Bones Never Lie

by Kathy Reichs

  “Wow.” Pocketing the bills. “My mom has allergies. I can’t have pets.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  Awkward pause.

  “Can I come visit him? I mean, like, even if you’re home?”

  “Birdie and I would both enjoy that.” I thanked her, then, through the window, watched her skip down the walk. Smiling, I hit play on my relic machine.

  Mama, complaining about Dr. Finch.

  Harry, recommending books about cancer.

  Outside, Mary Louise did two cartwheels in the middle of the lawn.

  The last message was Larabee, saying he had DNA results on the hair found in Shelly Leal’s throat. Odd. I checked my iPhone. He’d called there, too. I’d forgotten to turn it on after landing.

  I phoned the MCME. Mrs. Flowers put me through after a few comments on container-grown lettuce.

  “Larabee.”

  “It’s Tempe.”

  “How was Canada?”

  “Cold. Ditto Vermont.” I briefed him on the interviews with Sabine Pomerleau, the Violettes, and the Kezerians. Then I dropped the bombshell about Anique Pomerleau.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “Yeah.” I recalled Ryan’s comment. Felt almost no guilt at sharing his sentiment about Pomerleau’s death. Almost.

  “The hairs we found in Leal’s throat were forcibly removed from the scalp, so the lab was able to sequence nuclear DNA.” Larabee’s voice sounded odd. “It’s a match for Pomerleau.”

  I was too shocked to respond.

  “The hair was bleached, so that fits with your corpse. Pomerleau was probably trying to disguise her appearance.”

  “But Pomerleau was dead long before Leal was killed.”

  “Hair can transfer in so many ways. On clothing. On blankets. Looks like her accomplice got sloppy.”

  My mind was racing with images, one worse than the next.

  “What now?” Larabee asked after a pause.

  “Now we shut the fucker down.” Quoting Ryan.

  I was in my bedroom unpacking when pounding rattled the front door.

  CHAPTER 25

  I JETTED TO the hall window to look down at the porch. A plaid shoulder was half visible under the overhang. A man’s rubber-soled Rock-port, scuffed and worn.

  I hurried downstairs. Verified the identity of my visitor by squinting through the peephole. Slidell was working a molar with one thumbnail.

  His hand dropped when I opened the door. “Barrow wants Lonergan’s spit on a stick.”

  It took me a minute to process that. “Lonergan is Colleen Donovan’s aunt,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  A prickle of fear. “Have remains been found?”

  “Nah.”

  “Why collect Lonergan’s DNA now?”

  “The lady don’t have what you’d call a stable lifestyle. Barrow wants her on file. You know. In case she hops it and fails to leave a forwarding.”

  In case Colleen turns up.

  Slidell’s gaze drifted to the parlor behind me. “Hey, cat.”

  I turned. Birdie was watching from the middle of the room. He liked Slidell. No accounting for feline taste.

  “I was thinking you might ride along.”

  I knew the reason for that. Slidell is revolted by the bodily fluids of others. Loathes the contact needed to obtain them.

  “Have you talked to Larabee?” I asked.

  “He briefed me on Pomerleau when I picked up the Q-tip. Guess we won’t be lighting no candles for her.”

  I didn’t disagree.

  “Rodas got any theories who her sidekick might be?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Let’s roll. It’ll give you a chance to recap the highlights.”

  Laura Lonergan lived on Park Road, not far from uptown. Geographically speaking. Economically, the address was light-years away.

  En route, Slidell handed me a printout:

  AVAILABLE 24/7. Massage. Companionship. For mature men who want a sexy, sensitive female. Real curly hair, spicy tits, juicy butt!!! Call me now! No black men. No texts or blocked numbers. Princess.

  Poster’s age: 39.

  Location: Uptown Charlotte.

  A photo showed a woman in a thong and push-up bra contorted on a bed like a boa on a vine. In another, she was smiling from a notquite-chin-deep bubble bath.

  “Where’s this from?” I asked.

  “Backpage.com. Under Escorts, Charlotte.”

