The Lullaby Girl (Angie Pallorino Book 2)

by Loreth Anne White

Maddocks held the man’s eyes and said nothing. He didn’t have to—the lines in the sand between the two men were clear. Neither fully trusted the other. Takumi released his grip on the file.

  “I’ll be up to speed by morning,” Maddocks said, and then left the room.

  Takumi watched him go.

  CHAPTER 39

  Maddocks cracked open the lid of his pad Thai noodle carton. He inserted wooden chopsticks and delivered a helping to his mouth. Chewing, he popped open a can of cold pop. He hadn’t eaten since grabbing a coffee and doughnut on his way to the heliport. He swallowed his mouthful, took a deep swig of his drink, and opened the dossier Takumi had given him in order to familiarize himself with the scope and details of the massive Aegis investigation. To do this, Maddocks had commandeered a small L-shaped workstation in the corner of the incident room at the Surrey RCMP station where he was partially screened from the rest of the bustling room by a partition. In front of him was a phone, to his right a computer, to which he’d been given a security code unique to his badge number. The computer was linked to a confidential database of files and other relevant documentation associated with the operation.

  Grabbing another chopstickful of noodles, he ate as he began to read. A noodle escaped his sticks and fell to the floor, and for a second he felt a knee-jerk instinct to tell Jack-O to get it. He already missed the irascible three-legged beast. And he worried a little because Holgersen had offered to babysit the dog, at least until Maddocks knew how long he might be stationed in Surrey and could thus make longer-term arrangements. Maddocks wasn’t certain that Holgersen had ever cared for an animal. But he’d vowed to take Jack-O with him to the station every day, where the dog could sleep in his basket under the desk in the incident room—as long as no one complained. He was an old hound. He didn’t need much exercise and was more than happy to make up for time spent as a stray on cold streets by sleeping in a warm bed. As long as Holgersen budgeted for regular bathroom breaks, took him home at night, and fed and watered him, Jack-O should be okay. Besides, Maddocks told himself, those two suited each other. He figured like Jack-O, Holgersen had a dark and dismal past that no one could know about, and both were twitchy and slightly off-center because of it.

  Maddocks ran through the content list of the dossier, then turned to the intelligence section that listed suspected Russian organized crime members and associates along with their allied businesses and holdings.

  Strings of names filled the pages and connected in a series of family-tree-style diagrams that detailed a suspected web linking across the country from Vancouver, to Toronto, to Montreal, and down into the States.

  He focused on the Vancouver section and began to peruse the supporting material compiled by RCMP and FBI analysts based on intel from various investigations and UC operations in both countries.

  As Takumi had noted, Russian organized crime in Vancouver tended to circle around Club Orange B—possibly ironically named after a discontinued food dye that was used to color hot dog sausage casings bright red until the FDA declared it unsafe due to the presence of carcinogenic contaminants. Maddocks snorted—the lethal Reds. Ruskies, as Holgersen would have it. The mob was known by various other colloquialisms, including the Red Octopus. Maddocks scooped up his last mouthful of Thai noodles.

  The intel noted that Club Orange B offered exotic dancers and Russian cuisine, and it ran an escort agency from upstairs rooms—a front for prostitution.

  Maddocks skimmed the information. Like the seafood import companies mentioned in the briefing, Club Orange B was held by a complex assortment of numbered companies and holdings. Numerous criminal investigations and criminal charges against the club had never resulted in anything of significance sticking, although individual members had been convicted of various felonies. The club’s legal business appeared to be handled primarily by one firm—Abramov, Maizel, and Dietch.

  Maddocks turned to the information on the law firm and whistled to himself. They had branch offices in Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto and had defended several high-profile criminal cases across the country—those tried had been suspected of Russian mob links. He reached for his pop and took a drink as he turned the page, running through the list of cases. The list went back decades, with the firm adding or subtracting partners to the title as the years passed, but always two names remained consistent—Abramov and Maizel, passing the banner on to sons. And the farther back in time, the smaller the cases, but even in those cases many of their clients were highlighted in the dossier as being—or having been—suspected mob affiliates. The firm was founded in the late seventies by Abramov, a Russian expat who’d emigrated from Israel. He appeared to have started small, handling cases for fellow Russian expats. The early cases ranged from robbery, to sexual assault and battery, to illegal weapons and narcotics possession. Over the years, Abramov had taken on meatier criminal battles until he’d built his company into a massive outfit that defended and managed alleged mob business.

