Bones Never Lie (8 page)

I must have made a sound. Or Ryan caught something in my face. “What?”

“Katy took ballet when she was a kid.” I was referring to my daughter. “She carried her slippers in a bag and wore street shoes to and from class.”

Ryan cocked a brow. I rotated the property log so he could read it. When he’d finished, “Where are the kid’s dance shoes?”

“Exactly.”

“None of the CSS techs refer to shoes. Nothing on a bag or backpack.” Ryan rolled his head, trying to release tension in his neck.

“How about you take the witnesses and I take the autopsy report?” I suggested.

“You don’t have to protect me.”

“I’m not.” I was. “Interviewing is closer to your skill set.”

The section labeled
Witnesses
was ten pages long. Standard. When a child was murdered, the cops talked to everyone who ever intersected the kid’s life.

The interviews were listed in chronological order. The first was that of the groundskeeper who discovered the body. He’d been questioned by Slidell.

I turned to the section labeled
Medical Examiner’s Report.

Elizabeth Ellen Nance.
Victim is described as an 11-year-old white female, 57.5” in height, slender build, brown hair. Autopsy conducted on 5/1. Remains are partially skeletal with putrefied tissue remaining on the cranial posterior, torso, limbs, and feet.

The body is clothed in a green wool jacket, black leotard, black tights, pink cotton underwear, and blue plastic shoes. The panties appear to be in place. All clothing is heavily soiled. No bloodstaining is observed.

The body shows no evidence of sharp or blunt force trauma.

There is no fracturing of the skull, internally or externally. The skull base is intact. The facial bones are intact. The dentition is present and intact except for two right maxillary incisors that appear to have been lost postmortem.

The hyoid wings are not fused to the body. What remains of the laryngeal and tracheal cartilages is intact. Observation of aspirated blood in the upper airway or bronchi is not possible. Observation of obstruction of the airways or bronchi is not possible.

Parallel grooving on two right medial hand phalanges is consistent with rodent scavenging. Two right distal hand phalanges are missing. Neither hand shows trauma consistent with defensive wounding.

A number of fine hairs and/or fibers are observed on the ventral aspect of the right forearm. A sampling of these was taken by the crime lab.

Decomposition makes it impossible to determine if there is trauma of the external genitalia or fluid deposit or any other extraneous material around the genitalia or in the pubic area. The flesh of the lower torso in the area of the lower abdomen and thighs and legs is putrefied, but the bones show no fractures or other trauma.

Submitted for evidence:

1. scalp hair

2. bags removed from right and left hands

3. right- and left-hand fingernail remnants

4. clothing and evidence sheet in which the body was wrapped

5. hair/fibers collected from the right forearm

Blood ethanol and carbon monoxide levels: undetermined

Manner of death: homicide

Cause of death: undetermined

Such a pitifully small amount of information.

The clock said 1:10. Ryan was still wading through interviews.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Kid’s uncle sounds like a punk, but no.”

“Grab some lunch?”

We rode in silence to the basement. I got a salad. Ryan went for a pizza slice that had been waiting awhile for a buyer. We took our trays to a table by the back wall.

“This civilian review system is good.” My attempt to open conversation.

“Seems so.”

“The investigation was thorough enough. The cops just had nothing to work with.”

“Not unusual with stranger abductions.”

“A stranger abduction but no sexual assault?”

“That’s what the ME concluded?”

“He left it undetermined. But the clothes were undisturbed, so he felt pretty strongly there’d been no rape. Cause of death was also undetermined.”

We ate without speaking for a few moments.

“Pomerleau’s MO was to kidnap kids and keep them alive for her sick little fantasies. Why change that?” I’d been asking myself that since learning about the DNA hit.

“When torture’s no longer enough, these sickos up the ante.”

Something else had been bothering me. “That last night on de Sébastopol. Pomerleau set the house on fire.” And left me in it to die. I didn’t say that. “She escaped before Claudel could arrest her. Why was her DNA in the Canadian system?”

“Couple of years ago some counties in California started collecting DNA from violent offenders who’d died before authorities got their genetic profiles.”

“Using what?”

