Bones Never Lie (Temperance Brennan, #17)(101)

We went silent, thinking about the vulnerability of children amid the pitiless anonymity of the Internet.

“Any evidence of contact with Colleen Donovan?” she asked.

“Nothing so far. Donovan was living on the street and may not have had access to a computer.”

“She’s still in the wind?”

“Yeah.”

A few beats passed as we ate.

“So McGee laced Ajax’s coffee, then set him up in his car,” Hull said. “Why?”

“Slidell’s phone calls and visits to the ER and to her apartment must have triggered some sort of paranoid spiral. Knowing the cops suspected Ajax, McGee killed him and planted evidence in his trunk to close the deal.”

“Why do you suppose Ajax let her in?”

“Undoubtedly, she’d concocted some plausible story about the ER and when he’d be able to return. McGee may be deeply disturbed, but she’s cunning.”

“And clever at hiding the fact that she’s psycho.”

Not exactly PC, but true.

“McGee used chloral hydrate to subdue her vics. How come the stuff only showed up in Ajax?”

“Mary Louise Marcus had chloral hydrate in her system. The toxicologist found it because he knew to look. Standard drug screens typically test for alcohol, narcotics, sedatives, marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, and aspirin.”

“But we’re talking dead kids. No one went beyond standard testing?”

“The girls’ bodies weren’t found right away. For Gower it was eight days, for Nance fourteen, for Estrada four. Even if you’re looking for chloral hydrate, which no one was, decomposition can mask its presence.”

Hull’s brows dipped in confusion.

“On a gas chromatograph, decomp chemicals will peak higher than chloral hydrate. Even if further testing had been done, it might have been missed.”

“You think McGee killed Gower by herself? Or after she hooked up with Pomerleau?”

“Murder was never Pomerleau’s style.”

Hull dipped her chin and tipped her head. Seriously?

“You know what I mean. Of course it was murder. But in Pomerleau’s case, the killing was a by-product of cruelty and deprivation. Not a primary objective.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, unless McGee tells us, we may never know where she was living when Gower went down. Or if she acted alone.”

“Or if Gower was her first.”

I’d had the same grim thought.

“Why’d McGee break the pattern of dates and grab Marcus?”

“Same answer. Slidell’s probing sent her spiraling out of control.”

Hull’s chewing slowed as she rolled that around. Then, “I get the dates. She’s killing on the anniversaries of abductions or deaths in Montreal. Kids she knew. Maybe kids she saw die. But why the hair, the tissues soaked with saliva? Why plant Pomerleau’s DNA on her victims?”

I’d posed that question to Pamela Lindahl during the many hours we’d spent on the phone. Though difficult to assess long-distance, the psychiatrist’s tone had suggested agonizing guilt.

I took a moment to organize my thoughts. And have a bite of sweet-corn risotto.

“McGee’s therapist is convinced the arousal didn’t come from degrading or controlling, as with many serial killers. She feels McGee’s psychosis is two-pronged. First, she’s reenacting the deaths of the original victims, but killing them quickly and leaving them ‘in the sun’ to assure that her victims will never suffer as she did.”

“That’s why the bodies were placed out in the open, arranged with care and free of trauma or disfigurement.”

“Exactly. Second, McGee was seeking revenge on Pomerleau. But at the same time, she was diverting attention from herself, should she ever fall under suspicion.”

“So the shrink says she was driven by both love and hate.” Dubious. “And an instinct for self-preservation.”

“Yes.”

“Targets were chosen because they resembled one of Pomerleau’s Montreal victims?”

“Probably McGee herself. She was abducted at age twelve.”

“McGee made the calls six months out? Checking to see if the cops had anything on Donovan or Estrada?”

“Probably,” I said.

Hull bunched and tossed her napkin. Leaned back. Crossed her arms and wagged her head slowly. “Don’t sound like enough crazy to me.”

I pictured a girl in a trench coat and crooked beret. Felt sorrow clot any response I might have offered.

I knew the drill. So did Hull. McGee’s mental competence would be determined by pretrial motions and hearings and judges and lawyers.

Sane. Insane. Either finding would result in Tawny McGee’s worst nightmare, one she’d already endured. A life in one type of prison or another.

It had to be.

Even the damaged cannot be allowed to damage.





CHAPTER 44


THE NEXT MORNING I drove to Heatherhill Farm. Like the magnolia at Sharon Hall, the azaleas and rhododendron winked both waxy green and dull brown. I imagined the upside-down leaves, startled by the warm spell, turning for instruction from their roots.

River House itself was half in shade and half in bright sun. Its windows also looked confused, undecided between reflecting and ingesting light.