  Maddocks ran through the list of Abramov’s early cases, and … stilled.

  He reread the name of a client charged for sexual assault and battery in 1991. Milo Belkin. Flagged as a mob affiliate. Maddocks’s pulse quickened—the felon Angie was going to see in prison. The same man whose prints had been on the outside of the angel’s cradle door in 1986. Maddocks checked his watch. Shit. Angie would have already interviewed Belkin by now—she’d be on her return trip to Vancouver. He quickly scanned farther down the document.

  Belkin’s 1991 sexual assault charges had mysteriously been dropped just days before he was due to appear in court when the complainant—Nadia Moss, an exotic dancer at Club Orange B—had recanted everything, saying she’d mistakenly identified the defendant. Moss had later ended up as a bar manager at the club.

  Abramov was also the lawyer who’d later defended Belkin in the 1993 drug bust and shooting charges. Additionally, Abramov served as defense counsel in a second trial for one of Belkin’s accomplices arrested and charged in the drug bust—Semyon Zagorsky.

  Belkin had refused to identify two other suspects who’d fled the scene in a black Chevrolet cargo van, one of whom was believed to have killed a VPD officer in the shoot-out. Belkin was up for release in six months, having served time almost to his WED date, no doubt because he’d refused to cooperate with law enforcement on the identity of a cop killer. This told Maddocks something—if the drug haul confiscated in the bust had belonged to the Russian mob, Belkin had remained loyal throughout his sentence. This meant he was likely going to be repaid for his loyalty and looked after by the mob once he got out.

  Semyon Zagorsky, his accomplice, had been slapped with a longer sentence than Belkin. The prosecution had successfully argued that the ricocheting .22 slug that had hit an innocent bystander in the spine came from Zagorsky’s gun—he’d been the only one firing a .22 pistol. Zagorsky, too, had refused to name his associates who’d fled the scene. While his WED date was some years out, he was up for a parole hearing in two days.

  Maddocks swung his chair around to face the computer and logged in with his access code. He wanted more detailed information on Belkin and Zagorsky. He typed MILO BELKIN. A mug shot of the convicted felon came up instantly, with details of his arrests and charges. A pale-blue crab tattoo decorated the left side of his neck. Maddocks’s mouth went dry with adrenaline. He punched in SEMYON ZAGORSKY. Same tattoo, but smaller and on his wrist. His name had been flagged as being part of an active new investigation. Maddocks hit the link.

  A chill washed through him.

  The civilian bystander who’d been rendered a paraplegic by the .22 bullet from Zagorsky’s gun was Stirling Harrison. He had perished just three nights ago in a gas line explosion that resulted in a house fire in Squamish, a town along the highway heading north out of Vancouver into the mountains. His wife, Elaine, also died in the fire. Both Elaine and Stirling Harrison—parents of toddlers at the time of Stirling’s injury—had delivered powerful victim impact statements at Zagorsky�
�s sentencing. And they’d appeared at each and every one of Zagorsky’s parole board hearings since, delivering similar impact statements.

  Until now.

  Now they would not be giving victim impact statements at Zagorsky’s parole hearing in two days because they were dead.

  Which meant that this time Zagorsky might actually prove eligible, since he appeared to be a model prisoner in every respect and had been moved into the general population section a few years back.

  Maddocks reached for his can of pop and tilted it to his mouth before realizing it was empty. He set it down absently, scrolled farther. The house fire “accident” was classic mob MO. According to the intel on the screen, similar gas explosions had destroyed rival mob businesses in Montreal for years. The Stirling blaze was currently being investigated for proof of mob connections. This fact was marked as classified.