  “She’s very broad-minded.”

  “We all got our limits.”

  “She goes by Princess?”

  “Pure gentry.”

  “I guess marketing on the Internet is easier than walking the streets.” Placing the ad on the center console.

  “She does her share of that.”

  Slidell slowed. Checked his spiral.

  The block was lined with two- and three-story buildings, many with apartments converted to accommodate small businesses. Lonergan’s was a six-unit affair with large-leafed vegetation crawling the brick. Maybe kudzu.

  “Is she expecting us?” I asked.

  “No.” Slidell shifted into park. “But she’s here.”

  We got out and entered a postage-stamp lobby. The air smelled of mold and rugs not cleaned in a decade. Of chemicals used to perm and dye hair.

  To the right, past an inside door, was a tax accountant’s office with not a single employee or customer present. A narrow stairway lay straight ahead. To the stairway’s left, a hall led to another hall cutting sideways across the back of the building.

  Lonergan’s unit was on the second floor, beside a beauty salon and across from an aesthetician who also did nails. Both doors were shut. Beyond them, no indications of human life.

  A sign on Lonergan’s door offered massage therapy and instructed patrons to knock. Slidell did.

  We waited. My gaze wandered. Landed on a spiderweb that could have made Architectural Digest.

  Slidell knocked again.

  A voice floated out, female, the words unclear.

  Slidell gestured me to one side, out of view. Then he banged again, this time with gusto. After some rattling, the door opened.

  Laura Lonergan was a portrait titled The Face of Meth. Fried orange hair. Rawhide skin peppered with scabs. Cheeks sculpted with deep hollows created by the loss of dentition.

  Lonergan smiled, lips closed, undoubtedly to cover what unsightly teeth she’d managed to retain. One hand brushed breasts barely altering the topography of a pink polyester tank. Her chin rose, and one shoulder twisted in under it. The coy seductress.

  “Save it, Princess.” Slidell held out his badge.

  Lonergan studied it for about a week. Then she straightened. “You’re a cop.”

  “You’re a genius.”

  “I’m closed.” Lonergan stepped back and started to shut the door.

  Slidell stopped it with one meaty palm. “Not anymore,” he said.

  “I don’t have to talk to you.”

  “Yes. You do.”

  “What have I done?”

  “Let’s skip the part where you play innocent.”

  “I’m a masseuse.”

  “You’re a tweaker and a whore.”

  Lonergan’s eyes skittered up and down the hall. Then, softer, “You can’t talk to me like that.”

  “Yes. I can.”

  Lines crimped Lonergan’s forehead as she thought about that. “How about you cut me some slack?”

  “Maybe.”

  A beat as she considered what that might mean. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You won’t bust me?”

  “That depends on you.”

  The skittery eyes narrowed. Bounced to me. Back to Slidell. “A three-sixty-nine is cool. But it’ll cost.”

  I felt the urge to scrub down with antibacterial soap.

  “Let’s move this inside,” Slidell snapped.

  Lonergan didn’t budge.

  “You feeling me, Princess?”

  �
��Whatever.” Trying for indifference, not even coming close.

  The front entrance gave directly onto a small living room. Lonergan crossed it and dropped onto a couch draped with leopard-skin fabric, one skinny-jeaned leg outstretched, the other hooked over an armrest.

  The sofa faced two ratty wicker chairs and a coffee table scarred by dozens of cigarette burns. Beyond them, against the far wall, which was red, a desk held a TV and a plastic banker’s lamp repaired with duct tape. Black plastic trash bags lined the walls, bulging with treasures I couldn’t imagine. An unshaded halogen bulb threw sickly light from a pole lamp twenty degrees off-kilter.

  Through a door to the right, I could see a shotgun kitchen, the counter and table stacked with dirty dishes and empty food containers. I assumed the bedroom and bath were in back. Had no desire to view them. I eyed the chairs. Chose to remain standing.

  Slidell balanced one ample cheek on the edge of the desk. Folded his arms. Stared.

