The Girl in the Moss

by Loreth Anne White

  “Oplopanax horridus,” Claire said quietly. “You don’t want to let that stuff touch bare skin.”

  “Claire, Budge, why don’t you guys wait here?” Maddocks said. “Angie, you come with me.”

  “Yes, sir,” she muttered. “You’re the cop.”

  He shot her a glance, eyes glinting in the twilight. Tension quickened between them. This edge was never far from the surface since Angie had been fired from the MVPD.

  “That is, if you want to come with me,” he said quietly.

  She didn’t reply. Parting a hedge of ferns, they entered the grove. The moss was springy beneath their wading boots. A heavy hush pressed over the area. Even the dog had quieted. It was as if a reverence was owed by those entering this grove of ancient trees.

  Maddocks panned his beam across the moist ground behind the devil’s club bushes. What was once a uniform carpet of emerald-green bryophyte growth had been peeled back like slabs of commercial turf, exposing the glistening black loam beneath. Sticking out of the recently disturbed soil was a section of rib cage. Above the ribs lay a half-buried human skull. A fecund smell rose from the grave. Tendrils of mist sifted through the trees like ectoplasmic fingers reaching out to caress the bones.

  “Spooked the crap outta me when I first saw it!” Budge called from the outskirts of the clearing. “Like I said, I’d have called the cops right away, but there’s no cell reception in these parts.”

  Maddocks squatted down. Angie crouched beside him. Slowly, they ran their beams over the exposed parts of the skeleton. Angie’s pulse quickened at the familiar rush of coming upon a possible major crime scene. Right on the back of that rush rode a sharp whip of reality. Never again would she be officially tasked with managing her own crime scene.

  Mouth tightening at the overwhelming impact of this thought, she said, “Coroner will need to get a full team in here. It’s going to take a while to excavate this.” She leaned in closer to examine the skull. It was encrusted with dirt, no remaining flesh discernible. A mud-filled eye socket stared back at her. “Some kind of compression fracture.” She pointed to the hole in the left side of the skull where bone caved inward, cracks radiating out like a starburst. “This person took a hard blow to the left side of the head.”

  “Won’t know if that’s post-, ante-, or perimortem until a forensic anthropologist gets a good look,” Maddocks said.

  “Some ribs are missing.” Angie aimed her beam at the exposed portion of encrusted rib cage.

  “Maybe the dog did that,” Maddocks said. “Or other scavengers—” His hand stilled as his beam settled on something poking out of the moss near the base of the rib cage. “Some kind of dark fabric, maybe?”

  “What fabric lasts longer than it takes for a body to become fully skeletonized?”

  He glanced at her. “Gore-Tex? Neoprene? Stuff like that doesn’t biodegrade.”

  “Like neoprene waders?”

  “Hmm.” He looked up. “Seems a bit far from the river to be a stray angler.”

  “We’re still wearing waders,” she said. “This person could’ve walked up here, like us. We came via that circuitous trail from the beach, but I reckon the river is only a few hundred meters north of this grave as the crow flies.”

  “Yeah, but it’s all old growth and dense scrub from here to the water as the crow flies. Some serious bushwhacking if anyone wanted to come that way from the beach.”

  Angie repositioned herself as Maddocks spoke. She was getting stiff, her own neoprene waders doing only so much to ward off the evening’s creeping cold. As she moved she noticed another bone sticking out of the disturbed moss carpet at her feet.

  “Oh shit!” She moved back farther. “Another one. Right here, under my boots.”

  They both stared down at the bone. It was long with white marks at the rounded end, as if recently gnawed.

  “Humerus, maybe,” she said.

  “What’s that beside it?” Maddocks pointed at a round object encrusted with black muck.

  Angie zeroed her flashlight onto the object. “Looks like some kind of cuff bracelet or a piece of machinery. We need to move back, get out of here. This is a crime scene until proven otherwise. We should cordon off this whole area until the coroner and local law enforcement can get in.”

