The Girl in the Moss

by Loreth Anne White

  “Yeah, you’re suddenly a viable customer,” said Trish. “That never happens to guys.” She lowered her voice and drew out her words theatrically. “Clerks handle a male in the tackle section with gravitas.” She lifted her bottle and took another swallow.

  Willow laughed, showing bright-white teeth.

  “So it’s still a man’s sport, a man’s world out on the river?” Rachel said.

  “Funny thing that,” Trish said, pointing the neck of her beer bottle toward the camera like a wagging finger. “Since it was a female, a nun, who supposedly wrote the first ‘Treatise of Fishing with an Angle’ in the fourteen hundreds.”

  “Who was this nun?” Rachel said.

  “Dame Juliana Berners. A prioress,” Trish said. “That woman could show the men a thing or two with her angle.”

  Willow leaned forward, eyes alight with drink and mirth. She lowered her voice in mock conspiracy with the camera. “Truth is, I’d be worried if I was a man on the river with all of us women around.”

  “Why?” Rachel asked.

  “Because we’re of a certain age,” she whispered. “Nothing quite like hot flashes, lack of sleep, food cravings, bloat, and mood swings to turn a woman murderous.” Her face turned serious, and she crossed her arms, sitting back as their server arrived and set more bottles of beer on the table.

  When the server left, Willow said to the camera, “In honesty, it’s why I still fish. Nothing calms me like the river. Nothing takes my mind off things like being silent, still, watching the insects, trying to read the fish, the sky, the water, listening to wind in trees.”

  “Trish,” Rachel said from behind her camera. “Why do you fish?”

  “I used to drink,” she said matter-of-factly. “And I swallowed all manner of drugs. I figured my guy friends thought I was cool, that they admired my stamina, my ability to put them all under the table.” She paused. Her face changed. “It almost cost me my life one day.” She glanced at Willow. “But I got a second chance. I met someone who reminded me of my fly-fishing roots, my love of nature, and what was real. And how to be true to myself—true to my sexual orientation especially. I’ve never looked back since, only upriver.”

  Eden came suddenly into camera view. She wore a light down jacket and a woolen hat with a small Kinabulu logo on the side. Her long hair hung in two thick braids over her shoulders. She took a seat at the table across from Trish and Willow. The server set a cola and a plate of nachos in front of her.

  “Why do you fish, Eden?” Willow said.

  Eden looked directly at the camera. No smile. “Because my mom makes me.”

  Willow appeared uncertain. But Trish guffawed and tilted her beer bottle at Eden. “Yeah, and you will thank your mom for that because that’s how I started. My mom. After I lost my way I realized that my mother—who I used to hate, mind you—had actually given me something to fall back on. An anchor. I realized I was not that much unlike her.”

  Eden reached for her glass and sipped. She came across as a sullen and rebellious fourteen-year-old. Angie remembered her own mood swings at that age. Oh, the joys of hormonal shifts on either end of the age spectrum.

  A raucous series of whoops and banging erupted from the pub side of the establishment, and the camera swung abruptly around to the source of the sound. Beer bottles and glasses were being raised and chinked, high-fives exchanged as fresh rounds of drinks were yelled for.

  Rachel panned over to their server. “What’s all the excitement on the pub side?” she asked the woman.

  “Robbie Tollet,” said a male voice. The camera angled to find the voice.

  Angie blinked as a man came into view. She was looking through a time warp at the owner of Predator Lodge, Claire Tollet’s father, Garrison. He sure was built back in the day—broad shoulders, thick neck, a swath of black hair, dense beard, pale-green eyes that danced with a wicked mirth beneath a dark thatch of brows.

  “Ah, meet Garrison Tollet, one of our guides,” Rachel said for the camera. “Who’s Robbie?”

  “My little brother. Twenty-one. Plays for the Winnipeg Jets. Half the village is watching their home boy tonight.”

  “I thought union negotiations had resulted in this being an NHL lockout year,” Trish said.

  “Ah, this isn’t an NHL game,” Garrison said. “It’s in Helsinki. Jets won their first against Tappara, and now they’re up against HIFK in the final. Could be one of the last hurrahs for the Jets—there’s talk of moving them to Minnesota. Oh, here’s Jessie the Man. Come on over, Jess. Meet the girls.”

