Bones Never Lie

CHAPTER 23

“GOD ALMIGHTY!”

Karras was eyeing me, stony with disapproval.

I found an image on my phone, crossed to her, and held the screen so she could see. Her gaze moved between my iPhone and the glistening bronzed face on the table. A very long moment passed.

“Who is she?”

“Anique Pomerleau.”

Blank stare.

“Pomerleau may have murdered Nellie Gower and several other children.”

“Go on.”

I did. But kept it short.

“You’re sure it’s her?” Studying the corpse. “It’s her.”

“We’ll run the prints and take samples for DNA testing.”

“Of course.”

“How did your suspect end up in a barrel of syrup?”

“I’m hoping you’ll help clarify that.”

At 2:45 A.M. Karras snipped the thread closing the Y on Pomerleau’s chest.

By then bacteria, long denied, had begun to have their way with her flesh. The air was thick with the foul smell of putrefaction mingling with the sweet smell of syrup.

Sadly, the autopsy had left us with many more questions than answers.

Rigor, a transient condition causing the muscles to stiffen, had long since come and gone. No surprise. We’d noted that when handling the body.

Livor, discoloration due to the settling of blood on a corpse’s downside, was evident in the buttocks, lower legs, and feet. Either Pomerleau had died in the barrel or she’d been placed there immediately after death.

No syrup was present in the paranasal sinuses, air passages, lungs, or stomach, meaning Pomerleau hadn’t inhaled or ingested it. She hadn’t drowned in the barrel; ergo, she’d gone into it dead.

Pomerleau’s gut held only a few fragments of tomato skin. She hadn’t eaten for roughly six to eight hours before she died.

Karras found no bullets, bullet fragments, or bullet tracks. No blunt instrument trauma. No hyoid fractures pointing to strangulation. No significant petechiae suggesting asphyxiation.

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?”

“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.