The Girl in the Moss Read online

  Angie brought Rachel’s words to mind.

  I followed the bank upriver along a promontory of land that jutted out into the Nahamish. From the point I filmed some footage looking back at the campsite. I wanted the ambience of the fire and smoke in the gathering dusk. I was there filming when I heard men screaming . . .

  There was no way Rachel could have headed upriver to get a vantage point that looked back at the campsite that evening. It wasn’t geographically possible.

  Jessie Carmanagh’s words snaked into her mind.

  It looked like she’d set up with her tripod on a rock ledge and was filming. From that ledge she’d have had a good line of sight down to the small bay where Jasmine’s rod was found, where there were signs she’d slipped.

  Angie dug into her bag, which was slung across her torso. She pulled out her notebook and double-checked the campsite coordinates from the coroner’s report. “Can you tell from your GPS device if we’re right on these coordinates?” She read them out to Claire.

  The young woman fiddled with her Garmin. “Yeah, this is it.”

  “So this is definitely the spot where Jessie Carmanagh and your father brought in the boats and set up camp for the women.” Angie turned in a slow circle, then looked up at the talus ridge. “Jessie mentioned there was a rock ledge just west of this campsite, a place where you can see down to the bay where Jasmine Gulati allegedly fell into the water.”

  “Allegedly?” Claire said.

  “Cop speak,” Angie replied. “Old habits. They die hard. There’s no definitive proof she fell into the river there. Just evidence of her rod being left there and slip marks.”

  Claire regarded her, frowned, then said, “Well that would seem like evidence to me.”

  “Do you know where that ledge is?”

  “Yes. It’s a rock shelf that can be reached via a short path down from the logging track. When the weather is good, we sometimes take guests up there for a picnic. It’s a great viewpoint. From there you can really get a good visual of the boiling mist above Plunge Falls as well as a clear line of sight down to the bay where Jasmine went fishing alone.” Claire looked at Angie and gave a half smile. “Allegedly.”

  The sun broke over the mountains as they reached the rock ledge. Angie shaded her eyes against the startling brightness. Kestrels shrieked up high. To their right clouds of condensation roiled like steam from a boiling kettle above the treacherous Plunge Falls. But it was the small bay down below that snared Angie’s interest.

  “That’s it,” Claire said, pointing. “The bay where Jasmine Gulati’s rod was found. My dad told me there were marks in the slime-covered rocks where her studded wading boots looked to have slipped.” She turned and looked uphill. “That talus ridge back there, that’s where my dad says he was gathering wood when he saw her going over the falls. There’s only one other tiny bay before the water goes over the falls. The river current circles in there before sweeping back out and plunging over the rocks.”

  Angie shot photos from the ledge. Jessie was right. This would have been a perfect spot from which to film a lone woman casting her line in the evening light below. If Rachel had panned her camera across, she’d also have captured the mist of the thundering falls.

  She wondered again how that final footage went missing and why.

  From the ledge they hiked down a little trail to the bay. At the water’s edge, slick black rocks were coated in slime and moss.

  “I wouldn’t try to go right to the edge of the bank there. It really is very slippery,” Claire said. “You need the right boots. And even so . . .” She let the thought trail off. Angie could see it—how easily someone raising their arm and flicking a rod might unbalance and slide on those rocks. Jasmine Gulati must have been very sure of herself to have ventured so close to the edge to fish alone in the first place. Or the lure of the fish had simply been too great.

  Angie looked up. She could see the rock ledge from here. She imagined Rachel upon it twenty-four years ago with her camera and tripod, her hot-pink Kinabulu toque standing out against the sky.

  Or not.

  “Would you like see the top of the falls, where Jasmine went over?” Claire said. “And where my dad climbed down? We can drive the rig to that point and then continue along the logging road around to the base, where I’ll put the boat in and ferry you across the river. Much shorter across the water than driving all the way back to the lodge then around the lake.”

  “Please. And, Claire, thank you.”

  She smiled broadly. “My pleasure. This is kinda fun.”

