Doug helped her up and hurried her to the bathroom, where Angie heard the woman throwing up.
Angie blew out a chestful of air and let herself out the front door. She stepped onto the porch and got out her phone. She called the local RCMP detachment. She asked for a detective she knew who worked there.
“I think it’s a serial homicide case,” she told him. “Possibly three murders so far. All drownings. It’ll require an integrated investigation because the cases fall into several jurisdictions. The suspect, Dr.Eden Hart, currently works and lives in Nanaimo.” Angie gave the details of Eden’s practice and the address of the beautiful waterfront home that belonged to the Harts.
The detective told her to stand by. Units were being dispatched to the Hart home stat. Other units would be dispatched to Dr.Eden Hart’s office and residence in Nanaimo.
Angie sat down on the front porch steps and rubbed her face. The weight of what she’d done lay heavy on her shoulders.
Oh, the secrets we keep. And how they keep us. And the havoc the truth could wreak.
The truth wasn’t always pretty, but it was necessary. Angie believed that. Shehadto. Truth brought closure. It had brought justice to Jasmine Gulati. Justice to Jilly Monaghan. The old judge would have her closure.
Truth was the one thing Angie had to hold on to.
CHAPTER 40
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER24
Angie stood on the misty beach alongside Jilly Monaghan watching the sea. It was Saturday morning, and Gudrun had told Angie that she’d find the old woman down here. Cold wind whipped white spume off the waves, and along the horizon the ocean blended gray with the sky.
“So our Jasmine was murdered,” Jilly said, leaning heavily on her walking sticks as she braced into the sea wind. “By a fourteen-year-old girl.”
“Allegedly so,” Angie said. “According to Rachel Hart, Eden Hart followed Jasmine down to the secluded bay and surprised her. She struck Jasmine with a log. It threw Jasmine off-balance and into the icy water, where she was weighted down with her boots and waders. The current swept her into a small bay downriver, right above the falls, where she grabbed onto a fallen tree and tried to pull herself up a slick, steep bank. At this point Rachel Hart might have been able to save her but did nothing. Rachel, Eden, and Garrison Tollet from the talus scree above all witnessed Jasmine going over the falls.”
“Rachel caught her daughter’s act on film?” Jilly Monaghan said.
“Apparently. Of course this is all hearsay so far; nothing is proven yet. Dr.Eden Hart was arrested in Nanaimo yesterday and is lawyering up. Two additional homicide investigations have been opened, one looking into the drowning death of Eden’s little brother, Jimmy Hart. Another into the drowning of the ex-girlfriend of Eden Hart’s husband. Rachel, however, is giving a full confession on advice of her own legal counsel,” Angie said. “The lead detective on the case told me that Rachel and Doug came to this decision quickly.”
“Giving up their daughter in exchange for leniency? Pleading her earlier silence was a mother’s need to protect her offspring?”
“I suspect once it hit them, once it was really driven home that their own daughter might have killed their son, they could no longer hide from what their daughter was. And what she could still do. Legal counsel probably convinced them it was in their best interests to come clean and paint themselves as parents victimized by a cunning young sociopath.”
“A cold, controlling, narcissistic, and very intelligent personality,” Jilly said, her eyes watering in the wind.
Angie nodded.
“So Jasmine must have been trapped underwater by the force of the falls,” the judge said, watching the waves and the spray. “Then came the two big floods, and one of the events must have popped her body out and washed her up into that grove.”
Angie pushed blowing hair back off her face. “It appears so. The grove where Jasmine was found lies a few feet higher than the estimated rise of the river, but the height that the water rose is just that, an estimate, a meteorologist’s best guess given the records at the time. Also, there could have been some kind of storm surge around the terrain. I checked with a specialist at UVic, and he felt it was possible.”
“After all these years,” the old woman said, “the truth is finally out.”
Angie hesitated. “Jilly, it’s also going to come out that Jasmine was a ... complex and somewhat unlikable person.”
Jilly Monaghan shot her a look. “I know our Jasmine was difficult. I know she had issues, possibly pathological ones that related to her sexuality.” She paused and looked out once more over the gray sea. Wind flapped the hem of her coat. Softly, she said, “But it seems our Jasmine met her match in the young Eden Hart. A serial killer who started at age nine.” She turned to Angie. “I wonder if there were others, beyond her brother, Jasmine, and her husband’s ex.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there are more victims. I’ll have my full report to you in a few days in binder form and on a disc.”
The judge fell quiet as she watched the waves crunch and churn the pebbles along the shore. A fine mist of rain blew in from the water, dampening her lined face and woolen hat. “You’ll find the balance of your fee plus the bonus has already been credited to your account.” She met Angie’s eyes. “Thank you, Angela. I knew you’d pull through.”
“Angie.”
The judge smiled. And something unspoken surged between the two fiercely independent women at different points in this stream of life. Looking into the judge’s watery eyes, Angie felt the echoes of time, of what had been and what was yet to come, and how it all looped together. The judge had shown her a way forward. She’d shown Angie a way to be. A way to grow stronger and a way to age.
Angie wavered, not quite wanting to say what was on her mind because it would show her vulnerability, but something in the old woman’s face made her say it anyway. “Your phone call, giving me this case—it was a lifeline. I’m the one who owes you.”
“Ah, but you grabbed that lifeline with both hands. You did the pulling back to shore. It was meant to be that you and I met. I hope you will not be a stranger.”
