The Drowned Girls (Angie Pallorino Book 1)

by Loreth Anne White

  “We realized it was one of the deckhands—a guy we’d seen before on the Amanda Rose.”

  “This deckhand have a name?”

  “I don’t know his name. I only saw him in passing, working up on deck. He stood out—super fit, ripped body. Good-looking, angular face.” Norton-Wells inhaled deeply, and Angie could see that he was tiring. She glanced at her watch. From experience, she figured they didn’t have much more time before he shut down fully. Tension twisted through her.

  “Zach wound down the window and asked what the fuck the guy wanted, staring into the car like some moron. And this deckhand said he knew. He knew what had happened, what Zach and I had done to Faith. He described it in detail, like he’d seen it all for himself. Every detail. Down to the stuff Zach said to me, the steak knife, Faith sobbing. Zach fucking her hard, which opened her legs more, which made the ropes around her neck go tighter. This guy said he’d gotten rid of the body for us. Then he just waited, staring at us. Zach told him to get lost. But I could see that Zach was getting scared—this guy was freaking him out. Then the guy said, okay, if that’s what we wanted, if that’s all the thanks he was going to get, he might have to tell someone what we’d done. It was like he was messing with us, just to see how we reacted.” He swallowed, sipped again from the cup Maddocks had given him.

  “I got really scared, too—he was weird. I asked him what he wanted in order to just shut him the hell up, to make him disappear. He looked at my Lexus, parked right there beside Zach’s vehicle, and said that he always wanted one of those.” Norton-Wells paused, gathering himself.

  “So I told him to take it, to just get the fuck away. I threw him the keys. He caught them, got into the Lexus, and I never heard from him again. Never saw him again. And I wasn’t going to report the vehicle stolen for obvious reasons—if it was picked up, he’d tell the cops what we’d done.”

  Angie and Maddocks regarded him in silence, allowing tension to press down on the small, overly warm room.

  Maddocks said, quietly, “And Gracie?”

  His features twisted. He looked as though he was going to puke for real this time.

  “I learned what happened to her on the news. And when I heard about Faith’s body showing up, I figured right away that had to be him—the sick freak who took my Lexus. I mean, he worked on the boat. He knew everything that happened in that cabin with Zach and Faith. He took Faith’s body. He had to have known about Gracie, too. And then you guys came around asking about the Lexus in connection with a crime.”

  “Does this guy live aboard the Amanda Rose?”

  “All I know is that when I went to see Madame Vee on Friday, she told me that he’d originally been hired as a carpenter, and that he’d done double duty as a deckhand, but he’d vanished on the night Faith died—never came back to work.”

  “A carpenter?”

  “Yeah. He maintained all the wood on the boat, and there’s lots. Wooden decks, railings, paneling. He built and repaired cabinets, fittings, that kind of thing.”

  “Why did you visit the Amanda Rose on Friday, Jayden?” Angie shifted to lean on her other shoulder against the wall.

  He scrubbed his hands hard over his face again, making it red and blotchy. “Because I was freaking out. It was my Lexus you were talking about. I knew it had to be him, the weird carpenter guy who took my vehicle. And I heard that psychologist talking on the radio, saying Gracie’s killer would kill again, and soon, and he wouldn’t stop until he was caught. And the newspapers were talking about this sex serial killer having links to earlier rapes. And no one was stopping him. Zach had quit returning my calls—like he’d cut me off. I … I had to tell the Bacchanalian Club that it was him—their carpenter, that he’d taken my car, that he was doing these things, and that they had to stop this monster. But Madame said to forget about it, that the carpenter was gone, not our problem. And that if I went to the police with this information, we’d all go down for the murder of Faith Hocking, and more.” His glance flickered briefly to his legal counsel.

  “Madame said her clientele is huge and comprised of incredibly powerful figures like a sitting judge, lawyers, top business execs, law enforcement, even. And I knew this was true because I’d seen faces on that yacht that I recognized from the provincial legislature and the media. Madame said they’d all be implicated, and my mother and father’s careers would be toast. And then she looked at me long and hard and asked if I was going to be able to weather this storm.”

