The Girl in the Moss (Angie Pallorino Book 3)

by Loreth Anne White

  Angie tried a new tactic. “That’s quite the buck you bagged there.” She jerked her head toward the animal carcass swinging on the meat hook. “You must have got it this morning?”

  He studied her, searching for the trick, then glanced at his buck.

  Angie said, “Do you hunt with arrows? That’s quite a skill.”

  Slowly, he lowered the gun. He wiped his sleeve across his sweaty brow. “You spooked me. Didn’t recognize you from the back, what with that toque on. Sorry. Jeezus, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She removed her hands from her head. “Why don’t you give me that gun, let me make it safe before Claire comes around and surprises us both?” She tried to keep her voice light as she stepped forward and held out her hand.

  To Angie’s relief, he let her take the shotgun. She immediately cracked it open, removed the shells, and set the lot on the workbench.

  “Shall we go outside? Where it’s light. We can talk there.”

  He turned and exited the shed, stumbling once and catching himself against the wall. She followed and creaked the shed door closed behind her.

  “What do you want?” he said, blinking in the light.

  “Just a few questions. Is there somewhere we can sit? On your porch, maybe?”

  He nodded and started toward his cabin. But he tripped and stumbled again. She caught his arm.

  “Had a few celebratory drinks after your hunt?”

  “Something like that.” He reached the covered porch and clomped up the stairs in his heavy boots. Angie followed.

  Claire appeared from around the cabin. “Oh, you found him!” She paused as Budge’s state quickly became apparent to her. She crooked up her brows.

  Angie nodded. “Just going to have a few quick words with Budge here on the deck,” she said as Budge flopped into the only chair on the porch and dropped his face into his hands. Angie sat opposite him on a cut log. Claire remained standing in the clearing in the mud, hands in her pockets, watching, an odd look on her face.

  “Who told you I was in town, Budge?” Angie said.

  He looked up, assessing her. “Uh, it was just … the scuttlebutt. I don’t see why you want to talk to me.”

  “Do you know that the human remains you found have been identified as Jasmine Gulati, a young woman who drowned in the Nahamish twenty-four years ago while on a guided fishing trip?”

  He studied her in silence, mistrust entering his bleary eyes. An eagle cried up in the clouds. Wind increased in the conifers, making the forest rush with the sound of a river as branches twisted like skirts about dancing trees.

  “Yeah,” he said finally. “I heard it was her.”

  Angie leaned forward. “When you found the skeleton, did you think at the time the body might belong to Jasmine Gulati?”

  He raked his fingers through his gray hair, making the front stand up. “I … maybe. I didn’t think too much about who it was at the time. It was a shock, finding those bones. And that Jasmine woman, she went over the falls such a long time ago. Others have gone missing in these parts since. Other anglers. A jumper over the falls. Hunters. Hikers.”

  She studied his face. “But you had met Jasmine before she went missing, right?”

  “No.”

  Angie reached inside the breast pocket of her down jacket and took out the screenshot she’d printed of Budge Hargreaves with a young Darnell Jacobi in the pub. She showed it to him.

  “You were in the Hook and Gaffe the night Jasmine and the other women were there.”

  He squinted at the image. The creases in his brow deepened into furrows. “Where in the hell did you get that?”

  “I took it from the footage that Rachel Hart shot for her documentary. You’re with Darnell Jacobi in that footage. You both saw Jasmine Gulati arguing with Wallace Carmanagh and the Tollet twins.”

  “I guess I saw her. Was pretty wasted that night. A lot of us were, what with Robbie Tollet’s team winning and all. Don’t remember much.”

  Angie turned to study his land. “Your place is pretty close to the section of river that those women were fishing twenty-four years ago. Did you see the women on the river at all?”

  He shook his head.

  “But you lived out here at the time?”

  “Yeah. Been here ever since two years after my wife drowned. I used to work with the forestry service station not far from here.”

  “I’m so sorry about your wife.”

  He nodded.

  “Can I ask how she died, Budge?”

  Claire stiffened in Angie’s peripheral vision.

