you get caught in the middle when heads start to roll, that informant could become cornered and very, very dangerous to you. Because you know who he—or she—is, and that person could start to worry that you could compromise or leverage him. Or her.” A pause. “You’re being used. And when you’ve been all used up, you might just wind up dead, kid. A loose end tied right up in a neat little bow and dumped into the Gorge. Like Faith Hocking.”

  She blinked.

  “Enjoy your coffee.” Angie plunked some cash on the dark wood table, got to her feet, and started to walk out.

  “What do you care?” Winston called after her.

  Angie stilled—this was what she’d been building up to. She turned, came slowly back to the table, and looked down at the reporter. “What did you say?”

  “I … you’re a fucking cop. You arrest people who are no better than you are—people who are down, addicted, just trying to survive. I seen cops on the street doing shit to underage kids, buying drugs. Same fucking cops that put others away for the same fucking shit. Yet you can’t even catch a monster like this and lock him up, too busy busting kids and hookers who’re just trying to get a fix while the fucking johns go back to their wives and their cop jobs.”

  Heart banging, Angie leaned over Winston, her hands braced apart, palms flat on the table. The kid was shaking, eyes glistening, hot spots riding high onto her cheekbones and redness developing around her nose.

  Softly, Angie said, “I once spoke to a nine-year-old girl who told me that she slept with a knife under her pillow because her stepdad sometimes came in and raped her. Another time I was at a gas station when a truck pulled up, windows rolled down and the rap music turned up so loud, with lyrics all full of ‘motherfucker this’ and ‘motherfucker that.’ Two big men in muscle shirts jumped out of the truck, and what followed them into the convenience store made me want to cry.” She paused, holding Winston’s eyes, which were starting to water. “It was the cutest little girl with blond curls and a dirty dress. She was carrying her little doll, and she was trying to keep up with those big guys in their muscle shirts and tats.” Angie paused again. “She couldn’t have been any more than three years old, and all I could think about, and still think about, was what her home life must be like. What did she hear, day in and day out? What did she see? Who did she become in the end? And then, six months ago I held a dying toddler in my arms, her blood all over me. Killed by her own father, who had been raping her. Her name was Tiffany. I lost my partner that day.” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat.

  “See? I do care, Winston. I care enough to have become an officer, to have put my name in for sex crimes. I care enough to have stayed in the sex unit for six years, because I want to put away bad guys who hurt women and kids. Maybe I fail. Maybe I don’t make any fucking difference at all. But I care enough to keep trying, and if you stop me from getting this bastard, if you stop me from doing my job by giving away proprietary law enforcement information that is going to make him change his MO, you are as guilty as him when he hurts his next victim, and I will care enough to put you away for it.” She stood up and straightened her shoulders. “So don’t stop me from doing my job, understand?”

  “That a threat, Officer?”

  “No, Merry Winston,” she said softly. “It’s a promise.” She placed her card on the table and pushed it toward the reporter. “Call me when you’re ready to talk.” She turned and made for the exit.

  “Pallorino,” Winston yelled as Angie reached the door. “Don’t think you can scare me into stopping doing my job, either!”

  CHAPTER 35

  “What do you guys want now? I told you everything I could last time,” Pastor Markus said, stepping outside into the street and closing the Harbor House door firmly behind him. No access this time, thought Kjel.

  “You didn’t tell us yous had a criminal record, now did you, Gilani?” Kjel said.

  “I did my time. It’s no longer relevant.”

  “Yous was busted for driving drunk with your fly open and some minor female sucking on your cock, Gilani. You ejaculate before, during, or after you killed that mother of two young kids?”

  A weird kind of calm overcame the man’s face, and all he said was “I’d like you to leave now.”

  “Or what?” interjected Leo.

  He gave a shrug. “Or I guess you’ll get even wetter standing out here in the rain.” He turned his back on them and reached for the door handle.

  “What kind of vehicle do you drive, Gilani?”

  “I take public transit. Or bike,” he said, his back still to them.

  “Do you own or have access to a vehicle?”

  Slowly Gilani turned to face them. “If you detectives had done your homework properly, you’d have learned that not only did I do my time, I had my driver’s license pulled. I never applied for another.”

  “So they kept yous off the road, yet they let you work with minors,” Kjel said. “Soooo many vulnerable, transient young women coming through here, who, like you pointed out, won’t go to the cops when they run into trouble. You could do anything to them. Trust, you said. They trust you like a father figure, eh, Pastor? Yous promise them a bed and warmth and comfort and even lets them sit on your lap while you play Santa Claus, eh?”

  “Mine was not a sex crime, officers. Part of my restitution was to go into rehab. Part of my twelve-step rehab program brought me to God, and that in turn brought me here, to this haven, this parish, these children. I found my purpose here, and I work every day to atone for what I did, and yet, I know that as much as I ask God for forgiveness, the only peace I will ever find is to help others, selflessly, every minute of my life, repenting for my sins every second of the way. Because the moment I stop …” His voice faded for a moment as nightmares haunted his eyes. He cleared his throat. “Alcohol and subsequent loss of inhibition, bad judgment, was my problem. I was an addict. I’m not an evil person. And I’m certainly not a sex offender.” He paused and met their eyes in turn. “We all have them—coping mechanisms, addictions, ways of running from things too uncomfortable to face. One man drinks. Another buys sex in the streets. Another falls prey to crystal meth. Another runs ultra-marathons. Or climbs one mountain higher than the next. My life is now one of sobriety, and my salvation is charity work here.”

