The Girl in the Moss

by Loreth Anne White

  Angie chatted awhile longer about the first dinner in the pub, about Sheila Tollet visiting the campsite, about the small blowup between Jaz and the lesbian couple over adoption, about an argument Jaz had with Hannah Vogel and Donna Gill regarding a woman’s obligation to support the feminism cause, about Kathi and Jaz’s drunken camaraderie.

  Angie thanked Eden and came to her feet. “If anything else comes to mind, would you give me a call?”

  “I will.” She got up and moved toward the door. “Was everything kosher with the autopsy results?”

  “Yes,” Angie said simply. “Jasmine’s death is being ruled as an accidental drowning.”

  “So . . . Justice Monaghan is just fishing? S’cuse the pun.”

  “She needs to round out an image of her granddaughter’s life before laying her officially to rest. It’s her way of coping, I think.”

  “Or entertaining herself.”

  “Maybe that, too.”

  As Angie left Nanaimo and drove the last leg up the desolate island highway to Port Ferris into a darkening bank of clouds, she considered the enigma that was Dr. Eden Hart.

  With a mother like Rachel Hart, it was easy to see the forces that had shaped a young Eden. Both were powerful, strong women with sharp feminist sensibilities. It was this feminism that had underscored the intent of Rachel’s documentary. Jaz, in her own way, had been a free-spirited, powerful female who wielded her sexuality as a weapon or used it as a tool, sparing neither man nor woman. And as Angie knew well, ambitious and driven women could make a lot of people very, very uncomfortable.

  Angie wanted to like Eden Hart. She wanted to like Rachel, too. But there was something about the two she couldn’t quite pinpoint. Yet.

  Or was she just like the rest—uncomfortable around women who, while holding fast onto their feminine whiles, could also act like men? No. It was more. In Angie’s experience, men were generally straightforward. Women were more dangerous—because they were more devious. The aggression was usually quieter. And sometimes darkly passive, hidden like fly hooks in pretty feathers behind smiles and compliments and nice shoes.

  CHAPTER 26

  The Hook and Gaffe sign Angie had seen in Rachel’s footage still creaked in the sea wind above the entrance to the restaurant and pub, but it had long been replaced by a newer version. She parked in the lot outside, checked into the motel adjacent to the restaurant, and dumped her bags on the bed in her room.

  The room smelled musty, as places close to the sea often do. She yanked back the drapes, and dust motes floated down. Across the street, through the salt-crusted windows, stood the row of weathered waterfront stores Angie had seen in the digitized footage, including the old Mariner’s Diner. Behind the buildings a wooden pier jutted out into a harbor. Gulls darted and wheeled above the pier. Clouds boiled low over a sea dark gray and veined with foam.

  This was one of the rooms Rachel Hart had booked for her group twenty-four years ago. Angie suspected not much had been done to spruce up the decor since. She felt as though she’d stepped back in time.

  Leaving her gear locked in her room and armed with her recorder, camera, and a folder of screenshots, she drove straight for the Sea-Tech Industries compound, where the aquaculture division was run by Jessie Carmanagh. Jessie had agreed to meet Angie in his office at 5:30 p.m.

  Her route took her down to the docks and along train tracks and a rail yard with graffiti-covered silos. The tide was low, exposing rotting pylons and a swath of barnacled and seaweedy rocks that stretched out into the bay. Rain came down softly, and mist blew in. The effect was bleak. Cold. Desolate.

  Angie turned into the five-acre compound. The entrance bifurcated. A sign on her right pointed to the Sea-Tech Freight division. Another sign on her left indicated the Sea-Tech aquaculture operations. Angie turned left.

  She’d looked up the company before coming. While Jessie Carmanagh ran the aquaculture arm, the freight division—which shipped the live fish and shellfish produced by the aquaculture division across the country and south of the border—was run by Wallace, Mr. Toothless, who Angie had discovered was also a Carmanagh and Jessie’s older brother.

