The Drowned Girls (Angie Pallorino Book 1)

by Loreth Anne White

  “How’d you know they were gasworks?” she said.

  “I told you. I know stuff.”

  She crooked a brow and panned her own flashlight over old rail ties that ran alongside the building perimeter. The ties were overgrown with weeds that were covered in a light layer of slush.

  “So, Drummond starts walking this way.” Angie headed off down the sidewalk. Holgersen followed. “Her shift starts at six thirty, and the bus was late, so she’s hurrying. It’s cold, windy, snowing that night. She has her head down, earphones plugged in. Unaware of her surroundings.”

  “Plenty traffic going by,” said Holgersen.

  “But it was stormy,” said Angie. “Weather like that turns people’s attention inward. Drivers’ attention was probably focused on the road directly in front of them.” She checked her watch as they reached the corner at the end of the block. “It takes her maybe two minutes tops from the bus shelter down to this corner.” They rounded the corner and entered a neatly paved parking lot with standing light fixtures reminiscent of the gaslight era. Ahead of them was the bakery and café with a blue neon caricature of a badger in the window. Bright, warm lights inside illuminated patrons at small tables. “And we’re here.” They climbed the stairs to the patio, made for the glass doors.

  Angie stopped on the deck. “Except Drummond didn’t get here. Something happened before here.”

  As Holgersen reached for the door handle, something compelled her to turn and stare into the shadows across the parking lot. The two brick buildings hulked dark and ominous, side by side, windows boarded up. Wind gusted suddenly, sending a thick shroud of fog swirling up from the water, and there she was. At the entrance to the narrow alley that led between the brick buildings. The little girl in pink. Luminous, almost floating. Her back was to Angie.

  The child turned slightly and glanced over her shoulder. White face glowing in the dark. She held out her right hand. In her left was a small basket.

  Come playum dum grove … Come down dem …

  A kind of terror rose inside Angie. The child was beckoning. She could feel the pull deep inside her, as if invisible strings tugged inside her chest, drawing her toward the shadows. Almost not of her own volition, she took a step toward the apparition.

  “Pallorino? You coming?” Holgersen stood there, door open in his hand, music and laughter seeping out into the cold.

  “Ah, yeah … Why don’t you go ahead, see if anyone saw Drummond yesterday? Ask the usual—was she having any problems, had she recently expressed any fears, made any complaints about patrons, personal situations, fellow workers. I just want to go check … something out over there.” She moved quickly across the patio and back down the stairs.

  “Pallorino!” he called after her, then cursed as she disappeared into the swirl of sleet and mist. She made for the alley.

  Come, come playum …

  The whispering inside her head grew louder, the tug in her chest fierce. She began to race toward the black opening between the buildings even as every molecule inside her body screamed for her to flee.

  Run … Run! … Uciekaj, uciekaj!

  The strange words filled her head. Some sounded like mangled English, like the odd utterings of a toddler, and those seemed to beckon her to come and play, to do something nice. While the others seemed to be in a foreign language, yet she seemed to understand instinctively what they meant—Flee! Run away! Fast!

  She entered the alley, heart hammering. And stilled. The child in pink was suddenly at the far end—a soft, impossible wash of shimmering pink. The girl’s arm reached out again.

  The mist swirled, cleared, and she was gone.

  Angie swallowed. Sweat prickled across her upper lip. The shadows were like ink inside the brick corridor. Soot and lichen blackened the walls. She clicked her flashlight on again. Old rail ties. Glint of broken glass. A bottle. All sticking out of the fine layer of slushy snow. She entered slowly, gravel and frozen slush crunching and squelching beneath her boots.

  Her beam bounced off the walls and flickered in crevices, making shadows dart. Something scuttled across her boot. She gasped, swung her beam as her hand shot instinctively toward her holstered sidearm. A small shape disappeared into a drainpipe tucked into a little alcove in the wall. Just a rodent. Gathering herself, she made her way to the end of the corridor where she’d seen the toddler. The alley spilled out into a wide, vacant lot—clumps of grass and brambles poking out of the slush. A foghorn moaned out on the water. She ran her flashlight across the lot. No child.

