by Kathy Reichs
Under magnification, she spotted three parallel grooves on the ectocranial surface near the border of one oval defect, V-shaped and extremely narrow in cross section. Neither Karras nor I had a satisfactory explanation.
Other than the tiny marks on each inner elbow, the body lacked the constellation of features typically seen in habitual drug users.
Karras did a rape kit. Drew what blood she could for toxicology testing. Wasn’t optimistic on either front.
Bottom line, Pomerleau was a healthy thirty-nine-year-old white female showing no evidence of trauma, infection, systemic disease, or congenital malformation. We didn’t know how or when she died. We didn’t know how or why she’d ended up in the barrel.
Icy sleet was still coming down when Karras drove me to a Comfort Inn about a mile from the medical complex. En route, we shared theories. I thought it likely Pomerleau had been murdered. Karras, more cautious, planned to write cause of death as “undetermined,” manner as “suspicious.”
She was right. Though unlikely, other possibilities existed. A drug overdose, then a cover-up. Accidental suffocation. I didn’t believe it.
We agreed on one point: Pomerleau hadn’t sealed herself in that barrel.
After checking in to my room, I considered phoning Ryan. Slidell. Instead, I took a second shower and dropped into bed.
As sleep descended, the truth hammered home.
Pomerleau was finally dead. The monster. The one who got away. I tried to pinpoint the emotions twisting my gut. Failed.
Facts and images ricocheted in my brain.
A lip print on a jacket.
Male DNA.
Stephen Menard.
A soundproof prison cell in a basement.
Questions. Lots of questions.
Had Pomerleau found a new accomplice? Was that man involved in her death?
Had he murdered her? Why?
Who was he? Where was he now?
Had he taken his malignant freak show south?
This time it was banging that breached the thick wall of sleep.
I awoke disoriented.
From a dream? I couldn’t remember.
The room was dark.
Fragments began to congeal. The sugar shack. The barrel. The autopsy.
Pomerleau.
Had I imagined the pounding?
I listened.
The thrum of traffic. Heavy now, uninterrupted.
No sleet or wind thrashing the window.
“Brennan.” Bang. Bang. Bang.
8:05.
Shit.
“Ass out of bed.”
“Coming.” I pulled on the clothes I’d worn the day before. All I had.
The sun blinded me when I opened the door. The storm had ended, leaving an unnatural stillness in its wake.
Aviator shades distorted my face into a fun-house version of itself. Above them, a black wool tuque. Below them, windburned nose and cheeks.
“You’re here.” Lame. I was still wooly.
“You should be a detective.”
One of Ryan’s old lines. Neither of us laughed.
“Rolling in ten.”
“Twenty,” I said, shielding my eyes with one hand.
“I’ll be in the Jeep.”
Twelve minutes later, I was buckled in, fingers curling around a wax-coated polyethylene cup for warmth. The Jeep smelled of coffee and overcooked pork.
“Anyone could have boosted this ride.”
“No one did.”
“I need this Jeep.”
“I’m sure it needs you.”
“You’re not vigilant.”
“Ease up, Ryan. You had keys.”
“Leaving it at the medical complex was just plain lazy. Good thing Karras let me know.”
An Egg McMuffin lay in my lap, grease turning the wrapper translucent in spots.
“How did you get here from St. Johnsbury?” I asked.
“Umpie hooked me up with a lift.”
It was Umpie now.
“Where are we going?”
Ryan merged into traffic. Didn’t answer.
I unwrapped the sandwich, took a few bites. Minutes later, we fired up the entrance ramp onto I-89. Heading north.
“There it is.” I pointed at Ryan. “There’s that smile.”
He was clearly not in the mood for teasing.
Fine.
I watched Vermont slide by.
The morning sun was melting a world made of ice. Still, the countryside looked glistening brown, caramelized. Perhaps coated with maple syrup.
“Okay, sunshine. I’ll start.” Jamming my McMuffin wrapper into the bag between us. “It was Anique Pomerleau in that barrel.”
The aviators whipped my way. “Are you shitting me?”
“No.”
“How’d she die?”
“I can tell you how she didn’t.”
I outlined the autopsy findings. Ryan listened without interrupting, face tight and wary. When I’d finished, he said, “Rodas’s team tossed the property top to bottom. Found no drugs or drug paraphernalia.”
“What was in the house?”
“Crap furnishings and appliances. Canned food in the pantry, cereal and pasta that delighted generations of rodents.”
“With readable expiration dates?”
“A few. The most recent was sometime in 2010.”
“What about the refrigerator?”
“Variations on rot. Bugs, mouse droppings, mold. Looks like the place was occupied for a while, then abandoned.”
“Abandoned when?”
“Old newspapers got tossed into a basket. Burlington Free Press. The most current was from Sunday, March 15, 2009. That and the food dates suggest no one’s been living there for over five years.”
“Did you check light switches? Lamps?”
Ryan slid me a look. “All were turned off except a ceiling fixture in the kitchen and a lamp in one bedroom. Those bulbs were burned out.”
“Were the beds made?”
“One yes, the other one no.”
