The Drowned Girls (Angie Pallorino Book 1)

by Loreth Anne White

  Holgersen was smoothing his goatee, watching her closely.

  “Addams?”

  “You got him good. Real good. He’s dead.”

  “Maddocks? Ginny?”

  “They’s here in the hospital.” He smiled. “They’s gonna be fine, Pallorino. Washed up the estuary. Bit beat up—Maddocks was shot in the chest, but the bullet-suppression vest saved him. Lung collapsed, broken ribs, but on the mends. Ginny—gots her head cut. Dislocated shoulder. Her injuries are gonna be more mental than physical. They’s brought in victim counseling.”

  “Did he … did he sexually—”

  “Addams did not assault her. He did not carve a crucifix. He was using her for something else.”

  Emotion flooded her eyes. She closed them for a moment as she strained to remember the series of events that had landed her here.

  “How’d Addams get her?”

  “He was waiting in her apartment when she came home.”

  “What day, what time is it?”

  “Wednesday morning. By the time they brought you down the mountain, it was almost midnight Monday. SAR guys found you lying passed out. They stabilized you up there, then carried you down. Weather was still too bad to get a chopper anywhere near there. Like pea soup—couldn’t even land in the Skookum parking lot. Doc operated on your arm Tuesday morning, gots the bullet out. Rehydrated and warmed yous up. Then you was in and out all day yesterday. They says it’s quite a marvel that yous lived.”

  Angie fought to pull the last few days into focus.

  “Media shit-storm out there,” he said. “Lots of questions … and shit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About how Addams died and all. MVPD issued a statement that said the suspect wanted in connection with the deaths of Drummond and Hocking has been located and has been found dead. That’s alls they said—no mention of your name and that you shot him, but you gots him real good, Pallorino. In the face. In the neck. In the chest. Like point-blank, man. Emptied your clip into the bastard.”

  Darkness swirled the shards of images through her mind. “His face?”

  “Yeah … he was like lying there on his back, it looks like. From the photos.”

  A sickening cold fingered into Angie’s chest as reality clarified. Officer-involved shooting. “They’ve opened an investigation?”

  “Yeah. Right away. There was two officers with the SAR guys, and they secured the scene when they saw what had happened. Gots the IIO investigators in the next day to examine the scene—the IIO has asserted jurisdiction over the incident.” He paused. “They’s waiting with questions.”

  Angie sat in silence. The Independent Investigations Office. They would decide now whether she’d committed a criminal offense. If so, her case would be passed to Crown counsel. “So am I still on active duty?”

  “I guess that’s ups to Fitz and brass.”

  A sick, anxious feeling dropped into her belly. “I don’t remember shooting him,” she said quietly.

  Holgersen nodded but said nothing.

  She threw back her covers suddenly and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I want to see Maddocks.” But dizziness slammed her in the side of her head, and she wobbled.

  “Whoa, not now—you needs rest.”

  “I have to see him. Get me a wheelchair, Holgersen. Give me my clothes.”

  He snorted. “Your clothes is done, Pallorino. IIO investigators took them.” He went to the small closet against the wall and took out a plastic grocery bag. From the bag he pulled a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants. He placed them on the bed. “I broughts you something from my place. For temporary.” He paused. “I’ll go get that wheelchair.” He yanked the curtain across, giving her some privacy.

  Angie reached for the clothes, removed the hospital gown, and struggled to insert her limbs into Holgersen’s baggy, pale-gray sweats. She had to roll up the legs and sleeves and was exhausted by the time he returned, pushing the chair.

  He helped her into it in silence and then wheeled her out of the room and down the hall.

  “Ginny?”

  Slowly her eyes opened, and she turned her face in search of his voice.

  “Daddy?”