  He raised both hands and clamped them down hard on either side of his head, as if the information inside his skull was trying to explode outward. “I don’t think she believed I could. That’s when Zina called Damián in. They said he was a ‘fixer’ and that he’d be someone I could turn to after they pulled up anchor—they wanted me to meet with him.”

  “Pulled up anchor?”

  “The Amanda Rose is sailing tomorrow.”

  Angie stiffened. Her gaze shot to Maddocks, then the two-way mirror.

  “Where’s she going?” Maddocks said, his voice suddenly clipped.

  “I don’t know. Across the Pacific, I think. Something about transporting the ‘barcoded merchandise.’ Usually they don’t depart until Boxing Day, but I figure things are getting too heated with these killings linking back to the yacht. I figured that once they left port, Damián might try to … silence me. Which is why I can’t sit out there anymore and not talk about this.”

  “You’re scared.”

  He nodded.

  “You should have come to us earlier, Jayden,” Angie said.

  He looked up and met her gaze. Pain. Remorse. Regret, twisting in his young face. Eyes shining, he said, “I’m here now.”

  “Pallorino.” Holgersen pulled Angie aside as she exited the interview room. Maddocks kept moving fast down the corridor, making his way to the incident room.

  “What is it?” she snapped, hot with adrenaline, hopping to keep pace with Maddocks. Then she saw the look in Holgersen’s eyes. Ice trickled into her veins.

  “Holgersen?” she said, voice suddenly thick.

  “It’s Winston. They’s found her in a ravine near the Gorge. Half an hour ago. Looks like fentanyl overdose.”

  Blood drained from her head. She drew her hand down hard over her mouth. “How … is she?”

  “She’s dead.”

  Angie stared …

  Someone broke into my home, Detective, and left crack and paraphernalia on my table and that photo of me. Read the back …

  YOU ARE DEAD

  I came to you because you said that you cared. And I believed you … I’ve scheduled the exposé to release on Christmas Eve … in case something happens to me …

  “They certain it was fentanyl?”

  “I’m sorry. But yeah. Officer who responded found a folded piece of paper with her body. He opened it, and white powder poofed into his face in the wind—started feeling sick right away. Had to call in paramedics for naloxone.”

  A powerful opioid antidote.

  Yet another officer overdose—the stuff was an epidemic on the streets, being cut into all manner of drugs, too dangerous to touch, the reason officers were now being issued naloxone kits for vehicles.

  She rubbed her mouth. “Yorick—they arresting him?”

  “Yeah. As we speak. And Jacques. I already brought Raddison in.”

  “Get them to check Yorick’s place. He’s a dealer as well as a pimp. Get them to see if they can match the composition of that powder. Jesus.” She turned away. “I should have brought her in.”

  Holgersen reached to touch her arm, but she spun away and marched toward the stairs. Before he could see the glittering in her eyes.

  I should have brought you in … I let you down, Merry, I let you down. Fuck it … I let you down …

  CHAPTER 70

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 18

  Angie shifted to adjust the pinch of her bullet-suppression vest. It was just past midnight. Precipitation was holding off. Wind had lulled and ragged c
louds dragged across the sky, playing peek-a-boo with a pale gibbous moon that shimmered on the water. Marina lights glowed. The parking lot was full, but quiet. She lay shoulder to shoulder with Maddocks behind a slight rise on a bank overlooking the operation, waiting for the all-clear signal from the ERT guys so that they could board the Amanda Rose.

  The planning for the takedown had begun the moment she and Maddocks had gone out to pick up Norton-Wells. Fitz and Vedder were overseeing things from a command post.

  She panned her night-vision scopes across the lot as a black town car drew slowly in. Three men alighted. The vehicle pulled out. The men, laughing and stumbling a little, made their way along the dock to the shining white ship. Others had come and gone earlier, via cab, limo, private cars. Those who left the marina were being stopped at roadblocks that had been set up along the exit roads.

