The Lullaby Girl (Angie Pallorino Book 2)

by Loreth Anne White

  “Fishing boat. Crab. Rusty, old. Bad smells.”

  “What makes you think it was a crab fishing vessel?”

  “I know from my grandfather. He was crab fisherman. King crab. Sea of Okhotsk. Long time ago. He told us stories and had pictures, how American boats from Alaska have square crab cages and throw them over the side one at a time. In Russia we use ones shaped like this.” She made a cone shape with her hands. “Russian fishermen slide cages off back of boat.”

  Adrenaline quickened in Maddocks. This was very specific information they could check.

  “And from there—maybe Vladivostok—twenty of you sailed on this crab fishing vessel?”

  She nodded. “We were in bottom of the ship. No light. It was many days. Bad storms. We got sick. One night they shook all of us awake, told us put on all warm clothes. They tied our hands, like this.” She brought her wrists together. “They brought us up to deck. There was another ship close. Could see it through fog.”

  “Also a fishing vessel?”

  “No. Like cargo ship. Containers on the deck. Piled high.”

  “Did you see any names on the hull? Anything to identify the vessel?”

  “Only when we were brought on board new ship. They took us over side in fishing boat and across to cargo ship in the smaller boat. I saw flag from South Korea on cargo boat.”

  Maddocks’s heart beat yet faster. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else did you see?”

  “Very little. Getting dark. It was foggy. No moon. Lights on the boat nearly all off. It was very cold. Windy.”

  “What language did the crew aboard the South Korean vessel speak?”

  “Some Russian. And an Asian language.”

  She reached for a glass of water in front of her and took a long swallow, hand trembling.

  “They transferred all of the twenty women from one ship to the other?”

  “Yes, and some other cargo. It took long time. I don’t know what other cargo was. Maybe crab.”

  “And once you were aboard the Korean cargo vessel?”

  She shook her head, her eyes going distant. Her face tightened. “They kept us in container, all twenty of us. We had two buckets for toilet. A man with scarf over face come once per day with new buckets and some food and water. We got very sick and thirsty. I lost all track of time and the days. One girl, she died. She took long time to die. They left her body inside container with us.”

  Maddocks rubbed his jaw. The interpreter shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Maddocks sensed that Tarasov’s victim services counselor was going to cut him off any second now—she was also getting edgy. But he didn’t want to rush Sophia Tarasov. If he paced things carefully, she might speak to him again on several more occasions. He might get more in the long haul through patience. Nevertheless, urgency nipped at him—because the longer things took, the more time it gave the organized crime rings to bury evidence.

  “Where did the South Korean ship take you?”

  She shook her head, looking down at her fidgeting fingers. “Maybe port in South Korea. Then another ship, which stop maybe China. Cargo change. Then Vancouver.”

  “When you docked at the Port of Vancouver, how did they take you off the ship?”

  “Some men opened container, make us hurry out. We were already on land with other containers all around. Dark. It was night. The men in big rush, watching everything. They take us to another dock, put us in another boat. Small one.”

  “How small?”

  She sniffed and wiped her nose. Her shakes were intensifying. A sheen of perspiration was beginning to gleam on her brow. “I … I don’t know. I … was not well. Throwing up. Passing out. I remember little. Just blur. There were nineteen of us got off ship. Only ten put on smaller boat.”

  “Where did the other nine go?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe truck.”

  Maddocks cleared his throat. “How long were you on the smaller boat?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t know.”

  “What do you remember next?”

  “Waking up in place with four rooms. There was small kitchen and bathroom, but door to outside was locked. Windows had bars up high. We have nice food now. Fish. Vegetables. Fruit. Water. A woman would bring.”

  “Can you describe this woman? What nationality?”

  “She old. Maybe eighty. She was all dressed in black. When I ask her question, she say in Russian that they will cut my tongue out if I talk. Like they told us in Prague they would do if we ever speak to anyone about men who brought us there. In Prague there was woman with no tongue.”

