The Drowned Girls (Angie Pallorino Book 1)

by Loreth Anne White

  He took the envelope from her and started spreading Winston’s photographic evidence out on the table.

  “Where’s Leo?” she said, scanning the bustle in the incident room.

  “Sent him with Smith to watch the Amanda Rose,” Maddocks said, studying Winston’s photos. “Got techs digging into the yacht’s ownership history—she’s registered in the Caymans, so that could be a problem—but I want to keep surveillance on her twenty-four/seven in case she decides to pull anchor. Don’t want her heading into international waters before we’ve got a handle on this. Got Metro harbor units on standby in the next cove in case she bolts.”

  Angie smiled to herself and caught Holgersen’s eye. Leo on surveillance duty. She could only imagine his grousing at being sidelined like that. One–zero to Maddocks. He glanced up from the photos.

  “Well done. Thank you,” Maddocks said.

  Her eyes held his for a nanosecond, and she thought of the trust he’d placed back into her hands with her gun, at no small risk to himself. She had more to thank him for than he had to thank her.

  He gave a small nod, pinned the Winston photos up onto the board, picked up a Sharpie, then turned to the room. “Okay, let’s get to this. Gather around.”

  The team moved into position, focusing on the board.

  “Are we going to try to stop that Winston interview from running sir?” someone from the group asked.

  “We don’t have cause,” said another detective. “Freedom of speech and press and all that.”

  “Yeah we have cause, if what she says is going to compromise the investigation.”

  “We don’t have evidence of exactly what she is going to say,” added another.

  Maddocks banged the table. “Here’s how we play it. Christmas Eve and the scheduled Winston exposé is eight days away, counting today. We’re going to focus on getting this wrapped before then. Got it?”

  Murmurs.

  “Right.” With the back of his Sharpie he tapped Winston’s photograph of Jayden Norton-Wells and Damián Yorick boarding the Amanda Rose.

  “Norton-Wells, the ADAG’s son. Black hair. Seen boarding the high-end Caymans-registered yacht with Faith Hocking’s pimp, Yorick, on Friday, December fifteen. Yorick is known to police, has a record—street drugs, assault charges, has done time. Also black hair. He’s allegedly been seen in the company of a blond male in his early twenties who drives a black BMW.” Maddocks drew a line from the Yorick photo to the one of Jon Jacques Jr. and made a question mark under the image. “We’re working on the assumption that the blond male is this man, son of a dentist, Jon Jacques Senior, also blond.” He drew another line.

  He tapped the photo of Faith Hocking. “Homicide victim Hocking, seen recently with Yorick and Mr. Blond Bimmer. Hocking had her meth-mouth fixed with expensive dentistry. She had a card for dentist Jon Jacques Senior in her apartment.” He drew another line, linking the dentist and his son to both Hocking and the pimp.

  “Mr. Blond Bimmer seems to have picked Gracie Drummond up at the Oak Bay Country Club after she was dumped by her boyfriend from school.” He drew a line linking Drummond to the cluster through Jon Jacques Jr., and he turned back to face the room.

  “After meeting Jacques Junior, Drummond seems to have come into money, makes many, very expensive, unexplained purchases. She also expressed to her priest that she had guilt issues with the number of men she was sleeping with. We’re working on the assumption she was recruited into the sex trade.”

  “By Baby Jacques,” said Holgersen. “He could be the scout. He brings girls like Drummond to the pimp, Yorick. I’m guessing he breaks them in. And the ones who need cleaning up, like Hocking, Daddy the dentist lends a hand.”

  “What’s in it for the dentist?” said someone in the group.

  “Maybe business share,” offered another. “This is a dude who’s been investigated numerous times for financial connections to organized crime and laundering, but nothing stuck.”

  Maddocks said, “We’ve got techs combing through the notes of that investigation. So far, Dr. Jon Jacques Senior appears to be linked to numbered accounts in the Caymans, and one of those accounts appears to share a business interest in the same account that is linked to the ownership of the Amanda Rose.”

  “Fuck me,” whispered someone, and a rustle of energy moved like wildfire through the group—they were getting somewhere now. Somewhere big.

  “So maybe there’s some kind of high-end sex club on the Amanda Rose?” said another. “What about this Lara Pennington, also up on the board?”

