The Lullaby Girl (Angie Pallorino Book 2)

by Loreth Anne White

  Slowly, Angie came erect. Her mouth tightened. Standing toe to toe with Leo, her eyes level with his, she said quietly, “I can be so clumsy, especially with my sore arm. Gunshot and all. I do hope you have a spare pair of pants in your locker, Detective.”

  Wariness crept into his weathered face. He did not move a muscle, and there was little doubt in Angie’s mind that he was suddenly recalling the last time he’d overstepped the line with her at the Flying Pig Bar and Grill and she’d grabbed his balls and squeezed. Hard. “You watch that mouth of yours around me, Leo,” she whispered.

  Stepping away from him, she tipped her empty coffee cup into the garbage, yanked open the door, and entered the building. Her heart was racing.

  As the glass door swung slowly shut behind her, she heard Holgersen call, “Hey, Palloreeeno, remember, no feeding the trolls. Social media one-oh-one—play nice.”

  Her blood spiked as she found her way down the hall to the ground-level office with a sign on the door that read, COMMUNITY & PUBLIC AFFAIRS UNIT.

  Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door, entered.

  The room was small. Four desks were cramped inside and topped with computers. Windows looked out onto the parking lot. Two females, late twenties, were seated in civilian clothes behind two of the metal desks. Angie guessed one to be the art director, the other the graphic designer-videographer. A very pregnant cop wearing an MVPD-issue maternity smock over her black uniform pants stood at a row of bookshelves. The shelves were stacked with glossy brochures, flyers, books, rows of DVDs—so-called MVPD collateral, Angie presumed. The pregnant officer glanced up and smiled. She waddled forward, her left hand supporting the small of her back as she extended her right hand. “Welcome. Marla Pepper—social media relations officer.”

  Only three hundred and sixty-four more days.

  “Pallorino,” Angie said, shaking the officer’s hand. Then as an afterthought, she added, “Congratulations. How far along are you?”

  “Any day now.” Another smug smile. “Can’t wait to get out of here and put my feet up. Next week can’t come fast enough—you should be up to speed by then. Let me start by giving you the basic rundown, and then you can just start shadowing me, ask questions as we go. Good enough?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s nothing too complicated, really. This is Diana Bechko, the unit’s art director.” Pepper motioned to the woman at the first desk. “And her graphic designer, Kosma Harrison.” Both women offered their greetings, smiled, but Angie could see that they were eyeing the newcomer in their midst with curiosity, maybe even a level of wariness. No doubt they’d been fully apprised by the MVPD grapevine of her quick temper, her proclivity toward rage, violence. Her punishment. Angie returned the necessary pleasantries but without a smile. She was not here to be their friend. She was here to get through her sentence. Sooner they cottoned on to that and left her alone, the better.

  “And this will be your station,” pregnant Officer Pepper said as she showed Angie her own desk, at which she’d pulled up a spare chair. “You can use the laptop for now, then transition to my desktop once I’m on mat leave.”

  Angie set her hat on the corner of the desk and said nothing. An awkwardness entered Pepper, which was good because it took the edge off her annoying pregnant perkiness.

  “So … basically these are the tools of my trade—the computers, I mean,” Pepper said. “You’ll be responsible for managing the MVPD Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts and for updating the events page on the MVPD website. You’ll also craft posts for the Day in the Life blog.” Pepper offered another smile, but more hesitant now, her gaze weighing Angie a little differently. “Social media is such a huge component of an organization these days. Something I take very seriously.”

  Angie nodded in silence. Pepper cleared her throat, then tried a different tack. “I was in operational policing myself for six years. Most of those driving a K9 SUV, tracking bad guys with my police dog. But many of the basic elements of policing still play here. I jumped at the social media opportunity as soon as we decided to try and fall pregnant, of course.”

  Angie’s eyes snapped to Pepper’s. The woman was from another planet as far as Angie was concerned.

  Pepper’s cheeks flushed. “I couldn’t in good conscience be out there endangering an innocent civilian, a baby’s life. A bullet-suppression vest goes only so far, you know?” A pause. Her blush deepened. “Kids are important. They’re our future.”