  Of course there was no child.

  She was fucking hallucinating, like her mother … it was starting. She was getting sick. What on earth had even compelled her to follow something she knew to be an apparition, a figment of her own mind? That’s what frightened her most. The fact that her hallucinations could exert such powerful control over her own sense of logic. She turned to quickly return to the warmth and lights of the Blue Badger, and suddenly she saw the rear end of the bus shelter up the bank, her vehicle parked beside it. And it struck her.

  She spun back to face the alley. This was a shortcut. Drummond could have taken this route through the alley between the abandoned gasworks buildings. A vehicle could have been waiting in this empty lot, accessed from a side road nearer the water. There was no lighting down here.

  Angie scanned the ground with her beam. Whatever vehicle tracks might have been made last night were covered with slush. She started to retrace her way back toward the alley, examining the ground inch by inch with her flashlight as she walked. Nothing jumped out at her. She reentered the alley and stood there for a moment, imagining that she was Drummond, just alighted from the bus, hurrying down the bank from the shelter. The kid probably had her head down against the weather, her body hunched into her coat, collar up against her cheeks. Her hat pulled low. Listening to her music. She’d surely have been moving fast through this alley, given the fact her bus was late and that fear in a dark and lonely place like this was instinctive.

  Maybe she cut through here weekly, if, as Vaughan had said, his bus was always running late. Maybe someone knew her routine and was waiting for her last night. A crime of choice, not chance.

  Angie put her head down, as if she might be Drummond, and walked, examining the ground with her flashlight as she went. She stilled as her beam caught something shiny. Her earlier footprint had exposed an object lying in gravel. Angie crouched down, snapped on her gloves, and picked up a set of small white earbuds attached to a broken cord. She glanced up. She was crouching adjacent to the recess in the wall into which the rat had scuttled. The alcove was set back enough to accommodate an assailant pressing himself against the bricks. He would have been totally hidden. He could have stepped out as Drummond approached or struck her from behind as she passed. The earbuds could have been ripped out of her ears, the cord broken in the violence of an ensuing tussle. Judging by the defensive wounds she’d seen on Drummond’s body, she’d fought for her life. But Drummond would have screamed, surely?

  Angie came to her feet, and she cried out, testing sound in the canyon of brick. Her scream fell flat, deadened by moss and lichen and by the layer of slush on the ground. Even if Drummond had managed to scream, no one would have heard her in the storm, in the dark. She’d have been all alone. Completely vulnerable.

  “Pallorino!” came Holgersen’s voice. “Hey! Who’s there?” A flashlight bobbed at the end of the alley. Footfalls sounded, running, coming closer. The beam shone in her face, and she saw that her partner had his service weapon drawn.

  She dangled the earphones up in her gloved fingers. “Bus driver said she was plugged in. Mom said she had an iPhone. These are standard Apple buds. There’s a vacant lot at the rear of this alley, big enough to park a vehicle. He could have planned this—been waiting right here in this alcove. Knowing she would come. Jumped her, knocked out the buds. He planned this. He picked Drummond for some reason, Holgersen. He hunted and trapped her. She fit his fantasy, and we need to f
ind out why.”

  “What the fuck, Angie?” He holstered his service weapon. “You screamed. I thought you were in danger. Jeeezus. I was looking for you, and then I heard—”

  “Sound,” she said, glancing up at the walls, “it’s muffled in here. Go back exactly the way you entered, Holgersen. Retrace your footsteps to minimize further contamination. We need to cordon this place off, get a uniform to stand guard until we can get a forensic team in here in the morning. This is our abduction site. I’d stake my life on it. Go!”

  He muttered a curse, started retracing his steps. She followed directly in his footprints.

  “What did the staff at the Badger say?” she called out from behind him. “You get anything?”

