HOW ARE YOU going to break this news to Melvin?” asked Bogart. They were driving back to the motel from the warehouse.
“It’s not a fact, it’s a theory. I have no proof.”
“But it’s a pretty good theory based on some facts,” replied Bogart.
“If we assume it was Roy Mars that faked his death, that would explain the shotgun to the face. And the bodies being burned. Dental records would be the first way to ID the bodies. The teeth were relatively intact.”
“But he would have had to get into the dentist’s office and swap out the records with those of the body that was discovered.”
“Lucinda worked for a cleaning company in the area. I’m betting it was Quality Commercial Cleaners. That would have given her and Roy access to the dentist’s office after hours.”
“Wait a minute, do you think the other body was Lucinda’s?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. If Roy is alive and he killed the two people that were found, I have a hard time believing he would have shotgunned his wife in the face and then set her on fire.”
“And set up his son for the crime? Because that’s a big part of this too.”
“And maybe the most inexplicable.”
“But I keep coming back to the two people. It’s a small town. How could two people just disappear and no one know?”
Decker said, “They could have been drifters, not from here. But—” He stopped and closed his eyes. The frames in his head whirred back and forth as he searched for the precise statements he’d been given by the police and Melissa Dowd.
There were two of them.
Burglary, missing person, drunks getting in fights, was the first.
We’d never had such a request before, for a murder anyway, was the second.
He took out his phone and punched in a number. A minute later he had Melissa Dowd on the line again. She sounded a little put out at being called away from her work again, but Decker brushed right past the annoyed tone in her voice. He had put the phone on speaker so that Bogart could hear.
Decker said, “When we last spoke you said that you’d never had a court order for dental records for a murder investigation before.”
“That’s right.”
“But the way you said it implied that you had received other court orders.”
“Well, just the one time. It was right before the one for the Marses’ murder, actually, now that I think about it. Sort of odd.”
“Was it for a missing person?”
“That’s right, how did you know that?”
“Educated guess. Can you tell us about it?”
“Well, it was one of our patients, and the police thought they had found his body in the woods, but it had been disfigured by some wild animals. They had learned that we were the man’s dentist and thus asked for the records. But it wasn’t a match. It wasn’t him.”
“And this was before the Marses’ murder, you’re sure?”
“Yes. Just shortly before.”
“Do you remember the man’s name?”
“I do, as a matter of fact. His name was Dan Reardon. To my knowledge they never found him.”
“Do you have any records for him?”
“No. They would have been disposed of by now.”
“Can you describe him. Race, height, weight, anything?”
“Well, he was a big man. Tall, about six-four or so. Over two hundred pounds. Dan was in his fifties back then. Strongly built.”
“White, black?”
“White.”
“Did he have any family?”
“No. His wife had died. And they had no children. He lived on the outskirts of town and kept to himself.”
“What did he do for a living?”
“Not much. Odd jobs here and there. Always in hock for something. He’d get some money and then it would be gone. We often had to write off his charges because he just didn’t have the money.”
“Well, thanks, Melissa, this really helped a lot.”
Decker clicked off and looked at Bogart. “Always in hock. Get some money and then it would be gone. What are the odds he visited the pawnshop where Roy worked? And then Roy found out they had the same dentist?”
“Clearly, the physical descriptions tallied, which would have been the reason Roy would have picked him. And with the bodies being burned and the faces obliterated you would just have to be close enough to sell the deception.”
“So Roy kidnapped Dan to later substitute his body in the house. Then he killed Dan and either killed another woman or his wife and set the bodies on fire.”
“And set up his son for the murder. He must have paid off the motel clerk and Ellen Tanner to lie about the time.”
“And messed with the car so it would break down right in front of the motel. Melvin told us his dad was good at working on cars.”
“But why, Decker? Why go to all that trouble to implicate your own son and send him to prison?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Decker.
“Could he have hated Melvin for some reason?”
“Hating your son is one thing. Doing all of this to put him in prison is something else altogether.”
“Unless Roy Mars is some sort of psychopath.”
“He lived here for twenty years without harming anyone,” pointed out Decker. “This was an elaborate scheme and it had to have sufficient motivation.”
“Which brings me back to my earlier question: How are you going to tell Melvin?”
Decker looked out the car window, where yet another storm was descending upon them. “Not a clue,” he replied.