“Whoever was there last made no effort to close up. You know, clean out the refrigerator, strip the beds, turn off the lights. They just left. Probably at night.”
“Very good.”
“How’d the papers arrive?”
“Not by mail. The post office stopped service because the resident at the address provided no mailbox.”
“When was that?”
“1997. According to Umpie, there’s no home delivery.”
I thought a moment. “Pomerleau did her shopping in or near Burlington.”
“Or at a local store that sold Burlington papers.”
“Any vehicle?”
“An ’86 Ford F-150 was parked in one of the sheds.”
“That’s a truck, right?”
“Yes, Brennan. A half-ton pickup.” Ryan jumped my next question. “Quarter tank of gas in the truck. No plates. Obviously no GPS to check.”
“Obviously. Anything else in that shed?”
“An old tractor and cart.”
“I assume the house had no alarm system.”
“Unless they had a dog.”
“Was there evidence of that?”
Ryan only shook his head. Meaning no? Meaning the question annoyed him?
“There were no close neighbors,” I said to the windshield, the armrest, maybe the air vent. “No one to notice if lights failed to go on and off.”
Ryan cut left to overtake a Budweiser truck. Fast. Too fast.
“Did the house have a phone?” I couldn’t recall seeing wires.
“No.”
“I’m guessing no cable or Wi-Fi.”
No response.
“What about utilities? Gas? Water? Electric?”
“They’re on it.”
“The Corneaus died in 1988. Who paid the taxes after that?”
“They’re on that, too.”
“Do you really think Pomerleau was living there, tapping trees, and keeping a low profile?”
&nb
sp; “One bedroom had a collection of books on maple sugar production. All the equipment needed was already on-site.”
“What do the neighbors say?”
“They’re—”
“On it. Why are you being such an ass?”
Ryan’s hands tightened on the wheel. He inhaled deeply. Exhaled through his nose. “We found something else in there.”
“Must have been flesh-eating zombies, the way you’re acting.”
It was worse.
CHAPTER 24
“ME?”
“Yes, Brennan. You.”
“What magazine?” My gut felt like I’d just drunk acid. It wasn’t the McMuffin.
“Health Science.”
“I don’t remember being interviewed—”
“Well, you were.”
“When did the story appear?”
“2008.”
“What was the subj—”
“Only one page was saved. A picture of you measuring a skull in your lab at UNCC.”
A vague recollection. A phone call. A piece profiling changes in physical anthropology over the past five decades. Would I comment on my subspecialty of forensics? Could I share a graphic?
I’d thought the article might dispel Hollywood myths about crime scene glamour and hundred-percent solve rates. Had it been six years?
The heartburn was spreading from my stomach to my chest. I swallowed.
Pomerleau had clipped a photo of me. Had known I lived in Charlotte. Had known since 2008.
Lizzie Nance had died in 2009. Others had followed. Estrada. Leal. Maybe Koseluk and Donovan. ME107-10.
Before I could comment, Ryan’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked the screen, clicked on, listened. “Pomerleau.”
The expletive was muted by Ryan’s ear. Questions followed. Ryan responded with mostly one-word answers. “Yes.” “No.” “Undetermined.” “Suspicious.”
“I’ll put you on speaker.” He did, then placed the phone on the dash.
“How’s it going, Doc?” Rodas.
“Hunky-dory.”
“Here’s what we’ve got so far. A canvass of the neighbors took about five seconds, practically no one out there. The couple to the south are both in their eighties. Can’t hear, can’t see. They knew the Corneaus, said they used the place in spring for sugaring, sporadically in summer. Lamented their passing. The husband thought a granddaughter lived there for a while.”
“When did he last see her?”
“He didn’t know.”
“Was she blond?”
“I’ll ask.”
“I’m sending two images. An age progression done on Pomerleau’s mug shot.” As I texted the files. “And a close-up I took at autopsy. Show those to him.”
“Will do. The neighbor to the north is a widower, stays out there only part of the year. He knew zilch. Ditto for those living along Hale.”
“No one noticed that the house had gone permanently dark?”
“It’s set too far back. I checked last night. You can’t see spit through the trees.”
“No one recalls vehicles entering or leaving?”
“Nope.”
“No one ever visited? Went looking for a lost puppy? Took cookies to say welcome to the ’hood?”
“Vermonters tend to keep to themselves.”
“Did you ask in town?”
“Apparently, Pomerleau took her trade elsewhere. So far we’ve found no one who remembers a woman fitting her description. If she did hit a store now and then, folks probably figured she was a tourist up for fishing or kayaking. Paid no attention.”
That fit my theory that Pomerleau had shopped near Burlington. A bigger city where she could remain anonymous.
I heard a muted ping. Another. Knew my texts had landed on Rodas’s phone.
“Where’d she get wood?” I asked.
“We found a guy who says he took a truckload each March for a few years. He says a woman paid in cash.”
“When was the last delivery?”
“His record-keeping’s a bit glitchy. He thinks maybe 2009.”
“Show him the photos.”
“Will do. Andy?”
“I’m here.”
“Did you tell her about the newspapers and food expiration dates?”