  The mob had killed a paraplegic and his wife in order to help Zagorsky gain parole? Payment for his silence?

  Maddocks sat back, rubbed his jaw.

  What in the hell had Angie gotten into? These guys were lethal. Her questioning Belkin would only threaten him. Or already had. An inmate hitting his WED date was not going to welcome fresh allegations. And if she let on that she’d begun remembering things from the past … the Stirling house fire demonstrated the lengths the Russians might go to shut her up.

  Maddocks came abruptly to his feet. He stared out of a narrow window overlooking a street, his brain racing. This was top security intel. The only reason he had access was because of his clearance for Aegis. Belkin and Zagorsky had been incarcerated for years—they were likely in no way directly connected to the barcode trafficking case, but they were connected to the mob. And leaking information from the Aegis intel files would be a serious breach of protocol. It could cost Maddocks his career. He could face criminal charges if it was discovered that he’d done it.

  He couldn’t tell her.

  He also couldn’t not warn her. He had to find a way to get Angie to stand down, but he knew Angie—she wouldn’t heed some unsubstantiated warning. She’d want facts, proof.

  Conflict torqued through him. He glanced at his watch, tension heating his body.

  Her life could be at risk—these guys meant business.

  CHAPTER 40

  It was late afternoon Saturday at the Vancouver city library. Angie had returned from the Hansen Correctional Centre and was combing through the microfilm copies of newspaper archives from 1993. Her brain was hopping. There was not a doubt in her mind that Milo Belkin had known who she was the instant he’d laid eyes on her. Which had to mean that he’d known Angie’s mother—that she bore a striking genetic resemblance to her biological parent. She could not even begin to articulate how this had rocked her. It was like she belonged. To someone. Was truly genetically connected to some family tree out there. She’d had a sister, who now needed justice. It altered every perception Angie had ever held about her own self-identity.

  Her goal now was to find any and every old newspaper article associated with Milo Belkin’s drug bust in 1993, his criminal associates, the deceased VPD officer, the injured bystander, and the ensuing court case. She would then search for more on the burned-out van with the Colt .45 found in 1998.

  When Angie returned to her hotel tonight, she’d work through the evidence on the memory stick that Jacob Anders had given her, but this had to be done first, in part because of the library hours, and also because she had to be back in Victoria before Monday morning to endure another week of her discipline. She glanced at her watch, antsy for Anders to call with DNA results—anything extra that she could use to pressure Belkin in addition to the fingerprint evidence. But it was way too early. Those results could be several days out yet. She was now in a race against time with Pietrikowski, because he’d be getting the same DNA results from his lab soon, too. And when he found that she’d already hit up Belkin, he would take action. And that action could involve Vedder, because Angie had used her police ID to interrogate an inmate while confined to an office job on probation. She’d be in big shit, but having looked into Belkin’s black eyes and seen his shock … it was worth it.

  Her cell rang on the table beside her, and she lunged for it, hoping it might be Anders, but an unidentified number displayed. Angie frowned and connected the call.

  “Pallorino.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Maddocks?” A punch of warmth went through Angie. She’d called him earlier to let him know how it had gone with Belkin but had once again been kicked to voicemail. “What’s with the different number?”

  “Burner. Personal call.” His voice was clipped, terse.

  A whisper of warning slid through Angie. “I tried to call—”

  “Was in a meeting. Been tasked to an interagency force based out of Surrey.”

  “Surrey? What? Which force? Why?”

  “It’s something that grew out of the Victoria investigation. Look, I can’t talk about it, Ange—not on the phone. I—”

  “It grew out of the barcode girls? The Amanda Rose investigation?”

  He cleared his throat. She could hear what sounded like a television set murmuring in the background.

  “Where are you, Maddocks? What’s going on?”

  “I’m in a hotel. In Surrey. I don’t know how long I’ll be stationed out here. Tell me how it went with Belkin.” His tone brooked no argument, and there was an edge in his voice she hadn’t heard before.