“Old court exhibits, blood or saliva from a vic or a crime scene. They’ve been comparing those profiles to genetic profiles obtained from unsolveds.”

“Cases with DNA from unidentified perps.”

“Right.”

“Will that hold up in court?”

“Doubtful. But they’ve managed to close some cold cases.”

“So Canada’s doing the same thing?”

“I’ve been out of the loop. But I’m guessing it’s something similar. When we first found Pomerleau, she went to Montreal General, right?”

Flashbulb image. Deathly white bodies in a pitch-black cell. I nodded.

“Doctors probably took blood from Pomerleau when she was admitted. Crime scene collected biological material from the house on de Sébastopol. The profiles matched. When Pomerleau became a suspect in the homicides, she went into the NDDB.”

“That tracks.”

Back upstairs, Ryan continued reading the witness interviews while I turned to the next folder:
Related Investigations.
I’d been at it an hour, and was well into a section headed
Investigators’ Notes
, when an entry caused me to sit up straighter.

The note was described as handwritten, dated 5/2/2009. There was no name to indicate who had made it.

Forensics computer tech F. G. Ferrara called to advise that the Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop computer collected from the victim’s bedroom had yielded no useful information. Email and browser history empty.

I raced through the rest of the page. The next. Found no further reference to the computer or to Ferrara. “Ryan.”

He looked up. I rotated the page and jabbed the entry with my finger. While he read, I dialed Slidell.

My call rolled to voicemail. I left a message: “Phone me.”

I dialed Barrow. Asked him to come back to the CCU. He was there in under a minute. “What’s up?”

I showed him the entry.

“What’s Slidell say?”

“He’s not answering. Is Ferrara still up on four?”

“Hold on.” Barrow stepped out, returned moments later.

“Frank Ferrara moved to Ohio in 2010.”

“Pay was too high here, hours too short.” The old Ryan wit.

“Something like that.”

“What’s the chance that PC is still around?” I asked.

“Was it logged as evidence?”

“No.”

“Five years?” Barrow wagged his head slowly.

“Does Cynthia Pridmore still live in Charlotte?”

“Oh, yeah. She calls every few months asking for updates. Mainly to keep us thinking about Lizzie.”

“Give her a buzz?”

Barrow hesitated. “I hate to raise hopes.”

Ryan and I waited.

“Let me see what I can do.”

Barrow was back in twenty minutes. His face spoke of a painful conversation. Of a woman’s days again haunted by guilt and grief. Of her nights again filled with dread of what lay within sleep.

“Pridmore remembers a cop collecting the Dell, along with other items from her daughter’s room. Recalls questioning about Lizzie’s use of email and the Net. That’s it.”

“Where’s the laptop now?” I asked.

“Pridmore got it back. Two years later used it to trade up to a newer model.”

“Did you ask if Lizzie’s other files were saved first?”

Barrow nodded. “They were. Pridmore copied the photos and Word docs to disk before wiping the drive for resale. Remembers a school report on ER nursing. The assignment was to research a career—that’s what the kid wanted to be. After reading it, she couldn’t bear to look at anything else.”

“We should get those disks.”

“I’ll give it a go.”

“Any chance of tracking the laptop?”

Barrow spread his palms in a “Who knows?” gesture.

“Either no one paid attention to Ferrara’s report, or no one realized the significance of an eleven-year-old kid selectively clearing her own history,” Ryan said.

“So Pomerleau may have been finding victims online as far back as 2009,” I said.

“Let’s get through this.” Ryan flipped a page in the interview file.

In the end, it wasn’t Pomerleau’s cyberstalking that changed Ryan’s mind about staying.

It was the call that came in at half past nine.

RYAN AND I
kept with it until well after seven. Uncovered nothing else of interest.

As we were leaving, I suggested dinner. He agreed. With a remarkable lack of enthusiasm.

We walked to the Epicentre, a two-story extravaganza of shops, theaters, bowling alleys, bars, and restaurants commanding an entire square block of uptown acreage.

The place was packed. We decided on Mortimer’s. No reason except seating was immediately available.

I ordered the Asian chicken wrap. Ryan chose the Panthers pita. His looked better than mine.

