Slidell continued digging through the chicken, maybe even slowed, eventually emerged with two legs and two thighs.

Tinker stepped up and helped himself to a breast. Took a bite before continuing with his train of thought. “Gower was left just off a state highway, Vermont 14, I think Rodas said.”

“Pure genius.” Spoken through masticated drumstick. “We’ve determined that vics are transported by car. We can forget tossing all those choppers and yachts.”

I ignored Slidell’s sarcasm. “Koseluk was abducted in Kannapolis, Estrada in Salisbury. Both lie along the I-85 corridor.”

Tinker looked at me with his flat little eyes. Swallowed. “I’m having a hard time putting those two in the show.”

“Leal was found under I-485,” I added.

“Amelogenin says she’s not in there, either.”

“Not necessarily.”

Tinker did something that combined a shrug with a “Give it to me” finger curl.

“Pomerleau could have an accomplice. Or—”

Slidell cut me off, voice dripping with scorn as he addressed Tinker. “Low number of vics make it easier to tie the bow? Buff up the image?”

“Or perhaps you’re projecting, Detective. Talking about yourself,” shot back Tinker.

I feared the smart-ass tone would goad Slidell to smash Tinker’s plate up into his face, Stooges-style. I glanced at Skinny. His lower lids were crimped and twitching, sparkling grease coating his upper lip and chin.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Now Slidell was the recipient of Tinker’s flat-eyed stare. For a moment their gazes locked. Skinny turned away first. “That’s it. I ain’t working with this troll.” Wrapping his poultry in a napkin, Slidell strode from the room.

Tinker finished eating, wiped his hands digit by digit, and returned to his map.

I raised my brows at Ryan. He raised his at me.

I pointed at the chicken.

Ryan shook his head.

Realizing I’d never answered Slidell’s question about a cellphone for Nance, I asked Ryan if he’d come across any mention of one in the file. He had not.

While clearing the lunch debris, I told Ryan about our flight reservations. He hesitated a moment, then thanked me. Asked how much time we had. I suggested we leave the LEC by six. He nodded, grabbed his phone, and started punching digits.

Ryan hadn’t been back to Montreal since Lily’s death. I wondered what storm was swirling inside him. Didn’t ask.

After positioning one of the empty boards between Nance and Koseluk, I pulled the ME107-10 file from my purse and began posting information. Biological profile. Estimated time of death. Date of discovery. Location. Scene photos of the skeleton and associated articles.

Tinker abandoned his pushpins to eyeball my display. Which was meager. “Seriously?”

“Clothing was still in place on some of the bone clusters. Missing articles were probably dragged off by scavengers.”

Tinker nodded, noncommittal.

“A lot fits the pattern.”

“Where was this kid?”

I showed Tinker on his map. He stuck in a yellow pin, indulging me.

It took a moment to decipher his coding system. Green marked the intersection where Nance was last seen alive, red the place her body was found. Stoplight colors for a murder solidly connected to another by DNA.

Blue indicated LSA sites for girls “not in the show,” yellow the places Estrada and Leal were found.

The rainbow pins flowed north along I-85, circled Charlotte on the I-485 beltway, and dropped south toward the South Carolina border. One red and two blue pins marked inner-city locations.

One yellow pin sat off to the southeast by itself.

Tinker read my thoughts. “Estrada’s body wasn’t anywhere near I-85.”

“It wasn’t far from NC-52.” I studied the configuration, willing a pattern to make itself known. “Estrada was at a campground near the Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge. Nance was at Latta Plantation.” I was juggling aloud, twisting and turning pieces to make them connect. “ME107-10, my Jane Doe, was at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden. Gower was at a quarry.”

“Break out the champagne. We got us a nature lover.”

Smiling coolly at Tinker’s smarmy cynicism, I resumed posting ME107-10.

We worked the next couple of hours without saying much. After finishing my Jane Doe board, I began with the other girl about whom we knew almost nothing.

Ryan was right. Little effort had gone into finding Colleen Donovan. And paperwork wasn’t Pat Tasat’s strong suit.

I went through the interview summaries. The aunt, Laura Lonergan, a tweaker and sometime prostitute. The director of a homeless shelter. A dozen street kids. A hooker named Sarah Merikoski, aka Crystal Rose, who’d filed the MP report.

At some point I heard Slidell slouch in and settle at the computer. I continued reading.

It seemed a cliché. But clichés become what they are due to constant validation. A case either broke quickly and was solved in the first frantic days when witness memories were vivid, evidence was fresh, and theories abounded, or it lingered, dried up, inevitably grew cold. The longer the drought, the deeper the freeze.

Such was not the case with Colleen Donovan. Twenty-four hours. Forty-eight. A year and a half. It wouldn’t have mattered. Right out of the gate, there was nothing to indicate what had happened to her or why. Or when.

If anything had happened to her. No proof of a crime existed. No blood spatter on a hotel room wall. No treasured belonging left behind in a shelter. No wallet or purse recovered from a trash can. No whispered fears about a john or pimp.

One thread ran through every witness statement. Life on the street is harsh and unpredictable. Kids come, kids go. Everyone but Merikoski, an old-style streetwalker and Donovan’s self-appointed tutor on the workings of the sex trade, felt Colleen had taken off on her own. Even Merikoski had misgivings.

A lack of evidence meant no narrative. No narrative meant no suspect.

No big bang break.

As I worked through the chronology, I was vaguely aware of Slidell leaving his keyboard. Of raised voices by the corkboard.

A few calls had come in from the public, not many. A kid named Jon Sapuppo reported seeing Donovan on a bus on Wilkinson Boulevard two weeks after Merikoski walked into the LEC to file her report. A clerk claimed he’d sold Donovan cigarettes at a gas station on Freedom Drive.

It registered in my brain that the scrum by the corkboard was gaining in volume. Still I ignored it.

The calls tapered off, stopped by the end of February. In August the aunt called to ask where the case stood. That was it.

“… questioning my integrity?”

“I’m questioning your effort.”

Slidell and Tinker were at it again.

“You stick to the cold ones,” Slidell snapped. “Leave Leal to me.”

“Once burned, twice shy, eh, Skinny?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

I turned in my chair. Slidell was glaring at Tinker, arms down, hands balled into fists.

“Don’t push too hard? Play it careful?”

“I’m pushing full-out. There ain’t much to push.”

“You background the guy who spotted that car?”

“He’s got cataracts and a prostate the size of a squash.”

“How’s that computer search going?”

“It’s going.” Slidell’s tone sounded dangerous.

“You get Donovan’s juvie file?”

“Yeah. She lifted a watch at Kmart. Got caught in a sweep with an ounce of weed in her purse. Oh, and her big one. She fell while shit-faced and had to have her head stitched.”

That stilled Tinker a moment. “This Pomerleau. She works your turf, what, five years, and you can’t roust her?”

“I’m following every lead, you worthless piece of—”

“Are you?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m just wondering. It took a while to put that other thing behind you. Maybe you decide to play it safe on this one. You don’t screw up, everyone forgets. Pretty soon you’re a rock star again.”