The Lullaby Girl (Angie Pallorino Book 2)

by Loreth Anne White

  “Dammit, James—” His ex’s voice came through his phone, strident. “You spaced Ginny’s appointment again.”

  Maddocks stopped dead in his tracks, checked his watch. Already 6:17 p.m. Shitshit. Ahead of him Holgersen came to a halt and crooked up his brow in question.

  Maddocks waved him ahead, indicating that he needed a minute. As Holgersen slouched off with his peculiar lope, Maddocks stepped aside into a hospital waiting area that was vacant.

  “Listen, Sabrina, I—”

  “Don’t ‘listen’ me—Ginn’s appointment was at four thirty. I just called her to see how it went, and she told me you never arrived to pick her up, which meant she missed her therapy session altogether.”

  Guilt sliced sharply through him. He’d been so swallowed by the scope of managing the fallout from the Amanda Rose takedown and the subsequent barcode girls investigation that he’d clean spaced his agreement to drive his own daughter to her therapy appointments. As it was, Ginny’s critical-incident stress therapy was a direct result of his role in the Baptist investigation. She’d almost died because of what he did for a living—hunting heinous monsters. And this time the monster—Spencer Addams—had turned around and zeroed in on Maddocks’s vulnerability. His own child.

  Maddocks dragged his hand through his hair.

  Crap. Why didn’t Ginny call and remind me when I didn’t show? It hit him suddenly—maybe she had. Maybe it was his own kid’s call that he’d ignored while engrossed in conversation with the doc, while he was trying to save the daughters of strangers.

  “I’ll sort it—”

  “She sorted it. Ginn made another appointment on her own, but you and I agreed, James. We agreed that she could remain living alone on the island only if you were there for her. You promised to take her to all those therapy sessions.”

  Maddocks loosened his tie. “I said I’ll sort it out, Sabrina. It’s just—”

  “It’s just the story of our goddamn lives, and I’m sick of it. It’s just why we couldn’t make our marriage work. It’s just why we never felt like a family. It’s just why you’re not fit—never were—to be her father. It’s why Peter—”

  “Enough.” He ground the word out between clenched teeth, his body temperature elevating further.

  It’s just the reason I moved out here and took this job—to make amends, to be close to my daughter, to build a relationship with her … to try to salvage what was left of my family … to be a good father.

  He still hadn’t got it right—he’d let his own baby girl down again because he’d been sucked into tunnel vision over the barcode girls.

  Was this what it always boiled down to in the end—focusing on nailing the bad guy, then going on to nail the next? Fighting your best fight to bring murder vics and their families justice while struggling to also build a nest egg, a home, a family, and it’s worth fuck-all in the end? Was there actually a way to work a major crimes case and still be a devoted husband and father, still attend all those school functions, sports events, music recitals that he’d missed over the years, yet still give victims their full due?

  He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “I’m going to make this work,” he said coolly. “I—”

  “No, you won’t. You’re involved in that big case, I know that. And from past experience I also know what that means, the hours you keep. I can’t imagine how you’re even going to care for that lame three-legged mongrel of yours, let alone manage a relationship with that … that cop—”

  “Angie. Her name is Angie. That cop saved our daughter’s life, Sabrina.”

  A moment of hesitation. Sabrina cleared her throat. “I … I know,” she said, her voice softer. “And I’m grateful for it, I really am, but it was your job with homicide that landed Ginny in danger in the first place. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m getting onto the first ferry over to the island tomorrow. I’m going to help Ginn pack up her things, and I’m bringing her home to the mainland. She’ll live here with me and Peter. We’ll see that she follows through with her critical-incident stress therapy and that she gets all the moral support she needs. I’ve already arranged with a local psychologist to fit her in. This is not a good time for her to be on her own, and she can transfer her credits to UBC. The school has a much higher reputation than UVic.”

  His jaw grew tighter and tighter as his ex rattled on. “I’m going to hang up now,” he said quietly. “I’m right in the middle of something—I’ll call you back when I can talk properly.”