  Emotion punched through Maddocks. He reached for her hand. It was slender and cool in his. His baby girl. His child. Now a beautiful young woman. This was what he’d made in life—the one good, true thing that had come from his marriage. And he realized that this alone was worthwhile. That the years had not been wasted. That she was alive, and so was he, and the future could still shimmer in front of them. Addams had not sexually assaulted her. It would be a rough road forward for her, he knew that. But they were going to do this together. They still had each other.

  “I’m so sorry, Daddy.”

  He straightened his spine, struggling to keep his emotions under check. “You did nothing wrong, Ginn. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Thank you for coming,” she whispered. “For saving me. He … he made me phone you. He was luring you, and I … I knew he was going to try and kill you. I didn’t know what to do, and—”

  “Shh.” He smoothed hair back from her face where doctors had stitched up the cut along her brow. When he’d first seen it, he’d thought it was a crucifix—he’d thought the worst. “You did good, Ginn. He’s gone now.”

  “Angie?”

  “She’s still out, sleeping.” He’d checked on her dozens of times already. “She’s going to be fine.”

  “She saved us—she got him.”

  “She did. He can’t hurt anyone else, ever.” He hesitated, swallowed, then said, “Your mother is here. The nurses told me that she’s waiting outside to see you. Shall I bring her in?”

  “With Peter? Is he here, too?”

  “I don’t know.”

  His daughter’s gaze locked with his. “I’m sorry for all the things I said.”

  “I understand.”

  “We’re going to be good, Dad. I promise. I—”

  “I know, Ginn. I know we will.”

  “I love you.”

  He could no longer tamp down the rush of emotion, and his voice choked as he said, “I love you, too, baby. I’ve got your back. Always.”

  Tears pooled in her eyes. The same color as his. Her mouth pressed into a tight line, and she nodded, squeezing his hand.

  Maddocks was not in his room, his bed empty, covers thrown back.

  Anxiety twisted tighter inside Angie as she stared at the vacant bed. She just needed to see him with her own eyes, touch him, see that he was okay. Fuck. This was going to cost her. She’d disobeyed direct orders in going after him alone. But she also knew that she’d do it again in a heartbeat—he and Ginny would probably be dead right now if she hadn’t.

  “I figure he’s with Ginny,” Holgersen said.

  “Where’s Ginny’s room? Same floor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Take me there.”

  “Maybe it’s not the best idea—”

  “Jesus, Holgersen, just push me, will you? I can’t make my arm work right now or I’d freaking do it myself.”

  “Glad to see yous back, Pallorino,” he said, grabbing the wheelchair handles and swiveling her around. “You’d make a wretched senior, you know.”

  Angie swallowed as guilt reared inside her chest and her thoughts turned to her mother. With it came hurt, a deep sense of betrayal. She had a long road ahead and no idea how to navigate it right now.

  They arrived at Ginny’s room. Through the ward window Angie caught sight of Maddocks standing by her bed. He too was wearing sweats. With him was a woman. Slender, tall. Blonde. “Wait,” Angie said. “Stop.”

  She stared at the woman—extremely well dressed in tailored pants and a soft coral-colored jacket. Impeccably cut shoulder-length hair. She turned her head. Very attractive, classic profile. She looked to be in her early to mid forties.

  “Who’s that?” Angie said.

  “Mrs. Maddocks.”

  She swallowed slowl
y. “What’s her name?”

  “Sabrina.”

  Angie watched the small family unit for a moment through the glass. Ginny, with her dark hair spread on her pillow—their daughter. The two parents, worried for their child. United in this tragedy. Sabrina Maddocks lifted her hand and placed it on Maddocks’s shoulder. He turned and looked down at her. Sabrina—his wife—not yet an ex-wife—reached up and gently wiped something from his eyes, then she leaned, kissed him on the cheek.

  Angie’s stomach did a sickening somersault. Her hands firmed on the wheelchair armrests.

  “Go,” she said to Holgersen. “Just go.”

  “You sure you—”

  “I said go, dammit. Now. Faster.”

  “Jesus, Pallorino,” he said, pushing her speedily down the corridor.