  A tall sandy-haired male joined Garrison, his smile boyish, his cheeks slightly flushed.

  “Ladies, your second guide, Jessie Carmanagh,” Garrison said with flourish.

  Jessie’s flush deepened. Angie found his shyness charming. According to the reports she’d read, Jessie Carmanagh had been thirty-three the year of the fateful trip. He was also the father of the young male guide on Angie and Maddocks’s trip.

  “When everyone else has arrived and after we’ve had dinner, we’ll get set up with the safety briefing and run through the schedule for tomorrow,” Garrison said, raising his hand to summon the server. He motioned for another round of drinks as he and Jessie seated themselves at the restaurant table.

  “What made you become a fishing guide, Garrison?” Rachel zoomed in on his face.

  He paused, his green eyes holding the camera. Angie swallowed. His intensity was stark, raw. Masculinity oozed from him. The lightness of his eyes against his black hair and beard was startling. A woman couldn’t help but imagine what he’d be like in bed. Big. Hard. Rough. Satisfying.

  “My grandfather homesteaded along the Nahamish,” he said, looking directly into Rachel’s lens. “He bought up huge tracts of forest along Carmanagh Lake, stretching way back into the north mountains, and the land was dirt cheap because no one wanted to live out here at the time. He also started logging an area of Crown land on the south side of the river. He built a mill to process the lumber, and he began shipping it across Canada and into the States. With those original logs, he built Predator Lodge, which my father now runs. We were born there, raised there, and still live in and around the lodge. Hunting and fishing and living off the land is our family’s way of life. I was homeschooled out there. We have extended family living in those mountains to this day. And given the changes in the economy, we’re moving away from the resource industries and segueing more into tourism—guided angling, backcountry skiing, guided hikes, hunting—it’s a natural move.”

  “Jessie, how ’bout you?”

  Jessie cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. “My family’s into aquaculture—oysters, clams, scallops. Commercial fishing is my thing. But I like to guide on the side. Both ocean and river. We—the Carmanaghs—go back with the Tollets.”

  A man of few words, thought Angie as the clip ended abruptly.

  The next file showed the other females arriving, tables being pushed together, dinner and more drinks being ordered, introductions being shared. Jasmine Gulati entered the frame. Angie hit PAUSE, took a screenshot, and saved and printed the image.

  The woman was stunning. As she entered the room, every face seemed to turn to her like sunflowers to the sun. Angie rewound and played the moment again.

  Jaz entering the restaurant was like a magnet being set among metal shavings that began to vibrate along her magnetic poles. The alpha male of the group—Garrison—immediately moved his chair over to make a gap for another chair to be brought in for her. But Jaz declined to sit there, choosing instead to seat herself beside Jessie. An immediate little power play, thought Angie. Jaz said her hellos all around. Garrison eyed Jessie, who looked suddenly flustered.

  Rachel took a seat, now including herself in the footage. She must have set her camera on a tripod and left it running. More food and drinks arrived. Hand gestures turned expansive, voices rose, complexions grew flushed, and eyes turned bright and animated as fishing adventures were shared.

  Catchin
g any particular thread of conversation was impossible, but among the group Angie identified the German septuagenarian, Hannah Vogel. Now deceased. The woman closest to Hannah in age was Donna Gill, sixty-one, the triathlete. Also deceased. The redhead with freckles Angie pegged as Irene Mallard, forty-two, unmarried, husband having an affair—the “loose vagina” woman now living abroad. The bottle blonde with the hard face and foul mouth Angie identified as Kathi, bitter divorcée, single mother. No child support. Ex paying for sex in his sports car.

  Jaz left the table. Angie noted both Garrison’s and Jessie’s gazes following her ass. Kathi moved her chair closer to Garrison. She leaned drunkenly toward him. This caught Jessie’s attention. A strange look entered his eyes as he watched Garrison listening politely to whatever Kathi was saying in his ear. Eden came suddenly and sharply to her feet, a look of disgust on her face. She muttered something, and Hannah reached out and placed her hand on Eden’s arm. Hannah then also rose from her chair and said good night to the group. She and Eden left the establishment together, Hannah with her arm around Eden’s shoulders.