  A tightness clamped Maddocks’s throat. It came with a thin spear of red-hot anger.

  “What could you see through the windows of this house?”

  “Big trees. Lots of trees. Like forest. Through the trees, water.”

  “Anything else? Sounds? Traffic, airplanes?”

  “Very quiet. No traffic noise. Sometimes small plane up high. And engines sometimes, like from boats. One time helicopter.”

  “Did you see anyone else in this place, apart from the old woman?”

  Now her whole body began to shake.

  “Only one man. He come when it is dark a few times. He very big. He wear hood, and he make lights dim. He say he come to test all the merchandise. Very rough. Not young, but very strong. Powerful. He barely say two words.”

  “Accent? Language?”

  “English. American accent, like you.”

  “He got naked apart from the hood?”

  She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, nodded.

  “Was he circumcised?”

  She glanced at the interpreter, who translated in Russian.

  Sophia shook her head. “He wear protection.”

  “Was there anything else distinctive about his body?”

  “Here—” She touched the side of her neck and slipped into Russian.

  “Tattoo,” said the translator. “Like a crab. Same as the one she saw on the fishing vessel from Vladivostok. Same as a man in Prague. But she says he kept the room dim whenever he visited. His hood looked like an executioner’s hood, black with a slit for his eyes. She glimpsed the crab only when his hood slipped a little during a sex act.”

  Adrenaline spiked through Maddocks. Calmly, he said, “Sophia, would you be able to describe this crab tattoo to a sketch artist?”

  She nodded. Maddocks reached into his pocket for his phone. He called Holgersen.

  “Can you bring in a sketch artist, stat?” he said as soon as Holgersen picked up. “Get Cass Hansen if you can. I’ve used her before—she’s good. And she lives two minutes away from the hospital.”

  He killed the call and turned back to Sophia.

  “What happened next?”

  “Madame Vee, she come on a plane.”

  “How long were you in this place before she arrived?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe three or four weeks. Madame Vee come with Zina.”

  So Camus had lied about not going to the holding location. They could use this.

  “They make us stand naked and turn us around. They talk in French. They pick six of us. We were put on small plane, seaplane. We landed in harbor and were taken by small boat to Amanda Rose.”

  “When the seaplane took off from this holding place, what did you see from the air?”

  She shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears. “Nothing. They used blindfolds.”

  “Did you see the pilot?”

  She shook her head.

  “How long did this flight take, Sophia?”

  “Maybe hour?” She lifted her shoulders. “Or two—I scared. I don’t know.”

  “Did you ever leave the Amanda Rose after you first boarded the yacht?”

  “No. They lock us inside cabins. Keep us apart from the other girls. Only when police come and raid the boat and took us did we leave Amanda Rose.” She wiped her eyes, but tears kept streaming down her cheeks.

  The vi
ctim services woman leaned forward. “Detective Maddocks, I think we might have had enough for today.”

  He nodded. “Just one more question, Sophia. The other girls who are here with you at the hospital now, where are their homes, what are their names?”

  “No name.” She shook her head wildly. “No give name, I promised, no names.”

  “Okay, okay. Can you tell me where they came from?”

  Her brow furrowed into tight wrinkles. She looked terrified.

  “Please,” he said softly. “It will help.”

  She stared at him for what seemed like a full minute, then slowly said, “Two from Syria. They were taken from refugee camp in Greece. They were promised passage to Germany, jobs. One from Austria—she Turkish. Other two from Russia, like me. Other parts Russia.”

  Maddocks’s jaw tightened. A knock sounded on the door. The counselor got up to open it. It was Hansen, a sketch artist the MVPD used regularly.

  “Thank you, Sophia. Thank you very much. You’ve been a tremendous help.” Maddocks came to his feet and went to Hansen at the door.

  “I came as soon as I could,” Cass Hansen said quietly, looking flushed from her rush over. “Detective Holgersen said it was urgent.”