  “This gonna take all day?” Picking at a scab on her chin. “I got things to do.”

  “Talk about Colleen.”

  “Colleen?”

  “Your niece.”

  “I know she’s my niece. You here to tell me something bad about her?”

  Slidell just stared.

  “Where is Colleen?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You heard from her lately?”

  “Not since she split.”

  “When was that?”

  The ravaged face went slack as she searched through the rubble of her mind. “I don’t know. Maybe Christmas.” Back to the scab, the perimeter now smeared with blood. “Yeah. She was here for Christmas. I got her a six-pack. She got me the same. We had a laugh over that.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “To crash with friends. To shack up with a guy. Who the hell knows?”

  “Hard to imagine her leaving, you providing such a nurturing environment and all.”

  “The kid got tired of sleeping on the couch.”

  “Tired of watching you tweak and bang johns.”

  “That’s not how it was.”

  “I’m sure you prayed the rosary together.”

  “Colleen was no angel.” Defensive. “She’d spread her legs if a dude made it worthwhile.”

  “She was sixteen.” Sharp. I couldn’t help myself. The woman was repulsive.

  “Colleen’s a survivor. She’s probably dancing in Vegas.” Flip. But I could hear question marks in her voice.

  Slidell withdrew a clear plastic vial from his jacket pocket. Handed it to me. “We need your spit,” he said to Lonergan.

  “No way.”

  “The procedure is painless.” I pulled the swab from the vial and showed it to her. “I’ll just run this over the inside of your cheek. That’s it.”

  Lonergan swung the armrest leg down to meet the floor leg, drew both in, and sat forward, arms wrapping her knees, head wagging from side to side.

  Slidell drilled her with one of his tough-cop looks. Wasted effort, since she was staring at the floor.

  “This is a trick to prove I’m using.” Gaze still on her boots. Which had heels higher than the wheels on my car.

  “Don’t need no swab to see that.” Slidell’s tone said he was out of patience.

  “I’ll puke.”

  Slidell spoke to me. “The witness says she don’t feel good. I should take a spin around the premises, see if there’s something might be making her sick.” He pushed to his feet.

  When Lonergan’s head snapped up, the cartilage in her throat stood out like rings on a Slinky. “No.”

  We waited.

  “Why are you doing this?” The skittish eyes bounced around the room and settled on me, a less threatening foe.

  “We need your DNA on file,” I said gently.

  “In case Colleen—”

  “It takes only a second.” I pulled on surgical gloves and stepped closer. I expected Lonergan to turn away. To clamp her jaw. Perhaps to spit at me. Instead, she opened her mouth, revealing teeth so rotten that I wondered how she could chew.

  I scraped her cheek, sealed the swab in the tube, and marked it with a Sharpie. Slidell took the specimen without comment. Then he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

  Looking at Lonergan, I felt a bubble of pity rise in my chest. The woman had nothing. Her sister was dead. Her niece was missing, probably dead. She had no present. No future. Only enslavement to a habit that would inevitably take her life.

  “I know you care about Colleen,” I said softly.

  Lonergan’s snort was meant to show apathy. What I heard was guilt and self-loathing.

  “You did the best you could, Laura.”

  “I didn’t do shit.”

  “You haven’t given up.”

  “Yay, me. I leave the porch light on.”

  “You didn’t let it drop.” Desperate to find something comforting to say. “You reached out to check on your niece’s case.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “According to Colleen’s file, you phoned last August to ask for an update.”

  Lonergan looked at me in genuine confusion. “Phoned who?”

  “Pat Tasat.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Do you know a woman named Sarah Merikoski?”

  One bony shoulder rose, dropped. “Maybe.”

  “She reported your niece missing. Tasat was the detective looking into it.”

  “Lady, I’m not sure of much. But one thing you can take to the bank: I’ve never dimed a cop in my life.”

  Was the meth speaking? Had Tasat gotten it wrong? Or had he missed something?

  “Does Colleen have more than one aunt?” I asked.