  The memory of Jenny Marsden’s words slapped Angie cold in her face. She inhaled, her mind shooting to Tiffy Bennett, the toddler she and Hash had been unable to save last year, to that old Kodak photograph of herself as a child with the cut and swollen face in Saint Peter’s Hospital. To all the other kids—special victims she’d met through sex crimes. Guilt at her judgment of Pepper twinged through her. She smoothed her hand over her hair. “Right.”

  Pepper weighed Angie, reading her shift in tone. “It’ll be okay,” she said. “You’ll get used to it.” She held her hand toward the chair. “Take a seat.”

  As Angie seated herself, Pepper pulled up the various MVPD social media accounts. “In addition to overseeing these, you will work closely with the MVPD’s two spokespersons. Technology and news cycles no longer require a daily press conference, but our unit does field hundreds of calls every week from local, national, and international media for information and interviews. You’ll channel those requests accordingly …” A movement outside caught Angie’s eye.

  Maddocks and Holgersen leaving the building, striding toward his Impala.

  She felt hot, swallowed, tried to focus as Pregnant Pepper droned on. But all she could think of suddenly was her coupling with Maddocks last night. Self-recrimination snaked through her. She was trying to hurt him. She needed to find a way to make things right again. As she watched the Impala drive off, she resolved to find Maddocks after she punched out today. Maybe they could go grab a bite to eat.

  “Our unit also produces the print publication Beyond the Call of Duty—collateral that plays a major role in crime prevention. What I’ve found on Twitter is that there are two basic camps—those who love the police and those who despise us. I’m talking about those who detest law enforcement on principle and who let us know it via our social media threads.” Pepper glanced at Angie. “Nothing I can say is going to change the minds of those trolls.”

  Social media one-oh-one—play nice.

  Angie glanced at her watch as Pepper prattled on. Only seven more hours before she could clock out, maybe meet up with Maddocks, go home, and start working on Voight’s case files.

  CHAPTER 21

  At 4:35 p.m. Angie found herself sitting momentarily in an empty office. She reached quickly for her phone and dialed Maddocks. Her spirits lifted when he picked up right away.

  “Hey,” she said. “I was wondering—”

  “Ange, can I call you right back? I’m—”

  “I’ll be quick—want to meet for dinner later? Rain check for last night?”

  “I … I can’t. Got a date with Ginn. I promised her—”

  “It’s fine. I’ve got stuff I need to do.” She killed the call and sat at her desk holding her phone, a strange cocktail of emotions circling through her. Fuck it. She slotted her phone back into her duty belt she was now wearing sans firearm.

  Stupid mistake, calling him. I knew he was busy.

  She returned to struggling with her blog post. She was determined to finish it before she punched out in a few minutes.

  “Detective Pallorino?”

  Angie glanced up.

  One of the civilian MVPD receptionists stood in doorway. Big breasts. Big, bouncy eighties hair—bleached blonde. BB is what Angie mentally called her.

  “There’s an RCMP officer here to see you, ma’am,” the woman said. “He’s with someone from the Burnaby coroner’s office.”

  Angie frowned, then came sharply to her feet. “They say what they want?”

  “No. The
y’re out front.”

  Angie followed the big blonde to the reception area. Through the bullet-resistant glass above the counter she saw a male in his thirties seated in a chair beside a slight, mousy-looking female. The male wore plain clothes, but Angie could see the police badge on his belt where his jacket folded back. A file folder rested in his lap. A thread of trepidation curled through Angie. She unlocked the side door and entered the reception area. The man stood immediately.

  “I’m Angie Pallorino,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  “Constable Shawn Pietrikowski, RCMP missing persons,” the male said. “And this is Kira Tranquada, BC Coroner’s Service.”

  The young woman stepped forward and extended her hand. Her rain jacket bore the Coroner’s Service logo on the left breast. “I’m with the IDRU—the identification and disaster response unit,” she said.

  “What’s this about?” Angie said as her brain raced through past cases she’d worked, trying to figure out if these two were here because of something she’d been investigating.

