“Angie Pallorino to see Justice Monaghan.”
The gates began to slide open. Angie closed her window and drove slowly through the entrance. The gates shut automatically behind her. She parked outside the front door. A stout gray-haired woman opened the door.
Angie exited her car and ducked through the rain.
“I’m Gudrun Reimer,” the woman said, holding out her hand as Angie approached. “I’m Justice Monaghan’s housekeeper.”
Angie was shocked by the power in the older woman’s grip. Rough, dry hands. Brutally short nails—no polish. Her accent was German.
“You’re early,” Gudrun stated.
“By four minutes,” Angie said, consulting her watch.
“The judge will be back in four minutes. She’s punctual if anything. She’s presently taking her constitutional down along the beach. Tide is low right now. Come on through. You can await her on the deck out front if you like or in the living room. If you do want to go outside, leave your shoes and coat on.”
Yes, ma’am, sir.
Angie followed Gudrun from the mudroom into an open-plan and starkly bright home. White walls and cream furnishings were punctuated with dark leather pieces and splashes of violent color in the modern art adorning the walls. Glass ran the length of the building facing the sea. Angie imagined the view across the Juan de Fuca Strait to the snow-capped Olympic Peninsula of Washington State must be spectacular in clear weather.
Gudrun opened the glass slider. Angie stepped onto the deck and went to the railing. The home had been built in three levels. The top deck on which she stood looked down over another deck that housed an infinity pool.
“There she comes now,” Gudrun said from inside the doorway.
Angie looked to where the housekeeper pointed. Far below on the beach, a squat figure bent her head into the wind and rain as she pulled herself forward with walking sticks, a brown coat flapping behind her. The figure reminded Angie of a dung beetle soldiering determinedly forward under a low bruised sky. The old judge was clearly fighting both age and weather in her passage home.
The image of this lone old female figure in the storm against the backdrop of gray ocean tugged at something in Angie. The justice had to be in her early eighties by now. She reached the stairs at the bottom of the property, and Angie faced Gudrun. “That’s a lot of stairs. Doesn’t she need help?”
“She needs only to reach the elevator at the bottom. She’s independent. If she wants help, she’ll ask for it. Come inside. Let me take your coat. I’ll get the tea ready.”
Gudrun settled Angie in the living room and disappeared to rustle up the tea.
Angie sat facing the sea and checked her watch again. Four fifteen.
“Good afternoon, Angela!”
She jolted, came sharply to her feet, and spun to face the voice. The judge had ditched her coat and boots for a large sweater and slippers. She hobbled determinedly into the living room, a look of ferocity on her face. But after having witnessed the old woman struggling along the beach Angie recognized the set in her features for what it was—grit against pain, against showing vulnerability. The woman had pride. Oddly, this warmed Angie to the retired justice. It gave her a peek into the woman’s psyche, and Angie understood something about pain and pride. And fear of displaying her vulnerabilities.
“Angie,” she reminded the judge as she stepped forward and held out her hand. “Angie Pallorino. Not Angela.”
“Yes, of course.” The judge shook Angie’s hand with a man’s grip. Her eyes bored into Angie’s. “Very good to meet you. I’ve seen you look worse, on television and in the papers. Sit. Gudrun is bringing tea, unless you want coffee.”
“Whatever you’re having.”
“Tea.” The judge winced as she lowered herself into a chair diagonally across from Angie’s seat, a glass coffee table between them. Gudrun appeared and set a tray on the table. The housekeeper poured tea into china cups with saucers, and she offered around a plate of gingersnaps. Victoria was like that—the legacy of British colonial tradition lingered. High tea at the Empress Hotel on the harbor had become a draw for US tourists, as had theolde sweet shoppesand other Brit idiosyncrasies in the historical quarter of the city. Gudrun then fetched a leather file box from a cabinet across the living room. She placed the box on the floor at the judge’s side.
Raising her cup to her lips with a slightly trembling hand, the judge sipped and eyed Gudrun until the woman exited the room. Then she said, “I’ll come straight to the point. I want to hire you for a cold case. An old one.”
“Well, as I mentioned on the phone, I’m no longer taking cases.”
“Yet you are here.”
Angie readjusted her position on the sofa. “I’ll admit, I’m curious.”
The judge gave a small smile. “Which opens a window. All I have to do now is twist your arm and get you through that window.”
Angie opened her mouth, but the judge shook her head. “No. Wait. Hear me out. Twenty-four years ago my granddaughter, Jasmine Gulati, went on an all-female angling trip. The group consisted of nine women and their two male guides. Jasmine was twenty-five at the time, a UVic master’s student, English literature. Expert angler—learned from her dad, my son-in-law.”
She leaned forward and set her cup and saucer on the table with a wobble and chinking of china. “The trip was organized by a woman named Rachel Hart. Rachel is a fly-fisher and filmmaker who was making a documentary of the trip. It was tentatively titledWomen in the Stream. The project was being sponsored byOutsideLifemagazine and by Kinabulu, which is an outdoor apparel enterprise catering to enthusiasts of the ‘silent sports.’” The judge made air quotes. “Sports like climbing, trail running, fishing, surfing, skiing. My Jasmine vanished on that trip.” She paused, holding Angie’s eyes.
