“Do you know that the human remains you found have been identified as Jasmine Gulati, a young woman who drowned in the Nahamish twenty-four years ago while on a guided fishing trip?”
He studied her in silence, mistrust entering his bleary eyes. An eagle cried up in the clouds. Wind increased in the conifers, making the forest rush with the sound of a river as branches twisted like skirts about dancing trees.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “I heard it was her.”
Angie leaned forward. “When you found the skeleton, did you think at the time the body might belong to Jasmine Gulati?”
He raked his fingers through his gray hair, making the front stand up. “I ... maybe. I didn’t think too much about who it was at the time. It was a shock, finding those bones. And that Jasmine woman, she went over the falls such a long time ago. Others have gone missing in these parts since. Other anglers. A jumper over the falls. Hunters. Hikers.”
She studied his face. “But you had met Jasmine before she went missing, right?”
“No.”
Angie reached inside the breast pocket of her down jacket and took out the screenshot she’d printed of Budge Hargreaves with a young Darnell Jacobi in the pub. She showed it to him.
“You were in the Hook and Gaffe the night Jasmine and the other women were there.”
He squinted at the image. The creases in his brow deepened into furrows. “Where in the hell did you get that?”
“I took it from the footage that Rachel Hart shot for her documentary. You’re with Darnell Jacobi in that footage. You both saw Jasmine Gulati arguing with Wallace Carmanagh and the Tollet twins.”
“I guess I saw her. Was pretty wasted that night. A lot of us were, what with Robbie Tollet’s team winning and all. Don’t remember much.”
Angie turned to study his land. “Your place is pretty close to the section of river that those women were fishing twenty-four years ago. Did you see the women on the river at all?”
He shook his head.
“But you lived out here at the time?”
“Yeah. Been here ever since two years after my wife drowned. I used to work with the forestry service station not far from here.”
“I’m so sorry about your wife.”
He nodded.
“Can I ask how she died, Budge?”
Claire stiffened in Angie’s peripheral vision.
“She drowned.”
“You mentioned. How did it happen?”
Claire began to pace up and down near the deck railing. Angie ignored her and focused on Budge Hargreaves. The man’s bloodshot eyes went distant. He scrubbed his brow hard, as if it might help clear his head or possibly wipe it clean of bad memories. Angie felt sorry for him.
“We were fishing on Loon Lake not far from here. In my Spratley.”
“Is that a boat?”
He nodded. “It was late evening. We were having sundowners. Probably a few too many. I ... I don’t know what happened. One minute, I was standing up to cast. The boat wobbled, and she was out. Splash.”
“She fell overboard?”
He looked down at his mud-caked boots. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “She went straight down into that black water. Happened so fast. We weren’t wearing life vests.” He paused. “It was getting dark.”
“Can you swim?”
“A little.”
