by Kathy Reichs
“There’s never call to be vulgar, sweetheart. But I think you understand what I’m saying.”
“Each of the later victims disappeared exactly one week before the date on which an earlier victim was taken.”
“Yes.” Breathy.
“You’re suggesting Pomerleau is reenacting previous abductions?”
“I have no idea of her motivation. Or why she’s now killing these poor little lambs.”
“Mama, I—”
“There was one survivor, a girl held five years in the cellar. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“She was a minor, so her identity was to remain secret. But it wasn’t hard to find the name.” Pause. “Tawny McGee.”
I said nothing.
“By tracking backward, I was able to establish the date of her disappearance. February 13, 1999.”
I looked at Ryan. He nodded confirmation.
A muffled voice buzzed in the background. Mama shushed someone, probably her nurse.
“Listen, Mama. I’ll see you tomorrow, and we can discuss—”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ll continue your pursuit.”
The voice buzzed again. The air went thick, as though the phone had been covered with a palm or pressed to a chest. Then three beeps told me the call had ended.
I looked up at Ryan. He was staring at the tablet.
I read the scribbled names and dates. Pictured the skeletons arranged on the tables in my Montreal lab.
Angela Robinson had been Neal Wesley Catts’s first victim, taken in California in 1985, well before his deadly partnership with Anique Pomerleau. Catts had transported Robinson’s remains to the East Coast, buried them in Vermont, then dug them up and reburied them, eventually, in the pizza parlor basement in Montreal.
Marie-Joëlle Bastien, an Acadian from New Brunswick, was sixteen when she traveled to Montreal to celebrate spring break. She disappeared from rue Sainte-Catherine, on the city’s east side, following a movie and dinner with cousins. My skeletal analysis suggested she’d died soon after her abduction.
Manon Violette was fifteen when she was last seen in la ville souterraine, Montreal’s underground city. She bought boots, ate poutine, called her mother, then vanished. Her bones suggested she’d survived several years.
Tawny McGee was the only captive alive at the time of the 2004 raid. She’d been taken in 1999 at the age of twelve.
McGee visited me once following her rescue. Though reluctant, a social services psychiatrist had agreed to McGee’s request to come to my office.
I pictured the serious little face under the crooked beret. The clenched hands and somber voice. Managed not to wince at the memory.
“You’re not kidding. Your mom is good.” Ryan’s voice cut into my thoughts.
“You think the connections are real?”
“Three matches would be one hell of a coincidence.”
“Shelly Leal vanished on November twenty-first. If Mama is right, is Pomerleau memorializing some kid we don’t even know about?”
Ryan looked equally troubled by the thought.
“According to a statement Pomerleau gave the ER doctors in ’04, Catts grabbed her when she was fifteen,” I said.
“She was living on her own and not reported missing, so we may never know the exact date she was taken.”
“Ditto for Colleen Donovan. And my Jane Doe skeleton, ME107-10.”
“Any progress on that?”
I shook my head. “I sent the descriptors back through the usual data banks. Got no hits.”
“It always blows my mind. A kid that young, and no one’s looking.”
“Do the ages bother you?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Pomerleau and Catts preyed on girls in their mid- to late teens. These recent victims skew younger. Or look younger, in the case of Donovan.”
“Psychoses can evolve over time.”
Birdie chose that moment to hop onto the desk and roll to his back. I scratched his belly. He began to purr.
“You think we should tell Slidell?” I asked.
Ryan’s eyes gave me his answer.
I did go to Heatherhill Farm on Sunday. My guilt for staying away trumped my guilt for time lost on the investigation.
I found Mama sitting cross-legged on her bed, the Lilliputian laptop lighting her face. Her door was closed, and the TV was blasting.
After delivering the expected chastisement, Mama sighed and admitted she was delighted I’d come. Since the day was cold and overcast, which ruled out the deck, she insisted we stay in her room.
Mama was intense, restless. As we talked, she repeatedly scurried over to press her ear to the door.