  Angie followed her guide back up the hiking trail to the logging road. All the while something Claire had said niggled at her brain. It bothered Angie that she couldn’t pinpoint why she had this feeling that something was off.

  I wouldn’t try to go right to the edge of the bank there. It really is very slippery. You’d need the right boots. And even so . . .

  Angie and Claire stood on a rock plateau above the booming falls, condensation wetting their faces and forming droplets on their jackets.

  Below them the smooth green waters of the Nahamish disappeared into cloud like an infinity pool.

  Angie felt anxiety rise inside her chest. It was tense, just standing here in the face of this thundering power, thinking of the unstoppable force, the terror of being sucked up in it, being pulled inexorably toward that precipice knowing you might be smashed to death before you could even drown. Helpless to do anything to save yourself. Yet utterly desperate to live.

  Claire pointed to a fern-choked cliff glistening with moisture. “My dad told us he climbed down over there after he saw her go over.”

  Angie looked to where Claire was indicating.

  “When did he tell you this?” She had to speak loudly over the boom of water.

  “The other night. After he got news that the skeleton had been identified as his client from twenty-four years ago. He was upset,” Claire said. “He needed to talk it through with me and my mom. He climbed down that cliff with no ropes, nothing. He was desperate to save her.”

  “Dangerous,” Angie said, her stomach bottoming out as she imagined herself trying to negotiate that slick rock face alongside that roaring water. Jessie Carmanagh was right. Garrison Tollet could have lost his life trying to help Jasmine Gulati. From where they stood, Angie could also see the tiny bay right before the edge of the falls. She could see the way the current was swirling through there. A massive old tree had fallen into that tiny bay, and debris was stacking up against it.

  “There’ve been fatalities here before,” Claire said. “Suspected suicides, some of them, where people drove from the city all the way out here to throw themselves into that water. It’s so strange.”

  Angie nodded. “It’s not that unusual. Someone wanting to commit suicide often doesn’t want to leave behind a mess at home for their loved ones to clean up. So they go just far enough into the wilderness. Mayne Island is one of those places,” she said. “One of the first stops along the ferry route from the populated mainland. Close yet remote enough. People often get off the boat and just go missing in the forests there.” Angie wiped her wet face as she spoke, the movement of her hand drawing Claire’s attention.

  The young woman nodded toward Angie’s hand. “That’s new, the diamond,” Claire said. “Engagement?”

  Angie forced a smile, feeling a pang of remorse over her break with Maddocks. She’d kept the ring on after the jewelry store because it was safer on her finger than on the thin chain around her neck, and she’d driven straight from the city up the island.

  “Observant,” she said, offering no further comment on the state of their relationship.

  Claire laughed. “That’s an easy one for me. A fishing guide who carefully watches people’s hands working their lines notices such things. You weren’t wearing it on your last trip. Have you set a date for the wedding?”

  April twenty-seventh. It’s a Saturday. The cherry blossoms will be out. The streets will be all pin
k and white.

  Angie felt an unbidden frisson of excitement at the thought of Ginny’s words, the thought of that dress.

  “No,” she said. “Not yet.” But by damn, she suddenly wanted to blurt out to this young woman, Yes. I’m getting married in the spring. That alone was a revelation to Angie. She really wanted this. On some very deep level, she knew this was so right. An impatience sparked through her body—she wanted to get this case over with. Get back and see him. Tell him she was certain, that she now saw a way forward with her job. Plan a future. Together. If it was still what he wanted.

  Because as she stood here at the edge of this waterfall thinking of what Ginny had told her—that she’d made a difference in people’s lives—it struck Angie between the eyes what she’d been running from. Fear of rejection, being abandoned, tossed into an angel’s cradle. Fear of not being valued. While she had in fact decided at some point over the past year that she wanted Maddocks in her life, a subterranean fear of rejection still lingered. She hadn’t fully trusted his love. In testing him, subconsciously perhaps, she’d driven him to draw his line in the sand. It was so simple, and now that she suddenly saw it so clearly, the paradigm of her world had shifted.

