Bones Never Lie (18 page)

“That wasn’t my question.”

“I think it’s conceivable.”

So did I. And another unpleasant possibility had crossed my mind. “Do you suppose he came on to Tawny?”

“Speculation is pointless.”

“Will you try to find her?”

“Yes. But she’s not my priority.”

“You don’t feel she can help us?”

Ryan glanced my way, then back to the road. “At what cost?” The bitterness in his voice was so tangible, I could feel it on my skin.

Several long moments passed.

“Did you find it odd that the Kezerians showed no interest in Pomerleau?” I asked.

“No.”

“No?”

“They’re too focused on their own soap opera.”

“Yes, but—”

“We weren’t what they expected.”

I leaned into the seat back. Beyond the windshield, the day’s clear sky had lost out to dense cloud cover. Overhead, nothing twinkled. Ahead, brake lights smeared crimson across the top of our hood.

Beside us, a yellow Mini lurched and braked in tandem with our Jeep. The driver steered with one elbow while thumb-tapping a mobile phone. Texting. Emailing. Tweeting about the burger he’d have for dinner. Impressive. A multitasker.

I closed my eyes. Pictured a girl with bitter white skin, haggard eyes, and a braid snaking down vertebrae sharpened by years of deprivation. That image yielded to one of a small dark-haired girl in a trench coat and beret. To a young woman on a boat in a windswept harbor.

Tawny McGee was seventeen when she was finally set free. I imagined her somewhere in the sun, laughing over lunch with women her age. Pushing a stroller. Walking a golden retriever or a Saint Bernard. Free of the rancor we’d just witnessed. The constant bickering.

Was Bernadette correct in her optimism? That her daughter was doing well? Or did Jake have it right in viewing Tawny as permanently broken?

I understood Ryan’s desire to focus on the hunt for which I’d dragged him from Costa Rica. Pomerleau had scripted the nightmare that had robbed Tawny of her childhood. Perhaps her sanity.

Still. I wondered where Tawny was and what she was doing.

Ryan dropped me at my condo. No goodbye. Just a promise to call in the morning.

I phoned Angela’s and ordered a small pizza with everything but onions. Then I walked to the corner
dépanneur
for coffee and a few breakfast items. No point in provisioning when I’d be returning south soon. Groceries in hand, I picked up the pizza and headed home.

I ate with Wolf in the Situation Room. The pizza was good. The conversation did nothing to brighten my mood.

Then, all of a sudden, I was exhausted. The grueling trip to Costa Rica, followed by draining days in Charlotte. The long hours yesterday, then the late-night flight. Today the disturbing file review, then ping-ponging across the island to visit people not happy to see us.

Had we learned a single useful fact? Or simply wasted our time?

I stretched out on the couch and replayed each interview in my mind.

The Violettes had been a bust. Fair enough. We’d anticipated little from them.

Ditto for Pomerleau. Barely lucid. What was the one thing she’d said? That her daughter was in the cimetière Saint-Jean-Baptiste. Marie-Joëlle Bastien was buried there, not Anique. Anique was alive.

Tawny McGee was the only person I’d thought might prove helpful, but we hadn’t laid eyes on her. Bernadette and Jake were clueless concerning her whereabouts. They themselves were pathetic.

Maybe the therapist? Had we gotten her name? Easy enough. But Tawny wasn’t dead. The woman would invoke doctor-patient privilege. If they were still in contact, might she deliver a message to Tawny?

Wolf reported that the fires in Australia were worsening.

Ryan said that Pomerleau was in Vermont. Jake Kezerian strode toward him, angry. Thrust a paper in his face. Ryan took the paper and placed it in a bright yellow folder.

Wolf said something about economic indicators.

Kezerian crossed his arms on his chest. Spread his feet. “Grand-mère and Grand-père.”

The sky behind Ryan transformed into a green floral web. Ivy, twining nothing, meandering free-form in space.

Ryan opened the file.

The ivy snaked and twisted.

Ryan looked up. Slowly, his face morphed to that of Nurse Smiley. Simone.

“Qu’est-ce que vous voulez?”
Kezerian asked. What do you want? “Saint John,” Simone said.

This was backward. The nurse was speaking English, Kezerian French.

“Maladie d’Alzheimer.”
Kezerian.

“She’s not buried.” Simone.

