“You didn’t go in after her?”
Claire cleared her throat and threw Angie a disapproving glare. Angie ignored her.
“I ... Icouldn’tgo in.” Budge stared at his feet for a long while. When he met her gaze again, his features were stripped raw, and emotion was naked in his eyes. “Look at me,” he said, holding his calloused hands out to his sides. “Lookat me. I punish myself every day. I try to blind myself with that demon drink. Maybe I’m trying to kill myself, I don’t know. A six-pack of beers plus a bottle of whiskey nearly every night, and I’m still fucking here, still fucking standing and walking, and it was my fault. Iamto blame. I could have done more.” Tears filled his eyes. “Maybe I could have saved her if I’d gone in. But I was wasted. Too drunk to try to swim. Or even think straight. I’d have drowned, too, and I should have. I should’ve gone in and gone down with her—” He began to sob openly, not even attempting to hide the tears streaming down his face. Big, ugly, inhuman sounds issued from him as his body and mind were racked with misery.
“I’m so sorry, Budge.” Angie found a Kleenex in one of her pockets and held it out to him.
He blew his nose.
She waited. Wind gusted harder, bending the tips of the trees in the forest all around them. Tiny flecks of snow began to blow in with it. Claire walked to the edge of the clearing, looked up at the clouded sky, then checked her watch.
“What was your wife’s name, Budge?”
“Arizona. I always called her Zoe. For short.”
“Married a long time?”
He nodded, wiped his nose again, and cursed softly. “When we moved out to Port Ferris, it was going to be a fresh start for both of us. Good things were supposed to come of it. We were closer to outdoor recreation—fishing, hunting. She’d quit her job so I could take the new forestry position out here.”
“Why’d you need a fresh start?”
He snorted softly. “Marriage trouble.”
Angie studied him. “Bad?”
He shrugged. “Bad enough to make a big move.”
Angie wondered if this could speak to motive, whether Budge might have had helped his wife’s drowning accident along. Or facilitated it.
“Where did you live before relocating to Port Ferris?” she asked.
“Richmond. In the Lower Mainland. It was a very urban existence. I traveled a lot for work, was away from home for extended periods.”
“Yeah, that’d be rough on a marriage, I imagine.”
Claire came up to the porch railing. Her face showed anger now. “We should go,” she said, her voice tight. “Weather is turning. Still need to hike out to Axel’s place and to the moss grove.”
Angie raised her hand. “One sec.”
The young woman’s eyes narrowed sharply. A hostility crackled from them.
“Yeah,” Budge said. “Like I mentioned, the move was supposed to be a fresh start. I’d also promised to cut way back on the drinking.” He made a scoffing sound. “Guess it all went the opposite way, eh?”
“Had you ever visited that moss grove prior to finding Jasmine’s body?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, to pick mushrooms or just to visit it. It’s a beautiful place. Peaceful.”
Comprehension dawned in his eyes. His body stiffened. “You saying that Iknewshe was lying there all these years? Or ... What in the hellareyou saying? That I suddenly wanted to show someone where she was buried?”
Angie decided to push his buttons further to see what resulted, given his state. She leaned forward.
“Officer Darnell Jacobi’s father, Hank Jacobi, helped see to it that additional charges were dropped after your drunk driving accident.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Just wondering if you and the Jacobis were—are—close.”