  “So did Maddocks get down on one knee?” Claire asked with a grin.

  The thought brought a genuine smile to Angie’s face. “He might have if he’d had a chance. He had one set of proposal plans that kinda morphed into another when Budge Hargreaves appeared on the bank yelling about a skeleton.” She hesitated then said, “He proposed that night while we camped near the moss grave and listened to hungry wolves howling in the hills. Romantic, huh?”

  Claire’s smile faded, and a seriousness entered her eyes. “I dunno. Sounds romantic to me. And kinda perfect for a homicide cop and his PI.”

  “Well, it was supposed to have been slightly more elegant, back at the lodge with a fire and wine and a warm bed and a hot tub on the deck.”

  “Either way, I’m happy for you guys. Congratulations. You two really seem suited to each other.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Really. I hope I’m as lucky one day.”

  CHAPTER 33

  It was 11:02 a.m. by the time Angie had crossed the river with Claire in the jet boat and hiked into Budge Hargreaves’s spread.

  Angie stood on the porch and banged on the door of his cabin. The log structure was nestled near the back of a clearing about a half acre in size. Barking erupted inside, presumably Tucker. But no one came to the door.

  Claire, who stood in the mud below the porch, glanced at a black pickup parked under the carport attached to the cabin. “Odd that he’s not answering,” she said. “His truck is here.”

  Angie banged louder, using the base of her fist. Still no response other than another explosion of barking from Tucker.

  Angie stepped off the porch and squelched through the mud to the carport. Her pulse quickened. The truck was a Dodge. Diesel. Covered in mud. It had extra-large wheels, silver studs. Dirt smeared the plates.

  She entered the carport, walked slowly around the Dodge. The right side had been recently dented and scraped.

  Claire looked from the truck to Angie, uneasy, which unsettled Angie further. Angie exited the carport and walked into the clearing between the cabin and several outbuildings. The sheds were in various stages of decay. She studied the ground.

  “Fresh ATV tracks, do you think?” Angie said, pointing.

  Claire came over and examined the grooves in the mud. She then turned to study the dense fringe of conifers around the property. “Maybe he went off into the woods on his quad or something.” Her attention returned to the truck. “You . . . don’t think it was him, do you?”

  “Your father said it was hunters. Plural. If it was Budge he’d run into, he’d have mentioned him by name, wouldn’t he?” Angie held Claire’s eyes.

  Something unreadable sifted into the young woman’s features. “Yeah, for sure he would have.” She didn’t sound so sure. “Besides, like I said, these pickups are a dime a dozen.”

  “His truck does have fresh damage down the side, though,” Angie said, testing Claire’s perception of her dad. She felt a resistance rise around Claire. This woman, Angie guessed, if pushed into a corner, would turn against her in order to protect her family. She needed to tread carefully.

  “Budge gets dinged up a lot. I reckon he drives after a few too many far too often.”

  “Despite a drunk driving charge all those years ago?”

  Claire’s shoulders stiffened slightly. “He has a DUI?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  Claire held her eyes. Wind rushed through the forest. Clouds had started gathering in the north again—the weather in this area as capricious as the terrain.

  “Well, it doesn’t look like he’s here.” She jerked her chin at the gathering clouds. “We should get moving before that storm blows in. Could come fast. Snow in the forecast, and we’ve still got a ways to hike to Axel’s place and then to the moss grove before we head back over the river.”

  Angie nodded. “One last check to be sure,” she said. “Why don’t you see if he might be in that shed behind his cabin? I’ll go over and check those outbuildings on the other side of his property over there.” Angie motioned to three wooden sheds near the forest fringe. She wanted to peek inside them. This place was giving her an odd vibe, her cop sixth sense raising hairs on the back of her neck.

  “Sure,” Claire said, her voice clipped. She stomped off in her boots. Angie waited for her to round the cabin, and then she made quickly for the biggest shed. She found the door slightly ajar. She stilled, her senses on red alert. Something felt . . . off.

  “Hello?” she said, knocking on the shed door. “Budge Hargreaves? Are you in there?”