“Qui est avec les saints?”
Who is with the saints?

Simone wagged her head slowly from side to side.

My eyes flew open.

Wolf had been replaced by Anthony Bourdain.

I rewound the dream.

Juggled the pieces my id had gathered and stored.

They fit.

Jesus. Could that be it?

I lunged for the phone.

I CHECKED THE
time as I punched in the number. 11:15. A twinge of guilt. I ignored it.

“Umpie Rodas.”

“It’s Dr. Brennan. Tempe.”

A sliver of a pause as the name registered.

“Yes.”

“I’m in Montreal. With Ryan.”

He waited.

“This may be nothing.”

“You wouldn’t phone this late about nothing.” A mild reprimand?

“In the course of your investigation, did you ever come across the name Corneau?”

“No. Why?”

“When we shut Pomerleau down back in ’04, she was working with a guy calling himself Stephen Menard. The story’s complicated, so I’m simplifying. The house they occupied on de Sébastopol originally belonged to a couple named Corneau, Menard’s grandparents. The Corneaus died in a car wreck in Quebec in 1988. You with me?”

“I’m listening.”

“Menard’s mother was Genevieve Rose Corneau, an American. She and her husband, Simon Menard, owned a home near St. Johnsbury, Vermont. The deed was in Simon’s name. Stephen Menard lived there for a time before relocating to Montreal.”

“To set up his twisted little fantasyland.”

I figured Rodas had learned about Menard recently, either from Ryan or Honor Barrow, or perhaps on his own, when the DNA recovered from Nellie Gower’s body led to Anique Pomerleau.

“Right. This afternoon Ryan and I visited Sabine Pomerleau, Anique’s mother. She’s eighty-two and suffers from dementia. But she said one thing. Could be I’m reading too much into the ramblings of a senile old woman—”

“What did she say?”

“That Anique is
avec les saints. Saint Jean.
Then in English she said buried.”

Silence hummed as Rodas considered that.

“Ryan and I took it to mean she believes Anique is in the cimetière Saint-Jean-Baptiste, where Marie-Joëlle Bastien is buried.”

“Another of Pomerleau’s victims.”

“Yes. But thinking back, it’s possible she also said
Jean
, in English. That we misunderstood her completely.”

Rodas got it immediately. “Saint John. Buried. St. Johnsbury. The home in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.”

“It’s a long shot, I know. But if there’s other family property there registered in the name Corneau—”

“I never would have made that connection.”

“Anique might have learned of the property from Menard. Perhaps they discussed it as a safe house. Or a meeting-up point.”

“Vermont is a bump down the road from Quebec.”

A ping dragged me up from a miles-deep sleep. Another followed. Groggy, I thought my house alarm was announcing a burglar or fire.

Then recognition. I reached for my iPhone.

The text was maddeningly short:
You were right. En route now. Will call with updates. UR

I sat up, fully awake. What the hell? Had Rodas found a place deeded to the proper Corneaus? Was he on his way there? Where?

The room was dim. The bedside clock said 8:42. Christ. Had I really slept that late?

Jamming a pillow behind my back, I punched a speed-dial entry.

My call was answered quickly. “Ryan.”

I started to tell him about my theory. About Rodas.

“I know.”

“You know?”

“He phoned.”

“When?”

“An hour ago. Not bad, Brennan.”

I felt a rush of irritation. Said nothing.

“Where is he?”

“Driving to the location.”

“What location?”

“You nailed it. The Corneaus own ten acres with a house and outbuildings a bit south of St. Johnsbury. It’s about twenty miles from the farm where Menard holed up before moving to Montreal.”

“Rodas couldn’t have waited?”

“He thought it wise to have a look.”

“He has backup?”

“He’s been a cop for a very long time.” A note of condescension?

“Did he take a CSS team?” I knew that was stupid. Asked anyway.

“It’s a bit premature for that.”

“What’s his plan?”

“Observe. See if anyone’s living there.”

“He couldn’t determine that before heading out?” Sharp.

“Rodas has someone running a search. Tax records. Phone and utility bills. You know the drill.”

I did. “How long is the drive to St. Johnsbury for him?”

“He estimated forty minutes.”

I looked at the clock. It was now 8:57. “If it’s been an hour since you spoke, why hasn’t he called?”

“Probably nothing to report.”

“So what are we supposed to do?”