  “James—do not do thi—”

  He killed the call and checked his messages. One missed call from Angie. Nothing from Ginn. He punched in Ginny’s number. As the phone rang, he went to the window behind the chairs in the seating area and looked out into the parking lot. Mist shrouded the evening. Darkness came early this time of year. Rain fell soft and insidious, and water squiggled down the pane. Under a misty halo cast by a light in the parking lot, Holgersen was walking Jack-O, the three-legged mutt Maddocks had rescued after a hit-and-run last Halloween. His chest tightened at the sight of his partner with his aged, hobbling dog. The guy was an enigma. Full of odd ticks and seemingly unable to string two grammatically correct sentences together, but he was one of the most astute investigators Maddocks had encountered in his lifetime of policing. And he suspected Holgersen’s idiosyncratic speech was either a tool to set people off guard or a distraction behind which he hid. But what was he hiding? That was the question. An unspecified unease whispered through Maddocks as he watched the pair. He liked Holgersen but was not entirely sure he could trust him.

  “Dad?”

  He tensed. “Hey, Ginn. I’m so, so sorry about spacing the appointment. Why didn’t you call when I didn’t show? Why didn’t you remind me? Is everything all right?”

  “It’s fine, Dad. I didn’t want to bother you—I know how busy you are with the investigation into those girls. And I want you to get whoever did this to them. I need you to do whatever it takes to put away those people who were abusing them.” Her voice caught on a surge of emotion. “They’re the ones responsible for hurting Gracie and Faith, and for abusing Lara, for putting them in harm’s way, and for harboring a killer,” she said, referring to the young local girls who’d been targeted by the Baptist. “I want you to put all of them away for a long, long time. And I’m fine. Honest. I can—I want to do this therapy thing on my own.”

  Again, the image of Ginny trussed up like a cocoon in a polyethylene tarp swung into his mind. It sent ice through his chest. His hand tightened around his phone.

  “What are you doing right now?” he said quietly.

  “Why?”

  “I just want to know. I want to be sure that you’re okay.”

  “I’ve got someone over.”

  “Who?”

  A small beat of silence. “A friend.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone you don’t know.”

  “A guy?”

  “Yes, a guy. Dad, it’s—”

  “Is your new roommate home?”

  “Yes. And even if she wasn’t, I’d be fine. Is this … this is all because of Mom, isn’t it? Did she just call you?” Maddocks hesitated, and Ginny continued before he could answer. “Listen, Dad, Mom did ask me to go live with her and Peter. I said no. I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go backward. I want to face this. Here on the island. I like my new school. I like my new friends. I’m happy in my apartment—”

  “Ginn, this is not your—”

  “If you’re going to say it’s not my decision, it is. I’ll be nineteen in four months.” His mind instantly shot back to the barcode girls. Even the eldest among them was not close to nineteen. “I need to get over this on my own, and I told Mom so. And I won’t slip on the counseling sessions, I promise. I rescheduled, and I can get myself there on public transit. I can do this, Dad.”

  “What time did you reschedule for?” he said.

  “Next Thursday. Six o’clock, after my classes.”

&nbs
p; “Okay, this is how it’s going to play, kiddo. I’ll be waiting in my vehicle outside your apartment at five thirty next Thurs—”

  “It’s not necess—”

  “It is, Ginn. For me. It’s necessary for me, too, to be there. Okay? Please.”

  A hesitation. “Sure, Dad.”

  “And afterward, you and me, we go out for dinner and catch up. Promise me.”

  “Promise.”

  Maddocks signed off with his daughter, his heart tight. He checked his watch again. He also needed to call Angie. He was itching to know how her meeting with the old nurse from Saint Peter’s had gone. He started to dial her number, but the hospital doors slid open and in came Holgersen, his jacket and hair glistening with rain, Jack-O tucked awkwardly under his left arm.

