“Don’t know until we look.”
Leo snorted. “On the one hand you got linkage blindness, but on the other there’s overkill, buddy.”
Kjel opened another box and took out a file. This one contained details of a missing persons investigation from last December. He flicked through the file contents.
“Hey, this is the Annelise Janssen case,” he said. “Remember that student who went missing from the UVic campus last winter?” He peered up from the file. “She’s still missing. Her father is that big-shot industrialist. Pots of money.” Kjel tapped the file. “This one’s high profile and high on the public-interest scale. A pretty young blonde from a good family just vanishes off campus, poof, gone? No one has a clue where she went? If we can solve one or two like this, we gots it made.” Kjel ambled over to his new workstation and sat at his desk as he continued to peruse the file.
“Yeah, I remember this one,” he said. “I was partnered with Pallorino in sex crimes when a woman’s body floated up in the Gorge last winter. Everyone’s first thoughts was that the floater was Annelise Janssen. It was the first question reporters asked me and Pallorino.” He glanced up. “I reckon this one goes to the top of our pile. I reckon for starters we get this onto the social media desk and put word out again that we’s still looking for tips on Janssen.”
“It was all over social media last December.”
“Yeah, but you knows how it goes. Sometimes peeps is scared to come forward at the time. Then circumstances change in their lives, and they’re ready to talk. Or maybe someone never saw those posts last winter.” As Kjel returned his attention to the file, out of the corner of his eye he saw Leo snag the tweaker murder book off the table and take it back to his desk.
An odd feeling quirked through Kjel as he thought of Maddocks’s words.
Just watch him for me. Watch how he handles and prioritizes cases.
CHAPTER 15
It was almost noon on Monday when Angie knocked on the door of the Hart residence, a rambling estate on the ocean near Metchosin, a semirural area about a half-hour drive from the city. Finding Rachel Hart’s address had been easy. The documentary filmmaker, now seventy-two, had a website with contact details. Angie had called ahead to explain her investigation and to ask for an appointment.
A man in his early seventies opened the door. He was tall, rangy limbs, a long face with playful light-blue eyes. “Angie Pallorino?”
“Yes, I—”
“Rachel is expecting you. Come on in. I’m Doug, her husband.”
Angie shook his hand. He had a solid grip, and the smile in his eyes remained warm. She liked him on the spot. She’d done a bit of digging before coming out and learned that Rachel was married to Dr.Douglas J.Hart, a recently retired dean of humanities at the University of Victoria. It was the same university that Maddocks’s daughter, Ginny, now attended, and where Angie’s father had been a professor of anthropology. Before turning to law enforcement, Angie had once thought she might pursue an academic career of her own.
“Come through this way. Don’t worry about your shoes—Rachel is out back, down by the water, fly casting.” He led Angie through an open-plan living room to sliding glass doors that looked over a lawn that rolled down to a bay. The Hart home was all clean architectural lines and plenty of natural light. A series of black-and-white photographic portraits filled one wall. Angie slowed to examine them. Some studies were of Doug and Rachel, others of a small boy with a young girl. Then the girl alone at various ages as the years progressed.
“Is that Eden, your daughter?” she asked Doug. “I think I recognize her from some of the river trip photos.”
“Yes. And that’s our boy, Jimmy. We lost him when he was four.”
“I’m so sorry.” She glanced at Doug.
“Jimmy was riding his tricycle and went off the edge of the dock at a lake house we were renting over the summer. By the time we realized he was gone, it was too late. It was a rough time.” He opened the door, letting in the fresh autumn air. “I’ll take you down to the beach. Rachel likes to practice casting down there when she needs to think or relax.” He shot another easy smile over his shoulder. “Rachel hasn’t thought about the river trip in a long while. She was rather deeply shocked when you told her about Jasmine’s remains being identified.”
They walked over the lawn. The ocean danced and sparkled in the sunlight. Along the boundary of the property, deciduous trees were still aflame in fall color, leaves ruffling in the breeze. It was a glorious day.
Doug stopped on a grassy knoll, his hands going into his pockets. “There she is.” He titled his chin toward the water.
Down at the bottom of the incline, at the water’s edge, a lithe woman with long silvery hair in a ponytail cast her line in balletic arcs, water droplets glinting in the sun. Her physique and movements belied her age.
Angie and Doug watched in silence. It was a sort of poetry in motion, thought Angie, an esoteric ribbon dance with a fine filament of line. She knew firsthand from her recent trip with Maddocks just how goddamn difficult it was to pull off that kind of grace with a fly line.
“What’s she trying to catch?” Angie said.
“Nothing. She has a fly without a hook. It’s just practice. Her Xanax.” He fell quiet, seemingly lost in his own mind as he watched his wife at the water’s edge.
“Is it okay to talk to her about Jasmine and what happened on the trip?” Angie asked quietly.
Doug seemed to snap back from wherever he’d journeyed in his brain and said, “No. Well, yes, of course she’s fine to talk. It’s just that it was a long time ago, losing Jasmine. Your phone call—the sudden revelation that those human remains belong to Jaz—it brought it all back. Rachel took it very hard at the time. It was her trip. She organized it. She invited Jasmine, and she felt responsible for everyone’s safety.”
“Did Rachel know Jasmine well?”
His gaze ticked to hers. “Well enough. Maybe it’ll help seal the wounds now that Jasmine’s remains have been found. Why don’t you go down and introduce yourself while I put some coffee on? I’ll bring it out to the table on the patio—it’d be a shame to waste a day like today.”
