The Drowned Girls (Angie Pallorino Book 1)

by Loreth Anne White

  Is this going to be a problem? … You, me. That club …

  Her hands fisted on the wheel. There would likely come a day in the not-too-distant future where she’d have to smile and be nice when she met his wife. She’d made this mistake once before in the not-distant-enough past—sleeping with a married man. Someone close to her work. In Angie’s mind it had been a fling. Not in his. It had gone wrong—badly wrong—hurt too many people. Cost his marriage. She’d vowed it could never happen again. That horrible misstep was the reason behind her sex rules. It was why she’d started hitting the club. A good fuck. No strings attached. And she’d grown increasingly addicted to this fix, the latent danger, the taste of power, both physical and mental. There was something about using men that felt good, felt like payback for all the sick cases she worked where males hurt, abused, and used vulnerable females, children. It gave her control. It was a little secret that made her strong.

  But now she felt suddenly off-kilter.

  Angie parked in the space allotted to her apartment and caught the elevator up to her corner suite on the top floor.

  Inside, her living space was sterile. Chrome and black. Bare wood floors. Easy to clean. No knickknacks. No pets to worry about. No plants to die under her neglect because of the hours she clocked on the job. She turned up the heat, shucked off her coat and hat, and kicked off her boots. She placed her service weapon, holster, and two phones on the table, and she tugged the hair tie out of her hair.

  Massaging her scalp, she went to the kitchen, got a glass out of the cupboard, and the vodka bottle from the freezer. She poured herself a shot of ice-cool alcohol and sucked it back in one burning go before topping her glass up with a second. A drink or four might actually numb her into a few hours of sleep before she had to face the new task force and Detective Big D. in the morning. She put on the television and listened to the news while she warmed some leftover pasta takeout in the microwave. The twenty-four-hour station was running yet another rehash of the Drummond case. An image caught her eye as she took her plate from the microwave. Angie stilled, stared. Her heart started to stutter.

  Someone had dredged up and was broadcasting a file photo of her taken last July—on a steamy evening. In the image she was carrying a limp and bleeding and dead toddler in her arms, her own face a twisted study of anguish. Blood covered her clothes, her hands … It was the evening Hash had died.

  Angie set her plate down slowly and moved woodenly toward the TV. She grabbed the remote, bumped up the sound.

  It was MVPD Detective Angela Pallorino and her new partner, Kjel Holgersen, who responded to the Ross Bay Cemetery attack last night, where Duneagle student Gracie Marie Drummond was found unconscious and bleeding. Drummond, sixteen, had been sexually assaulted and mutilated … Pallorino, who last made news when …

  Rage slammed through Angie. She killed the feed. What in the hell did they need to do that for—drag up the thing with Hash? Fucking twenty-four-hour news, the need to feed the round-the-clock beast—that’s what this was about. Reporters desperate to find material, mucking about and putting out old shit, trying to build a story out of blocks that were not connected at all. Vedder was right. She was going to look like the poster child for disaster at the MVPD if this continued.

  Already there was the problem with the serious leak of what was supposed to be holdback information on her case.

  She sucked back her vodka and poured a double. Carrying her dinner and drink to her computer, Angie’s thoughts about the leak shifted to Holgersen—the phone call she was convinced she’d seen him making inside Starbucks, his denial, him suggesting that Merry Winston had picked up the cemetery call on a scanner: She’s kinda cute … all that spiky black hair, pale skin … seen her around …

  Distaste filled Angie’s mouth. She did not want to doubt her fellow officers, let alone her own partner. She preferred to believe the Drummond case leak came from the paramedics or hospital staff or one of their family members—but it had knocked them all off ease at the MVPD, and it was breeding a simmering sense of mistrust, suspicion—the last thing they all needed right now with Killion and his team taking aim at the force.

  She was going to have to watch her back.

  Booting up her desktop, she delivered a forkful of pasta to her mouth and chewed while her emails loaded. She clicked through them. Nothing of interest.

