“Perhaps in error. Maybe Eden intended to kill Jasmine Gulati but didn’t succeed. Maybe Jasmine washed up, and someone else up there killed her later and buried her kid somewhere.”
“Like Axel Tollet, you mean?”
“Yeah. He’s a fit for the profile. I think he’s capable.”
“So he could be dangerous?”
She slowed and stopped for a red light as they entered the outskirts of Nanaimo. “Possibly. I got a weird feeling about him and that place when I went up there. I got a read from his niece, too, that he might have a potential for violence if cornered. I feel for him, though. He’s a survivor of a brutal sexual assault and long-term bullying. Ostracized. Shamed. Possibly has weird sexual issues because of it. He likes to rescue things and keep them in cages. But he does set them free after he’s nurtured them to health.”
“Yeah, but if he rescues a half-drowned woman outta the river and keeps her for long enough to bring her baby to term, he kinda can’t set her free because she’d talk. He’d go down for it.” He finally freed his piece of gum from the packaging and popped it into his mouth.
“You’re going to OD on that stuff,” Angie said, stepping on the gas as the light turned green.
“Better than OD’ing on some other shit. And you wanted me to come with you why, exactly?”
“I told you. I might need backup, and I can’t go to Corporal Darnell Jacobi for that backup without him potentially alerting Axel and that gang, sending them all into cover-up mode. Plus, I’ve got nothing concrete to take to Jacobi or to any other cops outside of his jurisdiction that would explain why I’m trying to circumvent Port Ferris police in the first place. If you come with me, and we see something that can give probable cause for a warrant, you’re with iMIT, which has interagency protocols. You could officially kick this into motion. Bring in an ident team and search the place, arrest him even, if it came to that.”
Holgersen fell silent as he considered the parameters of the case. “You say this Axel Tollet works as a driver for Sea-Tech Freight?”
“Yeah. The freight division of Sea-Tech is run by Wallace Carmanagh, an aggressive dude who might have been the main guy behind Porter Bates’s murder. I was told he looks after Axel well at the company. Jessie Carmanagh is Wallace’s brother. Jessie handles the agribusiness side of Sea-Tech.”
Holgersen fiddled with his smartphone, looking up Sea-Tech. “Hey, lookee here,” he said as the company web page came up. “It’s one of the ones we’re looking at.”
She shot him a glance. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, the logo. Look.” He held out his phone. Angie cast a quick sideways glance at the screen. It showed a dark-blue logo of a stylized eagle’s head with wings stretched out. Like one might find atop a totem pole.
“Remember?” he said. “I told you how’s we were looking for white Merc vans that go way back. Ones with logos like this on the sides.”
She frowned. “Have you found anything at Sea-Tech that could link to those old cases?”
“Nah. It’s just on our list that we gave to the analyst. I don’t think she’s even got to Sea-Tech yet. There’s shit-ton of companies out there—you wouldn’t believe how many—that have white vans with dark graphics on the sides in their fleets.”
“Sure, I believe it. I told you so myself.”
He started to punch a number into his phone.
“Who you calling?”
“Maggie, the analyst who works for our new little cold case division. She’s the one combing through the companies, cross-referencing routes, times and dates of shipments, and vehicle models with the various missing persons cases. I’m just gonna leave her a message and get her to puts Sea-Tech at the top of her list when she comes in Monday. Along with this driver dude, Axel Tollet.”
“Because?”
“Because you justs told me this driver matches a certain suspicious pervy pathology an’ he drives vee-hickles with logos like this on the sides, and this website says Sea-Tech ships all over the island, the mainland, and to destinations in the States an’ has been doing so for years. We’d be dumbassnotto run this first.”
His call connected. “Yeah, Maggie, it’s Holgersen on a Sunday, and I knows you’s off, but I needs something urgent when you gets in.” He gave her the details and killed the call. Angie could sense a fresh tension in him. It was infectious. She could feel it inside herself, a charge building as they got closer to Port Ferris and the clouds rolled thick down the desolate and forested mountains.
CHAPTER 43
Garrison Tollet stood looking out the living room window. It was 11:45 a.m. on Sunday morning, and there was a hint of snow in the fine rain falling outside. A fire crackled in the lodge hearth. He, Shelley, and Claire had enjoyed a relaxed brunch of waffles that Claire had made.
He loved this lazy time between seasons, when Mother Nature shrugged her shoulders to roll over and sleep, drawing up a blanket of snow around her. Predator Lodge had tours booked for December and through the winter. Backcountry skiers who would use the lodge as a base for sorties. He might do some guiding if requested, but most of their guests over the winter were self-reliant. Come spring things would get busy again, but from now until then Garrison planned to enjoy the downshift in gears and focus on repairs and some home projects.
Claire was washing up in the big kitchen. Shelley was setting up for a quilting project in her sewing room. Their talk over the table had been about the big news on television—that filmmaker Rachel Hart, seventy-two, had confessed to having witnessed her daughter, Dr.Eden Hart, now thirty-eight, pushing Jasmine Gulati to her death twenty-four years ago.
The reporter credited private investigator Angie Pallorino for unearthing the long-buried secret.
As Garrison watched the weather outside, hands deep in his pant pockets, Claire came up beside him, drying her hands on a dish towel.