Knowing the source of her agitation, I tried to steer our conversation toward lighter topics. Mama, as always, proved unsteerable.
Sadly, or happily, she’d found no new information on the abductions or murders. I told her she could stand down. Made comments suggesting greater progress than was actually occurring.
She demanded a full update. I gave a vague overview of developments on my end.
She asked about Ryan. I outdid myself at vague.
When I broached the subject of chemo, my questions were rebuffed. When I asked about Goose, Mama rolled her eyes and flapped a dismissive hand.
Ryan had stayed in Charlotte and reviewed the files he hadn’t tackled on Saturday. Slidell had hit pawnshops in search of Leal’s ring.
I arrived home around nine. Over Ben & Jerry’s chocolate nougat crunch, Ryan filled me in on his day.
He’d focused on the investigation chronologies, the time-ordered outlines of actions taken by detectives and calls and inquiries received from the public. He looked and sounded discouraged. “With Donovan and Koseluk, there was little to review. Within weeks of each disappearance, nothing was happening and no one was calling. I gave up on those.”
Other bodies hit the morgue. The cops moved on. I didn’t say it.
“With Estrada, the investigation was more thorough. Interviews were conducted in Salisbury and Anson County—registered sex offenders, friends and family, teachers, the campground owners, residents along the highway.”
He could have been talking about Nance or Gower. About the investigation of any murdered child. I didn’t say that, either.
“A few interviews triggered follow-ups. None yielded a serious suspect.”
“Everyone had an alibi?”
Ryan nodded. “There was the usual flurry of phone tips following the discovery of Estrada’s body. A sporting goods store owner was accused, a kid who drove his Harley too loud and too fast, a farmer who shot his collie.”
“Bike hater, dog lover.”
“You’ve got it. The calls thinned, stopped within a month.”
“There was the scandal, then the lead detective retired. Hull ultimately inherited the file,” I said.
“The final call came from a reporter at the Salisbury Post. She phoned six months after Estrada disappeared.”
“And that was it.”
Ryan set down his bowl and spoon. Patted his chest. Remembered where he was and dropped his hands.
“It’s okay to smoke.” It wasn’t. I hate the smell of cigarettes in my house.
“Uh-huh.” A corner of his mouth twisted up ever so slightly. A few moments passed before Ryan spoke again. “It wasn’t that the cops didn’t want to solve these cases. They had nothing to go with. There was no ex-con working at a kid’s home, no psycho teacher, no parent with a history of violence. The vics were too young to have angry boyfriends. Donovan was high-risk, but not the others.”
“And Donovan and Estrada weren’t the type the media bothers to cover.” I couldn’t help but sound bitter.
“When the bodies turned up, there were no witnesses or forensics.”
“Nothing to suggest a suspect.”
“Until Rodas got a DNA hit.”
I flashed on a dark figure darting through flames with a five-gallon ca
n in her hands. The memory brought with it the smell of kerosene and my own burning hair. The terror of waking in a house that was burning down around me. Anger grabbed me like a muscle cramp. “Pomerleau despises me,” I said.
“She hates us both.”
“It’s because of me that she’s here.” I knew it was melodramatic, said it anyway. “I let her escape. She wants to remind me, to taunt me.”
“We all let her escape.”
“It’s because we failed that children are dead. That another may die soon.”
Two stormy blue eyes locked on to mine. “This time the moth has flown too close to the flame.”
“She. Will. Burn.”
Silly, but we smacked a high five.
The next morning our confidence was blown to hell.
CHAPTER 14
MY BEDROOM WINDOW overlooks the patio. When I opened the shutters the next morning, I saw Ryan below on one of the wrought-iron benches. He was sitting forward, elbows on knees. I figured he was smoking. As I watched, Ryan’s head dropped, and his shoulders began rising and falling in jagged little hops.
I felt my insides sucked out. I also felt like a voyeur, and quickly withdrew.