  Angie cleared her throat, thinking of her own club and the sex she routinely acquired there. “Drummond’s calendar indicated that she had regular dates with Lara P.” She picked a marker up off the table and wrote under Pennington’s photo:

  Lara P., Amanda R., B.C.

  She turned to face the investigators. “We’re working on the assumption that Pennington is also involved in a possible prostitution ring aboard the Amanda Rose. B.C.—we don’t yet know what those initials stand for, but in the course of our investigation we came across a matchbook with a ‘B.C.’ logo on the front. That same book had Drummond’s cell number scrawled on the inside of the cover.” She paused, holding the attention riveted on her. “That book was seen in the office of Zach Raddison, personal aide to Mayor Jack Killion.”

  A whistle came from the back of the room, and again, that rustle of adrenaline as investigators physically shifted with the energy of the unfolding details.

  “And Mayor Killion,” said Holgersen, nodding to the photo Winston shot outside AKASHA, “is having an affair with ADAG Joyce Norton-Wells, mother of Jayden Norton-Wells, who was seen boarding the Amanda Rose with a known pimp.”

  “Holy clusterfuck,” said someone.

  “Yeah, becoming the go-to word for this investigation,” replied another. “This is going to tank those two—the mayor and the ADAG—one way or another. Maybe the ADAG pressured her lover to push for those concessions he’s making for that huge waterfront development of her husband’s.”

  “And Law-Boy Jayden Norton-Wells—he’s confessed that he knew and cared for Drummond, and that he is called J.R. by those who know him,” said Holgersen. “And it’s likely that he gave Drummond a Saint Christopher medallion for safe passage—whatever that means to him. He also lied about the mysteriously missing Lexus, which showed up on the iron bridge before and after Drummond’s abduction near the Blue Badger Bakery and on the 7-Eleven surveillance camera outside the Ross Bay Cemetery where Drummond was found.”

  Angie crooked a brow and stared at Holgersen, stunned that the dude could actually speak in grammatically coherent sentences when it came down to it. Had he slipped? Was this the default Kjel Holgersen? Or was he just trying really hard to put on a show for these veteran investigators?

  As if suddenly realizing his character slip, Holgersen continued, “An’ when Law-Boy’s confronted by police abouts his missing Lexus, he spooks and flees in his dinky red Porsche straight to city hall and Mayor-Boy Zach Raddison, here—” He pointed to the photo of Raddison. “With his black hair, B.C. matchbook, and Drummond’s phone number.”

  “What do you figure the mayor’s affair has got to do with this?” said Dundurn—who’d been brought in from the sex crimes unit along with Smith, who was now out with Leo at the Uplands Marina.

  “Probably bad luck,” said Angie. “One of those personal or family secrets that gets exposed when lives intersect with crime and the onion layers are peeled back by investigators.”

  A knock sounded, and the door to the incident room opened. Everyone swung around.

  “Dr. Padachaya?” Maddocks said. And the crackle of anticipation was instant—they’d all been waiting for the DNA profile of Jayden Norton-Wells.

  She came forward with a smile and a spark in her eyes that told Angie Sunni Padachaya had it—she had Norton-Wells.

  She handed a folder to Maddocks. “Copies of all the results—from his hair, blood, and saliva sa
mples.”

  He waited, ever the gentleman, allowing the small doc to drop her own bombshell.

  “It’s him,” she said. “Jayden Norton-Wells is Black-Haired Male One. His body hair was found in pubic combings from our floater, Hocking, inside her tarp, in fibers of the ropes from the Thetisby Island crime, and on Drummond’s clothing.”

  “Whoa, Law-Boy, we gotcha,” said Holgersen with a victory pump in the air. “We gots him by the short-and-curly black ones. Let’s go bring him in!”

  “Not so fast,” came a reedy, scratchy voice.

  Everyone whirled around. Inspector Frank Fitzsimmons stood at the back of the room. Angie glared at him.

  How long had he been standing there, the creep?

  He came forward, thunder in his face, his hands tight at his sides, his focus lasered on Maddocks. As he neared, Angie saw he was actually vibrating with anger. He had papers in his hand that quivered with the tension emanating from his body.