  Silence.

  Angie creaked open the door. A few flies buzzed. It was dark inside, but she smelled it instantly. Blood. Warm. Fresh. Meaty. She sensed a presence.

  Wind gusted in through the door behind her. A squeaky groan came from her right. Angie swung to face the sound, heart beating fast. As her vision adjusted, she saw what had moved. A buck. It swung from a creaking meat hook. Its throat was slit and gaped raw and red. A glassy eye held hers. Angie tensed. Another gust made it move again, and the dead creature’s eye seemed to plead with her. She stepped closer. It had a small wound on the side of its neck. Not a bullet hole. The wound appeared to have been made by a sharp little blade. Arrow, she thought. Her gaze dropped to the concrete floor. Blood dripped and congealed in a puddle below the kill.

  Angie placed her palm against the flank of the animal. It was still warm. This kill was very fresh.

  She scanned the dim interior of the shed. A workbench ran the length at the back. On the bench lay a hunter’s bow and a quiver of arrows with yellow-and-white fletching. To the right of the workbench stood a stained chest freezer. A memory slammed into Angie—the freezer in the basement of serial killer Spencer Addams’s suburban home. His mother’s dismembered torso inside. She swallowed, a sinister coolness filling her.

  She began to back out of the shed.

  A sound behind her stopped her in her tracks. Angie froze as she recognized the rack of a pump action shotgun. A sick sensation leaked into her gut.

  “Hold it right there.” The voice was male, low, quiet.

  She didn’t dare move.

  “Put your hands where I can see them.”

  Slowly, she held her hands out to her sides.

  “Put them on your head, and turn around now. Nice and slow.”

  She placed her hands on her toque, turned.

  Budge Hargreaves. His frame filled the doorway. He wore khaki coveralls. Blood stained his front. A massive hunting knife was sheathed at his side. Light caught the side of his face. His features looked flushed, puffy. His eyes glowed feverish. He aimed his shotgun dead at her chest.

  “Budge,” she said, keeping her voice even. “Budge Hargreaves. I’m Angie Pallorino. Do you remember me? I was on th
e river with Sergeant James Maddocks when you found the shallow grave. You were picking mushrooms. You came down to the water and called for our help.”

  In her peripheral vision Angie noted the implements hanging on the shed wall. A shovel. An axe. A wrench. She wanted something to grab as a weapon because Budge Hargreaves did not look right. Angie edged infinitesimally sideways toward the tools.

  “Don’t. Move.”

  She stopped. “Look, it’s okay, Budge. I mean no harm. I . . . I’m here with Claire Tollet. She was our fishing guide in the boat when you found the skeleton, remember? I wanted to ask you some questions, and she brought me out here to find you.”

  Confusion chased across his face. He swayed slightly on his feet, and Angie realized he was three sheets to the wind. She could smell the drink on him from where she stood. Her fear was suddenly that Claire might arrive and spook him from behind, and he’d swing round and pull the trigger on her.

  “Claire Tollet went around the back of your cabin to look for you, Budge. She’ll be coming down here next. Can we go outside, have a word? Can you lower that gun, maybe?”

  “They said you’d come up here.” He slurred his s’s slightly. “What the fuck you wanna go digging all that old shit out again now, eh? Why you wanna talk to me?”

  Angie tried a new tactic. “That’s quite the buck you bagged there.” She jerked her head toward the animal carcass swinging on the meat hook. “You must have got it this morning?”

  He studied her, searching for the trick, then glanced at his buck.

  Angie said, “Do you hunt with arrows? That’s quite a skill.”

  Slowly, he lowered the gun. He wiped his sleeve across his sweaty brow. “You spooked me. Didn’t recognize you from the back, what with that toque on. Sorry. Jeezus, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She removed her hands from her head. “Why don’t you give me that gun, let me make it safe before Claire comes around and surprises us both?” She tried to keep her voice light as she stepped forward and held out her hand.

  To Angie’s relief, he let her take the shotgun. She immediately cracked it open, removed the shells, and set the lot on the workbench.