The Girl in the Moss Read online

  “Look at the time. I need to be in my vehicle and waiting outside the Victoria airport by 7:00 p.m., and we’re not even across the water yet,” she said. “This is Brixton’s ‘major client’ who ‘we cannot lose.’” Angie made giant air quotes. “This client is out of town for five days, and he told Brixton his wife was likely going to collect her lover at the Vic airport when Lover Boy flies in from Seattle on some business pretext. I’m supposed to tail Wifey and Lover Boy from the airport, get photographic evidence of their liaison—catch them having sex on camera if at all possible. It’s a big-deal account for Coastal Investigations. If I screw this up—”

  “You won’t. We’ll be back in time.”

  She smoothed a hand over her dampening hair. “I’m on thin ice with Brixton. If I miss this opportunity to nail this couple on camera—” She checked her watch again. “Did the lodge guys give an ETA?”

  “Angie, relax. Jock Brixton knows he’s got a good thing with you in his employ.”

  “He’s a jackass,” she snapped. “An aging ex-detective who was first demoted for insubordination, then fired for using police databases for personal reasons while driving his demotion desk.”

  Maddocks crooked a brow and angled his head.

  “What? You’re not saying what I did—” She cursed. “What I did was different, okay.”

  “You went rogue. You used your badge without authorization.” He raised both hands, palms out in self-defense. “Hey, I’m not passing judgment. Just saying it like it is. I totally understand why you did what you did. We all do. Even the MVPD brass. I’m just saying, maybe cut Brixton a little slack. He had his reasons.”

  She regarded him steadily, her temperature rising. Wind gusted, sending raindrops skittering over the river surface. “I’m sorry,” she said after a while. “I know I made mistakes. I . . . just want to be better than that—than him. I want to transcend my past, not hang out with a bunch of fat old failed cops and retired detectives.” A pause. “His is the only agency that offered me a job. I’ve just got to get through my hours there. I need those fucking hours.”

  Maddocks did her the favor of not answering. Angie plunked her butt down on a wet log and watched an eagle take flight from a towering snag. It flew up, higher, higher, where it began to drift on invisible thermals, wings outstretched, its eagle eyes scanning for tiny things below. Scavengers. Killers. Angie’s thoughts turned to the ghost fish swimming beneath the mercurial surface of the river and to the futility of beating oneself to death for a goal. Just to die.

  “One day at a time,” he said.

  “Yeah. Right.” He’d said that before. Maddocks was constantly reminding her to live in the moment, to enjoy the small pleasures. She knew she needed to hear it, but it didn’t sit easy. She inhaled deeply.

  “I can hear the rig,” Maddocks said suddenly. Angie lifted her head. She heard it, too, a distant diesel engine growling along the logging road on the far side of the river.

  Angie pulled up her hood against the increasing rain as she settled in to wait. She checked her watch again, and her mind turned back to the body in the moss.

  “Did you see the way those cops looked at each other when we spoke about Budge Hargreaves?” she said.

  Maddocks grunted. He was crouched down on the gravel, busy retying the dry bags to keep rain out.

  “Wonder how Hargreaves lost his wife?” she said. “Claire mentioned he went off the rails after her death, started drinking heavily, sold their house in town, and moved out into the remote woods. Bit of a loner, she said.”

  Maddocks peered up, his eyes catching the light as droplets formed little diamonds on his thick black hair. “What? You think Hargreaves knew those remains were there? That he wanted to reveal them to someone? Like he’s some kind of killer revisiting his crime scene?”

  “Just keeping an open mind.”

  A grin crumpled his face, and he laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You. Not being a cop. It looks just the same as you being a cop.”

  She playfully kicked some small stones at him with her boot. His hands stilled. His eyes darkened as his gaze held hers.

  Angie swallowed as a soft rush of desire filled her belly. The specter of their future rose into the silence between them. Yeah, she thought as she looked into Maddocks’s dark-blue eyes, she was going to make this work. She’d pull back from her crazy work hours a little, pace herself. Try to enjoy life and this man along the way. Because before she knew it, she could be a body in some grave, just like those bones in the grove.

  “We could buy a place, you know,” he said, standing up and dusting off his pants. “Start house hunting when we get back. Move in together.”

