and her twisted sidekick.”
“Neal Wesley Catts,” Rodas tossed in. “Aka Stephen Menard.”
“Leal could be alive,” I continued. “But if Nance and Gower are indicative, it’s not like the old days. Pomerleau’s pattern has changed. Leal won’t last long.”
Still Ryan said nothing.
Rodas placed a palm on the cardboard box holding his case notes. “I have to head north in the morning. Would you at least skim the file?”
Ryan closed his eyes.
I looked at Slidell. He shrugged.
A very long moment passed.
Ryan ran a hand over his jaw. Sighed. Then his eyes rose to mine. “One day.”
He looked at his wrist. Which bore no watch.
“Twenty-four hours.”
CHAPTER 8
RYAN AND I got coffee before plunging into the Nance file. We wouldn’t drink it. The stuff tasted like liquefied dung. It was a ritual, like sharpening a pencil or straightening a blotter. Meaningless action as prelude to the real show.
We started with a section titled
Summary of the Crime.
On April 17, 2009, at 1620 hours, Elizabeth Ellen “Lizzie” Nance, eleven, left the Isabelle Dumas School of Dance, located in the Park Road Shopping Center, heading for the Charlotte Woods apartment complex on East Woodlawn. A motorist reported seeing a child matching Lizzie’s description at the intersection of Park and Woodlawn roads at approximately 1630 hours.
Lizzie lived with her mother, Cynthia Pridmore, thirty-three, and sister, Rebecca Pridmore, nine. Cynthia Pridmore reported her daughter missing, by phone, at 1930 hours. She reported having contacted the school, several of Lizzie’s classmates, and her former husband, Lionel Nance, thirty-nine. Pridmore said she and Nance repeatedly drove the route between the school and the home. Said her daughter could not be a runaway. An MP file was opened, with Detective Marjorie Washington as lead investigator.
On April 30, 2009, a groundskeeper, Cody Steuben, twenty-four, found a child’s decomposed body at the Latta Plantation nature preserve, northwest of Charlotte. Medical examiner Timothy Larabee identified the remains as those of Lizzie Nance. The case was transferred to the homicide unit, with Detective Erskine Slidell as lead investigator.
Lizzie Nance was a sixth-grade student with no history of drug, alcohol, or mental issues. A low-risk victim. Cynthia Pridmore was a legal secretary, twice divorced. The second former husband, John Pridmore, thirty-nine, sold real estate. Lionel Nance was an electrician, unemployed at the time of his daughter’s disappearance.
Neither of the Pridmores had an arrest record. Lionel Nance had a 2001 arrest for public drunkenness.
Witnesses who knew the victim all stated that the person responsible had to be someone she knew or someone she trusted. Witnesses all doubted Nance or either of the Pridmores was involved.
We skimmed a few newspaper articles. It was the usual bloodlust frenzy. The disappearance. The search. The angelic little face with the long brown hair. The headline screaming that the child was dead.
I was still reading when Ryan leaned back in his chair. I laid down the page. “You okay?”
“Rosy.”
“Move on to crime scene?”
“Sure.”
I exchanged the folder we had for the crime scene search report.
CSS arrived at 0931 hours, 4/30/09. The site was an open field surrounded by woods, an unsecured area, but one not normally visited by the public. The body had been left fifteen feet north of a small access road.
The victim lay faceup, clothed, with feet together, arms straight at the sides. There was little damage attributable to animal activity. Some debris had accumulated on the remains (leaves, twigs, et cetera, collected by CSS), but no attempt had been made at concealment or burial.
Fingerprinting was impossible due to decomposition, but both hands were bagged. Photographs were taken of the victim and the surroundings.
The detailed report of each crime scene tech followed. Leaving those to Ryan, I moved on to the
“Neal Wesley Catts,” Rodas tossed in. “Aka Stephen Menard.”
“Leal could be alive,” I continued. “But if Nance and Gower are indicative, it’s not like the old days. Pomerleau’s pattern has changed. Leal won’t last long.”
Still Ryan said nothing.
Rodas placed a palm on the cardboard box holding his case notes. “I have to head north in the morning. Would you at least skim the file?”
Ryan closed his eyes.
I looked at Slidell. He shrugged.
A very long moment passed.
Ryan ran a hand over his jaw. Sighed. Then his eyes rose to mine. “One day.”
He looked at his wrist. Which bore no watch.
“Twenty-four hours.”
CHAPTER 8
RYAN AND I got coffee before plunging into the Nance file. We wouldn’t drink it. The stuff tasted like liquefied dung. It was a ritual, like sharpening a pencil or straightening a blotter. Meaningless action as prelude to the real show.
We started with a section titled
Summary of the Crime.
On April 17, 2009, at 1620 hours, Elizabeth Ellen “Lizzie” Nance, eleven, left the Isabelle Dumas School of Dance, located in the Park Road Shopping Center, heading for the Charlotte Woods apartment complex on East Woodlawn. A motorist reported seeing a child matching Lizzie’s description at the intersection of Park and Woodlawn roads at approximately 1630 hours.
Lizzie lived with her mother, Cynthia Pridmore, thirty-three, and sister, Rebecca Pridmore, nine. Cynthia Pridmore reported her daughter missing, by phone, at 1930 hours. She reported having contacted the school, several of Lizzie’s classmates, and her former husband, Lionel Nance, thirty-nine. Pridmore said she and Nance repeatedly drove the route between the school and the home. Said her daughter could not be a runaway. An MP file was opened, with Detective Marjorie Washington as lead investigator.
On April 30, 2009, a groundskeeper, Cody Steuben, twenty-four, found a child’s decomposed body at the Latta Plantation nature preserve, northwest of Charlotte. Medical examiner Timothy Larabee identified the remains as those of Lizzie Nance. The case was transferred to the homicide unit, with Detective Erskine Slidell as lead investigator.
Lizzie Nance was a sixth-grade student with no history of drug, alcohol, or mental issues. A low-risk victim. Cynthia Pridmore was a legal secretary, twice divorced. The second former husband, John Pridmore, thirty-nine, sold real estate. Lionel Nance was an electrician, unemployed at the time of his daughter’s disappearance.
Neither of the Pridmores had an arrest record. Lionel Nance had a 2001 arrest for public drunkenness.
Witnesses who knew the victim all stated that the person responsible had to be someone she knew or someone she trusted. Witnesses all doubted Nance or either of the Pridmores was involved.
We skimmed a few newspaper articles. It was the usual bloodlust frenzy. The disappearance. The search. The angelic little face with the long brown hair. The headline screaming that the child was dead.
I was still reading when Ryan leaned back in his chair. I laid down the page. “You okay?”
“Rosy.”
“Move on to crime scene?”
“Sure.”
I exchanged the folder we had for the crime scene search report.
CSS arrived at 0931 hours, 4/30/09. The site was an open field surrounded by woods, an unsecured area, but one not normally visited by the public. The body had been left fifteen feet north of a small access road.
The victim lay faceup, clothed, with feet together, arms straight at the sides. There was little damage attributable to animal activity. Some debris had accumulated on the remains (leaves, twigs, et cetera, collected by CSS), but no attempt had been made at concealment or burial.
Fingerprinting was impossible due to decomposition, but both hands were bagged. Photographs were taken of the victim and the surroundings.
The detailed report of each crime scene tech followed. Leaving those to Ryan, I moved on to the
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