  She then googled Gracie Marie Drummond, found a social media page for the teen. Smart girl had activated her privacy settings. Angie couldn’t see her posts, nor who her friends were. They’d need the techs to get on that. On impulse, she ran a quick Internet search for “Sergeant James Maddocks.”

  A few images and several news pieces came up—Maddocks at press conferences, Maddocks outside the RCMP station in Surrey, Maddocks in formal red serge at the funeral of a colleague, looking dapper in his Stetson and high brown Strathcona boots with spurs. She scrolled through the stories as she sipped her drink. He’d clearly been a big shot with the integrated homicide investigations team on the mainland—roughly Buziak’s equivalent in rank and position. His experience prior to joining iHit appeared to have included working on the large interagency task force that finally resulted in the arrest of Vancouver’s most infamous serial killer—pig farmer Robert Pickton. Angie’s curiosity was further piqued—so he was familiar with major serial crimes. Now here he was with the MVPD, a smaller jurisdiction, working in the trenches under Buziak. His move to Metro PD was a step down by all appearances.

  She finished her food as she studied the image of him in formal dress, irked that she found him appealing. Irritably she clicked the page shut, then checked the messages on her landline.

  There was one. From her dad. She hit PLAY.

  “Angie, I’ve been trying your cell all day. Maybe you’ll get this message when you get home. You need to visit your mom. Soon.” A pause. “She … uh … she needs to see you. She’s having a real hard time settling in, and the nurses … Just try and visit her tomorrow, okay?” A clearing of the throat. “Please.” Then a click as her father hung up.

  Self-recrimination washed hot through her chest. She rubbed her brow. It was almost midnight. Too late to call him back. She hoped her mother was okay. Her attention went to the box of her mother’s things that she’d left by the door before heading out to the club.

  It seemed like ages ago.

  She got up, lifted the photo album off the top, carried it to the sofa. Curling her socked feet under her, she sat and opened the leather-bound book of memories to the photographs of her first birthday. She then skipped forward a few more pages to the images shot in Italy, the year of her father’s sabbatical. She turned to the photo of the three of them—their little family unit sitting in front of a decorated tree, the one her father had been studying earlier. It was taken their first Christmas after the car accident that had marred her face.

  She touched her fingertip to the scar on her mouth as she studied the picture. A sudden flash of red exploded through her mind, and pain sliced across her mouth. She heard tires screech, the crunch of metal. She tasted blood. Angie sucked air in sharply—the visions, the sensations, were so sharp, so visceral they felt real. Pulse pounding, she got up, paced. Was that a memory? Was she remembering the accident? She had not recalled anything of the car smash until this very moment. Was she beginning to have some recall—possibly triggered by losing Hash and the toddler five months ago? Or was she extrapolating images and sensations from that terrible incident with Hash and imposing them on the photographs and the stories of her past that she’d been told? Arms wrapped around herself, shivering despite the fact the heat in her apartment was cranked up, Angie went to the mirror by the door. She stared at her reflection. Again, she touched her scar with her fingertips. An old rhyme came to mind …

  Fractured face

  in the mirror,

  you are my disgrace …

  a sinner …

  Then other words, sounds, images, smashed through her brain.

  R
un … Run! … Uciekaj, uciekaj! … a shrill scream … fighting. Dark. Cold. Snowflakes. A woman … a familiar woman … Wskakuj do srodka, szybko! She yelled … A flash of silver … then blackness …

  Angie’s breaths came shallow, rapid. What the … ? Was this what PTSD looked like from the inside? Or worse, was she falling mentally ill? Genetics taking their toll?

  She returned to the album and shut it. But as she did, one of the Italy photos slid out from under the protective plastic sheet on the page and wafted to the hardwood floor. Angie picked it up, started to reinsert it into the book, but then she noticed the tiny scrawl of her mother’s hand on the back.

  Rome. Jan. 1984.

  Angie frowned. She peeled back the plastic sheet covering the Christmas photo—the one taken the December after the car accident, after they’d returned from Europe. She dislodged it from the page, turned it over.

  Christmas 1987. Victoria.

