The Drowned Girls (Angie Pallorino Book 1) Page 32

  CHAPTER 55

  Dr. Alex Strauss handed Angie tea in a cup and saucer. Outside the bay window of his late-eighteenth-century James Bay home, the Saturday afternoon rain came down in a bleak and silvery curtain. “Ceylon,” he said. “Remember those afternoons when we used to drink it?”

  Angie smiled. “It’s been a long time.” She sipped, and memories flooded back—of being in his campus office, the hours of discussion. Dr. Strauss had been first her academic advisor, then friend. He’d left the university four years back and was easing his way toward retirement while editing a psychology journal.

  “Too long to not see an old friend.” He seated himself in a wingback opposite her, sipped from his cup. Between them, a fire crackled in the hearth.

  “You’re looking good, Alex.” And Angie meant it. He might be edging into his seventies now, but he really hadn’t changed much. Being in his company was still like comfort food. For the soul. Why had she not come to visit him before now? “Still riding your bike?” she asked.

  “And you, still flattering me, I see.” His smiled faded. “Why so long?”

  “Life, the job.” She paused. “I don’t know, Alex. I got busy.”

  He considered her for a moment. She had the urge to shift in her chair, but she refused to move.

  “You never did make it clear to me why you decided to go into law enforcement,” he said. “What drove you to leave academia behind for the world of policing?”

  She moistened her lips. “You sound like my dad. I … wanted to help. To make a difference in the lives of the vulnerable. To put away those who abused and hurt them.” Her thoughts spun back to Maddocks and what he’d said about his need to care for Jack-O—why he’d taken the stray on. About needing to make a tangible difference, because sometimes—often—the job didn’t give that to you. He was a rescuer. A good guy. She didn’t deserve a guy like him—

  “Mostly putting men away—in the special victims unit, in particular,” Alex said.

  Angie pulled her thoughts back. “Sex crimes. Yeah, statistically it’s the males who are the bad guys. That’s the way life crumbles.”

  The psychologist nodded slowly, assessing her. “So, what precipitated this emergency visit, Angie? What’s troubling you?” As always, he cut right to the chase. And she’d probably already given away more of herself than she’d intended. Possibly this was why she had avoided Alex. She’d become increasingly shuttered emotionally since leaving college, since joining the force, since learning to compartmentalize her life and stay objective on brutal, disturbing cases, since embarking on a life of increasingly anonymous sex encounters. So gradual had been the inner transition that she hadn’t really noticed it happening. But she realized now, sitting with the old psychologist, that being with people like him, people who looked too deeply into her eyes and searched for the soul inside, and who saw things that others couldn’t, had begun to unnerve her.

  Carefully, she set her cup and saucer down on the small table beside her chair, and she began to tell him about her mother’s illness and subsequent hospitalization, about her own fears that similar genetically predisposed symptoms might be surfacing in her—the visual and auditory hallucinations. The little girl in pink. The strange words and foreign language. And how, when these visions presented, she felt terror on a very primal level, a desperate urge to flee, as if for her very survival. She explained how she always felt uneasy at Christmastime and when it snowed. She explained how she’d reacted when her mother sang that hymn, and finally, how she’d blacked out and attacked a colleague outside the church.

  Angie also told Alex straight-up that she was avoiding a psych eval following her experience with Hash and little Tiffy, and that she was afraid to go through any kind of official medical channels because it would leave a record, an evidence trail, of unsound mental health, which could cost Angie her job. Which was basically her world.

  “Angie,” he said gently. “I do know someone, a therapist, who comes highly recommended, and who—”

  “I don’t want official therapy, Alex. You’re not hearing me. I want your advice, as a friend, first, before I decide on an official course of action.” She fidgeted with her watch strap. “I met someone, and I … think I’m starting to care about him. He’s the one I tried to stab outside the church. It rocked me very badly, and he convinced me that I owe it to him, to my fellow officers, to seek a diagnosis, to get the facts, and if I am indeed ill, that I need to pull myself out.”