  Surprise washed through her. “I . . . what about your yacht? I thought you liked living at the marina.”

  He laughed. “Not big enough for two. We could keep it, though, and use the old schooner as your office, maybe.”

  “Office?”

  “Yeah. You know, when you open your new ‘boutique investigations agency.’” He made his own air quotes, a big grin on his face. “Jack-O would make a great office mascot, don’t you think? There are other small businesses at the marina. The place is set up for it, got parking. It’s close to downtown yet kinda private. Got its own cachet. It’d be a good fit, I think.”

  Speechless, she stared at her fiancé. The image of his wooden character-filled schooner and his little three-legged rescue mutt filled her mind. She could actually visualize it. Jesus, it was attractive. It was like he’d just this very minute given her a tangible picture of what her goal could look like, something she could hold in her mind while she raked muck for Jock Brixton. But before she could speak, a honk sounded from across the river, and a big red Ford truck with a trailer and jet boat in tow started backing down, trailer clattering toward the water.

  Angie and Maddocks watched as the crew—it looked like Claire Tollet and Hugh Carmanagh—worked to get the boat into the river. Behind them a third person alighted from the truck. A big male in a bright-blue jacket and red ball cap. Slung around his neck was what appeared to be camera equipment with a massive telephoto lens.

  “Fuck,” Angie whispered, shading her eyes against the rain as she squinted at the big male ambling down to the water’s edge. The man stopped, looked directly at them, and raised his lens to his face.

  “Is that what I think it is?” she said. “Media?”

  “Could be,” Maddocks said, watching.

  Angie swore again, tension rising to a boiling point in her chest. “So much for a nice remote location away from city stresses,” she snapped.

  Once the boat was in the water, Claire and the big guy climbed inside. Claire took the helm, and the craft wobbled as Hugh pushed them out into the current. The engine growled to life. Claire turned the prow to face Angie and Maddocks. The boat surged up onto a wake as it gunned toward them across the wide expanse of water.

  As the boat neared, Blue Jacket raised his camera lens again and appeared to shoot more images of Angie and Maddocks waiting with their gear on the bank.

  “Fuckit,” Angie whispered, fury riding hard in her. “That’s all I need. To be in the press again. Brixton won’t tolerate it—he just won’t. He made it clear as glass that I need to stay low-key and under the radar if I want to keep working for him. He wants his investigators incognito, to have the ability to blend in anywhere.”

  As the jet boat reached the south shore, Claire eased up on the engine, slowing the craft until it nudged gently against the shale incline of the beach. Claire tossed Maddocks a line. He caught it and pulled the boat ashore.

  Angie marched straight up to the massive guy in the blue jacket as he clambered out of the boat, sloshed through the water, and strode onto the bank.

  “What are you doing with that camera?” she demanded.

  “Hey.” He smiled and proffered a big ham of a hand. “I’m Dave Falcon. Reporter with the Port Ferris Beacon as well as a stringer for CBC. Y
ou must be Angie Pallorino.”

  She glowered at him, ignoring his hand. “How do you know who I am?”

  His smile turned hesitant. He diverted his hand to adjust the bill of his cap against the rain. “Was listening to the scanner early this morning. Heard human remains had been found in the Nahamish old growth. I called the lodge.” His gaze ticked briefly to Claire, who was helping Maddocks load the camping gear into the boat. “I know the folk up at Predator Lodge. They told me that you—Angie Pallorino—and a Detective James Maddocks of the new MVPD iMIT unit found the grave.” Dave nodded a greeting to Maddocks as he spoke. Maddocks ignored him as he loaded the last dry bag into the jet craft.

  “We did not find anything,” Angie said coolly. “A mushroom picker found something. Nothing to do with us.”

  “But you guys camped out here last night, right? Secured the scene, waited for the RCMP and the coroner.” He wiped rain from his chin. It was pummeling down hard now. “Claire said if I got up to the lodge pronto, she’d bring me over. I’m headed into the grove now to see if I can catch up with Darnell and Erick while they’re still out there.”

  “Darnell? Erick? Friends of yours?”