  Maddocks lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “We need an image of the tattoos Sophia saw on several men. Seems like the same tattoo on all of them. And if she can describe anything more about the men, especially the big guy who wore a hood when he assaulted them sexually.”

  Hansen nodded. “I’ll try,” she said softly.

  Maddocks closed the door behind Hansen, his pulse pounding. This was it—the breakthrough they needed. Sophia Tarasov would provide more down the road; he was certain of it. She might get the other girls to talk, too.

  CHAPTER 17

  From the warmth of his car, through the rain-streaked windows, a man watches the entrance of the medical building that hunkers dark and wet under the low cloud and rain. Leafless deciduous branches outside the hospital walls wag gnarly fingers in the wind.

  As the two detectives exit the building, he sits up sharply in the driver’s seat. For a few days now he’s been tracking the lead detective, who was in the news in connection with the takedown of the Bacchanalian Club aboard the Amanda Rose. The papers and TV stations claimed several young women from the boat had been taken into MVPD custody. He knows from his boss they’re barcode merchandise. But he didn’t know where they’d been taken. Until now.

  He thinks he’s found the girls. They’re in that hospital.

  The tall skinny detective in the ugly bomber jacket and combat boots stops to light a cigarette. The boss cop—the taller one with pitch-black hair and pale skin, the one he’s been tracking—is dressed in a classy wool coat. Behind them come two women. The man knows that the dark-haired woman is a Russian interpreter because the detectives waited for her to arrive before going inside earlier, and once they were inside, he’d jimmied open the car she arrived in. In her glove compartment he found business cards with her address and photo. He fingers one of these cards now as his gaze settles on the second woman, committing her to memory. Blonde. Short. Athletic build. He doesn’t know who she is. She arrived later. The group converses outside the hospital entrance for a few minutes while the skinny cop grabs a few fast drags on his cigarette, exhaling in a cloud of smoke and condensation. They start down the stairs. The skinny guy drops his smoke, grinds it out with his boot, then picks it up again and puts it in a bag. Drawing up his collar, skinny cop follows his boss-partner to an Impala parked in the lot. The two women go separate ways.

  He lights a cigarette of his own—the skinny detective’s smoking has given him the urge. The Impala pulls out of the lot and turns down the street. He continues to wait in his nondescript sedan, his plates carefully obscured with splattered mud. His skill, his art, is patience. Discretion. Even in the face of a ticking clock and pressing urgency. He gets big money for completed jobs. This is a big job.

  For this job he’s been told to send a message. He never questions why. He never feels stress or emotion. He only takes pride in a contract neatly executed.

  When the interpreter drives out of the lot in her little blue Yaris, he extinguishes his cigarette carefully in his ashtray and starts his own ignition. He puts his car into gear and drives slowly behind the interpreter’s vehicle, his tires crackling on the wet streets as he holds a safe distance.

  CHAPTER 18

  A pixielike woman with purple hair and a white lab coat poked her head out of the lab door and peered at Angie. “Our receptionist is not in yet.”

  Angie felt hot and bothered in her uniform as she stood holding her evidence box in the reception area of Anders Forensics, the firm that Dr. Sunni Padachaya had recommended. Her arm ached. Traffic up the peninsula had been a beast. And urgency nipped at her—she still needed to make it back to Victoria before her 11:00 a.m. start, or she’d have a black mark against her on day one of her probation. This nine-to-five noose was going to suck even more than she’d imagined.

  “I’m here for Dr. Jacob Anders,” she said. “He’s expecting me—I called earlier.”

  “Oh, you’re Angie Pallorino?” the pixie said, eyeing her beat uniform.

  “Yeah.”

  “I wasn’t expecting a police officer.”

  “Right.”

  “Jacob is through this way.” She led Angie down a sterile concrete corridor lined with vast windows that overlooked a bay ruffled with whitecaps. The building smelled new. It also reeked of money. Sunni had said Dr. Jacob Anders would be pricey when Angie had reached her by phone early this morning. Sunni had personally vouched that Anders was one of the best in the business—a newly relocated British expat with a breadth of LE-related experience abroad and in North America. He’d also contracted in the past to the FBI and the RCMP as well as other police organizations.