After a hasty morning toilette, I dressed and hurried down to the kitchen.
Coffee was perking. Birdie was eating. The TV was running with the sound on mute.
I glanced at the screen. An anchor with flawless hair and unnaturally white teeth was talking beside footage of a jackknifed truck, projecting a well-rehearsed mix of shock and concern.
I was eating yogurt and granola when the back door opened. I looked up from the morning’s Observer. Ryan seemed composed, though a red puffiness in the eyes gave him away.
“Good brew.” I raised my mug.
Ryan joined me at the table.
“You saw?” I displayed the headline. Below the fold, but still front-page. No Arrest in Shelly Leal Murder.
“Slidell will be livid,” Ryan said.
“The article makes it sound like Tinker and the SBI are driving the train.”
“Do you know this”—Ryan squinted to read the byline—“Leighton Siler?”
“No. He must be new on the crime beat.” I cocked my chin toward Miss Hair and Dentition. “Any TV coverage?”
“Daisy would disapprove of the vulgarity.”
Great. A camera had caught me flipping the bird while leaving the MCME.
“Have at the files some more today?” I asked.
Ryan nodded. “There’s nothing obvious linking these kids. No common medical providers, libraries, classes, hobbies, summer camps, pageants, teachers, pastors, priests, pet stores, allergies, or rashes. We’re still batting zero with online info for Nance and Leal. I’m going to focus on minutiae, see if there’s any detail that might have been overlooked or underappreciated. There’s got to be something connecting one vic to another.”
Ryan once described to me what he called the “big bang break”: the one clue or insight that suddenly sets an investigation barreling in the right direction. That one synapsey moment when realization explodes and the search hurtles forward on the right trajectory. Ryan believed at least one big bang lurked in every case. And despite his personal pain, he was determined to find one for the “poor little lambs.” His commitment buoyed my spirits.
I was rinsing my bowl and mug when the phone rang. Larabee was calling to remind me of a meeting that morning. A prosecutor was coming to the MCME to review our findings for an upcoming deposition. Larabee was on at eight, I was on at nine.
The case involved the death of an L.A. actor who’d flown to Charlotte to play the part of a rabbit in a feature film. After two days of shooting, the man had failed to reappear on-set. He was found four weeks later in a culvert by the tracks in Chantilly. His sometime boyfriend had been arrested and charged with murder one.
As Larabee and I wrapped up, Ryan caught my eye and pointed upstairs. I nodded, distracted. And annoyed. Wet-nursing a lawyer was not in my plan for the day.
Ten minutes later, Ryan returned, hair wet and slicked back below the Costa Rican cap. He wore jeans and a short-sleeved polo over a long-sleeved tee.
We talked little in the car. Which, thanks to my passenger, smelled of my pricey Egyptian musk black soap.
I dropped Ryan at the LEC and continued on to the MCME. I was reviewing my file on Mr. Bunny when Larabee came through my door. “How was your weekend?” he asked.
“Good. Yours?”
“Can’t complain. I hear Ryan’s hanging in.”
“Mmm.” I wondered who’d told him. Figured it was Slidell.
“You’ll never guess what was waiting on my voicemail this morning.” Larabee loved making me predict what he had to say. I found the game tiresome.
“A giant sea slug.”
“Hilarious.”
“And she’s playing here all week.”
“Marty Parent called.”
It took a moment for the name to register. “The new DNA analyst at the CMPD lab.”
“She’s a go-getter. And an early riser. Left a message at 7:04, asking that I call her back.”
I waited him out.
“Which I will do as soon as I’m done with Vinny Gambini in there.” Tipping his head toward the small conference room.
“Who is it?”
“Connie Rossi.”
Constantin Rossi had been with the DA’s office for as long as I could recall. He was shrewd and organized and didn’t waste your time. Or try to push you beyond conclusions allowed by the facts.
“Rossi’s okay,” I said.
“He is.”
