Speaking in Bones (2 page)

“Most people die, they get a funeral, a wake, a memorial service. There are eulogies, an obit in the paper. Some get holy cards showing their faces with angels or saints or whatnot. You’re really hot stuff, maybe there’s a school or a bridge named in your honor. That’s what’s supposed to happen. That’s how we deal with death. By recognizing a person’s achievements in life.

“But what happens when someone just disappears? Poof.” Strike curled then exploded her fingers. “A man leaves for work and vanishes? A woman boards a bus and never gets off?”

I started to speak but Strike rolled on.

“And what happens when a body turns up lacking ID? On a roadside, in a pond, bundled in a carpet and stashed in a shed?”

“As I’ve stated, that is the job of police and medical examiners. At this facility we do everything possible to ensure that all human remains are identified, no matter the circumstances or their condition.”

“That might be true here. But you know as well as I do it’s a crapshoot elsewhere. A corpse might luck out, be examined for scars, piercings, tattoos, old trauma, get printed and sampled for DNA. A decomp or a skeleton might end up with an expert like you, have its teeth charted, its sex, age, race, and height entered into a database. Another jurisdiction, similar remains might get a quick once-over then storage in a freezer, maybe a back room or basement. A nameless body might be held a few weeks, maybe a few days, then cremated or buried in a potter’s field.”

“Mrs. Strike—”

“Lost. Murdered. Dumped. Unclaimed. This country’s overflowing with the forgotten dead. And somewhere someone’s wondering about each and every one of those souls.”

“And websleuthing is a way to solve the problem.”

“Darn right.” Strike shoved her sleeves hard up her arms, as though the cuffs had suddenly grown too tight on her flesh.

“I see.”

“Do you? Have you ever visited a websleuthing site?”

“No.”

“You know what goes on in those forums?”

Recognizing the question as rhetorical, I offered no response.

“UIDs are tagged with cute little nicknames. Princess Doe. The Lady of the Dunes. Tent Girl. Little Miss Panasoffkee. Baby Hope.”

The ping exploded into a full-firing synapse.

“You identified Old Bernie,” I said.

Old Bernie was a partial skeleton found by hikers in 1974 behind a shelter on the Neusiok Trail in the Croatan National Forest. The remains were sent to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, in those days located in Chapel Hill, and were determined to be those of an elderly black male. A New Bern detective assigned to the case had no luck in establishing ID.

For years the skeleton remained in a box in an OCME storeroom. Somewhere along the way it came to be known as Old Bernie, named for New Bern, the town closest to the point of the old man’s discovery.

Articles ran at the time Old Bernie turned up—in Raleigh, Charlotte, New Bern, and surrounding towns. The case was featured again, with the photo of a facial reconstruction, in the New Bern
Sun Journal
on March 24, 2004, the thirtieth anniversary of the gentleman’s discovery. No one ever came forward to claim the bones.

In 2007, a technician at the OCME mentioned the case to me. I agreed to take a look.

I concurred that the remains were those of an edentulous African American who had died between the ages of sixty-five and eighty. But I took issue with one of my predecessor’s key findings and suggested the victim’s nickname be changed from Bernie to Bernice. The pelvic features were clearly those of a female.

I took samples for possible DNA testing, then Old Bernie went back to her cardboard carton in Chapel Hill. The following year, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, NamUs, came online. NamUs, a database for unidentified remains, in cop lingo UIDs, and missing persons, in cop lingo MPs, is free and available to everyone. I entered case descriptors into the section for UIDs. Soon amateur websleuths were swarming like flies.

“Yep,” Strike said. “That was me.”

“How did you do it?”

“Pure doggedness.”

“That’s vague.”

“I scanned a billion pictures on NamUs and other sites listing MPs. Made a lot of calls, asking about old ladies missing their teeth. Came up blank on both fronts. Then I went offline, pulled up stories in local papers, talked to cops in New Bern and Craven County, the park rangers at Croatan, that kind of thing. Nothing.

“On a hunch I started phoning old folks’ homes. Found a facility in Havelock had a patient disappear in 1972. Charity Dillard. The administrator reported Dillard missing, but no one really made much effort. The home is close to a boat ramp, so they figured Dillard fell into the lake and drowned. When Old Bernie turned up two years later, no one paid attention because the skeleton was supposed to be that of a man. End of story.”

“Until you made the link.” I’d heard about the ID through the state ME grapevine.

“Dillard had one living grandson, out in L.A. He provided a swab. Your bone samples yielded DNA. Case closed.”

“Where is Dillard now?”

“Kid popped for a headstone. Even flew east for the burial.”

“Nice job.”

“It wasn’t right, her gathering dust in a box.” Again the shoulder shrug.

I now knew why Strike was sitting in my office.

“You’ve come about unidentified remains,” I said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I angled two palms in a “go on” gesture.

“Cora Teague. Eighteen-year-old white female. Disappeared up in Avery County three and a half years back.”

“Was Teague reported missing?”

“Not officially.”

“What does that mean?”

“No one filed an MP report. I found her on a websleuthing site. The family believes she took off on her own.”

“You’ve spoken to the family?”

“I have.”

“Is that a common part of websleuthing?”

“Something’s happened to this kid and no one’s doing dink.”

“Have you contacted the local authorities?”

“Eighteen makes her adult. She can come and go as she likes. Blah. Blah. Blah.”

“That’s true.”

Strike jerked a thumb at the Ziploc. “That sound like someone doing as she likes?”

“You think Cora Teague is the girl on that recording?”

Strike gave a slow nod of her head.

“Why bring this to me?”

“I believe you’ve got parts of Teague stashed here.”

“I
should ask a detective to join us.”

“No.” Realizing the sharpness of her tone, Strike added, “Not yet.”