  “Sarge!” he said, loping hurriedly over. “We’re needed back at the station. Stat. Zina’s counsel wants to deal—Zina’s offering information on the barcodes.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Angie watched Jenny Marsden disappearing down the dark street and into the mist. The old nurse was right—a secret could own you. A secret was powerful. But only to the degree that revelation thereof threatened one’s social relations. And she did feel threatened by this one. This secret of her past painted her as victim. It made her feel vulnerable. And the old-boy cops with whom she worked in sex crimes, and homicide—where she really wanted to be—had noses for hot blood, fresh wounds. Like a wolf pack, they tended to turn on any perceived weak link among them. And kill it. A primal survival instinct perhaps, because a group was only as strong—or as fast—as its weakest link. And cops were all about depending on their pack for survival.

  Angie’s method of coping as the only female among the group was simple—someone bullied or baited her, she punched hard and straight on the nose before her opponent could sink his teeth into her fragile spots. It worked. Especially on misogynistic asses like Harvey Leo. Which was why she did not want to go public with this. Not yet. Especially not while she was under investigation for use of excessive force. She had zero intention of becoming a poster child for police brutality, either. The MVPD would hang her out to dry if that happened—she was certain of it. The force was already struggling to rebuild its reputation after internal leaks to the press during the Spencer Addams investigation.

  When she saw Jenny turn the corner, Angie walked slowly back up the brick alley. Once more she stood in front of the dimly lit service entrance. She closed her eyes, feeling the cold, smelling the rain, listening to the sounds of the city, trying to take her mind back thirty-two years, trying to recall the moments right before she’d been stuffed into the baby box here.

  Mist and wetness cloaked her. She could scent the dampness of the bricks and that strange metallic smell she associated with coming snow.

  But no memories whispered—nothing at all.

  She crossed over to the cathedral, climbed the stairs, and pulled open the heavy wood door. The space inside was cavernous, solemn. Candles flickered—little gold tongues of light licking at stained glass and shadows. Behind the altar hung a sculpture of Jesus, his head bowed under his brutal crown of thorns, hands and feet nailed to the cross. Angie tried to hear it again—the thin, sweet, angelic mezzo-soprano tones of “Ave Maria,” the hymn her adoptive mother had been singing in this cathedral on that fateful Christmas Eve over three decades ago. The same song her mother had sung while rocking mindlessly in her chair at the Mount Saint Agnes Mental Health Treatment Facility on the island two weeks ago. Hearing the melody that day had started to stir to life dark memories locked deep inside the vault of Angie’s soul. She called the sounds to mind …

  Ave Maria …

  Gratia plena, Dominus tecum …

  But no memories rustled to life this time. Instead, the strange Polish words she’d also recently begun to remember echoed through her brain.

  Uciekaj, uciekaj! … Wskakuj do srodka, szybko! … Siedz cicho!

  Run, run! Get inside! Stay quiet!

  The voice was a woman’s. Had the woman been yelling at Angie to get inside that cradle? To shut the hell up once she was inside? Angie returned her thoughts to her dad’s confession.

  In the photos that your mother and I saw in the media, you looked exactly like our four-year-old Angie did when she was killed in the car accident in Italy in ’84. The same red hair. The right age. It was haunting, the fact that she—I mean, you—were found right outside the church where your mother was singing, where in her prayer she’d felt a link to you again … She felt it was you, Angie. Arriving, returning, right on the cusp of Christmas Day, like a child in a manger. And your mother saw it as a sign. A very powerful sign. She believed our Angie had been sent back by angels and that we had to do everything in our power to claim you, adopt you, bring you rightfully home to us.

  Angie shook herself at the memory. Her adoptive parents had inserted her into the void left by their dead child—effectively replacing the old “Angie” with the new one from the cradle. They’d even given her the same name—led her to believe she was the old Angie and that she’d gotten the scar across her mouth during the car accident in Italy. Talk about identity crisis.

  She left the church and walked back down the alley toward Front Street, beckoned by the warmth of the brightly lit storefronts. A bereft emptiness and cold filled her as her boot heels echoed on the brick paving. It came with a sense of resignation, of heavy defeat. Maybe she’d never learn the truth. With those VPD case files and evidence gone, with the detectives deceased, her avenues of investigation were sorely limited.