  “So there’s your conflict right there. You don’t want help, yet you’ve been driven to it because of this man. So you came to me for a kinda therapy lite—an easy answer, a way out.”

  She held his gaze, and she felt her walls slamming up. “Yeah, maybe I made a mistake. I’m sorry.” She came to her feet. “I should—”

  “I’ve seen the news, Angie. I know from the media that you are involved in those sex-murder investigations. It’s rough, that kind of thing. On anybody. It’s enough to precipitate—”

  “It’s not the case. I’m not cracking under—”

  He raised his palm. “Acknowledge it. In movies, sure, fictional cops are immune. Viewers are increasingly inured to violence. But this is real life. Real people. We’re not built to deal with an incessant onslaught of the kinds of things that you deal with in sex crimes—certainly not without continual debriefing, without proper mental health care, without early recognition of post-traumatic stress symptoms.” He paused. “That incident in July where you lost your partner, Hash, I did read about it, too. I saw the newspaper photos of you carrying that dead child, all covered in blood—the anguish on your face.” A sad smile curved his lips. “I’ve followed your career.”

  Her guilt at not having visited Alex deepened. She bent down, picked up her bag, and hooked it over her shoulder. “I really should go. You’re right. I wanted a way out.”

  “Sit, Angie. Put your things down. This might be more simple than you thought.” She looked down at him, then slowly reseated herself.

  He leaned forward. “With the caveat that this is not a therapy session, and from everything you have told me so far, and given the major stressor events in your life over the last six months—the joint impact of it all could be triggering suppressed childhood memories.”

  She sucked in a deep breath. “That’s what my friend suggested. And maybe I am recalling some things—there are some discrepancies I’ve found around the car accident in Italy that nearly took my life and that scarred my face, and I think some of those memories could be rearing their heads from a four-year-old’s perspective. But honestly, I had a pretty vanilla childhood, Alex.”

  He got up, reached for the fire poker, stoked the coals in the hearth, and added a log.

  Returning to his chair, he said, “The classic ‘possessions’ view of memory has changed. There’s a newer school of thinking that sees memories not as fixed, unchanging possessions that are stored like files in a filing cabinet and that can be retrieved, viewed, and replaced when needed,” he said. “But rather, each time that we try to recall something, we create the narrative anew. When asked to remember an event, we take those key elements from our past, and we use those elements to reconstruct our experience.” He leaned forward, held her eyes. “And sometimes, Angie, in this process of reconstructing our autobiographical narratives, we add things. Like feelings, beliefs, or even knowledge that has been acquired long after the event. We braid this new material into the narrative around the historic event, and we call this newly built story a memory.” He reached for his cup and took another sip before replacing it in its saucer.

  “And in trying to reconcile the stories of our pasts with the new demands of the present, errors, distortions can creep in. Whole false narratives can be implanted—all just part of the complex ways in which we humans try to make sense of our own existence. But—” He paused. “This process can also generate psychological dissonance if the narrative you are trying to tell yourself is greatly at odds with what really happened.
Your subconscious, Angie, might be trying very hard to tell you something.”

  “You mean in the form of a little girl in pink.”

  “With long red hair?” He smiled. “Yes, of course I do, and I think you know it. Part of that dissonance I mentioned—when memories don’t make sense with your perception of reality—the psyche can get very, very creative and illogical in its manners of avoidance.”

  He finished the last of his tea. “I’d like to try some hypnosis techniques, if you’re open to it. Nothing heavy, just relaxation exercises where I will try to walk you back a little deeper into those scenarios with the little girl, go under the conscious layer a bit. Like taking a peek under the hood of a car, so to speak, to see what kind of engine is running things down there.”

  Angie felt a fresh clutch of anxiety. She pressed her hands down firmly on the armrests of the chair. “And you can bring me out anytime, right? I won’t—”

  “Get lost in there, trapped?” He grinned. “No. It’ll be fine. I’ll give you clear cues that will resurface you, should you start showing distress at any point.”

  CHAPTER 56

  “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Chew the gum,” Maddocks said.