  As they left, Kjel and Leo drove in silence for a while, an odd weight hanging between them.

  “You buying it?” Leo said finally.

  “Yeah, I thinks I’m buying it,” Kjel said, smoothing his goatee. “He’s not saving them kids. He’s just trying to save himself.”

  Leo lit a smoke, and Kjel responded by opening the window to a blast of wet air.

  Exhaling a cloud of smoke, Leo said, “So what’s yours—your addiction, your coping mechanism?”

  “I’m celibate.”

  “What—why? You got some disease I should know about?”

  “Gives you control, you know? If yous can manage to master that most basic drive for sex, you can control all the other things in your life.”

  Leo stared at him. “You have gotta be kidding me? You are a fucking freak, you know that?”

  “At least I don’t go getting my cock sucked off by some tweaker in a back alley.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  Kjel gave a half shrug. “Nothin
g.”

  Leo smoked in silence for a while, then said suddenly, “Half the guys down at the station do it, you know? A blow job. Blows off some steam. Keeps all the work crap away from the missus. No harm, no foul. For Chrissakes. Don’t tell me you’ve never even thought about it.”

  CHAPTER 36

  The atmosphere crackled in the heavy silence between Maddocks and his partner as she drove them to the apartment of Jon Jacques Jr. He’d gone to interview Rick Butler solo while she’d abandoned him to confront Merry Winston against his orders as her senior partner in this duo. If one could call it a duo. They were in her Crown Vic now, because he’d managed to drop his Impala off to be detailed now that Jack-O had a sitter.

  She shut off the engine in the lot outside the luxury complex where Jacques Jr., all of twenty-two years old, lived in a penthouse suite by himself.

  “How did it go down with Butler?” she said.

  He inhaled slowly, then released the air. “I struck out. Butler knew that we’d be coming, and he was prepared. All he gave was that he and Drummond had broken up, and he claimed that he’d had nothing to do with her since. He conceded that Drummond had met Jacques Junior at the club, and that he knew Lara Pennington. He said he did not know who Amanda R. was, nor could he think of any of Drummond’s associates or friends with the initials J.R. or B.C. He said that Jacques Junior and he are not friends outside the club, and he claims to know nothing about Drummond’s high-end possessions.”

  “Faith Hocking?”

  “Claims he’s never heard the name.” Maddocks paused, looking up at the apartment block. “I have a feeling we’re going to strike out here, too.”

  Silence.

  He glanced at her—mouth tight, sexy scar, her gray eyes cool. Badass. And at this moment he wanted to lean in and kiss the shit out of her. Maybe it would relieve the frustration building inside him.

  She broke eye contact, reached for the door handle.

  “Don’t do that to me again, okay?” he said quietly.

  Slowly she met his gaze once more. “Do what? Listen to you because you rank higher? I made the right decision, Maddocks. I got to her.”

  “You got control issues, that’s what you’ve got. Dominance issues. This much was evident from the first time I met you, Angie.”

  Heat flickered into her eyes at his use of her first name, and her jaw tightened.

  “Maybe that’s fine for a good fuck,” he said, unable to stop himself now, powerless against the sexual tension and frustration that had been burning inside him since she’d left him naked with a hard-on on that bed and written her name on that piece of paper—an unspoken promise there would be more. “But not on the job. Homicide is for team players, and I need a partner who has my back and who doesn’t go off half-cocked against my advice or orders.”

  She swallowed. A small vein pulsed near her temple. “Maybe,” she said, very quietly, “I don’t want you as a partner. Not if you’re going to keep bringing up that we had sex—”

  “It’s not just sex, dammit. It’s Russian roulette, going to that club and picking up strangers like that.”

  “So now you’re my guardian? So it’s fine for a guy? It’s fine for you to go to the club and let an anonymous woman with a knife in her pocket cuff you naked to a bed and have her way with you? Are you going to keep raising this every time your male ego gets bruised?”

  Blood beat hot and fast through his veins, and he told himself to stop. Right now. All he had to do was go back to the station and put in for a new partner. It could kill her goal of getting into homicide, but he owed her nothing. He didn’t know why he should even be concerned about her apparent desire for self-sabotage. But he was like a fireball rolling downhill through a tinder-dry forest and just gathering speed and flame as he went.

  “You want to make homicide, right? You know that I’m supposed to evaluate you while you’re temporarily partnered with me?”

  She blinked.

  “Well, you’re not going to get it this way, Angie. This is not just about the club. It’s about character, and being a team player, and having a partner you can trust will not get you killed. And I owe it to my fellow officers to tell them the truth if I judge you to be a risk.”

