Bones Never Lie (Temperance Brennan, #17)(3)

A nuance in tone caused me to look up. Rodas’s Adam’s apple made a round-trip before he continued. “Nellie’s body was discovered eight days later at a granite quarry four miles outside town.”

I noted that Rodas was using the child’s name, not depersonalizing, as cops often do—the kid, the vic. It didn’t take Freud to recognize that Rodas was emotionally invested in the case.

“The ME found no signs of trauma or sexual assault. The child was fully clothed. Manner of death went down as homicide, cause as unknown. The scene yielded nothing. Ditto the body. No tire tracks, no trace, no blood or saliva, no forensics at all.

“The usual persons were interviewed—registered sex offenders, parents and relatives, friends, friends’ families, neighbors, babysitters, a Girl Scout leader, those working at the school, the church, the community center. Anyone with even the remotest link to the victim.”

Rodas dug spirals of bound three-by-fives from the tub and winged them around the table croupier-style. Went silent as each of us viewed the grim cards we’d been dealt.

The first several prints showed the quarry. A leaden sky overhung an expanse of rock and soil bereft of trees. On the left, a gravel road climbed from the foreground toward a ragged horizon.

Temporary barricades had been set up along the road. Parked behind them were cars, pickups, and media vans. Drivers and passengers stood in twos and threes. Some conversing, others staring across the sawhorses or looking at the ground. A number wore T-shirts printed with the words Find Nellie above the face of a smiling adolescent.

I knew the players. Samaritans who’d devoted hours to searching and to answering phones. Gawkers eager for a glimpse of a body bag. Journalists seeking the best slant on another human tragedy.

Inside the barrier were cruisers, a crime scene truck, a coroner’s van, and a pair of unmarked cars, each angled as though suddenly frozen in flight. I recognized the usual responders. Evidence and coroner’s techs. A woman in a windbreaker with Medical Examiner printed in yellow block letters on the back. Cops in uniform, one with his head cocked to speak into a shoulder radio.

A canopy had been erected at center stage. Below the blue plastic, yellow tape stretched from pole to pole, forming a rough rectangle. Enclosed in the rectangle was a painfully small mound. Rodas squatted beside it, face grim, notepad in hand.

The next series focused on the child. Nellie Gower lay on her back, legs straight, arms tight to her torso. Her red wool jacket was zipped to her chin. Her sneaker laces were looped in symmetrical bows. The bottom of a polka-dot blouse was neatly tucked into bright pink jeans.

Several photos framed the face printed on the tees. No smile now.

Nellie’s hair covered her shoulders in long chocolate waves. I noted that it was parted down the center of her scalp and evenly draped, as though combed and arranged.

Eight days of exposure had wrought the inevitable. The child’s features were bloated, her skin mottled purple and green. A maggot mass filled her mouth and each of her nostrils.

The last three shots were close-ups of the child’s right hand. Dotting the palm were traces of a filmy white substance.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“CSS bagged both hands. The ME swabbed her skin and scraped under her nails. The trace guys thought it might have been remnants of a tissue.”

I nodded, still staring at the photos. Synapses were firing in my brain. I remembered another child. Another set of heartbreaking photos.

I knew why I’d been called. Why Skinny was here.

“Sonofabitch.”

Rodas ignored Slidell’s outburst. “We got a few leads, phone tips, a witness saying a teacher showed unusual interest in Nellie, a neighbor claiming he saw her in a truck with a bearded man. Nothing panned out. Eventually, the case went cold. We’re a small department. I had to move on. You know how it is.”

Rodas looked at Slidell, then Barrow. Met eyes that knew only too well. “But it ate at me. Kid like that. Whenever I had spare time, I’d pull the file, hoping to spot something I missed.”

Again, the Adam’s-apple bob. “According to all accounts, Nellie was timid. Careful. Not likely to go with a stranger. We all believed the perp was local. Someone she knew. I guess we got channeled on that.

“Last year I figured what the hell. Think outside the box. I tried VICAP.”

Rodas was referring to the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, a national database maintained to collect and analyze information about homicides, sexual assaults, missing persons, and other violent crimes. The repository contains approximately 150,000 open and closed investigations submitted by some 3,800 state and local agencies, and includes cold cases dating as far back as the 1950s.

“I entered what we had, MO, signature aspects, crime scene descriptors and photos, victim details. Took weeks to get a response. Then damned if our profile didn’t match an unsolved here in Charlotte.”

“The Nance kid.” Slidell spoke through barely parted lips.

“Never got a collar on that one.” Tinker’s first words since telling Slidell he was posted locally.

Slidell opened his mouth to reply. Apparently reconsidered and closed it.

I glanced at the tub. 090431070901. Lizzie Nance. Skinny’s own gut-eating failure.

On April 17, 2009, Elizabeth Ellen “Lizzie” Nance left a ballet class, heading for her mother’s apartment three blocks away. She never made it home. Media coverage was massive. Hundreds turned out to answer tip lines, post flyers, and search the woods and ponds near Lizzie’s complex. To no avail.