  “She drowned.”

  “You mentioned. How did it happen?”

  Claire began to pace up and down near the deck railing. Angie ignored her and focused on Budge Hargreaves. The man’s bloodshot eyes went distant. He scrubbed his brow hard, as if it might help clear his head or possibly wipe it clean of bad memories. Angie felt sorry for him.

  “We were fishing on Loon Lake not far from here. In my Spratley.”

  “Is that a boat?”

  He nodded. “It was late evening. We were having sundowners. Probably a few too many. I … I don’t know what happened. One minute, I was standing up to cast. The boat wobbled, and she was out. Splash.”

  “She fell overboard?”

  He looked down at his mud-caked boots. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “She went straight down into that black water. Happened so fast. We weren’t wearing life vests.” He paused. “It was getting dark.”

  “Can you swim?”

  “A little.”

  “You didn’t go in after her?”

  Claire cleared her throat and threw Angie a disapproving glare. Angie ignored her.

  “I … I couldn’t go in.” Budge stared at his feet for a long while. When he met her gaze again, his features were stripped raw, and emotion was naked in his eyes. “Look at me,” he said, holding his calloused hands out to his sides. “Look at me. I punish myself every day. I try to blind myself with that demon drink. Maybe I’m trying to kill myself, I don’t know. A six-pack of beers plus a bottle of whiskey nearly every night, and I’m still fucking here, still fucking standing and walking, and it was my fault. I am to blame. I could have done more.” Tears filled his eyes. “Maybe I could have saved her if I’d gone in. But I was wasted. Too drunk to try to swim. Or even think straight. I’d have drowned, too, and I should have. I should’ve gone in and gone down with her—” He began to sob openly, not even attempting to hide the tears streaming down his face. Big, ugly, inhuman sounds issued from him as his body and mind were racked with misery.

  “I’m so sorry, Budge.” Angie found a Kleenex in one of her pockets and held it out to him.

  He blew his nose.

  She waited. Wind gusted harder, bending the tips of the trees in the forest all around them. Tiny flecks of snow began to blow in with it. Claire walked to the edge of the clearing, looked up at the clouded sky, then checked her watch.

  “What was your wife’s name, Budge?”

  “Arizona. I always called her Zoe. For short.”

  “Married a long time?”

  He nodded, wiped his nose again, and cursed softly. “When we moved out to Port Ferris, it was going to be a fresh start for both of us. Good things were supposed to come of it. We were closer to outdoor recreation—fishing, hunting. She’d quit her job so I could take the new forestry position out here.”

  “Why’d you need a fresh start?”

  He snorted softly. “Marriage trouble.”

  Angie studied him. “Bad?”

  He shrugged. “Bad enough to make a big move.”

  Angie wondered if this could speak to motive, whether Budge might have had helped his wife’s drowning accident along. Or facilitated it.

  “Where did you live before relocating to Port Ferris?” she asked.

  “Richmond. In the Lower Mainland. It was a very urban existence. I traveled a lot for work, was away from home for extended periods.”

  “Yeah, that�
��d be rough on a marriage, I imagine.”

  Claire came up to the porch railing. Her face showed anger now. “We should go,” she said, her voice tight. “Weather is turning. Still need to hike out to Axel’s place and to the moss grove.”

  Angie raised her hand. “One sec.”

  The young woman’s eyes narrowed sharply. A hostility crackled from them.

  “Yeah,” Budge said. “Like I mentioned, the move was supposed to be a fresh start. I’d also promised to cut way back on the drinking.” He made a scoffing sound. “Guess it all went the opposite way, eh?”

  “Had you ever visited that moss grove prior to finding Jasmine’s body?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, to pick mushrooms or just to visit it. It’s a beautiful place. Peaceful.”

  Comprehension dawned in his eyes. His body stiffened. “You saying that I knew she was lying there all these years? Or … What in the hell are you saying? That I suddenly wanted to show someone where she was buried?”

  Angie decided to push his buttons further to see what resulted, given his state. She leaned forward.