  “The Mounties?” He shrugged a meaty shoulder. “Sure. Small town, you know? Everyone knows everyone. We all go back, and our parents before that.” He turned to study the trees growing tight along the bank. A scraggy red ponytail hung out the back of his ball cap. “So you’re the angel’s cradle baby,” he said, regarding the forest.

  Angie’s pulse quickened. She saw Maddocks fire a hot glare at her, reminding her to tread carefully.

  “Such a cool story,” he said louder, still facing the trees. “I recognized your name instantly from all the recent media coverage.” He looked down at her. A hard glint entered his eyes. He smiled, showing sharp little canines. “I’m looking forward to reading Dr. Reinhold Grablowski’s book when it releases next month. You worked with him at the MVPD, didn’t you? On the Baptist case. Before you were terminated.”

  She bit her tongue hard, her gaze lasering his, her temper spiking red hot.

  “That forensic psychologist sure was on the ball with getting that one to press so fast.” His gaze lowered and lingered pointedly on the scar across her lips. “And the fact that it was you who found this skeleton in the moss? Already a notorious celeb? Talk about a lucky break—my editor at CBC is all over this. The Sun and Colonist want pics and a feature story, too. Been several missing persons in these parts over the decades. Those remains could be any one of—”

  “You can’t use my photo,” she said, voice tight and very quiet. “Or my name.”

  He angled his head, his eyes continuing to hold hers, unblinking. Blue eyes, Angie noted. Pale blue. He had dirt beneath his nails. The hair on the backs of his hands was red. A bracelet of tiny colored beads nestled beside his Garmin watch strap, like an African tourist trinket. Angie pinned him as a pseudo liberal, an asshole who pegged himself as a global traveler, but she’d bet her ass he’d never venture alone off established tourism tracks. A wannabe who’d missed the international journalism boat and would try to make up for it by going full bore with a story on her because she was a sitting duck.

  “I’d really like to interview both you and Detective Mad—”

  “Go fuck yourself,” she whispered.

  Something shifted in his pale, flaccid features. “I don’t need your permission, Ms. Pallorino,” he said. “Just like Dr. Grablowski didn’t need your permission to write his true crime book. Your finding that body is public record now. You are public record.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Jilly Monaghan reached for the television remote and hefted her arthritic feet onto the ottoman. She clicked on the CBC channel to wait for the nightly 10:00 p.m. news broadcast, a routine that marked the end of each day. Days that felt too long and too damn dull. Retirement was not what it was bloody cracked up to be.

  Just before the newscast was about to begin, her in-home caregiver, Gudrun Reimer, brought Jilly’s nightly tot of brandy on a tray.

  Jilly lifted the brandy snifter without taking her eyes off the television. “Thanks, Gudrun.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nope.”

  Like Swiss-German clockwork, Gudrun exited the living room at precisely 10:00 p.m. Jilly supposed that if she had to have help, Gudrun was probably the best kind for the job. Not young—midsixties. But solid in body and mind. Her five kids all grown and flown the coop, Gudrun had nothing better to do than look after some old woman who could afford the privilege. In that way Jilly and Gudrun were a team—two female seniors heading down the twilight road of their lives, Gudrun assisting Jilly with a steady hand at the elbow and a nonjudgmental reminder when Jilly forgot things. And Jilly was easing Gudrun’s golden years with a hefty paycheck each month. Functional partnership. Plus the German Frau wasn’t a half-bad chef, and Jilly liked to eat well.

  She bumped up the volume. The recap of the day’s current affairs proved boring. Possibly that was a good thing. Dull news meant things were going well. She sipped her brandy as the footage cut back to the anchor for a local segment.

  “And on Vancouver Island, a decades-old mystery has just been unearthed with the discovery of human remains buried in a shallow grave. The remains were dug up by a mushroom picker’s dog late yesterday afternoon about two hundred meters from the banks of the Nahamish River, north of the small town of Port Ferris.”

  Jilly shot bolt upright, spilling her drink. She grabbed the remote and blasted up the sound.

  “Port Ferris coroner Robin Pett has taken jurisdiction of the skeletonized remains. Once the remains have been excavated, a postmortem will be performed, and the process of identification will start. Local reporter Dave Falcon was on-site. What can you tell us, Dave?” The footage cut to a big dough-faced reporter with red hair.