  Donna also left as Jasmine returned to the table with a new drink in her hand. Jasmine angled her head, smiled at Garrison, and pointed to the pub section. Kathi’s face darkened. Booze had clearly removed the filter that controlled Kathi’s facial expressions. The men were no longer even trying to hide their overt sexual attraction to Jasmine Gulati. The other women were noticing, too. The footage ended.

  The next clip opened in the pub area. Angie presumed Rachel was once more behind the camera, and the filmmaker was clearly pursuing the Jasmine-sexual-interest angle. Her lens was focused tightly on Jaz’s face. Jaz’s black eyes glittered with drink and apparent amusement. But her stance was combative as she pointed her long-nailed finger into the face of a big man with strawberry-blond hair. The male was missing two front teeth. He was flanked by three equally robust males, and they all looked tanked. Two of the men appeared identical. Angie paused, rewound, and watched the segment again. She figured the two could be twins. She took some screenshots of the males, which she printed. She hit PLAY again.

  Noise and cheering was loud, but Jaz’s voice came across clear. “So—what? You’re like all related to that hockey player kid? Like, the whole town?”

  The camera lowered slightly, capturing her cleavage. Jaz had loosened her top buttons to expose a dusky swell of breasts. Yeah, she was sexy. Exotic. Apparently worldly. Jaz Gulati was something these rural dudes might not have come across in some time.

  “Is the hockey kid the reason for this whole rabid turnout thing?” She waved her finger in a circle, indicating the raucous crowd in the bar. The diamonds on her ring finger glittered in the light.

  Angie could almost feel the tension rising off the men—a mix of lust, resentment, anger. She leaned forward with increasing interest.

  “Whaddya mean, rabid?” The big toothless man with strawberry-blond hair spat his words at Jaz, getting closer, in her face. He wore what Trish had referred to as a Kamloops tux—a lined plaid shirt-cum-jacket. Angie took another screenshot of him and jotted a note in her book: Toothless male. Strawberry-blond. Shirt matches description of males on ridge. Who is he? Who are other three men with him? Two are identical twins?

  Jaz did not back down from Mr. Toothless. Instead, she took a step closer to him, and Angie realized she was actually getting a kick out of turning these guys on while humiliating them at the same time. “Come on, sweethearts, you gotta all be interrelated. Just look at you two guys.” She gestured to the identical-looking men with black hair and green eyes.

  “What’re your names, handsomes—you guys twins? You look kinda like our guide, Garrison Tollet. Same eyes and hair and build and”—her gaze brazenly dropped down to their crotches—“size and all.”

  Garrison suddenly appeared at her side. He took Jasmine’s arm firmly. “This is Beau and Joey. My cousins,” he said. “Come with me.”

  She resisted, trying to shake off Garrison’s hold. “Beau and Joe? No way!” She threw back her head and laughed, showing the smooth column of her throat. “See? I told you!” She wagged her finger between the men. “All related. Do you also live in the woods? Got no dentists out there?” She tilted her chin toward Mr. Toothless. “You guys play banjos, too?”

  “Fuck you,” said one of the twins, stepping forward.

  “Come. Now,” Garrison growled to Jaz. “See that booth over there? Go wait for me there.”

  “Nope, I need to go fetch another a drink.” She slurred the edges of her words as she turned to aim for the bar.

  “I’ll bring you a drink. Go wait.”

  “Really? You’ll bring me booze? Oh, okay then, yessir, boss guide, sir. I’ll wait for you in the booth.” She wove her way through the crowd toward the booth, calling over her shoulder as she went, “Make mine a dirty martini. I like dirty.”

  Garrison shot a hot warning glare at the men. “Play nice with the tourists, okay? Port Ferris needs their money. We need their money.”

  “We don’t need to be fucked over by them for the price,” said the big blond. “What’re you now? A fucking prostitute, Garry Boy? Selling yourself out for some fucking city clitty?”

  Garrison lowered his voice, eyes turning cold. “There’s a camera on you right now. This documentary could be real good or real bad for our town. Play nice, and I’ll ask that this footage never sees the screen. Got it?”

  “What’re you going to do, try to get into her pants?” said Mr. Toothless. A fifth male joined the group. He was older. Smaller. Pale. Freckled complexion. Also fair-haired. Scrawny was the word that came to Angie’s mind. She grabbed a screenshot of him and printed it.