  “The closest RCMP detachment is in Port Ferris,” Maddocks said, coming to his feet. He and Angie backtracked carefully along their path of entry to where Budge and Claire waited patiently in the dripping rain and encroaching darkness. Tucker whimpered softly and wiggled on his lead as they neared.

  “Can you radio it in to the lodge, Claire?” Maddocks said. “Someone from there will need to call the Port Ferris RCMP and inform them a clandestine grave has been unearthed by a dog. Give them the GPS location. And tell them Sergeant James Maddocks from MVPD major crimes in Victoria is on scene and will attempt to secure the area until they can get in with a coroner.”

  Claire keyed her radio, stepping aside to make her dispatch.

  Angie turned to Budge and said, “Is there a road up from Port Ferris on this side of the Nahamish?”

  “Just a deactivated logging track, not used much apart from hunters and me and Axel Tollet, who also has a homestead on this side. His spread is farther west, though.”

  Maddocks said quietly to Angie, “There’s no way the coroner and law enforcement will be getting in here tonight. Not much can be done until first light anyway—those remains aren’t going anywhere. Not after all these years.”

  “What about scavengers, now that it’s been exposed?” Budge pointed to a dark mudlike mound near his boots. “Bear’s been here already. This scat is fresh, dumped since I left here to go to the river to call you guys for help.”

  The radio crackled as a message came in from Rex on the other side of the Nahamish. “Gotcha, Claire. Message has been relayed to the lodge. You guys coming back over?”

  She turned and looked expectantly at Maddocks and Angie.

  Maddocks said, “I’ll stay out here for the night, secure the scene until the local authorities can get in. Can we get some supplies from the lodge? I’ll need a tent, sleeping bag. Radio. A supply of dry wood for a fire to help keep wildlife away. Some bear spray, pencil flares, just in case. And some rope. Or line, or tape—something I can use to run a rough perimeter around the grave site.”

  Angie stared at him, her skin going hot. He was making her feel like a spare part, hammering home that she’d been fired, was no longer a police officer let alone a sex crimes or homicide detective.

  Claire said, “That shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll go and collect the gear from the lodge myself and ferry it back over the river. Are you coming with me, Angie?”

  “I’ll camp out here. With him.”

  His gaze ticked sharply to her. “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” she snapped. “What do you think? I’m just going to leave you out here alone?” So much for that anticipated shower, hot meal, good mattress. “It’ll be fine as long as I’m back in town for my job at the airport tomorrow evening, because Brixton will fire my ass if I’m not.”

  Jock Brixton, who ran Coastal Investigations, had been reluctant to hire Angie in the first place because of her notorious dismissal from the MVPD and the subsequent media frenzy after she’d shot and killed a serial sex murderer known as the Baptist.

  The media had also gone to town over the discovery that Angie was the mysterious little Jane Doe found in an angel’s cradle over thirty years ago and that her biological father was a sex trafficker who’d killed her mother and sister, among others. Angie had begged Brixton to give her a chance because no other PI firm had come even close to offering her a job, and by law she had to work for a registered company in order to accrue the hours required to graduate to an unsupervised PI license. Once she had her unsupervised license, she could think about starting her own boutique-style agency. She’d even offered to take a lower-than-average rate of pay.

  Brixton had finally relented and of
fered a probationary period of employment. Which meant Angie had been left scraping the bottom of the PI barrel, her case load consisting mostly of following adulterous spouses or the children of rich parents who wanted to spy on their kids. It sucked; no two ways about it. But she just had to keep her eye on the prize—running her own business. Screwing up her probationary employment would cost her that prize.

  “Hey, look, if you guys don’t need me,” Budge said, “would you mind if I headed back to my truck? Port Ferris cops know where to find me if they have questions or anything.”

  Maddocks said, “You okay to find your way back? It’s almost dark.”

  “Got my GPS. Got my headlamp. Got Tuck. We know our way. Done it plenty times in far worse conditions. Don’t live that far away, neither.” The old guy positioned his headlamp atop his ball cap and clicked it on. He gave a nod and, wheezing, made his way off into the woods. They watched his light bobbing into the mist, then it disappeared.