I was finished at eleven and went in search of Larabee. Found him in autopsy room one, slicing a brain.
“What did Parent say?” I asked.
Larabee looked at me, knife in one hand, apron and gloves speckled with blood. “I’m not sure if it’s good news or bad.” Spoken through three-ply paper hooked over his ears.
I wiggled my fingers in a “Give it to me” gesture.
Larabee laid down the knife and lowered the mask. “Parent spent all weekend analyzing the smear on Leal’s jacket.”
“You’re kidding.”
“She’s divorced, and her kid was away with the ex.”
“Still.”
“The kid’s a daughter. Ten years old.”
“Right.” When Katy was younger, I’d have done the same if a maniac had been targeting girls her age.
“You nailed it. What the ALS picked up was a lip print. Our swab contained beeswax, sunflower oil, coconut oil, soybean oil—”
“Lip balm.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Saliva?” I felt my pulse kick up slightly.
Larabee smiled the answer.
“Holy shit. Tell me she got DNA.”
“She got DNA.”
“Yes!” I actually did that pump-action thing with one arm.
“She’ll send it through the system today.”
“And up to Canada.”
“Maybe.”
“What do you mean, maybe? It’ll come back to Pomerleau.” I was totally jazzed. It was Ryan’s big bang. Slidell would get his task force.
“Are you familiar with amelogenin?”
Larabee was referring to a group of proteins involved in enamel development, a process called amelogenesis. Amelogenins are thought to be critical in dental formation.
The amelogenin genes, AMELX and AMELY, are located on the sex chromosomes, the version on X differing slightly from the version on Y. Since human females are XX and human males are XY, this difference is useful in gender determination. Two peaks, your unknown is a gent. One peak, your perp is of the fairer sex.
“Yes?” My rising inflection indicated puzzlement at Larabee’s question.
“Amelogenin indicated the saliva was left by a male.”
“Is Parent sure?” Of course she was. She wouldn’t have called on a whim.
“Yes.”
“Isn’t amelogenin occasionally wr
ong?”
“There have been some cases of false-positive female readings. Probably because the Y chromosome–specific allele was deleted. But I’ve never heard of an error going the other way.”
I knew that. The shock was causing me to blurt dumb questions.
Larabee rehooked his mask and took up his blade. “I’ll let you know if Parent gets any hits locally or with CODIS.”
I returned to my office. Sat and listened to the silence. Stunned. Disappointed. Mostly confused.
Were Slidell’s bosses correct? Was Leal’s murder unrelated to that of Gower and Nance? To the others’? Was her killer a man?
But the patterning in victimology and MO. The similar ages and physical traits. The broad-daylight abductions. The posing and lack of concealment of the bodies.
It had to be one doer. It had to be Pomerleau.
The name triggered another neural flare. Blood oozing from a dime-sized hole, across a hairline, a temple, a cheek. Brain matter splattering a dim parlor wall.
Sweet Jesus. Could that be it?
I called Ryan.
“Oui.”
I relayed what Larabee had said.
“It could be nothing. Someone’s face accidentally brushed the jacket.”
“The print had clean edges.”
“Meaning?”
“It wasn’t created by a casual swipe.”
“We have no idea how long it was there. Could have been weeks, months.”
“On nylon? Outside? No way. There was too much detail. Contact happened close to the time Leal was killed.”
Ryan was silent a long moment. I knew his thoughts were traveling the same path mine had.
“You’re thinking she has an accomplice,” he said.
“Another sick twist like Catts.”
Again, there was a long pause. I could hear male voices in the room. Sharp.
“What about the hairs Larabee found in Leal’s throat?” Ryan cut off my question about the background row.
“He didn’t mention it.” And I’d been too channeled on amelogenin to ask.
“Slidell’s going to shit his shorts,” Ryan said.
“Where is he?”
“Here. His license plate search generated twelve hundred hits. He just finished re-interviewing the wit who saw the kid on Morningside.”
“Hoping for what?”