  “Fuck you, Wally,” Garrison said.

  Angie scribbled in her book: Mr. Toothless—name is Wally?

  “What’s going on?” said the scrawny male.

  “Nothing,” Wally muttered as they all watched Garrison head to the booth where Jasmine waited.

  One of the twins—Beau—flipped a bird at the booth. “Fuck you, cunt, bitch.”

  “Fucking bitch,” repeated his brother, Joey.

  The footage ended abruptly. Angie scribbled: Wally who? Who is the older scrawny, freckled guy? Twins—Beau and Joey who? Cousins to Garrison Tollet how?

  She sat back a moment, chewing on her pen. Talk about antagonizing the locals—Jaz had been like gasoline to fire. Shit. Angie rewound and watched again, absorbing the nuances and taking more screenshots, which she printed out. She’d use the prints for interview purposes when she drove up to Port Ferris.

  After she’d watched the altercation between Jaz and the men one more time, Angie pulled up the final file that Daniel had converted for her. She hit PLAY.

  This file showed general footage of the bar, Rachel presumably trying to capture the deteriorating ambience as the night wore on. Angie had to hand it to the filmmaker. She did have a way of putting a camera into people’s faces without inhibiting them. Or perhaps that was the booze. But clearly Rachel had been careful to maintain her role as an objective recorder because at no point had she intervened in Jaz’s altercation with those massive men.

  Angie watched the crowd footage carefully, trying to identify faces. The camera lingered slightly on Kathi, her cheeks red as she stood drinking at a high table with Jessie, Irene, and two other guys. Kathi’s gaze shot daggers in Jaz’s direction. Jessie also cast the occasional look over his shoulder at the booth where Jaz and Garrison huddled over drinks. His features showed displeasure. Understandably—Jasmine Gulati was a client of his and of Garrison’s, and this was ground zero for their trip. It did not bode well for the next seven days.

  Angie paused the footage in several places and grabbed additional screenshots of faces. She saved them to her hard drive and hit PRINT on several. She paused suddenly as she noticed a woman entering the rear door of the pub. Slight with reddish-blonde hair. Could it be? Angie froze the scene and enlarged the image.

  Shelley Tollet.

 
Now, there’s a thing.

  The pale and fragile Sissy Spacek look was undeniable. It was definitely Garrison’s wife. She looked barely thirty. Angie hit PLAY and watched intently as Shelley entered the bar, her gaze searching the crowd.

  Jessie noticed Shelley almost immediately. He left his table and hurried through the crowd toward her. He put his arm around her, turning her around, trying to shield her from sighting her husband with Jasmine in the booth. He guided her back toward the exit. But it was too late. Shelley looked over her shoulder and froze as she saw Garrison cuddling up close to Jasmine.

  Shelley’s body stiffened. Her jaw sagged, and her eyes went wide as she shot a desperate look at Jessie. Jessie bent his head to hers, said something. She shook her head. He spoke some more. She considered his words, then handed him a package. She looked once more toward the back booth and rushed out.

  The scrawny older dude who’d earlier joined the men arguing with Jasmine saw Shelley leaving. His gaze shot to Jessie. Something unspoken passed between the two men. Mr. Scrawny then hurried out of the pub after Shelley.

  Angie sat back, feeling exhausted. There was enough motive emerging here for any number of people to have wanted to hurt Jaz Gulati.

  Was her accident really just an accident? Or could someone have helped it along?

  Or worse.

  Could someone have pushed her into the water above the falls with intent to kill?

  CHAPTER 21

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20

  Kjel Holgersen stood in a bus shelter smoking his cigarette. It was almost 3:00 a.m., and the road near the university campus was dark, misty, and deserted. Silence had a weight at this hour. It pressed in with the fog. People were asleep in their little houses, hearing not even the wail of a distant siren.

  As much as Kjel resented being partnered with Leo in what Leo called the Unit of Lost Causes, his curiosity was piqued. He’d had his own suspicions about Detective Harvey Leo. Mostly they’d involved a belief that Leo was paying young female addicts on the street for blow jobs. And the guy was a mean asshole. He’d dropped Pallorino in the shit for sure. But a dirty cop?