Bones Never Lie (Temperance Brennan, #17)(88)

Not so with Ryan.

Fingers shaking, I sent the link north, then hit callback for the last incoming number. Slidell picked up after two rings.

“Tawny McGee was at the Corneau farm.” Circling the room.

A moment of silence as Slidell ran the name through his mental Rolodex. “The kid Pomerleau had in her cellar?”

“Yes.” I told him about the video.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Jesus freakin’ Christ. How’d you stumble onto that?”

“I’ll tell you later.” After Mama explains it to me.

“How does McGee fit in?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“Think she’s the big dude the mechanic saw?”

“She’s tall.”

“Or maybe the big dude was Ajax and we got us a threesome?”

“Or maybe it was some other dude.” Churlish, but I didn’t like feeling confused. “The DNA on Leal’s jacket says our doer is male.”

“I need to talk to McGee.”

“You think?”

“Can you blow up that frame and print it?” Slidell asked.

“The face will be too blurry. But McGee’s mother has a snapshot that’s fairly recent. I’ll get that.”

“I’ll put out a BOLO. Have Rodas do the same in Vermont.”

“I have a feeling McGee’s living under a different name. Ryan dug pretty deep, looking for her.”

“How’d she get to Vermont?”

“I don’t know. Maybe lean on Luther Dew over at ICE?” I was using the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Slidell snort-laughed. “The mummified-mutt guy?”

I’d helped Dew on a smuggled antiquities case involving Peruvian dogs. Slidell never tired of the canine-corpse jokes. I ignored this one.

“The video shows McGee at the Corneau farm in 2008. I’m not sure when passports became mandatory for travel between the U.S. and Canada. Or what kind of records they kept back then.”

“I’ll give it a shot first thing in the morning.”

“Why wait?” My eyes bounced to the clock: 10:27.

“Good thinking. Calling now will make Dew want to knock himself out.”

Three beeps. Slidell was gone.

Crap!

Who to phone first? Mama or Ryan?

Mama decided it. I answered her ring and jumped in before she could speak. “How did you find that video?”

“Sweetheart, good manners dictate a greeting when answering a call.”

I drew a deep breath. “Hi, Mama. How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you.”

“How did you discover the YouTube video?”

“Is it the farm where that terrible woman was hiding?”

“It is. How did you find it?”

“Oh, my. Do you want the full journey?”

“Just the process.”

“It wasn’t complicated. But it did require hours and hours of watching tasteless drivel. Some unkind fool actually posted a clip of a reporter having a stroke on-air. And—”

“But how did you find it?”

“There is no need to be brusque, Tempe.” Disapproving sniff. “I Googled various combinations of key words, of course. Corneau. Vermont. Hardwick. St. Johnsbury. One link led to another and another. I plowed through endless news stories, viewed interminable images of maple trees and shopping malls and snow-covered campuses. Did you know the mascot for the University of Vermont is a catamount? That’s a—”

“Big cat. Go on.”

“Eventually, I landed on the second in a series of five YouTube videos documenting a college bicycle trip. St. Johnsbury appeared in the title.

“After watching that clip, which I must say was excruciatingly tedious, I moved on to the third. While I was observing the group posing on the shoulder of a road, my mind filled in the missing letters on the sign above their heads.”

“How did you know about the Corneau farm?”

“You spoke of it when you were here.” Surprised and mildly condescending. “The bridge. The Passumpsic River. The broken sign.”

I remembered Mama’s ceaseless questions, didn’t recall going into so much detail.

“Is it helpful?”

“More than you can imagine, Mama. You are a virtuoso of the virtual. But I have to hang up now.”

“Pour téléphoner, monsieur le détective?” Almost a purr.

“Oui.”

Ryan didn’t answer. Which wasn’t calming. I was amped. Wanted action. Answers. Resolution.

I tried reading. Couldn’t focus. Knowing Ryan would call when he’d viewed the video, I gathered Birdie and went up to bed.

Hours passed. I lay there feeling wired, helpless. Asking myself what I could do. Coming up blank.

Around two, I finally drifted off. More sleep would have helped.

The next day the world spiraled into madness.

Ryan called at seven A.M. I’d been up for almost an hour. Eaten breakfast, fed the cat, read a proposal for a student project. I told him everything.

“McGee was driving a 2001 Chevy Impala,” he said. “Tan. Not the F-150 parked in the shed.”