  “Sergeant Maddocks,” he said, coming to a stop in front of Maddocks. “Ray Norton-Wells and his team of attorneys have received a motion from Judge Lofland to quash his son’s DNA evidence. They claim he was forced to give it under duress. In no way, shape, or form can you use anything that comes from those DNA samples.”

  “That’s bullshit,” snapped Holgersen. “Whole fucking thing was recorded. He signed a—”

  “Crown can appeal,” retorted Fitz. “But right now, that evidence is off the table.”

  “Fucking hell,” muttered Holgersen, looking at Angie.

  “Sergeant, a word outside.” Fitz spun and made for the door. As it swung shut behind him, Maddocks turned to face Angie.

  “Get the vehicle ready. We’re going to pick him up. Now. He’ll be at church.”

  Her gaze spiked to the door. “Fitz?”

  “Now!” He turned to Holgersen. “You take Dundurn, get a bead on Raddison. Don’t touch. Just follow him. Anything unusual, I want to know stat. And you, Hazleton,” he said to another detective. “Call Vedder. I want sex crimes fully on board with all its services on standby. Tell him we need an emergency response team. And I want that SWAT team on board the Amanda Rose tonight.” He grabbed his coat off the back of a chair and stormed after Fitz.

  Maddocks found Fitz waiting simmering outside the incident room door.

  “I’m bringing him in,” he told Fitz before the man could speak.

  “Sergeant, I ordered you to inform me before—”

  Maddocks flung his arm toward the door. “We could be sitting on an international sex ring there, a club selling underage women on a yacht registered in the Caymans with possible organized crime links via a local dentist whom the RCMP’s commercial and organized crimes units has been investigating for years. And somewhere within that milieu, Hocking and Drummond crossed the path of a sick, lust-based serial killer. If we let this Norton-Wells slip out of our hands now—if he sends alarm bells out—the Amanda Rose could be in international waters by tonight, and that’s a whole other ball game. That yacht could be taking the killer with it. And if there are any other young women on that boat, their lives could be in jeopardy—there could be an attempt to cover the crimes in international waters.”

  “We have no grounds to bring in—”

  “Yes, we do. We have photographic and witness evidence that puts Norton-Wells on the Amanda Rose with Faith Hocking’s pimp, who in turn associates with Jon Jacques Junior, who in turn was involved with Drummond. And we have his admission that Norton-Wells knows and cares for Drummond. And there’s the Lexus. That photographic evidence could get us a DNA warrant now, thanks to Winston—we just start over with new samples.”

  “Sergeant,” Fitz demanded in his high, scratchy voice, “I in—”

  “I caution you before speaking, sir,” Maddocks said, lowering his voice. “We have photographic evidence of Mayor Killion and ADAG Joyce Norton-Wells engaging in an extramarital affair.” He paused, holding those beady little black hawk eyes. “Perception is often everything in politics, sir. Given the rumors that Mayor Killion is maneuvering to replace Chief Gunnar with his own man, and soon, and that there will be further internal MVPD firings and hirings—it would look most unfortunate if you were seen as the one who sabotaged this case, a case that implicates Killion himself. And the ADAG’s son. Possibly in exchange for a promotion.” He waited a beat. The man vibrated, glowering at Maddocks. And Maddocks figured his job with the MVPD was probably toast, but he was not letting that yacht sail away. Not on his life.

  “The story is already scheduled to run,” he said quietly, giving them an avenue out. “Complete with photos. On Christmas Eve. I’d like this case wrapped before that. Under your helm.”

  THE BAPTIST

  It’s Sunday morning when he drives along the coast road. He needs the vehicle today. Today is the day he plans to take Lara, and he is tight with anticipation. He worked out with weights before dawn, then ran eight miles—all in preparation. He shaved his genitals last night. Lara is at church now. He’s edgy, needing to do something until dark, so he takes the road past the Uplands Marina. Just to see if the Amanda Rose is still berthed there. He’s come by often since Faith. He likes to watch the shining palace on the water at night and to wonder who is down in the cabins and with whom. And he imagines he’s watching them again—Gracie, Lara, Faith … Eva … the others with the barcodes on the backs of their necks … He slows suddenly at the sight of a police cruiser.