“Okay.” For now. “Tell me about Teague.”

“If you’ll bear with me, I’ll share what I know.”

Strike did that shoulder thing again. Not a shrug, more like a slo-mo twitch. Or an unconscious attempt to readjust her spine.

“Cora was born in ’93, the fourth of five kids. The father, John Teague, owns a combo convenience store–gas station–hardware–bait shop. The mother, Fatima, is a stay-at-home housewife. She sometimes works the cash register at the store.

“The older brother, Owen Lee, and the two older sisters, Marie and Veronica, are married. He sold real estate, badly, until the bottom fell out, then started a dog-training business. The sisters both live out of state. Not sure about Eli. He’s the youngest. Guess he’d be about nineteen. Owen Lee and the parents live within miles of each other up in Avery County.”

The Blue Ridge Mountains. Unbidden, an image of Mama flashed and was gone.

I nodded to indicate I was listening.

“According to a posting on CLUES.net, about three and a half years back Cora mysteriously vanished.”

“CLUES.net?”

“Citizens Looking Under Every Stone. The site permits anyone to post about a missing person. It’s like NamUs, only privately hosted.”

“You found a listing on CLUES for Cora Teague.” I wanted to be sure I was getting this straight.

“Yes.”

“Who posted it?”

“There it gets tricky.” Strike planted an elbow on each thigh and let her hands dangle between her knees. “CLUES allows users complete anonymity.”

“Is that standard for websleuthing sites?”

“No. But the guy who runs CLUES thinks folks will be more likely to come forward with information if they’re not required to identify themselves.”

“So a user doesn’t have to provide a name to post an MP or to participate in a forum discussion.”

“Correct. And those listed as missing don’t have to have gone through official channels.”

“Meaning a police report is not required.” This was sounding flaky.

“You’ve got it. So not every MP has an investigating agency attached. When that’s the case, the site operator acts as a clearinghouse for tips.”

“So any wingnut on the planet can enter any rubbish he or she wants.”

“It’s not quite that loose.” Defensive.

“But you have no idea who listed Teague.”

“Do you want to hear this?”

“Go on.”

“Since Cora Teague was never officially reported as missing, her case got zero media coverage. And no attention on the site. I figured if she had turned up dead somewhere, and she was in some database of unidentified remains, no one was working to match her up. She was all mine.”

“Your challenge.”

“Yep.”

“And you like a challenge.” I was starting to get a really bad vibe.

“Something wrong with that?”

“So what happened?”

“According to the posting, Teague dropped off the radar midsummer of 2011.”

“Her LSA?” I used the acronym for last seen alive.

“Avery County. That’s about as much as anyone knows.”

“Did Teague have an Internet presence?”

“None that I could find. No Facebook, Twitter. No email addresses. No use of Buzznet, Blogster, Foursquare, LinkedIn. No iTunes—”

“Cellphone?”

“No.”

An eighteen-year-old kid with no cellphone? That sounded odd. “You spoke to the family. What do they say?”

“They believe she ran off with her boyfriend.”

“That’s often the case.”

“I talked to a few folks up that way. The picture I got doesn’t track with that theory.”

“How so?”

“Teague was a loner. Not the dating type. And I found not one single solitary person ever heard of or laid eyes on a boyfriend. No BFF. No neighbor. No bus driver. No coach.”

“Just the family.”

“Just them.”

“Who is he?”

“They don’t know. Or don’t say.”

“So she kept the relationship secret. Kids do that.”

“Hard to pull it off in the sticks. And Teague moved in a very small circle. Family. Home. Church.”

“Perhaps she met the boy at school.”

Strike shook her head. “No way, according to those I contacted.”

“Was Teague a good student?”

“Not really. She attended a Catholic school for the lower and middle grades. Managed to graduate from Avery County High. No one there remembers much about her. She was on no sports team, participated in no extracurricular activities. The woman I spoke with, a guidance counselor I think, said she was dropped off and picked up daily by a sibling or parent.”

“Wait. You called the school?”

“Claimed I was helping the family.”

Jesus. This woman was something.

“One odd twist.” Strike continued, oblivious to my disapproval. “Teague’s not pictured in the yearbook.”

“There could be any number of reasons for that. She’d had a bad hair day and hated the shot. She was out sick when photos were taken.”

“Maybe. The guidance counselor said Teague’s record indicates chronic absenteeism.”

“Any history of problems with alcohol or drugs?”

“Nope.”

“Any juvie record?”

“I don’t know. After graduation, she took a job as a nanny. Lasted a few months, then got sent packing.”

“Why?”

“Health issues.”

“What sort of health issues?”

“No one would say.”

“Where did Teague go?”

“Home.”

I waited for Strike to continue. She didn’t.

“Let me get this straight. Cora Teague hasn’t been seen in over three and a half years.”

“That’s right.”

“But an MP report was never filed with the police.”

“Correct.”

“The family believes she left on her own.”

“They do.”

“But you think that’s unlikely.”

“Me and whoever posted her name on CLUES.”

I nodded, acknowledging she had a point.

“You suspect Cora Teague’s voice is on that recording.” Indicating the Ziploc.

“I do.”

“You think she was killed and dumped. And that part of her body was recovered and sent to this lab.”

“I’m suggesting you consider the possibility.”

“What makes you think Teague is at this facility?”

“About a year and a half ago, you made an entry on NamUs detailing a partial torso found in Burke County. Burke is right down the road from Avery. The time line fits. The geography fits. The descriptors fit.” Strike straightened and spread her arms wide. “Call me crazy, but I think it’s worth a look-see.”

A specimen cart rattled by in the hall. A door opened, releasing the whine of an autopsy saw cutting through bone. Closed abruptly, truncating the sound.

In my head I heard the wretched little voice on the tape.