  Surrey. Where Sabrina lives. His old neighborhood—he is stationed out there while I’m heading back to the island to drive a desk. That initial punch of warmth turned cool. “Where’s Jack-O?”

  “With Holgersen. For a while, at least until I know how long I might be out here. Angie—”

  “You trust Holgersen with your dog? Why not me?”

  “’Cause you’re not there, Angie. And Holgersen probably likes Jack-O more than you do.”

  Irritable now, she said, “What about Ginny? I thought you didn’t want to leave her alone?” She cursed to herself even as the words came out of her mouth. This was not like her, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. It struck her hard and sudden: I’ve already allowed myself to fall too deep for this guy. I’m feeling bitter, jealous, possessive. That’s not cool, and it makes no sense.

  “Ginn’s fine,” he said. “She wants me to do this—pursue this to the end.”

  “So it does have to do with the barcode case, then? With human trafficking, sex slavery. On an international level, because the barcodes are all foreign, and that’s why you’ve been roped into an interagency force out of Surrey. Have you got an ID on them now?”

  “Listen, I don’t have much time. Tell me about Belkin,” he said again, terse, cutting her off.

  Her jaw tightened. She inhaled deeply. “Hang on a sec.” She took her laptop and bag and moved to a quiet alcove in the library from where she could watch her notebook, which she left at the microfilm station to reserve her place. Seating herself in a deep chair designed for comfy reading, she described her meeting with Belkin, keeping her voice low as she watched the rain coming down behind the library’s floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “He recognized me, Maddocks. Without question. He knew instantly who I was. Which convinces me that he knew my mother and that I look just like her. He knows what happened that night. His fingerprints prove he was there. It’s all inside his brain, and he won’t spill. I just need to find a way to crack him open, make him tell me who I am and what happened to my family. Right now he’s shit-scared. He knows that what I have could put him right back into prison, maybe for murder this time. For life.”

  Maddocks was silent for a beat, and then he said very quietly, “The ink on the left side of Belkin’s neck was a blue crab.”

  Angie frowned. “I didn’t tell you about a tattoo.”

  He swore softly. A cold, inky feeling of disquiet feathered into her chest. “What is this?”

  Another moment of hesitation. The chill of disquiet s
naked deeper. “Maddocks, talk to me.”

  “You need to stop, Angie. Now. You need to stand down from your personal investigation. You have to trust me on this—you’re in danger if you continue. Especially if you’re threatening Belkin’s freedom. And I’m not just talking your job. I’m talking about your life.”

  Whoa. Angie blinked, reeling at the blow he’d just delivered out of left field. His secrecy didn’t help. It underscored the sinister tone of his warning. And it got her back up—the fact he was not being open with her. She’d made a damn fine detective because she would not—could not—drop a puzzle until it was solved. The more complex the problem, the more it fired her to find the solution. Angie leaned aggressively forward in the chair.

  “You can’t do this to me, tell me to take something on blind faith like this—give me a warning that my life is in danger and not say why.”

  Silence.

  She surged to her feet, clamped her arm tightly across her chest, and stood in front of the window streaked with rain. “Maddocks, what are you telling me? Is … is this because you came across some privileged intel associated with this task force? Something on Belkin?”

  “I’m serious, Angie, I’m not at liberty to talk. But I’m asking you, please—leave this alone. At least for now. Do the right thing. Get the first ferry home and be at that social media desk on Monday morning. Keep your head down, and … keep vigilant. Lock your doors.”

  Tightening her grip on the phone, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose. Her brain scrambled to piece facts together. “Okay,” she said slowly. “So you came across some privileged information, and it involves Milo Belkin. You know about Belkin’s tattoo, and it’s key somehow. It’s a symbol of affiliation to something, maybe a gang? And Belkin and this tattoo somehow ties to human trafficking at an international level, because that’s the root of your barcode investigation. And now, because it’s gone international in scope, and because the nature of global sex trafficking generally involves organized crime at a high level, there was probably already an interagency investigation open. And you’ve been co-opted into this investigation, which requires top-level security clearance. Right?”