  “Officer Darnell Jacobi’s father, Hank Jacobi, helped see to it that additional charges were dropped after your drunk driving accident.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Just wondering if you and the Jacobis were—are—close.”

  He shot to his feet so fast Angie jerked back in shock.

  He pointed his finger down at her face. “You fuck off out of here, okay?” He swung his hand toward Claire. “And you too, Tollet. Don’t know what in the hell traitorous shit game you’re playing by bringing this woman here.”

  Angie rose up from her stump. Budge took a fast step toward her, forcing her to brace against the deck railing.

  “I hope to God that you never have to lose anyone you love.” He ground the words out, the alcohol fumes on his breath washing into her face. “The only reprieve I found was at the bottom of a goddamn bottle, and those Jacobi men are good men. Good cops. Hank could see what trouble I was having. He helped me. He spoke to the other party involved in the accident, told them about the grief that was killing me. They let him drop charges for me not remaining at the scene of the accident. Nothing illegal was done, okay? I was still prosecuted for impaired driving. I still paid my dues—I still got the damn criminal record to prove it. I got it the record burned right here in my heart.” He bashed his fist against his chest, face red, eyes watering.

  “That Jasmine Gulati woman got what was coming to her. She was a sinner. She seduced married men for the fun of it, to test her own power over them, and that’s just evil. Funny how justice can work out here, eh? So you go get the fuck off of my property now before you get what’s coming to you, too. Or before I go mistaking your sorry city ass for a bear and shooting you dead.”

  Shaking, he whirled around and lurched for his cabin door. He yanked it open. Tucker leaped all over Budge as the old-timer entered the cabin, then slammed the door shut behind him.

  Angie stared at the door, her pulse racing, her face hot.

  “Are you done yet?”

  Angie’s attention flashed to Claire. She stood in the mud, arms akimbo, anger scrawled across her face. Tiny flakes of snow settled on the dark braids that hung over her shoulders.

  “Well, I didn’t get to ask him about his truck yet,” Angie said, descending the two stairs that led up to the porch. “You okay, Claire?”

  Claire spun around and stalked in sullen silence toward the path that led back into the forest. Angie had to hurry to catch up and keep pace behind her. As the path narrowed, Claire pushed branches aside, allowing them to slap back at Angie.

  They hiked in this combative fashion for several kilometers into the woods. From the Garmin GPS Claire had loaned her, Angie saw they were almost at Axel Tollet’s place.

  Claire halted abruptly on the trailhead and spun to face Angie.

  “You going to mess with Uncle Axel’s head, too? What on earth was all that with Budge anyway? You just trying to hurt him? He’s a mess over the death of his wife. He never recovered. What’s the deal with all these questions? You think he killed his own wife or something? What does that have to do with your case, anyway?”

  “I’m sorry, Claire,” Angie said softly. She did feel some guilt over Budge. She’d also hewed very close to having Budge let slip that it was Claire’s father who’d been seduced by Jasmine. If and when that got out, it was going to hurt Claire, too.

  “Look, it’s not my intention to hurt anyone, Claire. But there is a chance that Jasmine Gulati’s death was not what it seemed.”

  Claire stared at her. Wind rushed through the forest. It carried upon its chill winter breath the metallic scent of snow. “You mean … it wasn’t an accident?”

  “I mean only that there are some anomalies, conflicting memories around the event. And I want to ask questions that might help throw fresh light on the incident.” She paused. “You saw her remains, Claire. You saw Jasmine Gulati’s bones buried in the dirt. She was twenty-five when she drowned, around your age. She’d been lying there in the muck, a couple hundred meters away from the river, for maybe two decades after the flooding likely deposited her body there. All alone. No one knowing where she was. Her mother and father were desperate to find her. It almost cost them their marriage.”

  “If it wasn’t an accident,” Claire said slowly, “that means … someone out here, someone I know, could have hurt her. Is that what you’re saying? You think it was Budge? That he drowned her because maybe he drowned his own wife?”

  “I just want to hear everyone’s story.”