When finished, we did our usual grab for the check. Our fingers brushed, and I felt heat sear my skin. Jerked my hand back.
Down, Brennan
.
It’s over.

But I’d scored a rare victory. Ryan was definitely not on his game.

We were exiting onto College Street when my phone vibrated to tell me I had voicemail. I pulled it from my purse, expecting a message from Slidell.

Area code 828. I felt a zap of apprehension. Heatherhill Farm had called at eight-fifteen. I clicked on to listen. “Dr. Brennan. It’s Luna Finch. I thought you should know. Your mother—she didn’t come to dinner. When we checked her room, she wasn’t there. We’ve searched the house and grounds, will do so again, then move on to other parts of the facility. I’m sure it’s nothing, but if you know where she might have gone, could you please give us a ring? Thank you.”

“Damn!” I hit redial. “Freakin’ damn!”

Ryan had paused when I stopped walking. “Problem?”

“I just need a minute to clear something up.”

Far away in the mountains, Finch’s phone rang. Rang again.

“Dr. Finch.”

“It’s Temperance Brennan.” I turned my back, a not-so-subtle hint.

Ryan moved off a few paces to allow me privacy. In the corner of my eye, I saw him shake free a cigarette and light it.

“We found her. I’m sorry to have bothered you. But she failed to sign out. She’s never done that before.”

“Where was she?”

“In the computer center, on the floor of a carrel. She’d placed a cart across the entrance and hidden behind it. That’s why we didn’t see her on the first sweep.”

“She has her own laptop.” This didn’t make sense. “Why go there?”

“The Wi-Fi was down in River House. You know how it is in the mountains.”

“She couldn’t wait until service was restored?”

I heard a long sigh. “Daisy feels she is intentionally being kept offline.”

“Was that the reason for the cart?”

“I’m afraid so. She feels she’s being watched.”

“She’s crashed since I saw her on Wednesday.”

“No, actually, she’s seemed quite happy. A bit distracted, perhaps. Introspective. Like she has something on her mind.”

“Where is she now?”

“Taking a bath. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

Jesus Christ. Fine was the last thing she’d be. The woman was dying.

“Shall I try to speak to her?” I was pleased with my tone. Not a hint of the fear churning inside me.

After a slight pause, “Wait an hour. She’ll have a snack, then settle into bed with her journal.”

I disconnected. Turned on the ringer, then dropped the phone into my purse. Stood a moment, steadying my nerves.

Mama was journaling. Always a prelude to the downward spiral.

Ryan was ten feet up the walk. In the glow of the Epicentre’s copious neon, his face looked eroded down to orange and green bone.

I wormed toward him through the throng of Friday-night revelers.

“Everything okay?” Crushing the cigarette with his heel.

“Dandy.”

An awkward beat, then, “Buy you a sarsaparilla, ma’am?” Bad cowboy drawl.

We both tried to smile at the old shtick. Didn’t really pull it off.

“I’d better get home,” I said.

Ryan nodded.

That was when the call came in. Thinking it was Finch again, and fearing a crisis, I clicked on.

“It’s Slidell.”

Skinny never opened by identifying himself. I waited.

“We’ve got her.”

It took a moment. Then terrible realization. “Shelly Leal?”

“A guy collecting weeds or seeds or some shit stumbled across her body about seven-fifteen.” Tight.

“Where?”

“Lower McAlpine Creek Greenway, under the I-485 overpass.” In the background I could hear voices, the hum of traffic. Guessed Slidell was at the scene.

“Has Larabee arrived?”

“Yeah.”

“Does he need me?” Leal had been missing a week. Depending on how long she’d been there and the severity of animal scavenging, body parts could be dragged and scattered.

“Doc says he’s got it covered. Just wanted you to have a heads-up that he’ll be doing the post first thing tomorrow. Says he wouldn’t mind you being present.”

“Of course.” I was silent a moment as I thought about what to ask. “The weed collector. Does he seem solid?”

“Hasn’t stopped crying and puking since I been here. I doubt he’s in play.”

“Same MO?”

“Clothed and posed.” Clipped.