  “If the kid had options would she have stayed in this dump?” Sweeping a skeletal arm to take in the room.

  A buzz rippled my nerves.

  My eyes shifted to Slidell.

  He was listening.

  CHAPTER 26

  I WAS SO pumped, I overlooked the mélange of odors polluting Slidell’s Taurus.

  “If Lonergan didn’t call Tasat, who did?” I said.

  “You can count on one hand the cells still firing in that chick’s head.”

  “She sounded so certain.”

  Slidell offered a sniff.

  “I can’t recall if the notation included a callback number.”

  “Knock yourself out. I’m gonna run the swab by the lab.”

  We were at the LEC in minutes. Rose through the building in silence.

  My pulse was high-stepping. Was the discrepancy due to Lonergan’s impaired wiring? Had Tasat gotten it wrong in his notes? Or had we stumbled on to one of Ryan’s big bang breaks?

  I got off on two and headed past the CCU to the conference room. Slidell continued up to four.

  The Donovan file was on the table with the others. It took little time to locate the entry.

  Investigative Notes (Tasat) (8/07/14)

  Laura Lonergan, family member, phoned to ask about progress on MP Colleen Donovan. Lonergan is Donovan’s maternal aunt. When asked if she had thoughts where Colleen might be, Lonergan stated that she did not. When asked where she could be reached, she provided a cellphone contact and stated she had no work or home lines.

  Lonergan’s mobile was listed at the end of the entry.

  After blocking my own caller ID, I tried the number. A voice told me it wasn’t in service.

  I was sitting there, frustration oozing from every pore, when Slidell lumbered through the door. “What?” Seeing my face.

  “There’s nothing in the file to indicate where the call was made. The mobile number given by Lonergan”—hooking the name with air quotes—“is bogus. And Tasat’s not around to take questions.”

  “I’m telling you. The woman’s brain is hamburger.”

  “I think we should check it out.”

  Slidell sighed, über-patient. Yanked out his spiral. “You got the date the
call came in?”

  “August seventh.”

  “The time?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll have to get Tasat’s number.”

  “That’s easy enough.”

  “Then I’ll have to subpoena Ma Bell.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “A couple weeks, a couple days. Some companies are friendlier than others.”

  “Shall we tell Barrow?”

  “Tell him what? A tweaker’s having memory issues?”

  Easy, Brennan. “Where is Barrow?”

  “Heading here now.”

  Slidell’s words were barely out when the head of CCU stepped into the room.

  I explained the call. And my suspicion that someone other than Lonergan had placed it.

  “Nice catch.”

  “Maybe.” I knew in my gut that it was. “The mobile number Lonergan gave Tasat isn’t in service. And it’s not the one she’s currently posting on Backpage.com.”

  “So she got dropped or switched carriers.” Slidell’s skepticism was a real buzzkill.

  “You on the trace?” Barrow asked him before I could respond.

  “Wanna bet it’s a waste of time?”

  “I could pass it to Tinker.”

  Slidell took his leave, muttering about paperwork. And horseshit.

  Barrow took the chair opposite mine. “How was the far north?”

  “Cold.”

  “Bring me up to speed.”

  I did.

  Barrow listened, now and then clearing his throat.

  When I finished, he sat thinking about it. Then, “The brass wanted stronger links between Leal and the other cases. Said they’d reassess when the situation changed.”

  “They did.”

  “We need to share this with the deputy chief.”

  “When?” I looked at my watch. It was ten past five. I’d risen before dawn to fly back to Charlotte.

  “Now.”

  “Since 2007, three adolescent females have been abducted in broad daylight and later found dead. Nellie Gower, Hardwick, Vermont, 2007. Lizzie Nance, Charlotte, 2009. Tia Estrada, Salisbury, 2012. The victims are of a type. The VICAP crime profiles show striking similarity. In each case, the body was left in the open, fully clothed, and posed. In no case was there evidence of sexual assault. In no case could cause of death be determined.” At Barrow’s urging, I was taking the lead.