  “Stop. Right over there. Push me there—by those chairs, by the window.”

  He acquiesced and brought her to a halt in a small seating alcove.

  Her heart was hammering, and she hated that her body had reacted like this.

  “You should have told me she was here.”

  “I told yous it wasn’t best—”

  Angie tried to stand, but dizziness slammed her back down into the chair. Her breaths were short.

  “Pallorino, just sits, okay. Just relax.”

  Angie closed her eyes and struggled once more to recall the events leading up to her alleged shooting of Spencer Addams. She caught a flash of the bridge. In the mist. The shots. Getting to the other side. Tracking him through mountainous old-growth forest slaked in mist for hours … Her heart stilled. The little girl—she’d seen the ghost of the girl again.

  Ice chilled in her veins.

  She’d followed the girl … then … just blackness.

  Holgersen’s phone rang, and he answered it. Angie looked out of the window as he took his call. Outside, tiny flakes of snow shimmied against gray sky. Unusual winter, she thought.

  “Yeah, she’s awake now,” Holgersen was saying. “Yeah, okay.” He handed her his phone.

  “Vedder. He wants to talk to you.”

  “IIO investigation?”

  He nodded.

  She reached for his phone and said, “Did he—the MVPD—send you to watch me? To tell them when I’d come around?”

  “Fuck no, Pallorino.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Holgersen.”

  He dragged his long fingers through his dull brown hair. “Okay. So they wanted someone here. They was going to send a uniform, but I came myselves, okay. Just take the damn phone.”

  She put it to her ear, shivering a little from cold.

  Angie listened to Vedder asking the right questions about how she was feeling, offering the expected platitudes, and then he told her that he would be functioning as the liaison officer between the IIO and the MVPD on her case, and that she’d need to speak to the outside investigators as soon as she was able.

  “Understood, sir,” she said coolly. “I’ll be in tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

  She killed the call and held the phone out to Holgersen.

  This was her second serious incident in six months. And she had no recollection of the actual shooting. She was in shit.

  “Any one of us woulda done it,” Holgersen said, taking the phone from her. “Shot the crap out of him.”

  “Is that what I did?”

  He held her eyes.

  “Fuck,” she whispered, pushing her tangle of hair back off her brow and looking away.

  “At least they’s alive—Maddocks and Ginny.”

  “Yeah.” She stared at her reflection in the window. “At least.”

  Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who are you, for I know you not at all?

  CHAPTER 78

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21

  Angie sat opposite Vedder at his desk. It was after 7:00 p.m., and she was physically, emotionally, and mentally beat after spending the entire day answering the IIO investigators’ questions about the Spencer Addams shooting and the sequence of events leading up to it … Why did you defy a direct order from Inspector Frank Fitzsimmons and go after Sergeant Maddocks? What happened on the bridge? How long did you track Addams? What happened when you found the Affected Person? Did you warn him? Did you tell him to drop his weapon? Did you believe he posed a significant threat to your safety? Did you use all other means to effect an arrest? Did he resist? How did he resist? Why did you shoot? What did you do then?

  It was not helping her at all that she couldn’t recall the actual shooting.

  Neither was it helping to know that Maddocks and Fitz and anyone else involved in the lead-up to her “incident” were being questioned, too, as witnesses. And that a pathologist other than Barb O’Hagan was conducting the autopsy on Spencer Addams.

  The union had assisted her with legal counsel, and a rep had been present. Angie, as the Subject Officer, and who thus faced jeopardy in the investigation, had had the option of invoking the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which included the right to silence. But she knew the other officers being questioned as witnesses did not have that right. And while she might have overkilled Addams, she did not believe what she did was criminal. It was a risk she was prepared to take in order to be officially cleared.

  The investigators had shown her diagrams, crime scene photos, shell casings—she’d apparently emptied her magazine into Addams’s face, neck, chest while he’d been lying prone on his back. The rage evident in those images—the overkill—it frightened her. She had a wild beast inside her, and it had taken over her mind, and she didn’t know if she could ever trust herself in a similar situation again.