  She drove toward a long squat building near the water. Men were leaving the building in groups and making for vehicles parked in a lot at the back. It was close of business, and she presumed the men were Sea-Tech employees heading home after their day’s work. She parked and found Jessie’s office at the end of the building closest to the wharf. She knocked on the partially open door.

  “Come in!”

  Angie entered to find a woman in her forties seated behind a metal desk with a half-eaten burger in her hands, a supersize drink and fries at her side. The place smelled of fast food and diesel from the boats coming in. Metal shelving filled with binders lined the walls.

  “I’m looking for Jessie Carmanagh,” Angie said. “I have an appointment with him. My name’s Angie Pallorino.”

  The woman swallowed her mouthful and set her burger down. “Oh yeah.” She wiped a napkin over her lips. “He took off down to the wharf.”

  She rolled her chair back on its wheels, got to her feet, and waddled over to the grime-streaked window. She pointed. “That’s him down there by that row of painted bollards. He’s fixing the scallop cages.”

  Angie peered through the window. A large rangy male wearing a bright-orange visi-vest atop heavy all-weather fishing gear bent over what looked like a tangle of nets.

  “If ya want to speak to him, you’d better head on down. He’ll be a while sorting out that tangle.”

  Angie exited the building, drew up her rain hood, and walked to the waterfront. A soft drizzle fell, puddles pooled along the concrete paving, and boats jostled along the dock on the rising tide. The place smelled like fish. And diesel engines. Near the dock was a large hangar-style warehouse containing drums. Under cover of the hangar, men in coveralls were busy with the drums.

  “Jessie Carmanagh?” she said as she reached the man.

  His head jerked up.

  A spark of recognition shot through Angie. Although now in his late fifties, Jessie Carmanagh still retained something of the boyish quality she’d witnessed in Rachel’s footage. But his eyes belied the rest of his physical presence. They were lined, watchful, calculating. They told Angie she was not welcome here.

  Several of the men in coveralls in the adjacent warehouse stopped working. A few grouped together and watched her from under the cover. One lit a cigarette and leaned back against a drum. Jessie flicked a glance at them.

  She proffered her hand and a smile. “I’m Angie. We spoke on the phone earlier. My partner and I had the pleasure of doing a Nahamish drift with your son, Hugh, recently, along with fellow guide Claire Tollet. Hugh’s a fine teacher and an incredible angler.”

  “Yeah, I know you were on the river last month. Budge told us.” Ignoring her hand, he returned his attention to untangling scallop cages. “And we saw you on the news.”

  Us.

  We.

  “You’re friendly with Budge Hargreaves?”

  “Everyone knows everyone in these parts.”

  Angie reached into her pocket and activated her digital recorder, keeping it hidden so as not to agitate him further. She eyed the men in the warehouse. She sensed she had a very small window of time to get Jessie to talk.

  “Could we maybe discuss this under cover, perhaps in your office?”

  “You got something to say, say it here.”

  In full view of his men. In the rain. He’s going to make this as difficult as he can.

  Rain started falling harder, and mist blew in thick off the water. Standing in the rain, Angie explained how Justice Monaghan had contacted her and why.

  Jessie fiddled with his equipment in silence as he listened, impervious to the increasing rain and mounting wind. Tackle and halyards began to clunk against masts, and water sucked and slapped loudly at the docks. Buoys affixed to the side of the warehouse began to thump in the wind.

 
; “So what does this have to do with me?” He cast another look at the men watching them, smoking, under the cover. They were all big guys. Several with thick black hair. Jaz was right. They did all seem to be bred from a certain mold. Or perhaps this industry and manual labor just attracted the large physical sort. Nevertheless, their presence was hostile, and Angie felt time running out. She cut right to the chase.

  “Can you tell me what you witnessed the last night on the river before Jasmine Gulati drowned?”

  He came suddenly and sharply erect, all six two and more of him. He planted his stance wide in his fishing boots. Angie tensed, resisting the sharp urge to step backward.