  “Bullshit. You’re off base, way off. You’re digging up painful pasts to appease some old woman who’s only going to find out that her granddaughter had an accident. What of everyone you hurt in the process? What happens when you waltz out of town leaving a wake of collateral damage? Who picks up the pieces then?”

  She pointed into the woods. “Because that back there—that sounded like a fishing expedition, and it was cruel.”

  “Claire,” she said quietly, “I think you’re overreacting. Budge was drunk. He’s an alcoholic, sounds like he was a drunk before he even moved to Port Ferris. He’s probably not even going to remember we visited him by the time he wakes up tomorrow morning.”

  “I can’t take you to see Axel,” she said curtly. “Not if you’re going to attack him like you did Budge. He’s … Uncle Axe can be a little slow with certain things. Not because he’s stupid, but the education system failed him when he was a kid. He has a learning disability, and because of it he never got proper schooling. And he … he’s vulnerable. I can’t let you hurt him.”

  “I know what you’re worried about. I know what happened to Axel when he was a kid,” Angie said gently. “I can’t promise to avoid it totally when I talk to him because it could be relevant in unexpected ways. But I’ve worked for over six years in sex crimes, and I know how survivors of those crimes can—”

  “You know what about him?” Confusion chased across Claire’s face. “What happened to Axel when he was a kid—what’s this about sex crimes?”

  Shit! Angie stared at Claire. She didn’t know about the rape. Why in the hell should she know? Even if half the old-timers in town did.

  “Angie,” Claire growled, coming closer. “You better tell me. Now. Tell me what happened with Axel. What is ‘it’ that you can’t promise to avoid?”

  Angie inhaled deeply, her brain racing for a way out. “I’m aware that Axel Tollet was bullied as a kid.”

  “Don’t bullshit me! Tell me what happened—what does this have to do with your experience in sex crimes? Or I’m not taking you in there. Without me Axel will not talk to you. I guarantee it.”

  Angie’s brain whirled. She owed Claire. She’d dealt her cards by opening this door in error. She now had to play her hand and play it well. And carefully.

  “Look, there’s no easy way to soften this, Claire, and i
t’s really not my place to tell you.” She hesitated. “But you’re probably going to hear it from someone in town one day, probably sooner than later now, because a lot of people know about it.” Angie cleared her throat. “When your uncle Axel was thirteen years old, he was gang-raped by a group of boys from his school.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Angie’s news appeared to physically punch Claire in the stomach. The young woman doubled over and slumped down onto a moss-covered log, her features slack.

  “Who?” she whispered. “How?”

  Angie lowered herself onto the wet fallen log beside Claire. She rubbed her face. There was no way she could put this genie back in the bottle now, not without being dishonest.

  “It’s the story around town, among the older residents,” Angie said gently. “The police do know—I spoke with Constable Jacobi about it. His father was involved in investigating an aspect of the incident. It’s not my place to tell you, Claire, but you’ll probably hear it as gossip one day, and it’s not going to be nice any way you hear it. It’s also possible that what happened to your uncle Axel ties into what happened to Jasmine. At least in part.”

  Because those boys would have bonded tightly over those terrible secrets as they became men, and I’m almost 100 percent certain they were the ones terrorizing Jasmine and the women along the river. And they might also have tried to send me into Carmanagh Lake.

  Unless that had been Budge Hargreaves.

  Or hunters with brake problems, but Angie was still leaning toward Darnell Jacobi having alerted Wallace and the twins to the fact she was driving a rental up to the lodge. Darnell Jacobi, who’d been at school with them all, and whose father had called off the investigation into the possible murder of Porter Bates.

  She cleared her throat. “The story goes that shortly after Axel turned thirteen, a bully at his school, an older boy named Porter Bates, allegedly lured him out to a quarry north of town. Bates and his gang allegedly sexually assaulted Axel there. Bates and his guys had been bullying Axel for a long time before that from what I understand. Axel apparently never officially reported the sexual assault, but shortly afterward Porter Bates was jumped by some local guys on a secluded trail outside of town. These guys allegedly bound him up and drowned him at the quarry. The feeling is that this was done in retaliation for what Porter did to Axel.”