  “Do you want to come help me get the gear while Maddocks waits here?” Claire said to Angie.

  She nodded and started to follow Claire down the trail toward the beach, but Maddocks reached for Angie’s arm and held her back a moment.

  “You okay?” he said.

  “Why shouldn’t I be okay?”

  He angled his head, his skin pale under the beam of her flashlight. “Because you’re reacting like this. Getting all snippy. What is it? The wolves? Are they prodding old memories?”

  She glowered at him, a cocktail of feelings stirring into her heart. He cared. He was a good guy. She loved him with all her heart, and a part of her resented him because he was so goddamn perfect. Because he was still a big-shot detective, and she wasn’t. Because his success—his recent promotion to head a new major incident unit—just offset her own failures. Because something buried deep down inside her was still resisting committing fully to a relationship with him, and she didn’t know why, and it saddened and confused her. More than anything she did not want him to treat her like a victim. She wanted his respect. To be his equal. She wanted his admiration, not pity.

  “You’ve been treating me like fragile china ever since I found out my father was a killer. Do you know that?” she whispered so Claire would not hear. “And while I appreciate the sentiment—I really do—I’m made of tougher stuff than you’re giving me credit for right now, okay? I don’t like being cosseted. I want you to lay off.”

  An owl hooted somewhere. Wind rustled through the tops of the trees. His gaze held hers, and a deeper subtext layered into the chill between them.

  You ever thought of kids . . .

  “I’m a survivor, Maddocks,” she reiterated. “Not a victim.”

  Something shifted in his face. He stepped back, his shoulders squaring. “Fine,” he said. “Are you sure you want to stay out here with me tonight?”

  “Do you want me to stay?”

  “You know the answer to that, Angie.” He paused, eyes glinting. “I always want you. It’s what you want right now that worries me.”

  Her jaw tightened as she held his eyes a second longer. Then she turned and followed Claire into the woods, heart thumping against her ribs.

  CHAPTER 4

  James Maddocks poked a log into the campfire, shooting small orange sparks into the night. Angie was snugged up beside him, a blanket around her shoulders. A tarp strung between branches kept rain from their heads as water plopped and fizzed into the flames. She handed him a hip flask of brandy. He took it and sipped in silence as they listened to the wolves howling in the mountains. The ominous roar of Plunge Falls seemed to creep closer in the black cold of the night.

  Angie shivered and drew her blanket up tighter around her shoulders.

  “Chilly?” he said.

  “It’s the sound of those wolves,” she said. “You were right. It does send me back into the past.” She shot him a wry smile. “Doesn’t help to be camping next to exposed human remains.”

  “Claire said the pack stays mostly on the other side of the river.”

  “Hope so. I haven’t practiced defense with OC in a while,” she said, using the police term for bear or pepper spray that contained extraction of oleoresin capsicum.

  He studied her face, the way the firelight played over her pale complexion. He loved her features, her strong lines, her haunting pale-gray eyes, even the crooked scar across her mouth. The glow from the flames cast a rich copper hue on her red hair, which hung loose and thick over her shoulders. He thought of sex and turned away to look into the fire.

  All he’d wanted was a quiet, rustic, romantic getaway, far from the city, far from the stresses of work, a chance to try to rekindle their nascent relationship, which was taking strain under the demands of Angie’s new line of private investigative work. He’d been under additional pressure himself as he took charge of and shaped the MVPD’s new integrated major incident team—or iMIT, as it was being called.

  Instead they were here, camped in a freezing cold rain forest beside a skeletonized corpse. A wry smile tugged at his mouth. Perhaps it was fitting.

  Perhaps the wobble in their relationship was his fault.