  It was late afternoon and already darkening. He and Holgersen were parked under leafless cherry boughs, watching the law faculty entrance on the UVic campus. Rain spattered the windows. Maddocks wondered where Ginny was right now, if she might happen across that lawn with its dead leaves. He’d decided Angie might be right. He was being overprotective. His plan going forward was to let Ginn be for a few days and then start over again with trying to be a better dad.

  Holgersen crackled his gum wrapper, fiddling to get the green chiclet out of its childproof packaging, and Maddocks wished to hell that Norton-Wells would show up. He’d about had enough of being cloistered with Holgersen after all these hours. Because they’d not wanted to tip their hands to Norton-Wells’s parents, they’d waited outside AKASHA this morning, until they got lucky and saw the little red Porsche exiting the estate. They’d followed it here.

  “He could have gone out another entrance hours ago,” Holgersen said, still crackling the packaging.

  “But his vehicle is still parked down there.”

  “Maybe he left without it, made us.”

  “Betting he didn’t,” said Maddocks.

  More crinkling of plastic sounded. Irritation spat through Maddocks.

  “Thing about sex,” Holgersen said, dropping his packet, then groping about for it on the passenger side floor. Maddocks’s hands tightened where he was resting them on the wheel—this was it, where Holgersen was going to mention seeing him and Angie kissing and almost getting it off in the parking lot. Holgersen found his gum and recommenced fiddling with the packaging. “Messes with your head. Clarity and all that. You start cutting deals with the devil.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Sex. I was saying—”

  “Okay, Holgersen, whatever it is that you’re trying to tell me, spit it out. You were outside the Pig in the dark. You saw Leo leaving—”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “I ams spitting it out. See? That’s exactly what I mean—Pallorino … oooh, now she’s a hot and dangerous one. Can’t figure her out. But you want. You touch. You get burned. One taste messes you up. You want more. You can’t get more. You end up doing deals with a Fitz-devil … and wham, you’re smacked with a boom across your face in storm winds.”

  Silence. Maddocks’s heart went whump whump whump. Angie. Even just talking about her. He was in far deeper than he thought. Heart and head and freaking body. And Holgersen had leverage.

  “What do you want, Holgersen?”

  “Don’t worry, boss. I’ms a guy who keeps my lips zipped.”

  “Yeah. Right. Like when you came to me Friday morning and spilled on Fitz.”

  “Man’s gotta have his loyalties, this is true. I happens to like Pallorino. All hard-ass and broken like. You sure I can’t smoke? I can open a window—”

  “No.”

  He fiddled again. Maddocks’s gaze dipped to Holgersen’s hands. A tool. That crackling paper. An interrogation tool. Fucking little genius. He’s interrogating me … getting under my hood to see what makes me tick …

  “Watch the damn building, would you?” Maddocks snapped. “The second you see him, we’re on him. I want to get him in front of his friends, colleagues, profs, whatever.”

  “But not meeee. I’s freeeee—” Holgersen started to sing in a soft and surprisingly good bass. “No deal with the devil for meee …”

  Jesus. Maddocks dragged his hand fast over his hair. Jayden, get out here already …

  “I’s been celibate two years, one week … five days—” The gum popped out. “Ah, got it!” He held the green tablet up triumphantly. “They needs special adult instructions on how to open these things.” He popped the gum into his mouth, checked his watch. “And six hours and twenty-seven minutes,” he said, chewing.

  Maddocks’s head spun as once more he recalibrated his sense of Kjel Holgersen. He sat quietly for a while. Minutes ticked by. “Okay,” he said finally, quietly, eyes fixed on the law faculty entrance. “So, you already did your deal with the devil. Now you’re in a twelve-step program. Sounds like an addict talking—you’re not ‘cured,’ just going minute to minute.”

  Holgersen said nothing, just started rapping his fingers on the dash, humming a tune. He stretched, cricking his neck.

  Maddocks sucked in air slowly.

  “So,” Holgersen said finally. “Why’d you call me this morning, not one of the others?”