“Wait.”

“Fine. I’ll wait. While you and Rodas bust your asses protecting and serving.”

With that clever retort, I clicked off and tossed the phone.

I knew my peevishness was juvenile. I needed to vent, and Ryan had taken the hit. But Rodas had left me out of the loop. So had Ryan. Not even a text from him. I was furious.

Throwing back the covers, I shoved to my feet. Yanked on sweats. Stomped to the bathroom and brushed my teeth.

9:08.

Into the kitchen for a bagel and coffee. Dining room table. Back to the bed for my mobile. Back to the table.

Out the French doors, the sky was the color of old nickels. The shrubs in the courtyard looked dark and droopy, as though dispirited by the prospect of sleet or snow.

At 9:29 the phone rang. I knocked over my coffee snatching it up. Grabbed a towel from the kitchen as I answered.

Slidell was talking before I could say my name. “Pastori’s getting some of Leal’s browser history.” He took my nonresponse as puzzlement over the name. “Pastori’s the computer geek.”

“I know who he is.”

“Whoa. We got a bug up our ass today?”

“What is Pastori finding?” Diverting a brown tentacle coursing toward the edge of the table.

“I’ll spare you the bullshit about URLs and partial URLs and embedded sites, blah, blah, blah. Bottom line, it don’t seem like much.”

I heard a wet sound as Slidell thumbed his tongue, flipped a page, went on. “No shopping trips to eBay, Amazon, that kind of thing.”

“Not surprising. Shelly Leal was thirteen years old.”

“She visited some game sites let kids play dress-up with cartoon characters. You know. Put Barbie in a tube top and braid her hair.”

I held the phone with my shoulder as I lifted and blotted.

“There was a site lets kids create aviators for moving around virtual worlds.”

Knowing Slidell hadn’t a clue about avatars, I didn’t bother to correct him.

“What the hell’s a virtual world? That some kinda make-believe where everyone’s good?”

“That would be virtuous. What about chat rooms?”

“The kid didn’t hit porn sites, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You know it isn’t.” Wiping off the chair seat.

“She linked to a site called AsktheDoc.com. You put in questions about your prostate, someone claiming to be a doctor answers.”

“Is that what she did?”

“What?”

“Ask about her prostate?” What little patience I had was fast disappearing.

“You could try tweezers.”

“What?”

“To pluck that bug crawled—”

“What questions did Shelly ask?”

“Pastori couldn’t get that.” Paper rustled. “The only other site he managed to pull out was a forum on a disease called dysmenorrhea.” He pronounced it “dies-men-o-ree-ah.”

“It’s not a disease. The term refers to severe pain associated with menstruation.”

“Yeah. I don’t need no details.”

“What did she do there?”

“He couldn’t get that, either.”

“Why not?” Sharper than I intended.

Slidell let a few beats pass, his way of telling me to lose the attitude. “First of all, you’ve got to have an ID, and the forum’s got a shitload of members. Pastori says he skimmed through a couple hundred posts. But he had no idea what to look for. And even if he did figure out who Leal was, she could have been a lurker. That’s someone—”

“I know what a lurker is. Did he attempt to figure out her ID?” I almost said “aviator.”

“With what little I could give him, yeah. Family names, pets, initials, birthdates, phone numbers. Got nowhere.”

I thought about that. “Was he able to determine what cartoon characters she chose on the game sites?”

“Hmm,” Slidell said.

I bunched the towel, walked to the door, and tossed it into the sink. Coffee dribbled on the floor as it arced across the kitchen.

“This whole Internet angle may be a dead end,” Slidell said.

“Or she may have met someone in that chat room.”

“It’s a site for people whining about cramps.”

Seriously?
“Gee. You think some of those whiners could be adolescent girls?”

“You’re saying our target visits this chat room hoping to hook up with kids? Maybe pretends to be a doctor or something?”

“A doctor, a teacher, another kid having difficult periods. People lie on the Internet.”

“No shit.”

“No shit. Have Pastori stay on it. If someone walked Leal through the process of wiping her browser history, it was for a reason.”

Slidell gave a long dramatic sigh. But he didn’t disagree.

“And talk to the mother. See if she has suggestions about passwords or IDs Leal might have used. Find out how much freedom she allowed Shelly online. And ask why her daughter was interested in dysmenorrhea.”