  The purple-haired lab pixie opened a door. “His office is through this way. Go ahead.”

  Angie carried her box into an office suite walled with smoked glass. Here, too, expansive windows looked out over the gunmetal-gray bay. A glass-and-chrome desk was positioned in front of the windows. No chair behind it, only one in front of it. Shelves of books lined one wall. Another wall hosted a bank of monitors and a large smart screen. Several of the monitors showed what appeared to be live black-and-white surveillance footage from inside his labs and the exterior perimeter of the building. One screen displayed what seemed to be an underwater feed filming a whitish object trapped beneath a curved cage. There was no one in the room.

  “Hello? Dr. Anders?”

  “Detective Pallorino, welcome,” came a deep and resonant voice. Holding her box in front of her, Angie swiveled around to the source of the sound. From behind a partition appeared a man in a wheelchair. Surprise rippled through Angie as she was forced to lower her gaze to the man’s face. He wheeled forward and proffered his hand. “Please, call me Jacob.” His accent was British, the kind Angie associated with upper class and sophistication.

  Angie balanced her box on her left hip and shook the man’s hand. His grasp was firm, calculated. It brought to mind the resoluteness of a surgeon coupled with a pianist’s sensitivity. Everything about him whispered paradox, from his overt physical disability, to the power he seemed to exude, to the intelligence and kindness in his gray eyes. Angie judged Jacob Anders to be in his late forties, possibly early fifties given the silver that flecked the dark hair at his temples and the lines that bracketed his strong mouth. Movie-star handsome but just slightly off-center in a way she could not immediately articulate. His assuredness made her square her shoulders.

  “Thank you for meeting with me at such short notice,” she said.

  He appraised her, taking in her uniform, clearly shaping a question in his mind for which she did not feel like providing an answer.

  “Take a seat,” he said. “You can place your box on the desk over there. How can I help you?”

  “You come highly recommended by Sunni Padacha
ya, with whom I work at the MVPD lab,” Angie said as she set her box on the glass surface. Anders wheeled himself around to the other side of his desk while she lowered herself into the chair in front of it.

  “Sunni’s a good friend of mine,” he said. “We met at a forensics conference in Brussels many years back and have kept up a connection ever since.”

  “I consider her a friend, too.” Which wasn’t saying much, as Angie didn’t do girlfriends, or at least not very well—the relationships never lasted when she tried. She cut right to the chase because she was squeezed for time. “I’m looking into a cold case from 1986 for a friend.” She explained to Jacob Anders what she knew of the cradle case to date and how she’d come into possession of the evidence and files.

  “I did open one of the evidence bags, the one with the teddy bear, which I probably shouldn’t have, but I used gloves, and it was done in a fairly sterile environment. What I now seek is interpretation of the old lab reports and to see if there’s any viable biological evidence worth testing for DNA using current technology and whether the photographic images of the bloodied handprints and fingerprints can be digitized. Given that the VPD was going to destroy the evidence before the detective took it home, and given that he reopened the boxes at home and his family has been storing the boxes in a basement, even if there is viable evidence in there, it could be compromised.”

  He sat back, relaxed as he assessed her and the merits of her case.

  “Would you be interested in taking it on?” she said, glancing at her watch, pressure ratcheting up.

  “You’re aware of our fee structure?”

  “It won’t be a problem.”

  He moistened his lips, watching her features. Angie felt her cheeks begin to redden—the man could tell she was hiding something. She adjusted the collar of her uniform and bit the bullet. “In full disclosure, there is something else I should add.” She paused, her gaze locked on his. “It’s confidential.”

  “We treat all our work as confidential,” he said. “Confidentiality, discretion—it’s a necessary and absolute cornerstone of our business.”