Bones Never Lie (11 page)

“Lyrical. What about Colleen Donovan?”

“Parents both dead, lived with an aunt, Laura Lonergan, who spends her time frying her brains on meth. And there ain’t much to fry. That conversation was a treat.”

I gestured for Slidell to skip the character analysis. “Does Colleen have a jacket?”

Slidell nodded. “Juvie, so we’ll need a warrant to unseal it.” I raised my brows in question.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m writing something up.” Slidell paused, as though debating whether to make the next comment.

“What?” I urged.

“One weird thing. According to the file, Donovan was entered into a national database for missing kids.”

“By whom?”

“MP investigator name of Pat Tasat.”

“What’s weird about that?”

“I checked for the hell of it. Six months out, the kid was removed from the system.”

“Did Tasat say why?”

“No. And he won’t.” Tight. “Poor schmuck drowned in Lake Norman last Labor Day weekend.”

“I’m sorry. Did you know him?”

Slidell nodded. “Jimmy B and Jet Skis don’t mix.”

I thought a moment. “Isn’t it standard to enter a reason when removing a name from the database?”

“Yeah. That’s what’s weird. No reason was given.”

“Who removed her?”

“That wasn’t there, either.”

I gnawed on that, wondering what it could mean. If anything. “And Estrada?” I asked.

“Kid vanished in Salisbury—that’s Rowan County—turned up in Anson, so they caught the file. The investigation went nowhere, eventually landed with a ballbuster at the sheriff’s department name of Henrietta Hull. That’s who I talked to. Goes by Cock. You believe that?”

Hen. Cock. I was sure fellow cops had crafted the nickname. Doubted she went by it. “Was the problem lack of interjurisdictional sharing?” I asked.

“Partly that. Partly the Anson County Sheriff’s Office was busy mucking out its own barn.”

“Meaning?”

“Couple of their superstars got nailed for taking bribes.”

I remembered now. Both deputies had gone to jail.

“Partly it was timing. The initial lead retired some months into it. That’s when the case bounced to Hull. Mostly it was the fact that no one found dick. No physical evidence, no eyewitnesses, no cause of death.”

“Who did the post?”

“Some hack who didn’t bother to visit the scene.”

I wasn’t surprised. The
Charlotte Observer
had done more than one exposé on the failings of the North Carolina medical examiner system. A scathing series ran in 2013 after an elderly couple and an eleven-year-old boy died three months apart in the same motel room in Boone, and it turned out the culprit was carbon monoxide. The local ME had neither visited the motel nor filed a timely report after the first deaths. Another series shocked the public in 2014. Murders classified as accidental deaths, accidents as suicides, misidentified bodies delivered to the wrong funeral homes.

When interviewed, the state’s new chief ME attributed problems in the system to inadequate funding. No kidding. Except for Mecklenburg County, local medical examiners were paid a hundred dollars per case. And since the state didn’t require it, many had little or no training in forensic pathology. Some weren’t even physicians. The new boss was trying to bring about change, but without increased financial support, her chance of success was unlikely.

“No one kept pushing?” I asked.

“Estrada’s mother got deported to Mexico shortly after the kid vanished. There was no
señor
in the picture.”

I finished my burger and thought about Mama’s three girls, Koseluk, Estrada, and Donovan. One dead, two missing. Files ignored because no one was pushing.

Ryan rejoined us, carrying a hint of cigarette smoke into the booth.

“Tinker was at the scene last night?” I asked.

Slidell snorted loudly, then went back to working his gums.

“The SBI’s taking the position that the investigation will benefit from sharing information and resources at the state level.” Ryan’s first spoken contribution.

“There’s no way the SB-fucking-I will share piss-all.” Slidell jammed the toothpick into the remains of his slaw. “They think a clear on these cases is their ticket to a makeover. And that don’t include us.”

“What does Tinker think about these other three vics?” I asked.

“That asshat couldn’t think his way through a fart without coaching.” Slidell’s outburst caused several patrons to glance our way.

“He’s not convinced they’re related,” Ryan said.

“Leal?”

“That one he’s saying maybe.”

“What happens now?”

“I kicked what we got up the COC.” Slidell was using shorthand for “chain of command.” “Now we wait.”

We were returning to our cars when Slidell’s mobile sounded. He answered, and as he listened, his face grew red. Finally, “A couple extra whiteboards ain’t gonna clear this thing.”