  “You’re threatening to sabotage me?”

  “I think you’re going to do that all by yourself.”

  She swore viciously. “So your ego gets bruised and you resort to revenge?”

  “Listen to yourself. You already had an incident where you lost a partner. If I were you, if I wanted a promotion, I’d be kissing ass right now, not self-destructing.”

  She glowered at him. Electricity burned between them. And be damned if all he wanted to do was grab her and fuck her right here in this car.

  “I’m not a baby, Maddocks. I don’t need you to care for me.” She flung open the door, got out, slammed it shut, and marched for the apartment complex entrance.

  He cursed, exited the vehicle, and stalked after her. She broke into a run as an older male approached the complex doors and used an electronic fob to open them. The man entered, and the door began to swing shut behind him, but she caught up and slapped her hand on the open door. She showed the man her badge. The man shrugged and gave her access. She entered, allowing the door to almost swing shut and lock in Maddocks’s face. He shoved through, caught up to her at the elevator.

  Both breathing hard, avoiding eye contact, they rode up to the penthouse in fiery silence. Just before they reached the top floor, he said quietly, “Don’t try me again, Pallorino. I’m not someone you want to cross.”

  Her gaze sparked to his. And he saw in her eyes, in her features, that she regretted her own impulsivity, her own quick flare to aggression. He regretted his own words, too. There was no textbook for this.

  The elevator doors opened, and they both hesitated. He let her go first, and they made their way down the hall to the penthouse of Jon Jacques Jr., her leading the way.

  Pallorino knocked on the door, her spine erect and her shoulders squared, her game face back on.

  The door opened, revealing a young man of average height, blond hair fashionably cut around a boyish face. He wore a bathrobe and stood barefoot on the wood floor.

  “Jon Jacques?” Pallorino said.

  “Who are you?”

  “Detectives Pallorino and Maddocks, MVPD homicide,” she said, holding out her badge. Maddocks offered his. “Can we have a moment of your time?”

  Jacques made a laborious show of carefully checking both their IDs. Behind him hardwood floors gleamed toward an expanse of windows that looked out over the city. His living room furniture was white. Music played inside. “What is it, J.J.?” came a female voice.

  “Nothing, babe,” he called over his shoulder. “Stay hot for me. I’ll be right back.” He returned their badges to them. “How did you get into the building without buzzing me first?”

  “We understand you knew Gracie Marie Drummond,” she said.

  “Gracie? Yeah, from the tennis club, yeah.” His body posture changed slightly, and his hand went to the doorknob, as if blocking entry.

  “We’re sorry for your loss.”

  A beat of silence. “I hardly knew her.”

  “Can we come in?” Maddocks said.

  “No.”

  “You drive a black Bimmer,” he said. It was not a question—he’d already checked. A BMW Z4 E89 Slingshot was registered to this punk.

  “So what if I do?”

  “You dated Drummond,” Pallorino said. “That’s a little more intimate than ‘hardly knew her.’”

  “Look, I have company right now, and I really don’t like your questions, and I really don’t have to answer them. My father told me that you cops had bugged him about someone else yesterday and that you might come around. He’s put a lawyer at my disposal, and—”

  “And your father just made a leap of logic that because cops asked him questions about ‘someone else’ that we’d come here and ask you about Gracie Drummond?”
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  He gave a laugh, but his eyes showed nerves. J.J. Jr. clearly was not the sharpest tool in the shed.

  “Not at all. My father has just learned from experience that when you guys go on a fishing expedition, or on one of your witch hunts, that you attack his family from all angles—this is harassment, so unless you’re going to charge me with some trumped-up thing, I have nothing to say.” He began to shut the door.

  Maddocks put his foot in the way. “Next time,” he said, “we do this down at the station.”

  “Obnoxious little fuckhead,” said Maddocks as they drove off, his partner at the wheel.

  “Jacques, Pennington, Butler, that pastor Gilani from what Holgersen and Leo say—it’s like there’s a conspiracy of silence,” Pallorino said.

  “Except for the media and Merry Winston and her loose-lipped informant.” He hesitated. “What did happen with her this morning?”

  She cast him a sideways glance. “I told her to back off, and I asked her who her other rape cases were and who the leak was.”

  “She give anything?”

  “No.”

  “No surprise there. What did you mean when you said you ‘got to her’?”

  Pallorino took a deep, slow breath, and he could see her hands tightening around the wheel. “I told her that I cared. About Fernyhough and Ritter. About justice for Drummond and Hocking. That I cared about protecting vulnerable young women and kids, and that’s why I did this job. I told her that her reports using confidential information could put other young women in jeopardy.” She paused, moistening her lips, and Maddocks got the sense she’d opened the window, just a crack, and he was getting a glimpse of the real Angie Pallorino inside. “But although she told me nothing concrete, I know I got through to her. And I did get something else, a feeling she’s damaged goods. She’s been in a bad place, and we need to look into her background, because the more we know about her, the closer we’ll get to her informer. I’m sure of it. I’m going to have her run through the system.”