Bones Never Lie (Temperance Brennan, #17)(62)
“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.
Deputy Chief Denise Salter kept her eyes level on mine. They were brown, darker than her caramel skin, lighter than the black hair pulled back and knotted at the nape of her neck. Her shirt was eye-scorching white, the creases on its long sleeves sharp enough to perform microsurgery. Black tie, black pants, black patent-leather shoes gleaming like marble.
Salter had rescheduled another meeting to make time for us. She was listening, her expression neither kind nor unkind.
“Over the same seven-year period, at least two others girls have disappeared in North Carolina. Avery Koseluk from Kannapolis in 2011. Colleen Donovan from Charlotte in late 2013 or early 2014.”
Barrow placed five photos on the desk facing Salter. She slipped reading glasses onto her nose and scanned the lineup. Then looked pointedly at me.
I went on, “Koseluk was thought to be a noncustodial-parent abduction, Donovan a runaway. Both remain open MP files.”
“Cut to the chase.” Behind the lenses, Salter’s eyes looked E.T. huge.
“Identical DNA was found on Gower and Nance.”
Barrow added the age-progressed pic of Pomerleau to the blotter. Salter picked it up and studied the face. “Hers?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Where’d you get the hit?”
“The NDDB, the Canadian equivalent of CODIS.”
If that surprised Salter, she hid it well.
“Who is she?”
“A Canadian national named Anique Pomerleau. She and an accomplice, Neal Wesley Catts, aka Stephen Menard, are wanted for the deaths of at least three individuals. Their MO was to imprison, torture, and rape young women. Angela Robinson, Menard’s first victim, was kidnapped in Corning, California, in 1985. Marie-Jo?lle Bastien and Manon Violette were taken in Montreal in 1994. All three died in captivity.”
“You know this because?”
“I identified their remains.”
“Go on.”
“In 2004, Pomerleau slipped the net just as the Montreal cops closed in. She’s been in the wind ever since. Until now.”
“And Menard?”
“She either killed him or he killed himself just before she disappeared.”
“You think Pomerleau is now murdering kids on my turf?”
“No.”
Salter’s brows floated up in question.
“Two days ago I assisted at Pomerleau’s autopsy.”
I summarized my trip to Montreal and St. Johnsbury. Ryan. The interviews with the Kezerians, Sabine Pomerleau, the Violettes.
I described the Corneau property, the barrel, the autopsy. The furnace mechanic who’d seen a second person present at the farm.
“You think Pomerleau and an accomplice killed Nellie Gower. Then, a year and a half later, the pair came here and killed Lizzie Nance.”
“We do.”
Barrow and I exchanged glances. He nodded. “And we believe there were others,” I added.
A flick of Salter’s wrist told me to continue.
“A skeleton was discovered in Belmont in 2010. I determined that the bones were those of a twelve-to fourteen-year-old female, probably fully clothed when her body was dumped.”
“Probably?”
“The remains had been scavenged by animals.”
Salter tossed her glasses to the blotter and leaned back into her chair.
“During Shelly Leal’s autopsy, Larabee pulled hair from her throat,” I said.
“The child just discovered under the I-485 overpass.”
I nodded. “DNA sequencing says at least one of those hairs came from Anique Pomerleau.”
“That’s big.”
“But puzzling. Circumstantial evidence suggests Pomerleau died in 2009.”
“Explanation?”
“The hairs could have transferred from Pomerleau to her accomplice,” Barrow said. “Maybe via a shared article of clothing. Or his ritual could include wearing something Pomerleau wore.”
“Larabee also found a lip print on Leal’s jacket,” I said. “It contained DNA. Amelogenin testing indicated the DNA came from a male.”
“I’m guessing lip boy is not in the system.”
“No.”
Silence filled the room for a very long moment. Salter broke it. “Let me get this straight. Pomerleau and a male accomplice operated out of a farm in Vermont until 2009.”
“Yes.”
“Was anything found to suggest kids were held there? A soundproof room? Handcuffs bolted to a wall?”
“No.”
“Uh-huh.” Neutral. “This mysterious accomplice eventually kills Pomerleau and stashes her body in a barrel of syrup.”
“Yes.”
“Motive?”
“We have none.”
“He then moves south. Does Nance, Estrada, maybe Koseluk, Donovan, and the kid found near Belmont. Now Leal.”