“You found the Hartlage girls’ dental X-rays but not the parents’?”
That evening Mercy questioned Dr. Harper, the forensic odontologist, in the room where the remains were being studied. The dentist had two skulls sitting near the computer screen where she was talking to Mercy. One was the tiny skull. Mercy tried not to look at the destroyed teeth; she’d seen them enough. The skulls had haunted her dreams.
“We got lucky when we called a pediatric dentist,” said Dr. Harper. “Hopefully we’ll find out that the parents were patients at one of the dental offices where I left a message. The adult skulls had dental work done, so somewhere there are records. I was happy to have found the kids’ dentist on the eighth phone call.”
“What about patient privacy laws?”
“The dentist hesitated because of those. I had your boss give him a call. He convinced him.”
Jeff could talk anyone into anything.
Mercy looked at the computer screen in front of Dr. Harper. To her eye, it showed a jumbled mess of small gray films that had no rhyme or reason. “How did you take those precise X-rays of the teeth? You don’t have that kind of dental equipment at this location, do you?”
“I called in a favor,” said Dr. Harper with a sparkle in her brown eyes. “A local dentist I graduated with from dental school let me use her machine. Saved me from driving back to Portland just to take films.”
“Smart.”
“Always.” Dr. Harper turned back to the screen. “Now,” she said in a teaching tone of voice. “Across the top of my screen are Alison Hartlage’s films I received from her dentist’s office.”
“Tiny little films,” remarked Mercy. The images showed white-and-gray shapes that she knew were teeth. How does Dr. Harper know which teeth they are?
“Normal for a child of this age. Below those are the films that I took on the smallest skull.”
“You took a lot more films.”
“It’s typical for pediatric offices to only take two or four films of the molars at Alison’s age. I shot a lot of views of the skull’s teeth for our records.”
Even Mercy’s unpracticed eye could see the broken and jagged teeth on Dr. Harper’s recent films. Anger tightened her throat. “Fucking asshole,” she whispered.
“Breaks my heart,” said Dr. Harper. She cleared her throat and touched the screen. “If you look here at the film I took, there is a whiter mark on this tooth. It’s a composite filling—a white filling—on her six-year molar.” Her cursor dragged the film next to one of Alison Hartlage’s films. “This film from Alison’s dentist has the exact same-shaped filling.”
Mercy held her breath. “Is that the only thing that matches?”
“No. There are two other composite fillings that match.” The dentist touched the screen again, pointing out the similarities. “And even if there weren’t any fillings, the shape of her first molars is distinctive. It’s clear to me that this is positively Alison Hartlage.”
“Even though he broke her front teeth?”
“Oh yes. In a child this age, the front teeth change the fastest anyway . . . the kids are constantly losing baby teeth, and the adult teeth are growing in. She wouldn’t have lost her deciduous molars for a few more years. Right here, you can see the adult premolars below the baby teeth. They wouldn’t have grown in until she was much older.”
“Can you tell how old she was?”
“Kids lose and grow teeth at different rates. Looking at the films, I can make an educated guess of her age.” Lacey smiled. “But her dentist gave me her date of birth. She’s six and a half.”
A sense of finality washed over Mercy. This was Alison. No question.
“What about her sister?” Mercy asked.
“Amy.” Dr. Harper brought up more films on her screen. “I’m also positive one of the other female skulls is Amy. She was fifteen.”
“Two people identified.” The accomplishment tasted sour in Mercy’s mouth.
“No doubt two of the others will turn out to be her parents,” said Dr. Harper.
“I’m not assuming anything,” said Mercy. “A neighbor said the brother-in-law who was living with them wasn’t Asian. So—”
“So either the brother-in-law or the father could still be alive.” Dr. Harper’s eyes opened wide.
“Maybe his skull washed down the bank.”
“I know they searched the area for a long time. They’ve brought in some more bones,” said Dr. Harper, “but I don’t know if they’re done. You know there was a creek way down the slope, right?”
“I heard that. I wonder if some bones made it that far. Is Dr. Peres around?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Did she find evidence that there were more than five skeletons?”
“Like more than ten femurs?”
“Exactly.”
“My understanding is that she’s annoyed so many bones are missing. She hasn’t mentioned finding too many.”
“A lot of bones could have been completely washed away.” Mercy sighed. “That would include skulls.”
“It’s also possible none of those skulls are the parents of Alison and Amy.”
Dr. Harper nodded with sympathy. “Until I have dental X-rays to compare them to, we won’t know.”
“Hopefully one of your calls to a dentist will yield some results. It’s late, so I assume you won’t hear anything more until tomorrow. Are you sure you called all of them?”
“I called every one within thirty miles of Bend. It’s possible they traveled farther than that for dental care, but it’s not typical. Especially since their kids went to one in town.” She frowned. “I will say that the Asian skull has had some horrible dental work. He had two amalgam fillings done, and they have huge overhangs and decay underneath them.”
“What does that mean?”
“Someone didn’t know what they were doing . . . or they didn’t care if they did a decent job. He also has several teeth that should have been repaired. I imagine they were giving him serious pain.”
“Then it’s possible he avoided the dentist for several years. I’ll have to concentrate on another way to identify his remains.”
“Do you really think these are related to those cases from twenty years ago?”
Mercy made herself look at the destruction on the skulls. “We have to consider it. I’ve never seen abuse like this outside of those other two cases, and all of them happened in the same county.”
“But the bodies were left in their homes twenty years ago. These were moved.”
It was a primary difference between the old cases and new.
“Maybe the parents weren’t killed.” Dr. Harper’s sad gaze met Mercy’s, and she knew exactly what the odontologist was thinking. It was a possibility she couldn’t ignore.
Who would do that to their children?