  That couldn’t be right. She’d been told it was ’86 that they were in Italy; 1986 was the year of her dad’s sabbatical. March ’86 was when the car accident occurred, when her mouth had been slashed open. The year she’d been four going on five. As far as she knew, they’d returned to Canada before Christmas. This photo should be dated “Christmas 1986.” She removed another of the Italy photos and flipped it over.

  Naples. Feb. 1984.

  She needed sleep. Nothing was making sense. She left the album and photos on the coffee table, finished her drink, started clicking off lights. But as she reached for her Smith and Wesson to lock it away, she saw that her burner phone lying beside it was blinking with a message. She frowned and played the message.

  “Angie,” said a male voice, deep, resonant. Velvet on gravel.

  Him.

  “About our unfinished business … I’d like to finish it.” A pause. “Can’t stop thinking about you. Call me.” He left a number.

  Her mouth went dry. She pressed her hand to her brow. Then, quickly, she checked the time of the message. He’d called at 8:35 this morning. Mere hours since she’d left him and his erection at the Foxy Motel. He’d wanted to see her again, to be with her again … to complete their sexual act.

  Until they’d met at the morgue.

  CHAPTER 20

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 11

  Angie entered the incident room hefting her case files and still wearing her coat. She was drenched and late. She’d been stuck in traffic, and her head was thumping from too much vodka and too little sleep.

  “Thank you for joining us, Pallorino,” Buziak called out as she kicked the door closed behind her. He stood at the far end of the room in front of a whiteboard that ran the length of the wall, looking like a small Al Pacino, which made Maddocks, who was standing beside him, appear even taller than his six feet four inches.

  A group of about twelve detectives were seated in chairs facing Buziak, Maddocks, and the whiteboard. Heads turned to look at her as a quiet befell the room. All male, she noted, and older, some with paunches, tired-looking shirts, badges hanging by lanyards around their necks. The only other female Angie could see was Bettina, a ViCLAS coordinator. It was Bettina’s job to run info through the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System in an effort to link sex and violent homicides across the country together. She was in her late fifties. Also present was a project assistant and a young analyst.

  Angie gave a brief nod to Holgersen, who was leaning against a pillar near the door beside Leo. The white-haired cop gave her a long and brazen look, then mumbled something quietly to Holgersen. She ignored him and offloaded her files onto a vacant table near the back. Finding a chair, she shrugged out of her wet coat, draped it over the back, and took a seat.

  The tension in the room was palpable. Thirteen days to Christmas, a new mayoral regime taking the oath of office tomorrow, and the pressure was coming down from the top. Even Inspector Frank Fitzsimmons, head of major crimes, was present, seated up front and just off to the side. Angie hoped he was simply observing, because brass sticking fingers directly into an investigation always spelled trouble. Fitz caught her eye, but his features remained expressionless. Fitz had personally grilled her over the loss of Hash’s life, and over Tiffy Bennett’s and her parents’ deaths. While she’d been cleared of any breach of department protocol, Angie believed that Fitz wasn’t buying it—he was personally holding her responsible for the death of one of the MVPD’s finest and longest-serving detectives. And he wasn’t alone. He was probably thinking about the leaks now, the media fiasco with her face being splashed all over the front page again. A chill of foreboding slid down her throat. She broke the eye contact and turned to focus on Buziak.

  He was busy sticking photos of the two recent homicide victims onto the whiteboard. He also added headshots of Fernyhough and Ritter. Then, with a black Sharpie, he scrawled LIMPET across the top of the board, and he underlined the word with a swift stroke of his hand.

  “Operation Limpet,” he said, turning to face the group. “That’s what we’re calling this investigation. It’s a word totally devoid of particular relevance to this case, and one that stays out of the media. I’ll be functioning as your team commander. Detective Maddocks is lead investigator. Salinger will serve as file coordinator. Given the media hysteria already developing, plus the fact that the two recent homicide victims were found within such a narrow timeframe, we need to hit this hard and fast, before our subject kills again.”