Disconnecting with a furious one-finger jab, Slidell turned to us. “We’re screwed.”

THE RULING WAS
that the Leal homicide would continue to be viewed as a one-off, so there would be no task force. Slidell was getting space but not extra personnel. He was to cooperate with Tinker and use Ryan ex-officio. If the investigation tossed up stronger links to the other cases, the situation would be reassessed.

While Ryan and a seething Slidell headed back to the law enforcement center, I returned to the ME facility. The press vans were gone, in search of bloodier pastures.

Leal’s ring wasn’t in autopsy room one or lying in a Ziploc on Larabee’s desk. A quick scan of his paperwork turned up no mention of jewelry.

I thought a moment, then gloved, went to the cooler, and checked every inch of Leal’s body bag. Found twigs, leaves, some gravel, but no ring.

I phoned Larabee. Got voicemail and left a message.

Out of ideas, I drove to the LEC. Slidell wasn’t at the CCU or in his cubicle in the homicide squad. Ryan was nowhere in sight, either. A few detectives were talking on phones. A guy named Porter was discussing footprint impressions with a guy I didn’t know. He directed me to the conference room.

The scene looked like a setup in a low-budget cop show. A phone and computer sat, unstaffed, on a desk in one corner. Erasable boards stretched the length of the back wall, most used, two empty.

The large oak table still filled the center of the room. On it were the two MP and four homicide files. Those for Gower and Nance were hefty, a box and a tub, thanks to the work of Rodas and Barrow’s CCU team. The others were meager enough to fit into brown corrugated files secured with elasticized binders.

Ryan was trolling through Rodas’s box. Slidell was beside him, studying a printout. Neither looked up when I entered.

I crossed to the boards. Topping six of the seven were victim photos. A name was penned below each in large block letters. A last-seenalive location and date.

NELLIE GOWER, HARDWICK, VERMONT, 2007
LIZZIE NANCE, CHARLOTTE, 2009
AVERY KOSELUK, KANNAPOLIS, 2011
TIA ESTRADA, SALISBURY, 2012
COLLEEN DONOVAN, CHARLOTTE, 2013–2014
SHELLY LEAL, CHARLOTTE, 2014

Each LSA date marked the beginning of a time line tracing that child’s movements backward from the moment of her disappearance. Few items had been entered on any chronology. Posted on the Gower, Nance, Estrada, and Leal boards were CSS photos. I stepped up to inspect the Estrada pics, which I hadn’t seen.

Like the others, Tia Estrada lay faceup, fully dressed, with her arms at her sides. Beneath her were brown grass and dead leaves, above her gray sky. In the background I could see a picnic table and what looked like the base of a gazebo.

A soupçon of Brylcreem told me Slidell had closed in.

“Is it a campground?” I asked.

Slidell nodded. “By the Pee Dee wildlife refuge. You know, for the boat and bug spray crowd. Has a couple docks, tent and trailer sites, latrines so the fam can take a dump with the birds.”

Nice.

“Was she found inside the grounds?”

“Eeyuh.”

“And no one saw anything?”

“It was winter. The place was deserted.”

“Were the neighbors questioned?”

“We’re talking the boonies.”

“Where people take notice.” Curt. “No one remembered selling gas to a stranger? No one saw an unfamiliar car pass by on the road? Parked on the shoulder?”

Slidell looked at me without blinking. “You know why these douchebags don’t acknowledge we got a serial here?”

Though I shared Skinny’s opinion that his superiors were wearing blinders, I had no desire to hear his latest conspiracy theory.

“I didn’t find Leal’s ring,” I said. “Could it be downstairs in the property room?”

Slidell gave an “I don’t think so” twist of his mouth. Then, “I’ll pull the CSS report, see if a ring turned up in their sweep.”

“And ask the mother to look around at home.”

Slidell nodded.

“Nance should have been carrying ballet gear, at least shoes. Nothing was listed in the file.”

Another nod.

“We should query Hull, see if anything was missing with Estrada. Maybe give Rodas a call about Gower.”

Slidell knew what I was thinking. Souvenirs. Reminders of the kills. He strode over to Ryan. Explained. Ryan nodded. Pulled out his phone.

As I moved to the last board, Slidell rejoined me.