  Angie tracked her scopes across to the Amanda Rose. Behind the yacht, MVPD harbor unit boats were sliding into view—black shapes out at sea. Two high-speed boats hung back around the point, ready in the event the Amanda Rose crew might try to flee in the smaller boats they’d seen aboard the yacht. A chopper waited on standby. Anticipation crackled into her veins as she caught the shapes of the ERT guys moving like black ninjas toward the vessel, assault weapons at the ready.

  Medical and social services were on standby.

  Gunshots cracked suddenly into the night. A shrill scream sliced the air. Men started yelling, the sounds carrying across the water.

  “They’re swarming the decks,” she said to Maddocks, who watched with his own binoculars. Shadows moved fast, men running. A flash of light exploded the darkness, and the whumpf of a small blast reached them. Another scream rent the air—female. More gunfire. Then things began to settle. She could hear the sharp bark of orders being given. Arguing. More men yelling. The sounds came in snatches on the night breeze.

  Then came the all-clear signal. She and Maddocks surged to their feet and ran in a crouch down the embankment and along the dock toward the vessel. At the top of the gangway an ERT officer in full gear directed them toward the companionway stairs. The opulence inside the yacht was breathtaking—all burnished wood, fixtures of gleaming white and chrome, high-end art on the walls. Music was still being piped throughout. She could smell pepper spray.

  Down one flight of stairs they found ERT guys cuffing crew members. Women wrapped in blankets were being brought up the stairs to be taken into a staging area on the upper deck. Several were crying. Men were being flushed out of the lower deck boudoirs, too, in various stages of undress. Some still wore grotesque, baroque-looking carnival-style masks to hide their identities—long, hooked noses, devil’s horns, a bull’s face.

  As Angie and Maddocks reached a lower deck, ERT guys directed them afore, toward a cabin where “Madame Vee” and her bodyguard assistant were being held. An officer with an automatic weapon stood guard outside the door. He opened it for them, showing them into a cabin with a gleaming wood desk. Behind the desk another officer stood watch over a woman clearly into her sixties. She was seated with hands cuffed behind her back. Sitting beside her, hands also cuffed, was the transgender assistant whom Jayden Norton-Wells had described—a person who appeared as if from another dimension with silver-white hair, colorless eyes, and a strange ashen-hued complexion.

  That colorless gaze met Angie’s but gave no hint of emotion or tension. The woman’s eyes, however, flashed in defiance, her bloodred lips tight with anger. Angie noted that beside her, a paper shredder had been stopped mid-shred.

  “Give us a moment,” Maddocks said to the ERT guy, who nodded, exited, and shut the door. While the ERT guys had been tasked with handling the Amanda Rose takedown, Angie and Maddocks had one goal—to get information on the carpenter. He was still out there, and the clock was ticking down fast toward his next kill if Grablowski was right.

  “You can speak to my attorneys,” the woman snapped, raising her chin. “You have no right to do this. You’re disrupting a legitimate business—I run an exclusive gentlemen’s club that facilitates encounters between paid members. They come for the cuisine, entertainment, and what they do in the privacy of their cabins is between consenting adults.”

  “I need an employee list,” Maddocks said.

  The woman flattened her mouth, turned her face away. Her bodyguard remained expressionless—a cold and dangerous animal, thought Angie.

  “What is the name of the carpenter who recently worked for you?” Maddocks said, going through her drawers, seeking to unsettle her. “What’s your legal name?”

  “I repeat, you can speak to my legal counsel.”

  He swung her swivel chair around violently, shocking her. And he brought his face close to hers. “Just the carpenter’s name. Withholding this employee’s information is going to cost you in the courts. Big-time. Believe me. Whatever your operation is here.”

  Silence.

  Frustration bit through Angie, and she had to tamp down a rush of mounting rage, a fierce urge to tear this female pimp apart limb from limb. Maddocks turned to Angie and jerked his head toward the door, indicating that they were done here—clock was ticking. Fast. He made for the exit. She followed him out.

