Bones Never Lie (Temperance Brennan, #17)(55)

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?”