  Vedder had taken possession of her service weapon and had relieved her of active duty, pending a separate internal MVPD review. And Angie did not have a good feeling about that outcome. He’d called her in, working late as usual, to ask how she was doing.

  “You handling okay?” Vedder said, compassion in his eyes. He’d always been good to her. He’d been the one to go to bat for her in a hostile environment when she’d first joined his sex crimes unit. She owed him, and she wasn’t holding this against him now.

  “I suppose. How’re things going with forensics and the Addams house?” she said. “Anything on all those hair trophies?”

  He rubbed his chin, as if considering how much he should—or could—tell her now. “So far we’ve matched hair samples to Merry Winston, Allison Fernyhough, and Sally Ritter. We’re working with Interpol and going back to possible assaults in ports around the Med where Addams crewed.”

  “So you think Drummond was his first homicide?”

  “That’s the working theory—that the others were all sexual assaults, until he was afforded the opportunity to experiment with mutilating Hocking’s body.”

  “And his mother?”

  “O’Hagan’s postmortem report is pending, but preliminary indication is that she likely died a natural death, and because Addams was fixated on her, he kept her. The investigation around Beulah Addams is obviously going to take time, but she probably abused him as a kid.”

  “Punished him for sexual arousal.”

  “That’s Grablowski’s take.”

  “The scrubbing mitts?”

  He nodded. “She likely used those on her son. And it was both arousing and painful—”

  “And thus grew his sick paraphilic map.”

  “As Grablowski would put it. Her death could have been a trigger, in conjunction with having to deal with Hocking’s body, that set him off.”

  “So she was the real monster.”

  “She certainly helped breed and raise one. Nature–nurture and all that, it seems. Forensics also found a male skeleton beneath the concrete flooring in the basement, possibly Spencer Addams’s father. Forensics and postmortem results on that are also still pending.”

  “The mother maybe killed the father?”

  He gave a half shrug. “Again—it’s the working hypothesis.”

  “So, missing student Annelise Janssen is n
o part of this?”

  “So far. Her case remains open. But she’s a blonde—doesn’t fit the victim profile. Nothing ties her to this.”

  “What about the Amanda Rose, Bacchanalian Club, Madame Vee, the johns, the other girls—”

  “An interagency task force including agencies from abroad is being formed to handle the ongoing details of that investigation. It’s going to be a long haul. Could be years before parts of the case start going before the courts.”

  “Winston’s case?”

  “We found crystal meth cut with fentanyl in Damián Yorick’s apartment. Techs also found his prints in Winston’s home—on the window, on the table. Kitchen counter. Yorick will be charged, and he’s not alone. He’d have to have received that photo of Winston from the Amanda Rose security guys. There’s indication of a conspiracy to silence Winston.”

  “And her deep throat recording? And Buziak—I hear he’s not back yet. What do Fitz and internal have on him?”

  Vedder hesitated and broke eye contact for a moment. When he met her gaze again, he said, “That’s all still under investigation, Angie. I’m not at liberty to discuss details at this point.”

  She stared at him, a cool feeling of isolation beginning to encircle her. She was being cut out. She was persona non grata on the force right now. She nodded and came to her feet.

  “Thanks for what you did share, Vedder.” She made for the door.

  “Angie—you look like shit.”

  She paused, hand on the doorknob. “Yeah. I know. Thanks.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “While I wait to see if I’m going to be fired?”

  He said nothing.

  “I don’t know—I have a … cold case, something personal that I want to look into. Night, Vedder.”

  She exited, shut the door, took a deep breath, and made her way down the row of bullpens, mostly empty at this hour. As she neared the station entrance, a woman got up off the chairs near the door.

  “Detective Pallorino?”

  Lorna Drummond. A box in her hands.