  “Look, I’ve been through this. Twenty-four years ago. And so many goddamn times, over and over—interviews with RCMP, the coroner, the media. Questions from friends, family, everyone in this community. I searched day and night for that woman with the SAR guys until the river got too high and the snows blew in. I volunteered on the searches the following spring when the river got low. She was my—our—client, and losing her was the fucking pits. I was happy when we could finally put it all behind us, okay? Whole of Port Ferris was relieved to see the damn media circus leave town.” He pointed his finger at her. “And no one is welcoming dredging it up again now. Especially me.” Hot spots were forming along his cheekbones.

  Energy seemed to shift in the group watching them. One of the men ground out his cigarette under his work boot and left the cover of the warehouse. He crossed the paved lot, making for the main building that housed Jessie’s office. A sense of foreboding filled Angie’s chest. A mental clock ticked fast in her brain.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Carmanagh,” she said quickly while keeping the men in her peripheral vision. “But on the other side of the equation is Jasmine’s family and friends. They need to process things now that her remains have been found. You’re going to have to allow them that little bit of leeway and for them to ask a few final questions. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few of those questions.”

  Jessie’s mouth thinned. “Make it quick.”

  She pushed a wet strand of hair off her face. “The reports indicate it was Garrison Tollet who saw Jasmine Gulati going over the falls. Can you tell me where exactly you were in relation to Garrison when that happened?”

  He swiped water off his brow with the base of his thumb. “Garrison was up above the talus ridge on the north bank. There was a deadfall up there. He had a handsaw, was cutting some wood. He had a clear view to the falls. I was lower down on the scree, gathering kindling. I couldn’t see the river from where I was. My line of sight was blocked by trees.”

  “How did Garrison know it was Jasmine going over?”

  “I don’t know that he knew it was her right at that instant. But two and two was put together at some point. Her gear. Her hair—long and dark. He saw it flowing in the white water. We knew from before we left camp that she’d been going downriver alone to fish in the eddies above the falls.”

  “What happened next?”

  “He screamed for me to go radio for help.”

  “You carried no radio on you at the time?”

  His eyes narrowed. “No. I left mine at the camp for the women. Garrison was supposed to have the other one so that the women could call us if they needed. He’d forgotten it. Look, it wasn’t a big deal at the time. We went a short ways to find wood. We’d left them all safe at camp.”

  “Apart from Jasmine.”

  A flicker ran through his features. “She was an accomplished angler. She knew what she was doing. She was also a client from hell. She wouldn’t listen to anything anyways.”

  “So you kind of wrote her off in terms of protecting her, keeping her safe like the others?”

  Tension corded the muscles at his neck, but he said nothing.

  “What did Garrison do while you ran back to radio for help?”

  “Climbed down the cliff to the base of the falls. Dangerous as all hell, that was. Slick rocks, sheer in parts. That woman could have cost Garrison’s life, too.”

  “When you reached camp, where were the women?”

  “Milling about on the logging road. They heard Garrison screaming and came up from the camp.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yeah. All.”

  “Rachel Hart, too?”

  “Yeah, she’d returned from the shelf where she was shooting.”

  Energy quickened through Angie. “What shelf?”

  “We’d seen her from above, her pink hat. We’d all been given Kinabulu toques from the company sponsoring the trip. Some got red hats, some black. But hers was the only hot-pink one. It looked like she’d set up with her tripod on a rock ledge and was filming. From that ledge she’d have had a good line of sight down to the small bay where Jasmine’s rod was found, where there were signs she’d slipped.”

  Rachel’s words chased through Angie’s brain.

  I also left the camp. After the guides. I followed the bank upriver along a promontory of land that jutted out into the Nahamish. From the point I filmed some footage looking back at the campsite. I wanted the ambience of the fire and smoke in the gathering dusk. I was there filming when I heard men screaming.

  Had she lied? Why? Had she been filming Jasmine fishing alone in the dying evening light? Is that why the final footage had gone missing?

  Or was Jessie lying now?

  “Why was it not mentioned in the coroner’s and police interviews that you’d seen Rachel filming from the ledge?”

  “No one asked me where the other women were while I was gathering wood. It was an accident. We were all doing our best.”

  “Did anyone else see Rachel Hart on the ledge?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  “So you were the only witness.”

