by Kathy Reichs
I heard a catch in Larabee’s breathing. Then, “You’re saying killer. Not Ajax. Is that Slidell’s thinking?”
I pressed the phone hard to my ear, guilt already gripping my gut. “Yes.”
“I thought he’d take my face off this morning when I gave him the news. He didn’t. Just sat there.”
“He already had doubts.”
“Son of a biscuit.”
“Something like that.”
The text was from Mama. A link to a YouTube video. Seeing Slidell stomping my way, I decided it could wait.
As we drove to Saranella’s condo in South End, I relayed Larabee’s news. Slidell listened. Shook his head once.
Saranella wasn’t home. His roommate, Grinder, had bad hair plugs and a fuck-you demeanor. After some attitude-adjustment tips from Slidell, Grinder shared that Arnie was in Hilton Head and would return the following Monday.
Back in the Taurus, I checked the time: 3:10.
Slidell was growing surly. So was I. We were accomplishing nothing. And the sense of guilt about Ajax was building inside me. Plus, I was starving.
I asked Slidell to drop me back at the MCME.
After easing free of Mrs. Flowers, I got a yogurt from my stash in the refrigerator and a granola bar from the drawer in my desk. Washed the feast down with a Diet Coke. All the food groups.
Then I called Ryan. Got voicemail.
Rodas. He answered. I told him about the DNA reports, the ticket, Ajax’s babysitter’s arrest record. He responded with more animation than Slidell. A lot more.
When I’d finished, he said, “I’ve been going over the Gower scene photos.”
“At the Hardwick quarry.”
“Yeah. Thought if Ajax was there, it would lock in one more piece.”
“And?”
“Lots of gawkers but no doc.”
“Back to square one?”
“Could be.”
I disconnected, impressed. Umpie Rodas would never give up on Nellie Gower.
Ryan called as I was dropping the next-to-last report in my outbox. I briefed him. Then we wove through a maze of speculation similar to the one I’d traveled with Larabee. If not Ajax, who? How did the guy hook up with Pomerleau? Why? Why shift to Charlotte?
“Why plant Pomerleau’s DNA on the victims?” Ryan asked after we’d both wound down. “Why not his own? They were a tag team until he killed her.”
“Until someone killed her.”
“Do you think Pomerleau was a willing donor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Or did the bastard keep her captive to harvest her body fluids?”
I couldn’t answer. The thought was too appalling. Even for a monster like Pomerleau.
“Was it simply because he had access to her?” Ryan was throwing theories at the wall to see if one stuck. “Or was Pomerleau specific to his pathology?”
“Not just any donor but Pomerleau personally?”
“Yes.”
“In which case she could still be the key. The piece we’re failing to understand.”
“It’s just an idea.”
Another pause.
“Is Salter reopening the files?” Ryan asked.
“Slidell’s buying himself time.” Diplomatic.
“He hasn’t told her.”
“No.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Talking to people who knew Ajax. To Oklahoma. Taking a hard look at this nurse’s assistant Ellis Yoder.”
“Why?”
“Yoder was working on the dates Leal and Donovan went through the ER.”
“What do you think?”
“He’s got nothing else.”
“Gonna be a lot of red faces at the CMPD.”
“A lot,” I agreed.
It was another takeout evening with Birdie.
We were eating Il Nido spaghetti and channel-surfing when my iPhone sang “Frosty the Snowman.”
“Why’d he wash the cup?”
“What?” Slidell’s question threw me. His calling at night threw me.
“Ajax. He’s heading to the garage to off himself. Why bother with the cup?”
“He was a neat freak.”
No reply.
“And he was zoned on chloral hydrate,” I added. “People do funny things.”
“I’m looking at the CSS photos. There’s dirt on the floor inside the back door.”
“A lot?”
“Not the point. Why’s he clean the cup and the coffeemaker and leave the dirt?”
“He cleaned the coffeemaker?”
“And took out the trash. The grounds were in a plastic bag on top in the can outside.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying either a guy’s neat or he ain’t.”
“Maybe he tracked in the dirt when he went to the garbage can, then didn’t see it.”
“Tracked it from where? The thing sits back-ass to the door.”
I heard a series of soft ticks, probably photos hitting a blotter.
“Thread.” Tick. Tick. “Snagged on the backyard hedge.”
“What kind of thread?”
No answer.
Now it was the sound of pages turning.
“Purple.” I wasn’t sure Slidell was talking to me anymore. “Fiber guy says purple wool.”
“Were the coffee grounds analyzed?”
More pages.
“Gotta go.”
Dead air.
I tossed the phone on the couch. Got up. Began pacing in tight circles. Birdie’s head swiveled as he followed my movement.
What was Slidell’s purpose in calling? He was disturbed by some findings at the scene on Sunrise Court. Did he have doubts not only about Ajax’s involvement in the murders but also about Ajax’s own death? Did he suspect it was other than suicide?
Homicide?
We’d probably been wrong about Ajax. Was my crushing sense of guilt about his death unjustified? Had someone killed Ajax and staged it as a suicide?
Who? Why?
Jesus. The same questions I’d been asking myself for weeks.
My phone pinged an incoming text.
Mama.
Did you look at the YouTube video?
Viewing it now.
Right place?
I shifted to the message above. Clicked on the link.
The video was titled: Overland Riders of Northern Essex Community College. Spring Bike Hike 2008(3): Over the Passumpsic. The clip was twelve minutes long and had been viewed 18,927 times. Most liked it.
Interested in why the tape had caught Mama’s attention, not in its content, I hit the little white triangle. Queen began singing “Bicycle Race.” A frozen cyclist started pedaling, not furiously, but with strong, steady thrusts.