  He’d suggested marriage at a bad time nine months ago, right on the back of Angie having narrowly escaped with her life when her father had abducted her and tried to kill her a second time. Just prior to that she’d lost her old partner and mentor, Hash Hashowsky, while on a call that had cost a toddler’s life. She was undergoing therapy for it all, working hard to cope with the PTSD, as she’d promised him she would, making every show of addressing it all head-on, grabbing hold with both hands and trying to beat it into submission, Angie style. Yet she remained scarred and probably always would be. You couldn’t just “get over” a past like hers. But it was her emotional distance—this subtle wall he could feel rising between them—that worried Maddocks. It was as though Angie was struggling with an insidious tension between her desire to be alone and her need for intimacy. Maddocks believed this inner battle was what had lain at the heart of her addiction to aggressive, anonymous sex.

  “It was supposed to go down differently,” he said.

  “What was?”

  “This trip. Tonight.” He hesitated, then thought, What the hell. If this all blows up in my face, it’s better I know now rather than later. He reached into the inside pocket of his down jacket, and his fingers touched the slim fly box he’d been keeping there. It was warm against his body, under the down, near his heart. He took out the box and inhaled deeply, nerves suddenly fierce. “I . . . wanted to make it official.”

  Her gaze dropped to the little tackle box. She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  He opened the fly box. Nestled in foam that would ordinarily hold flies with hooks was a simple blue-white solitaire diamond set in platinum. The stone glinted in the firelight.

  Her jaw dropped. Her gaze shot up to his face. Shock registered in her eyes.

  “Marry me, Angie Pallorino.”

  “You . . . I . . . you already asked me.”

  “And you said you’d think about it. I don’t recall a proper hard-and-fast yes.” He sucked in another deep breath. “We’ve both been so busy we haven’t really managed to discuss it or make plans. That’s why I wanted some time away with you. I wanted to make it special, Ange. Official. With a ring. Set a wedding date.” He gave a soft snort. “I asked the chef at the lodge to prep a special dinner for us on this last night, to be served with that French wine you like. A fire was to be lit in our room, hot tub bubbling on the deck. Some real lodge luxury after three nights of riverside camping. But here we are instead, guarding a decaying corpse.” He smiled. “Typical, eh?”

  She stared at the diamond nestled in the foam. Emotion glittered into her eyes. Wind gusted, fluttering the strips of flagging tape they’d secured to the cordon around the grave site.

  “I . . . don’t know what to say.”

  Disquiet feathered into him. He remained silent as he watched her study the ring without touching
it. Tension tightened her features, and her lips pressed into a thin line as though she was struggling to keep her emotions in check, battling with what to say next. And all over again he felt he was going to lose her. He felt vulnerable, laid bare, raw to the wind.

  Afraid.

  You could say yes.

  He cleared his throat and said slowly, “You wanted this trip, right? Some romantic time together?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Something romantic, but . . . I . . . I didn’t know you had this in mind.”

  “I’ve upset you.”

  She swallowed, her nose going pink. She wiped her hand across her mouth.

  “Look at me, Angie. Talk to me.”

  Carefully, she raised her eyes. What he saw in them clutched at his heart.

  “Maybe we should wait, Maddocks,” she said. “Until I’ve got enough supervised hours under my belt, until I start my own PI agency.”

  “Why? Why wait?”

  Silence.

  “Angie?”

  “Once I’ve got it all squared away, you know? I’ll be in a better place to plan for this. Once—”

  “You’re running,” he said. “You’ve been avoiding me ever since I first posed the question, avoiding talking about this, us, setting a date. Wedding plans. You’ve been using all that shit about hours, needing to work around the clock, seven days a week, no weekends, as a—”

  “I told you! I fucking hate what I’m doing right now, sneaking around in the dead of night, hanging out in cheap clubs and motels tailing couples indulging in sordid affairs, trying to catch them in flagrante to prove their infidelity to a sad and jealous spouse who then detests me”—she jabbed her fingers against her chest—“for rubbing their noses in the photographic proof.” She swore softly. “But I need to accrue those hours as fast as possible so I can get out from under that jackass Brixton’s control and go out on my own. I—”

  “Don’t. Do not mess with me, Angie,” he said firmly. “This has less to do with Jock Brixton than what I asked you in the car on the drive up. I saw your reaction. That question set the tone for the weekend. It goes right to the heart of this, of us, doesn’t it?”