  “I’m here near the grave site with Budge Hargreaves, whose dog, Tucker, discovered the bones yesterday.” Dave Falcon held his mike toward a whiskered, red-faced old man with nervous eyes. “Can you tell us what happened, Mr. Hargreaves?”

  “My dog, Tuck, dug it up. The skeleton, or rather, some of the bones. Right over there.” The camera panned to yellow crime scene tape fluttering between old-growth trees. “There’s no cell reception here, so I ran down to the river where I’d seen some boats from Predator Lodge. I yelled for help. In one of the boats was a detective from Victoria. He came on land and took charge of the scene until the local guys could get in.”

  The image cut back to Dave Falcon. “The detective in the boat was Sergeant James Maddocks of the MVPD,” he told viewers. “Sergeant Maddocks was on a fishing trip with his partner, Angie Pallorino. Pallorino is an ex-cop who recently made headlines as being both the angel’s cradle baby and the MVPD officer who shot and killed serial killer Spencer Addams, also known as the Baptist.”

  A woman’s face filled Jilly’s screen. Long red hair, pale complexion, a vicious scar across the left side of her mouth. Jilly knew how Angie Pallorino had acquired that scar. She’d watched and read everything on Pallorino. And the Nahamish? A skeleton? If a body had become skeletonized, it meant it had been in the ground for quite some time. Excitement pounded through Jilly.

  “Gudrun!” she yelled. “Gudrun! Come here, quick!”

  Gudrun burst through the door, panic on her face. “Is everything all right?”

  “Pass me that framed photo on the shelf there. Yes, that one.”

  Gudrun hurried over with a framed image of a young woman. Jilly snatched it from Gudrun and stared at the photo. The young woman gazed back at her with almond-shaped eyes so dark they were almost black. A thick fall of hair the color of ebony hung below her slender shoulders. Her smile was broad and white and alluring, as was the coquettish tilt of her head as she looked directly at the photographer. She was wearing chest-high waders, and she held a fly-fishing rod in her hand. Around the wrist of her hand that held the rod was a silver cuff bracelet. Jilly had bought it for her in Egyp
t.

  Is it you? Can it be? After all these years?

  “What is it?” Gudrun said, reaching for the remote and turning down the blaring volume.

  Jilly looked up, her eyes misting with emotion. “It’s her,” she whispered. “I know it’s her, Gudrun, it has to be. They’ve finally found her.”

  CHAPTER 8

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30

  Angie pulled into the lot and parked in front of a two-story brick-faced building. It was 8:55 a.m. She sat in her car, letting the engine run, keeping the air warm as she regarded the nondescript structure through rain-streaked windows. The sign on the glass door said COASTAL INVESTIGATIONS (CI). The building was flanked by a Howard Johnson inn on the left and a twenty-four-hour Tim Hortons restaurant on the right. The Tim Hortons was a magnet for after-hours police incidents, Angie knew from her time with the MVPD.

  She dragged her hands over her hair, tightened her ponytail, and got out of her car to face the music.

  On their way home from the Nahamish River, she and Maddocks had run into a serious logging truck accident on the highway. There’d been two deaths. Logs had spilled across all the lanes. Traffic along the Malahat pass had been stopped in both directions for over five hours while survivors had been medevaced out and police had gathered evidence. She’d called Jock Brixton to explain she wouldn’t make the airport in time. He’d instructed her to be in his office by nine the following morning. Angie expected the worst.

  She entered the building, climbed the wooden stairs to the second floor, and opened the door to the bullpen office. Most of the desks were still empty at this hour, but she found Jock Brixton’s door ajar. Angie knocked on the treated glass.

  “Enter!”

  She pushed open the door. The interior was small and warm. It smelled of coffee and sweet pastry. A Tim Hortons bag rested on Brixton’s desk. He stood silhouetted against the gray window, holding a take-out cup of coffee, watching the rain against his windowpane. The ex-cop was an inch or so shorter than Angie, but he was broad in the shoulders with a hard, protruding belly that stretched his shirts at the seams. Jock Brixton liked his drink. He liked junk food. And he liked cheap women. The irony was not lost on Angie—the adulterer who made his living trapping other adulterers was himself married. Angie kept tally. One never knew when chips might need to be called in.