  “Quality time, Holgersen. You and me. Thought it might be fun.”

  He snorted, then launched forward. “There! There he is!” He swung open the door and lurched into an incredibly fast stride across the lawn on his long, skinny legs. Maddocks scrambled to get out of the vehicle and rush after him.

  CHAPTER 57

  “Your arms feel heavy, your eyelids are heavy—they’re lowering. You’re sinking, sinking, warm and comfortable, deeper, deeper into your chair.”

  Angie listened to Alex’s low, calm voice, the soft crackling of the fire. He’d dimmed the lights and drawn the drapes. Her shoes were off, her phone silenced. She wasn’t so sure this was going to work. Nevertheless, she closed her eyes, focusing on his cues.

  “Your breathing is becoming more relaxed, slower, in, and out, in, out. Air is going deeper into your lungs, deeper. You feel sleep like a warm blanket around your shoulders. It’s nice. You like it, and you’re welcoming it, giving in to the soft caress of her arms as she takes you down, down, toward a comfortable place. A bed … you feel like a little child when your mother used to tuck you in after a long, happy day. She’s reading to you, but you can’t hear her words anymore because you’re feeling sleepy, so tired …” His words droned on, and Angie was lying on her back. In a dark room. On her bed. There was a sense of a presence at her bedside. Someone keeping her comfortable in the dark room. Safe place. A hand holding hers. Words. A song filtering softly up into her consciousness. A gentle lullaby. It was a woman holding her hand. She was singing that lullaby. Warmth and familiarity blossomed through her, and Angie felt herself smile.

  “What do you see?” he said gently.

  “Darkness,” she whispered. “All dark. She’s holding my hand.”

  “Who is, Angie?”

  “Safe. Looking after me. She’s singing, softly, so that the others won’t hear.”

  “What others?”

  A clang of discord shattered the words. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t see them. Just dark. She’s stopped.”

  “Okay, breathe in, and out, and relax again. She’s with you. Safe. No others now. She’s singing again. What do you hear?”

  Sweetly, ever so softly, the words came out of Angie’s mouth, the sound of a child …

  “A-a-a, a-a-a,

  “byly sobie kotki dwa …


  “A-a-a, kotki dwa,

  “szarobure, szarobure obydwa …”

  “What do those words mean, Angie? Are you aware of the meaning?”

  She hummed the tune, and it made dapples of sunshine in her mind. “There … were once two little kittens. A-a-a, a-a-, two little kittens … they were both grayish-brown. Oh, sleep, my darling. If you’d like a star from the sky, I’ll give you one. All children, even the bad ones, are already asleep, only you are not …”

  “A lullaby,” he said softly, and his voice seemed to come from so very far away, from another time and space. “It’s making you even more sleepy. You’re going to go deeper. Who is singing?”

  “She is.”

  “And who is she?”

  Light shattered the darkness like a breaking mirror. Her pulse quickened. She struggled to come up, fast. Not nice down there, not safe …

  “It’s okay, Angie, it’s fine. You’re fine. You are safe. She’s singing the song. Can you hear it again—those words, that tune? Sing some more.”

  She nodded, the warmth coming back, and she whispered, “Oh, sleep, because the moon is yawning and he will soon fall asleep. And when the morning comes, he will be really ashamed, that he fell asleep and you did not …

  “A gdy rano przyjdzie świt

  “księzycowi będzie wstyd,

  “ze on zasnąl, a nie ty …”

  She stopped, feeling confused.

  “What is she doing now?”

  “Holding my hand.”

  “What does she look like?”

  Angie started shaking her head side to side. Dark. Very dark. An image slammed her brain. “A man is in the room. On her. On top of her. He …” Tears burned. She gripped the armrests tight. “He’s grunting like a dog. He’s … like a dog on top of her. Breathing funny … not nice. Not nice!” She put her hands tight over her ears. “Go ’way. Get off! Stop it!”

  “It’s okay, let’s get out of that room for now. Go to the door. Open it. Can you do that?”