  He paused, meeting the eyes of each member of his task force. “I don’t want to believe there is a leak in our institution, but given the level of confidential detail that has found its way into the press, nothing, and I mean nothing, goes beyond that incident room door that is not authorized for release directly by me. And no one talks to media for any reason at all. Refer all press queries to our media liaison officer. The MVPD will be holding a press conference this morning in an attempt to allay fears and to try to mitigate the damage already done out there. Do I make myself clear?”

  Murmurs and nods.

  “We follow a strict chain of command. Everything comes back to me, and I will relay information and make assignments as required. A seven a.m. daily briefing will be held in this room where possible. And again, where possible, a debrief and handover to the night shift will be held at the end of day. My directive is to keep overtime to a minimum without losing an eye on the ball. Which means coordinated around-the-clock rotation starting with who we’ve got in here. More hands will be enlisted if and when the need arises. The clock has started ticking, people, and time is not our friend.”

  Right, thought Angie. Cut back, but deliver fast. Gunnar’s stamp was all over this speech—their chief was clearly buckling under pressure from Killion’s election promises to cut costs while still increasing closure rates.

  “Okay, we’ve got two DBs. Female.” Buziak pointed to the first photo on the board. “Gracie Marie Drummond, sixteen, Caucasian, five feet six inches, shoulder-length brown hair.” He ran through the details of her case so far. “Tentative COD for Drummond is that she was immersed in freshwater and succumbed to drowning in hospital. A postmortem is being performed as we speak.” He tapped the back of his Sharpie on the second image. “Faith Hocking, nineteen, Caucasian, five feet seven inches, slight build. Also long brown hair.”

  What the—? The floater had been ID’d?

  Angie shot a glance at Holgersen, Leo, then Maddocks. But all attention was focused on Buziak. Tension started to crackle inside her, and her unease deepened.

  Buziak selected another photo from the table in front of him and stuck it on the board. “Hocking was identified late last night by this tattoo.” The photo showed the Medusa ink with its hydra head of serpents.

  “Shit,” said someone.

  “Wouldn’t want to stick my dick in there,” whispered another seated near Angie. She turned and shot him a hot glare. He crooked a brow back at her.

  “Hocking is in the system, was picked up on a meth-related charge three years ago, when she was sixteen. According
to the report made at the time, she was a runaway and had been a street kid since the age of twelve. Crystal meth user, and a small-time prostitute to fund her habit. As of now, last whereabouts or place of domicile unknown. But at the time of her arrest she was known to occasionally bunk down at a shelter for homeless kids and young addicts called Harbor House on Songhee Street. It’s run by a volunteer known as Pastor Markus—Markus Gilani. COD for Hocking, tentatively, is asphyxiation due to strangulation with ligature. Official autopsy reports and lab results are pending, but so far several key common denominators have emerged in both homicides—evidence of violent rape and sodomy, followed by precise genital mutilation—the clitoral hood, clitoral glans, and labia minora were excised in the same manner in both cases.” He paused. “Female circumcision.”

  Murmurs came from the almost all-male group.

  “Also, a mark in the shape of a crucifix was carved with a sharp blade into the foreheads of both victims, and from each, a lock of hair was cut from their hairlines at the center of their brows.” He tapped his Sharpie against his palm. “A keepsake, a trophy.” Another pause. “We believe we’re looking at an active serial.”

  More murmurs.

  “So, two deaths makes a serial killer, then?” came a comment from one of the detectives.

  “Whatever official definition of a serial you choose,” said Buziak, “these two sexually based homicides look to be the work of the same offender, someone with a very particular signature, and one with strong religious overtones. This is a ritual that means something to him beyond simple sexual assault. It’s also possible that the Drummond and Hocking homicides are linked to two violent sexual assaults three and four years ago. Allison Fernyhough, fourteen, and Sally Ritter, sixteen, were both raped and sodomized, also in the greater Victoria area. Detective Pallorino from sex crimes worked those cases with the late Hash Hashowsky.”

  Some of the men turned to look at her. Angie shifted slightly in her seat, wondering if it was blame that she could read in some of their eyes, or if it was her own mind putting it there, because on some level she would always wonder whether Hash might still be alive if she’d read the situation differently, if she hadn’t been so hotheaded.