One pink polyester bra, size 32AA.

One elastic band from a pair of girls’ panties, label faded and unreadable.

I repeated the process with the lens and the ALS.

Except for a few short black hairs, obviously animal, I got the same disappointing result.

Discouraged, I reshelved the box, then returned to my office. Thinking perhaps an error had occurred and a report hadn’t been entered, I pulled my own file on ME107-10. I still keep hard copy. Old habits die hard.

Data entry omission. The clothing had been submitted, examined, and, for some strange reason, returned to us. The lab had gotten zilch.

I was dialing Slidell when my iPhone rang. He and Ryan were going to the Penguin. The junkie inside me rolled over and opened an eye.

What the hell. I was done here.

I cleaned up and headed out.

Larabee’s car was gone from the lot. But two vans sat outside the security fence. One had WSOC written on the side panel, the other News 14 Carolina.

Crap.

As I crossed to my Mazda, each van’s doors thunked open and a two-person crew leaped out. One member of each pair held a mike, the other a shoulder-propped camera.

I hurried to my car, jumped in, and palmed down the locks. Gunning through the gate, I lowered a window and waved a message that needed no clarification.

I knew the media had picked up on transmissions concerning the discovery of Leal’s body, and that the reporters sitting vigil at the morgue were just doing their jobs. I also knew that dozens more were swarming elsewhere—the underpass, the convenience store, the Leal home—salivating for an inside line to pipe to their editors.

My gesture was unfair. Definitely inelegant. But I refused to provide fodder for voyeurs wanting a peek into the heartbreak of others.

The Penguin drive-in is a clogged artery waiting to take you out. Featuring a menu with caloric levels very possibly illegal, the place has been a Charlotte institution since before I was born. I crave its burgers and fries like an addict craves dope.

The restaurant was close to the convenience store where Shelly Leal was last seen. Where she’d bought milk and candy and it had cost her life.

Pulling from Commonwealth into a spot by the entrance, I could see Ryan and Slidell through the double lens of my windshield and a tinted front window. The look on Skinny’s face almost made me regret my decision to come.

Though it was nearly two P.M., the place was crowded. And noisy with the hubbub of conversation emanating from fat-glutted brains.

The men looked up when I drew close. Ryan scooched left to make space for me in the booth.

Slidell was eating a sandwich that almost defied description. Blackened bologna on Texas toast with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. The Dr. Devil. One of the few offerings I’d never sampled. Ryan was working on a hot dog barely visible under a layer of queso and onion rings. Both were drinking sodas the size of oil drums. The iconic flightless bird grinned from each plastic cup.

I slid in and Ryan handed me a menu. No, thanks. I knew what I wanted.

The waitress appeared and queried my health in a syrupy drawl. I assured her I was swell and ordered the Penguin burger, a heart-stopper topped with pimento cheese and fried pickles.

While waiting for my food, I told Ryan and Slidell about the possible lip print.

“It could be Leal’s.” Ryan sounded skeptical.

“Yes,” I said. “Or it could have been left by her attacker. Maybe Leal fought and was pulled close, to pin her arms. Or maybe her body slipped while being carried to the underpass. There are lots of reasons her abductor’s face might have come in contact with the jacket.”

“You think DNA’s gonna last that long?” Slidell outdid Ryan at dubious.

“I’m hoping so.” I was. And that the match would send Pomerleau straight to hell.

My drink was delivered. Sugary tea, not the unsweetened I’d ordered. While sipping it, I shared my thoughts on the gap year, 2010. And described ME107-10.

The men listened, chewing and wiping grease from their chins. Though he hadn’t been involved, Slidell remembered the case.

I mentioned the media ambush at the MCME. Slidell delivered his usual rant. His suggestions for curtailing the power of the fifth estate did not involve amending the constitution.

By the time my food arrived, Slidell had finished his. He bunched and tossed his napkin and leaned back. “I’m convinced the parents are clear. Co-workers place the old man at the body shop when the kid went missing. Mother’s barely holding it together. Says she was home with the other two, waiting for the milk. It feels right to me.”

Ryan nodded agreement.

“How did they take the news?” I spoke through a mouthful of ground beef and pickle.

Shoulder shrug. You know.

I did. Though it wasn’t a frequent part of my job, I’d participated in the notification of next of kin. In that moment when lives changed forever. I’d seen people faint, lash out, cry, go catatonic. I’d heard them berate, accuse, beg for retraction, for reassurance that it was all a mistake. No matter how often I partook, the task was always heartbreaking.

“Mother wondered about a ring the kid always wore. Silver, shaped like a seashell. You got something like that?” Slidell asked.

“I didn’t see any jewelry in the autopsy room, but I’ll check,” I said. “Maybe Larabee bagged it before I arrived.” And separated it from the clothing? I doubted he’d do that. Didn’t say so.

“We did some poking into your other vics. Koseluk and Donovan are still missing. Both files are inactive, since no one’s been pressing.”

Ryan excused himself. I stood and watched him walk to the door. Knew he was going outside to smoke.

As I sat back down, Slidell freed a toothpick from its cellophane and began mining a molar. The action didn’t stop the flow of his narrative. “Lead on the Koseluk girl is a guy named Spero. Kannapolis PD. He’s okay. Worked with him once. Gangbanger got capped—”

“What’s his take?”

“He’s still liking the ex.”

“Al Menniti?”

Slidell nodded.

“Has he surfaced?”

“No.” Slidell withdrew the toothpick and inspected something on the tip. “Talked to the mother. She says the dumb fuck couldn’t hide his own ass, much less a kid. Says he didn’t give two shits about fatherhood. Her words.”

“Lyrical. What about Colleen Donovan?”

“Parents both dead, lived with an aunt, Laura Lonergan, who spends her time frying her brains on meth. And there ain’t much to fry. That conversation was a treat.”

I gestured for Slidell to skip the character analysis. “Does Colleen have a jacket?”

Slidell nodded. “Juvie, so we’ll need a warrant to unseal it.” I raised my brows in question.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m writing something up.” Slidell paused, as though debating whether to make the next comment.

“What?” I urged.

“One weird thing. According to the file, Donovan was entered into a national database for missing kids.”

“By whom?”

“MP investigator name of Pat Tasat.”

“What’s weird about that?”

“I checked for the hell of it. Six months out, the kid was removed from the system.”

“Did Tasat say why?”

“No. And he won’t.” Tight. “Poor schmuck drowned in Lake Norman last Labor Day weekend.”

“I’m sorry. Did you know him?”

Slidell nodded. “Jimmy B and Jet Skis don’t mix.”

I thought a moment. “Isn’t it standard to enter a reason when removing a name from the database?”

“Yeah. That’s what’s weird. No reason was given.”

“Who removed her?”

“That wasn’t there, either.”

I gnawed on that, wondering what it could mean. If anything. “And Estrada?” I asked.

“Kid vanished in Salisbury—that’s Rowan County—turned up in Anson, so they caught the file. The investigation went nowhere, eventually landed with a ballbuster at the sheriff’s department name of Henrietta Hull. That’s who I talked to. Goes by Cock. You believe that?”