“Did Ryan fill you in on Anique Pomerleau?” I asked. A decade had passed, and still I could barely say the name.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“Before we started setting up in here, he gave a yodel to the home folk. I don’t par-lay-voo, but it sounded like he had some ’splaining to do.”

I wondered how that had gone.

“He says he learned dick about Pomerleau. But I’m guessing he blew fire up some Canadian arses about needing to fix that.”

For a moment I concentrated on my breathing. My pulse. Then I looked at the photo.

It was a mug shot, taken years before the horror in Montreal. Pomerleau’s face was softer, an embryonic version of the one forever etched in my brain. I recognized the heavy brows slashing across the deep-set eyes. The pinched nose, the full lips, the jarringly square chin.

“She was, what, sixteen?” Slidell asked.

“Fifteen. A store owner in Mascouche nabbed her for shoplifting in 1990. Insisted on pressing charges. This was the only picture we had back in ’04.”

“Ryan couldn’t dig up something less vintage?”

“Pomerleau’s parents lost all their belongings in a fire in ’92. By then she was out of the house, raising hell in Montreal.”

“Five-finger discounting?”

“And some petty stuff I don’t remember.”

“So her prints are on file?”

I nodded.

“Fifteen? Mom and Dad didn’t drag her back to the old homestead?”

“They were in their forties when Anique was born. By the time she bagged school to hit the big city, they were exhausted and tired of dealing with her crap.”

Slidell pooched out his lips and rubbed the back of his neck. “So she enters the States sometime between ’04, when you and Ryan bust her in Montreal, and ’07, when she leaves DNA on the Gower kid.” He squinted as he did some math. “She’s thirty-nine now, surely using an alias. And I’m guessing she’s street-savvy?”

“Pomerleau is vicious and delusional but smart as hell.”

“And her only surviving pic’s got more than two decades on it. No wonder she’s managed to fly under the radar.”

Sudden thought. I shifted to Leal’s board. On it was a black-andwhite printout of a child’s face showing a reasonable though lifeless resemblance to the school portrait on top. I guessed the image had been generated by software such as SketchCop, FACES, or Identi-Kit, in which interchangeable templates of features were selected based on an individual’s memory of an actual face. I assumed Slidell’s eyewitness from Morningside had given the input.

“Who did the composite?” I asked.

“We get ’em done through an FBI liaison.”

“Could he do an age progression on Pomerleau’s mug shot?” As I said it, I was surprised none had been done before. Or had I missed that? I made a note to check.

Slidell smiled. I think. “Not bad, Doc.”

“Rodas says Gower was wearing a house key on a chain around her neck.” Ryan spoke from across the room. “They never found it.”

Slidell and I crossed to him. “What about Estrada?” I asked.

“There’s no mention in the file.” Ryan gestured at the papers fanned out before him. “Hull knew nothing about missing effects. Said she’d check in to it.”

I met Ryan’s eyes. He gave me a straight look, then went back to reading interviews.

“I’ll call over about that sketch.” Slidell turned and chugged from the room.

I dropped into a chair. Trolled through the Estrada file until I found what I wanted.

Estrada’s autopsy report consisted of a single page of text and four pages of scanned color photos. It was signed by Perry L. Bullsbridge, MD.

Slidell was right. Considering a child had been murdered, Bulls-bridge had done a piss-poor job of documenting the postmortem. Considering
anyone
had been murdered.

I read the section on physical descriptors and condition of the body. The brief remarks on health, hygiene, and nutrition. The one-sentence statement regarding absence of trauma.

I skimmed the organ weights. I was scanning the list of items submitted as evidence when an entry jumped out at me.

“They pulled two hairs from Estrada’s trachea.”

“And?” Ryan didn’t look up.

“Larabee pulled two hairs from Leal’s trachea.”

“He thought they were probably hers.”

“He said it was odd to find hair so far down the throat.”

Ryan’s eyes met mine. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t. “Coincidence?”

“You don’t believe in coincidence.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

That night Ryan came over to my place and we got carryout sushi from Baku. We ate in the kitchen, under Birdie’s steadfast gaze. Every few minutes Ryan would slip the cat raw fish. I’d scold them both. The cycle would repeat.

We were clearing the table when Slidell phoned. By reflex, I checked the time. Nine-forty and he was still working. Impressive. His update was not.