Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs Page A

voicemail and left a message.
    Out of ideas, I drove to the LEC. Slidell wasn’t at the CCU or in his cubicle in the homicide squad. Ryan was nowhere in sight, either. A few detectives were talking on phones. A guy named Porter was discussing footprint impressions with a guy I didn’t know. He directed me to the conference room.
    The scene looked like a setup in a low-budget cop show. A phone and computer sat, unstaffed, on a desk in one corner. Erasable boards stretched the length of the back wall, most used, two empty.
    The large oak table still filled the center of the room. On it were the two MP and four homicide files. Those for Gower and Nance were hefty, a box and a tub, thanks to the work of Rodas and Barrow’s CCU team. The others were meager enough to fit into brown corrugated files secured with elasticized binders.
    Ryan was trolling through Rodas’s box. Slidell was beside him, studying a printout. Neither looked up when I entered.
    I crossed to the boards. Topping six of the seven were victim photos. A name was penned below each in large block letters. A last-seenalive location and date.
    NELLIE GOWER, HARDWICK, VERMONT, 2007
LIZZIE NANCE, CHARLOTTE, 2009
AVERY KOSELUK, KANNAPOLIS, 2011
TIA ESTRADA, SALISBURY, 2012
COLLEEN DONOVAN, CHARLOTTE, 2013–2014
SHELLY LEAL, CHARLOTTE, 2014
     
    Each LSA date marked the beginning of a time line tracing that child’s movements backward from the moment of her disappearance. Few items had been entered on any chronology. Posted on the Gower, Nance, Estrada, and Leal boards were CSS photos. I stepped up to inspect the Estrada pics, which I hadn’t seen.
    Like the others, Tia Estrada lay faceup, fully dressed, with her arms at her sides. Beneath her were brown grass and dead leaves, above her gray sky. In the background I could see a picnic table and what looked like the base of a gazebo.
    A soupçon of Brylcreem told me Slidell had closed in.
    “Is it a campground?” I asked.
    Slidell nodded. “By the Pee Dee wildlife refuge. You know, for the boat and bug spray crowd. Has a couple docks, tent and trailer sites, latrines so the fam can take a dump with the birds.”
    Nice.
    “Was she found inside the grounds?”
    “Eeyuh.”
    “And no one saw anything?”
    “It was winter. The place was deserted.”
    “Were the neighbors questioned?”
    “We’re talking the boonies.”
    “Where people take notice.” Curt. “No one remembered selling gas to a stranger? No one saw an unfamiliar car pass by on the road? Parked on the shoulder?”
    Slidell looked at me without blinking. “You know why these douchebags don’t acknowledge we got a serial here?”
    Though I shared Skinny’s opinion that his superiors were wearing blinders, I had no desire to hear his latest conspiracy theory.
    “I didn’t find Leal’s ring,” I said. “Could it be downstairs in the property room?”
    Slidell gave an “I don’t think so” twist of his mouth. Then, “I’ll pull the CSS report, see if a ring turned up in their sweep.”
    “And ask the mother to look around at home.”
    Slidell nodded.
    “Nance should have been carrying ballet gear, at least shoes. Nothing was listed in the file.”
    Another nod.
    “We should query Hull, see if anything was missing with Estrada. Maybe give Rodas a call about Gower.”
    Slidell knew what I was thinking. Souvenirs. Reminders of the kills. He strode over to Ryan. Explained. Ryan nodded. Pulled out his phone.
    As I moved to the last board, Slidell rejoined me.
    “Did Ryan fill you in on Anique Pomerleau?” I asked. A decade had passed, and still I could barely say the name.
    “Yeah.”
    “Good.”
    “Before we started setting up in here, he gave a yodel to the home folk. I don’t par-lay-voo, but it sounded like he had some ’splaining to do.”
    I wondered how that had gone.
    “He says he learned dick about Pomerleau. But I’m guessing he blew fire up some Canadian arses about needing to fix that.”
    For a moment I concentrated