  He stopped, turned, glared down at her, anger and adrenaline still simmering off him. “Shift staff that she usually worked with was not there. But the manager said Gracie was a quiet, sweet girl. Empathetic. Private. Didn’t talk much about friends, dates, whatevers. Diligent. Had not expressed any fears, so fars as they knew, nor any problems with other staff. She regularly took a shortcut through this alley. The Badger’s night-shift boss is a stickler for punctuality, so she cuts through here to save like three minutes walking along the lighted sidewalk around the buildings.”

  “Good. So we—”

  “Good? For crap’s sake, Pallorino. You scared the scat out of me.”

  “Go. Keep moving.”

  They reached the end. “Go get the barrier tape from the vehicle,” she ordered. “I’m going to call this in.” As she reached for her cell, it rang.

  “Pallorino, Metro PD.”

  “It’s Vedder.”

  “I was just about to call you.” She mouthed to Holgersen, “Vedder,” and made a scooting motion with her hand for him to go.

  “We found—”

  “I need you to drop what you’re doing—”

  “What?”

  “I need you to stop what you’re doing, and—”

  “No. Wait, we just got a break. I—”

  “Pallorino, stop. Right now. You listening to me?”

  “Sir. Yes.”

  “Homicide caught a case this morning. Young woman found naked and wrapped in a plastic tarp, floating in the Gorge. She’s been genitally mutilated. Lock of hair removed.”

  Angie quickly ducked under the cover of an eave. “Crucifix on her brow?” she said.

  “Too early to tell either way, but—”

  “This and the Drummond case could both be linked to the Fernyhough and Ritter cases,” she said quickly. “You can’t pull me off now, Vedder. I worked both those sexual assault cases with Hash. I know them inside out. You have got to let me see this through.”

  “Dammit, Pallorino, just hear me out, will you? Buziak is setting up a task force as we speak.”

  “Fuck,” she whispered, kicking at stones in the slush. It was all going to homicide.

  “You’re being temporarily seconded to that force.”

  She went stone-still.

  “Buziak agrees that the Drummond, Fernyhough, and Ritter cases could be linked to his floater case, and since you’re intimately familiar with those sex cases, he wants you to get over to the autopsy currently under way on the Jane Doe found in the Gorge, to observe and to inform the team of any other similarities you might see emerging.”

  Her hand tightened on her phone as adrenaline and excitement smashed through her system.

  “The lead on the floater is Sergeant James Maddocks. You’ll be temporarily partnered with him. He’s attending the postmortem now. The Drummond PM is scheduled for first thing in the morning.”

  “Who’s Maddocks? I’ve never heard his name.”

  “The new guy.”

  “New guy? In homicide?” Her brain reeled. “What do you mean, new guy? The position has been filled already? When did this happen?”

  “It’s not my unit, Pallorino. I don’t know.”

  “You have my forms on your desk, Vedder, my application. Did you sign off on it? I’ve done all the Justice Institute courses and then some. I—”

  “This is not the time—”

  “It’s exactly the time.” I can prove myself on this case. This is my big chance to break in.

  “Angie.”

  She stilled at his use of her first name.

  “Look, I’m not stalling on this. I told you, I need that psych eval in hand before I can put you forward. You must see a police psychologist for debrief after losing a partner. It’s MVPD protocol, and Buziak isn’t even going to look at you for his permanent team until you get that clearance. So if you want this, do it. Go get that eval.”

  Excitement shifted into anxiety. A psych eval—a shrink figuring out that she was having visions of a toddler, or that she’d become addicted to anonymous sex as a coping mechanism—was the last thing she needed. She could lose her job completely. Holgersen arrived with the tape.

  Focus.

  She cleared her throat, spoke low and level. “I believe we’ve found the site of the initial assault on Drummond. An alleyway between the Blue Badger and the bus shelter where our vic got off the bus.”

  “Okay, good. Leave Holgersen to secure the scene and get yourself over to that autopsy. Briefing of the new task force will begin at seven thirty a.m. tomorrow. Good luck. And Angie—” He paused. “Be nice. If you play nice, Maddocks might put in a word of recommendation when the time comes.” Another pause. “Violent death is not a one-person mission.”