  “Jeezus, what are you looking for here?”

  “Did you like her, Jasmine?”

  “Whether I liked my clients or not is immaterial. My son, Hugh, would say the same—whether he liked you and your partner was not an issue. It was his job to show you the ropes and take care of you.”

  Angie hurriedly zipped open her sling bag and removed her file. Using her body to protect the contents from rain, she took out a screenshot of the group of men at the Hook and Gaffe.

  “Could you please identify for me everyone in this photo?”

  His body tensed at the sight of the photo. His gaze shot to her face. “Why?”

  “Jasmine upset some of these guys. We captured this image from VHS footage that documents the entire exchange between Jasmine and these men. If you don’t help me, Mr. Carmanagh, someone else will, and I’m going to be asking what you’re trying to hide.”

  Hostility crackled off him. He flicked a glance at his office, to where the man had disappeared. Returning his attention to the photo, he pointed and said, “That’s Budge there at the back of the crowd, standing by the bar.”

  Surprise rippled through Angie. She peered closer at the image. Jessie was pointing at a huddle of men near the bar, to whom she’d paid little attention. “Budge Hargreaves? He was also there that night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He looks a lot thinner. I wouldn’t have recognized him.”

  “Lost his wife about fourteen months prior to that day. He’d pretty much been on a bender and in a bad way since her death. After she died, he sold their place in town and moved out onto Tollet land.”

  “Who’s that standing beside him?”

  “Darnell Jacobi.”

  Angie’s pulse quickened. “The RCMP officer?”

  “He was a rookie back them. Fresh out of depot division. His dad was staff sergeant of the Port Ferris detachment at the time.”

  “So Constable Jacobi is friendly with Budge Hargreaves?”

  “Look, I don’t know a guy worth his salt who wasn’t in the pub that night. It was hometown hero Robbie Tollet’s big game in Helsinki. That’s a big deal, okay? It was right before the original Jets folded, and it’s a small g
oddamn town. We all know one another.”

  In her peripheral vision Angie saw a different male exiting Jessie’s office. He was big and blond, and he started toward them.

  Angie pressed on fast. “And the others in the photo?”

  “Behind the bar there, collecting the glasses, that’s Axel Tollet. Used to work at the Hook and Gaffe back then. He’s a driver for Wallace now. My brother. Wallace runs the freight division of Sea-Tech.”

  “Axel any relation to Garrison Tollet?”

  “Cousin.”

  She pointed at the big toothless aggressor in the photo. “Is this Wallace, your brother?”

  “Yeah, that’s Wally.”

  “And the twins here—they’re Joey and Beau Tollet?”

  “Yeah. Axel’s brothers. They’re over there.” He jerked his head in the direction of the group watching from the warehouse.

  “They work for Sea-Tech, too?”

  “Like I said, small town, a few big family-owned businesses. Makes for limited employment options.”

  Angie stole another look at the men in the warehouse. She could make out two big dark-haired guys among them. She figured they were Beau and Joey. Jasmine must have been out-of-her-mind drunk to mess with this bunch. Hurriedly Angie took out another screenshot, the one where the scrawny older male had joined the group.

  “And this older guy?” She pointed.

  “Tack McWhirther. Shelley Tollet’s uncle. He died some years back. Throat cancer.”

  “He was protective of Shelley?” Angie asked.

  “Shelley was his brother’s only child. Tack’s brother and sister-in-law died in a small plane accident off Tofino. Tack took care of Shelley until she married Garrison.”

  Angie sifted through the other prints, everything getting wet in the rain. She held another out to him. “What is Shelley Tollet giving you in this photo?”

  His brow lowered, and his jaw tightened. “I don’t need to answer this shit.”

  “No. But what do you have to hide?”

  He regarded her intensely. “It was cat medicine. Shelley had come into town to visit a friend who was having a baby, and she also needed to pick up pills from the vet for their old cat. She said she was going to overnight in town because the friend’s baby hadn’t come yet. She came to the pub to find Garrison so he could take the medication back to the lodge to give to the cat when he drove his clients up in the morning.”