  “We’re wasting time in there,” he said, then turned to the man guarding the door. “Where’s the rest of the staff being taken?”

  “Being rounded up and corralled in a holding area on the lower deck, sir.”

  They ran down the stairs to the lowest deck. Outside, they found ERT guys leading crew members toward an area near the ship’s stern. A female cop summoned Angie and Maddocks over.

  “I got someone here who’s willing to talk—one of the cleaning staff.” She pointed out a female who looked to be in her early twenties. Quickly, they drew the young woman aside.

  “I didn’t know what was going on,” she said, breathless, eyes wide with fear. “I swear. I’m new. I—”

  “What’s your name, hon?” Angie said, handing her a tissue from her pocket. Wind was cold off the sea on this side of the yacht, and it was picking up again as a new weather front mounted beyond the horizon.

  The woman blew her nose, trembling like an aspen. “Katie Collins. I … I’m new on the yacht,” she repeated.

  “How new?”

  “A month.”

  “Not too new, huh, to understand what was going on. You cleaned up the rooms?”

  She nodded.

  “So you had to see the results of the nights before. What was it? Used condoms, sex toys, maybe blood? Ever see the women? See them being beaten up?”

  She swallowed. “I never saw the women, any of them. No staff apart from the few who worked club catering service were allowed into the lower cabins when the club was in operation. By the time we go in to clean, everyone has been moved out. The quarters where the girls bunk, too—they always move the girls to another part of the yacht if we need to clean there.”

  Angie shot a hot glance at Maddocks. “So there are young women kept on board?”

  Collins nodded. “They … I heard them referred to as the barcode girls. I heard they were all foreign. They remain on the yacht at all times. I’ve never seen them myself. And there are three even younger women kept in another area. Then there are the other women who come in with drivers provided by the club, and they leave the same way.” She looked at her feet. “I … the money was so good. I … wasn’t sure. I just tried to keep my head down.”

  “Just help us out here, Katie, and you’ll be helping yourself. There was a crew member who worked on the Amanda Rose until about two weeks ago—a deckhand and a carpenter. Blond guy, maybe midthirties. Good-looking, but possibly seemed just a little off. You recall someone like that who doesn’t work here any longer?”

  “Ah … yeah. He quit. They told us he quit. Spencer.”

  Adrenaline kicked through Angie. “Spencer who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Know where he lives?” Maddocks said. “Foreign? Did he come in with crew from other
ports?”

  “I don’t know—” She pointed suddenly to a cuffed crew member in chef whites being led to the processing area. “That guy, he knows more.”

  Angie and Maddocks pulled the man out of the line. He was big, pock-faced, rough features. Blood stained the front of his chef’s jacket.

  “I want a lawyer,” he said immediately.

  “Listen, buddy, I don’t want you—not interested in you,” Maddocks said curtly. “I want to know about Spencer. You tell me about Spencer, and things are going to go a hell of a lot easier for you. Keep silent, and I’m going to make your life pure living hell.”

  His eyes flickered at the mention of Spencer. “Can we go in there?” he said, motioning to a door. Angie opened it to find a small area with seating. Staff break area, she guessed.

  The man entered with them, glancing over his shoulder. “Spencer left,” he said once they’d shut the door.

  “We know he left. Why did he go?”

  “Something happened in one of the club cabins a few weeks back. I don’t know what—something bad. Spencer was called to help. We never saw him after that.”

  “Spencer got a last name? You know where he lives, where he comes from, how long he’s worked on the Amanda Rose?”

  “Addams. His name is Spencer Addams. He’s local, from Victoria. He’s worked on the yacht for a few years—done some of their trips down in the Caribbean and the Med. Seasonal stuff. He told me he answered an ad for a yacht carpenter a couple of years ago. Lives in James Bay with his mother. Never spoke much—kept to himself. Very talented with the carpentry. Loved his work—it was like … a religion to him. He was a bit … weird. Often quoting passages from the Bible.”

  Angie’s pulse hammered. “Where in James Bay?”