  Vedder’s warning was clear. He knew her well—how irascible she could be. Her issues with anger management and borderline rage at times. Her propensity to work solo. She was fully aware that a good homicide detective was a team player and that team playing was something she’d always had a problem with. Even at school. In college. She knew also from her meeting with Vedder earlier today that she already had a big fat department target on her back.

  She had everything to lose.

  And everything to win.

  And some new guy called Maddocks was going to have a say in her future.

  CHAPTER 16

  Angie’s boot heels echoed along the basement corridor. She knew the first thing that would hit her when she entered the morgue would be the smell. It would make her edgy. Hospital smells always did, although she’d never really figured out why—it’s not like she’d ever had a bad personal experience in one.

  She’d found a small jar of eucalyptus ointment in her glove compartment from when Hash had a bad chest cough. She hadn’t had the heart to throw any of his stuff out. As she neared the morgue doors, she opened the container and dabbed some of the ointment under her nose.

  Mistake.

  The ointment burned like hell, and her eyes watered as the double doors hissed open. She entered, blinking. Cello music played against the click and clatter of instruments and the sound of water drumming in a sink. The decedent lay naked on her back on the stainless steel table—her body ghostly white, her head a bloodied mess with a bared jaw, bulbous eyes, dark strings of hair.

  In spite of her mental preparation, shock washed through Angie.

  Barb O’Hagan was the attending pathologist. This pleased her. The doc glanced up, a scalpel in hand. Two detectives stood with their backs to Angie. Leo’s chunky frame and shock of white hair were instantly recognizable. The guy beside him stood far taller, maybe six foot four—shoulders twice as broad as Leo’s. His hair was thick and glistened blue-black under the harsh fluorescent lighting. Something inside Angie went stone-still.

  “Detective Pallorino has joined us,” O’Hagan said into the mike, and she gave Angie a nod.

  The two detectives turned. Indigo eyes met hers. Her heart started to stammer.

  Mr. Big Dick.

  Tall, dark, and just the wrong side of handsome—the guy she’d handcuffed to a motel room bed and fucked to her heart’s pleasure last night. He was the new homicide guy? He could have a say in her future? A loud clanging began in her ears.

  Angie inhaled deeply, but th
e eucalyptus ointment fumes made her cough. Her eyes watered even more, and her nose began to run, which made her sniff and cough again.

  “Leo, Barb,” she managed to say between her coughing fit.

  Leo frowned. “What’re you doing here?”

  O’Hagan reached up and turned her mike off.

  Angie wiped her eyes with the base of her thumb. “’Scuse me. I, uh … got … something in my eyes.” She cleared her throat, sniffed again. “I’ve been seconded to this case. Buziak just assigned me to the task force.”

  Cello music crashed.

  Leo stared, eyes flat. “This is James Maddocks,” he said. “He’s lead on this DB for now.”

  “Angie Pallorino,” she said, looking up and once again meeting those deep-indigo eyes. Heat washed over her skin. Her set of sex rules raced through her mind.

  Never sleep with a colleague. Never kiss. Leave first … Always stay in control …

  Control was the last fucking thing she was in right now.

  “The Drummond case is mine,” she managed to say, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “Her assault might be linked to two earlier unsolved sexual assaults that I worked with my former partner, Hashowsky, three and four years ago. Similar signature in all three. I’ve been asked to observe this postmortem and to identify any other similarities that might come to my attention, based on my older cases.”

  Slowly, his gaze locked on hers, Detective James Maddocks extended his hand. Angie took it. Firm—very firm—grip. Big. The memory of his hand on her arm last night as he’d steered her out of the club punched through her. It was followed by an image of him stark naked on the bed, hands above his head. His chest, armpit, and groin hair black as night, skin pale and honed like marble. Like alabaster … that dick, erect, sheathed. She swallowed.

  “Pleased to … meet you, Detective,” he said, holding on to her hand a fraction too long, the hint of a smile playing over his lips, a deadly seriousness in his eyes. When he released her, she swiped again at her nose with her sleeve.

  O’Hagan eyed them both a moment, exchanged a glance with Leo, and then said, “Got tissues on the counter over there.”