“Yes.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking. Pomerleau makes her way from Montreal to Vermont in ’04. She moves in and lays low. The house is abandoned in 2009. You and Doc Karras think she could have been dead that long?”
I pictured the barrel. The body. The leaves preserved in pristine condition. “Five years is possible,” I said. Then, “Who owns the property?”
“There it gets interesting. The deed is still in the name Margaux Daudet Corneau.”
“Stephen Menard’s maternal grandmother.”
“I’m guessing since Corneau died in Canada, no one caught that the title never transferred after she passed away. The taxes, a staggering nine hundred dollars per year, were handled by auto payment from an account in Corneau’s name at Citizens Bank in Burlington.”
“When was the account opened?”
“I’ll know more once I get a warrant.”
“What about utilities?”
“The place has its own well, there’s no gas. Green Mountain Power was paid from the same account as the taxes. But the money finally ran out. Notices were sent—”
“But not received, since there was no mail delivery or phone.”
“The electricity was cut off in 2010.”
“The state took no action due to default on the taxes?”
“Notices were sent. No follow-through yet.”
I heard a click.
“Hold on. I’ve got another call coming in.”
The line went hollow. Then Rodas returned, tension in his voice up a notch. “Let me call you back.”
“You’re right,” Ryan said when we’d gone a few miles. “I’ve been acting like an ass.”
“You have,” I agreed.
“I hate that Pomerleau knew your whereabouts.” The lane markings sent double-yellow lines tracking up Ryan’s lenses. “That she wanted to know.”
“I don’t like it, either.”
“I’m glad the bitch is dead. Hope she rots in hell.”
“Someone killed her.”
“We’ll get him.”
“And in the meantime?”
“We’ll get him.” Ryan continued not looking at me.
“If I hadn’t granted that interview, Pomerleau never would have gone to Charlotte.”
“We don’t know that she did.”
“Her DNA was on Lizzie Nance’s body.”
“She’d have continued the carnage here in Vermont. Or someplace else.”
“Why Charlotte? Why my home turf?”
We both knew the answer to that.
We’d crossed into Quebec when Ryan’s phone buzzed again. As before, he put Rodas on speaker.
“One of my detectives found a mechanic who says he serviced a furnace at the Corneau place, once in ’04, again in ’07.”
“Did he recognize the images I sent?”
“Yes, ma’am. He says Pomerleau was alone the first time. The second visit, someone else was there.”
I shot Ryan a look; his jaw was set, but he didn’t return it.
“Can someone work with him to create a sketch?” I asked.
“Negative. He says the person was too far off, way back at one of the sheds and all bundled up for winter. All he’s sure of is that the guy was tall.”
“It’s something,” I said.
“It’s something,” Rodas agreed, then disconnected.
Ryan and I took some time digesting this latest piece of information. He spoke first. “By 2007 Pomerleau has hooked up with someone willing to share her psychosis. They kill Nellie Gower. A year and a half later, they travel to North Carolina, kill Lizzie Nance, then return to Vermont to tap their maples. The relationship tanks—”
“Or there’s an a
ccident.” Caution, à la Karras.
“—he kills her, seals her body in a barrel, and splits for North Carolina.”
“It plays,” I said.
“Like a Sousa march.”
“What now?”
“We shut the fucker down.”
Ryan and I decided on a two-pronged approach. Neither clear on what those prongs would be.
He would stay in Montreal. This didn’t thrill him, given that Pomerleau or her housemate had posted my face on a wall. But after much discussion, he agreed that it made the most sense.
I took the early-morning flight to Charlotte. As we parted, I wondered when I’d see Ryan again. Given our past, and the fact that my presence now seemed painful to him, I suspected that, going forward, he might request cases that didn’t involve me.
Just past eleven, a taxi dropped me at the annex. I paid and dug out my keys. Found I didn’t need them. The back door was unlocked.
Momentary panic. Check it out? Call the cops?
Then, through the glass, I saw Mary Louise enter the kitchen, Birdie pressed to her chest.
Relief flooded through me. Followed by annoyance. “You should always lock the door.” Upon entering.
Mary Louise was wearing the same flapper hat. Below the scoopy bell brim, her face fell.
Cool move, Brennan. Your first words to the kid are a rebuke.
“I just mean it’s safer.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Birdie looked at me with round yellow eyes. Reproachful?
“Looks like you two have really hit it off.”
“He’s a great cat.”
Birdie made no attempt to push free and come to me, his normal response after I’ve been away.
“I was going to give him a treat.” Hesitant.
Birdie gave me a long judgmental stare. Daring me to interfere?
“He’ll like that,” I said, smiling broadly.
Mary Louise went to the pantry. I set my carry-on aside and placed my purse on the counter.
“Your mother called.” As Birdie ate Greenies from her palm. “I didn’t pick up. But I heard her leave a message. My grandma has an answering machine like that.”
Great. I was a fossil. I wondered how old she was. Twelve, maybe thirteen. “Any other calls?”
“The red light’s been flashing since Wednesday. So, yeah, I guess.”
“What do I owe you?”
She stroked Bird’s head. The drama queen arched his back and purred. “No charge. I really like this little guy.”
“That wasn’t our deal.” I dug out four tens and handed them to her.