  “Is there somewhere private we can talk?” Pietrikowski said.

  Angie hesitated. “Come this way.” She led them through the reception door and down a long corridor toward interview room B. They entered, and she shut the door behind them. It was one of the smaller rooms. A two-way mirror hid a tiny observation area. A table was pushed up against the wall, three chairs around it. Mounted up the far corner near the ceiling was a discreet camera and audio feed.

  “Take a seat,” she said, pulling up a chair for herself.

  Tranquada set her bag down on the floor beside a chair and removed her jacket. As she draped it over the back of the chair, she glanced pointedly at Angie’s boots. The sense of trepidation deepened in Angie.

  The pair seated themselves. Pietrikowski positioned his folder squarely on the table in front of him. He flicked a glance at the two-way mirror and cleared his throat. “To confirm, for the record, you are Angela Pallorino, adopted daughter of Joseph and Miriam Pallorino?”

  His words hit Angie like a mallet. Blood rushed from her head.

  “What is this about?” she snapped. “Is it my mother? Has something happened to my father?”

  “So that’s an affirmative—you are Angela Pallorino?”

  “Yes, I’m Angela Pallorino,” she snapped. “Daughter of Joseph and Miriam Pallorino. And yes, I was adopted. How do you know this? What relevance is this?”

  Po-faced, the RCMP officer carefully opened his file. On top of the documents contained inside was a photograph. He unclipped the photo and slid it toward her.

  Time stood still. Angie stared at the photo—the same dirty little high-top runner from the news. The one that had washed up at Tsawwassen. Something grayish-white inside. Nausea began to rise in her belly along with a fierce urge to flee.

  Uciekaj, uciekaj! Run … run …

  “Do you recognize this shoe?”

  Pulse racing, she slowly raised her gaze to meet the Mountie’s. She turned to look at the woman from the coroner’s office.

  I’m with the identification and disaster response unit …

  “This looks like the shoe I saw on the news,” Angie said carefully.

  “It was found—”

  “I know where it was found,” Angie said, voice clipped, anxiety rising. “I said, I’ve seen the news.”

  Tranquada swallowed and shuffled uncomfortably in her chair at Angie’s sharp retort.

  “You haven’t seen that shoe anywhere else?” Pietrikowski said. “Maybe you remember it from some years back?”

  “What in the hell is this?”

  Tranquada leaned forward and touched the photograph gently. “We managed to obtain a viable DNA sample from this foot. We got a cold hit to a known individual in our system.”

  A buzz started in Angie’s head.

  “The DNA is a match to yours, Ms. Pallorino,” said the officer. “An identical match.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Angie stared at the photo of the shoe—a little life raft. A preservation container. Its contents safe from underwater scavengers. It could have floated for miles and miles and miles from anywhere. She felt like Alice going down the rabbit hole, falling, falling, spinning, spiraling downward, and nothing was making sense. Silent, the dour-faced Mountie assessed her. Tranquada watched her, too.

  Angie leaned forward, opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again and said, “I don’t understand.” She looked up from the photo and met Tranquada’s dun-colored eyes. “Identical DNA? What does that even mean? Are you saying I could have had a monozygotic twin?”

  “If you’ve still got two feet, yes, it’s possible,” said Tranquada.

  “Of course I have two feet,” Angie snapped.

  “The other alternative is that there’s an error. Or an adventitious match, which is a match obtained when the DNA profiles from two individuals match just by chance.” Tranquada’s dun eyes were gleaming. This novelty, this cold hit, was exciting to her. Angie got that, on a professional level. But to her, this was a whole other animal right now.

  “Also,” Tranquada continued, “antiquated RFLP analysis was used on the original sample, which was standard from 1986 to around 2000, so we’d like to take a new sample to confirm the match. We can take a buccal swab now, if that’s okay with you?”

  Twice in one day—you have got to be kidding me.

  “Why is my DNA even in your IDRU system?” Angie said, voice clipped, blood pressure rising. “It’s not like I’m in the National DNA Data Bank for convicted offenders, either.”