  It’s parked to the side of the road. Two cops sitting in it. He swallows, keeps his eyes on the road, his hands at two and eleven on the wheel, indicates and quickly turns left, heading away from the water.

  He pulls off the road and parks under a tree. His pulse is racing. His palms are damp. No. No need to worry. It’s all good, all fine. But, because he’s curious, because his senses are alert like a hunter in the wild today, he gets out of the vehicle and walks down a side alley toward the ocean road again. He pops out onto a knoll with long brown grasses under Garry oaks. He can see the marina. The Amanda Rose is there. In all her glory, her flags flapping gently in the winter breeze. He stills, just watching, scenting the air. The sight calms him. He thinks of all that glorious wood inside there. The women waiting with their pussies for the men to come … That’s when he sees them—two men. One older, with white hair and a square head. The other is skinny and a little taller. They’re sitting on a bench on the path above the marina. He watches them a while. One of them raises a small set of bird binoculars to his face. He’s studying the Amanda Rose down in the bay.

  His stomach goes tight. He swallows and steps back into the tangle of oak branches and shadows, and he watches them for a long, long while. They look wrong. Suits. Cops—they’re cops.

  He turns on his heel and makes hurriedly for his vehicle, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

  Stupid boy, Johnny boy, of course they’re cops, Tommy, you silly Johnny … trying to catch Tommy … you better clear out, Johnny, closing in on Tommy …

  By the time he reaches his vehicle, he knows what he must do. His plan has changed. He must move fast. Not Lara tonight. The other one tonight … end game tonight.

  It’s okay, Johnny. Just moving it ahead, Tommy … the only final sin is stupidity, boy …

  CHAPTER 68

  Angie chose to stand. She folded her arms over her chest and leaned her shoulder against the wall of the small interview room behind where Jayden Norton-Wells and his legal counsel were seated at a table bolted to the floor. Her design was to unsettle them.

  The interior of the room was sterile—walls padded with off-white sound-absorbing tiles, a door to Angie’s left, and a two-way mirror. From behind the mirror Fitz, Vedder, a Crown prosecutor, and Holgersen observed.

  Maddocks sat at the table in front of Norton-Wells and his legal counsel. Angie and Maddocks had nabbed Norton-Wells coming out of his Sunday church service. He’d been docile, had not resisted arrest in any way, merely said he wanted his lawyer.

 
Now that his counsel had arrived—a top criminal attorney, funded by his father—they were proceeding with questioning.

  “Why did you volunteer a DNA sample, Jayden?” Maddocks said.

  Norton-Wells glanced at his lawyer—a woman in her late fifties with inscrutable features, her Mont Blanc pen and her writing pad resting on the table in front of her. “I didn’t,” he said blandly. “It was coerced.”

  Under the unforgiving fluorescent lighting, Norton-Wells’s complexion was waxy. He looked exhausted and broken. Adrenaline coursed through Angie’s blood.

  Maddocks opened his file and slid the photographs of Norton-Wells boarding the Amanda Rose with Damián Yorick toward him.

  He looked at his lawyer.

  “Look at the photos, Jayden,” Maddocks said. “That’s you there.” He tapped the first one. “You with Faith Hocking’s pimp, Damián Yorick. And here’s you with her pimp again. And this one—it’s you getting into your red Porsche, license plate visible. And this one—you driving your Porsche up the AKASHA driveway after leaving the Amanda Rose.” Maddocks leaned forward.

  “We know you and Gracie were close, Jayden,” he said. “We know about the Saint Christopher, that you made up the story about the stolen Lexus, that you were never at the Auberge. Never parked in that lot up the street—”

  “Circumstantial at be—” began the lawyer.

  “Not those photos,” Angie said from behind them. “That’s proof you were on the Amanda Rose with Faith’s pimp. Was he Gracie’s pimp, too? Did Faith die on that yacht, Jayden? After you finished screwing her?”

  “Detective!” said the lawyer. “We have—”

  “We’re getting a DNA seizure warrant, Jayden,” she said. “Based on what we have so far. And we all know what a new set of samples is going to tell us, don’t we? It’s going to tell us you had sex with Faith Hocking before she died. Maybe afterward, too. Fucked her real hard, eh, Jayden?”