  Angie stopped outside the ER entrance, her attention once more drawn to the brightly lit Starbucks outlet across the road. She studied the storefront through the rain, then shifted her attention to the apartments above it, the shops adjacent. The digitized article she’d told Jenny Marsden about had been accompanied by a news photo taken shortly after the gunfight had erupted outside the cathedral. Police had cordoned off the area in front of the cathedral, and the witnesses plus a small crowd had gathered on the opposite side of the street right about where that Starbucks was. Except it wasn’t a coffee shop back then.

  Angie stepped farther back under the portico cover, out of the rain. She took her smartphone from her pocket—a new one she’d bought since she’d had to hand over her work phone along with her badge and gun while on suspension. She pulled up the news photo she’d clipped from the article and saved. It showed a group of about twenty people huddled in hats and coats, snow coming down, bright lights from a television news crew, yellow crime scene tape, officers in uniform. Behind them was a restaurant with a pink neon sign in the window that declared, THE PINK PEARL CHINESE KITCHEN.

  She glanced up. The Chinese restaurant had been replaced by the Starbucks. But when? Had there been another business—or several—in that space after the Pink Pearl had vacated the premises? She could obtain that information from city planning and business license records on her next visit to the mainland, but asking wouldn’t hurt. Besides, she could do with a hit of warm caffeine and sugar.

  Angie pulled up her hood, stepped back into the rain, and crossed Front Street. She entered the Starbucks.

  The place was quiet inside at this dinner hour. A lone male sat with his laptop at a table near the back, and two females Angie guessed were hospital employees conversed in deep chairs in a corner. Music played softly—a lyrical, jazzy tune. Pushing back the hood of her jacket, Angie ordered a cappuccino and a brownie from the young woman behind the counter. The woman sported a nose ring and a silver bar across of the top of her ear. Wrapped around the left side of her thick neck was a large spiderweb tattoo. The tat reminded Angie of a fishnet stocking struggling to contain a fat white thigh—like some Rocky Horror costume. Angie moved to the end of the counter, where a male barista made her coffee.

  “Do you know how long this Starbucks has been here?” she asked the barista.

  Glancing up, he frowned and made a moue. “Like maybe four years? Or perhaps five?” He turned
to his colleague with the tat. “You know how long this place has been open, Martine?”

  Martine shook her head, clearly disinterested.

  “We had a water pipe burst about six months ago,” the barista said, concentrating on pouring foam onto Angie’s drink. “So the interior of the place has been refurbished. That’s why it’s pretty new looking.”

  “Any idea what was in this space before?”

  He glanced up. “It was a Chinese restaurant. An old place that had been here for decades.” He smiled. “The only reason I know is because the old Chinese dude who used to run it like forever still lives in one of the apartments upstairs.”

  Excitement flushed through Angie. “Do you know his name?”

  “Hey, Martine, the old restaurant guy—you know his name?”

  “Ken somebody,” she said. “Ken Ling … Lee. I dunno.” She wiped her hands on her apron, grabbed a silver jug, and went to the sink where she commenced rinsing it.

  The barista handed Angie her cappuccino. “Like I said, he lives in the apartment building upstairs. Comes in here like clockwork every afternoon around two. Reads his paper and has a green tea latte. Always sits in that back corner if he can get the table.”

  “So he’ll likely be here tomorrow?”

  The barista snorted. “If nothing changes. I can set my watch by that guy.”

  Rippling with adrenaline, Angie took her coffee and brownie to a counter that ran the length of a window facing Front Street. She perched atop a barstool and sipped her drink while she studied the image on her phone again. If that old restaurateur had been working here back in ’86, or if he knew someone who had, she might have her first witness. A place to start. Tomorrow morning she had an appointment with the old detective’s widow on the North Shore. She could make it back into town by two in the afternoon to see if the restaurateur was here. If not, she’d begin with city records and possibly find his name and address. Or canvass the residents in the apartments upstairs in search of him.