  “Your profile was provided to the IDRU by the Vancouver Police Department,” Officer Pietrikowski said.

  “I … didn’t know that the VPD has my DNA profile on file.”

  “They don’t,” the Mountie replied. “Detective Arnold Voight submitted your DNA to the IDRU before he retired from the VPD.”

  “He submitted an MPQ,” Tranquada explained. “That’s a missing persons query. It included your DNA from the angel’s cradle case.” She reached down into her bag and pulled out a biological evidence collection kit as she spoke. “The IDRU was created expressly to identify human remains found in this province and to do it in a coordinated fashion.” She placed the kit on the table. Angie tensed.

  “Prior to the IDRU, things were handled piecemeal with individual police departments doing their own thing. However, in order for the IDRU to be able to investigate, we needed information on missing persons, which of course falls under police mandate and not the Coroner’s Service mandate. So the IDRU came up with a system—our office sends out MPQs, or missing persons query forms, to various police agencies. Officers will then dig up old files—cold cases, missing persons reports on anything from newborns to seniors—and they’ll fill in the forms providing us details like name, height, weight, possible tattoos, information from dental records, DNA profiles, and any other pertinent information. It all goes into our GIS database. It’s rare for us to get a cold hit like this, but when we do, it’s a total rush.”

  Angie couldn’t breathe. Her skin prickled with heat under her uniform. “Fine,” she said slowly. “I’ll provide a sample.”

  Tranquada didn’t hesitate. She opened her kit, snapped gloves onto her hands, extracted the buccal swab from its sterile packaging, and came to her feet. Angie opened her mouth, her eyes on Pietrikowski as Tranquada gently rubbed and rotated a sterile swab against the inside of her cheek. Five to ten seconds. Standard timing to ensure the entire swab tip made proper contact with skin—Angie knew the drill. Except this time she was on the other side of the interview table. Sitting in her rookie uniform.

  “I half wondered if we might find you wearing a prosthesis,” Tranquada said as she extracted the buccal swab from Angie’s mouth, careful not to touch it to her lips, teeth, or any other surface in the process. She inserted the swab into a dry collection envelope and sealed it. “I figured maybe you’d lost your leg as a child in some freak event—like a boating accident o
r a plane that went down into the water, and the foot finally floated free of the wreckage.”

  Angie wiped her hand over her lips. They’d gone dry. “Any idea how long that foot has been in the water?” she said.

  “Hard to say given the formation of adipocere. It’s—”

  “I know what adipocere it is.”

  Tranquada nodded. “Well, it helped preserve the DNA, but it makes it hard for our anthropologist to gauge time in water from the bones. That girls’ shoe model, however, was manufactured only between 1984 and 1986. It’s possible it’s been in water all this time.”

  “Age of the child?”

  “Around four. No tool marks or any signs of mechanical removal.”

  Angie rubbed her brow. 1986. Age four. Same as her when she’d been abandoned in the cradle.

  “And you’re certain you have no memory of a shoe like it?” Pietrikowski said.

  “Yes,” she said quietly, struggling to reframe everything she’d just learned through this new window. “How did you connect the cradle Jane Doe’s DNA with me?”

  “Detective Voight provided the details of your adoption and the identity of your adoptive parents on the MPQ,” Tranquada said.

  So I’ve been sitting there in a database all this time, just waiting for a hit.

  “Can you recall anything at all of your childhood prior to the cradle event?” Pietrikowski said.

  Her gaze flared to the cop. “No. Nothing. I told you.”

  Apart from hallucinations. A ghost girl in luminous pink. A Polish song. Strange words. It struck her suddenly like a bolt of light from the dark—Alex, her psychologist friend and old mentor from her college days, had suggested the girl in her hallucinations might be a projection of Angie herself, a subconscious attempt to recall repressed memories, her child self from the past reaching out to her adult self in the present, but … could it be the memory of a sibling? A little ghost girl doppelgänger in pink reaching out for help, needing to be laid to rest properly? Needing a heinous wrong avenged?