A rectangle appeared on the screen, outlined in scrolly white, like a dialogue box in an old silent movie. It framed the words: Spring Bike Hike 2008.
The camera zoomed out to show eight more cyclists, all in helmets, windbreakers, and knee-length black spandex shorts. They were moving single file along a two-lane highway. The action was wobbly, captured by a handlebar- or helmet-mounted camera at the rear of the pack.
Mama had never shown an interest in biking. I couldn’t fathom why this video appealed to her.
The group passed a post office/general store combo: a gray building with an old red auto seat on the porch and a red plastic kayak affixed to the top of the front overhang.
Another text box announced: Barnet, Vermont.
I read the words on the side of the kayak. Suddenly sat straight up.
Pulse humming, I watched the cyclists cross a narrow river on a green metal bridge. Another text box. Passumpsic River.
Two minutes of pedaling through mixed hardwood and pine, then a bit of crude editing caught the group on the shoulder, laughing and pointing to a plank nailed to a tree above their heads. On it were four faded blue letters. ORNE. It was the weathered sign from the Corneau house.
ORNE. They
liked the Corneau sign because what was left matched their club’s acronym. Overland Riders of Northern Essex.
As the cause of their amusement registered, a car entered the frame from a driveway to the left of the sign. One silhouette at the wheel, no passenger.
The car lurched to a stop, and a door flew open. A figure shot out and strode toward the cyclists. The camera followed her, now handheld. I couldn’t see a face, but body language said the driver was angry.
Another text box materialized. Hostile Aboriginal!
The figure turned toward the camera. Shouted and waved both arms.
I went cold to the marrow.
CHAPTER 38
I REPLAYED THE scene again and again. Froze the image. Studied the features, the body shape, making sure. Hoping I was wrong.
I wasn’t.
No point showing the video to Slidell. The face would mean nothing to him.
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.”
“Could you read the plate?”
“No. But it was green, probably Vermont.”
“Contact Rodas?”
“Already did. He’s requested an enhancement. If that works, he’ll run the registration through the DMV.”
“Get Tawny’s photo from Bernadette Kezerian. Scan it and email it to Rodas, Slidell, and me.”
“Done. I’ll also contact border control on this side, see if they have any record of McGee crossing into Vermont. Or back into Quebec.”
We’d barely disconnected when Slidell showed up at my door. I offered him coffee. He accepted. We settled at the kitchen table. I briefed him on my conversation with Ryan.
“Dew says no can do.”
“What do you mean, no can do?”
“As of January 23, 2007, you gotta have a passport to enter the U.S. from Canada.”
“That’s good. ICE keeps records—”
“You wanna let me finish?”
I settled back, having vowed to be more patient with Slidell.
“That’s for airports. The reg didn’t kick in for land and sea borders until June 1, 2009.”
“Not likely she’d have flown such a short distance.”
“No.”
“Crap.”
“Yeah. But I got this.” He pulled a printout from an inside jacket pocket and flipped it onto the table.
I unfolded and read it. A tox report. I looked up, stunned by the implications. “They found chloral hydrate in the coffee grounds?”
“Yeah.” He tipped his chin at the paper. “A boatload.”
“Ajax was drugged?”
“Doubt he laced his own Joe.”
“You think someone sedated him, then put him in the car?”
“Explains the washup on the cup and coffeemaker. The grounds being outside in the trash.” Slidell thought a moment. “Kind of an odd choice, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“It was found in the victims at Jonestown.” I was referring to the 1978 poisoning of more than nine hundred people at the Peoples Temple in Guyana, a massacre orchestrated by a power-mad evangelist, Jim Jones. “Also in Anna Nicole Smith and Marilyn Monroe.”
Slidell said nothing.
“Ajax died between midnight and two.” My mind was spinning. “There was a cruiser parked at the curb all night. The surveillance team didn’t see anyone enter or leave the house until Cauthern showed up at dawn.”
“The Ajax property backs up to a walking trail behind Sunrise Court and a couple other dead-enders along that stretch. Whoever capped him probably parked on another cul-de-sac, took the path, then crossed the yard to the kitchen door.”
“That could explain the fibers on the hedge. The dirt on the floor.”
Our eyes exchanged the same questions. Who? Why?
“You taking it to Salter?” I asked.
“Soon.”
I raised my brows in question.
“I want to go at this scumbag Yoder one more time.”
“Why is he a scumbag?”
“There’s something smells there.”
“Not exactly an answer.”
“We ask Yoder about Leal and Donovan, the next thing you know, Ajax is dead with a kit in his trunk.” Slidell looked at me a very long moment. “What’s your gut? We looking at the same doer?”
“The girls and Ajax?”
Slidell nodded.
“My gut says yes.”
“Sonofafriggin’ bitch. And we got squat.”
“We know our killer is male.”
Slidell stared into his cup as if the answer were floating in his coffee. I’d never seen him so discouraged. “Think the guy’s a sexual sadist?”
“None of the victims was sexually assaulted.” I’d chewed on this a lot. “I think his arousal comes from control, from the ability to manipulate.”
“Us or his vics?”
I hadn’t looked at it that way. “Both. He’s definitely toying with us.”
Slidell rose. I walked him to the door.
“How’s he do it?” As he stepped outside.
“Do what?”
“Move under the radar and leave us nothing.”
I was in the study checking email when the phone rang again. I glanced at the caller ID. S. Marcus. Not recognizing the name, I let the call roll to voicemail. Seconds later, I heard the voice of my little cat-sitter friend, Mary Louise, on the answering machine. She wanted to visit after school. Had something for me.