“This has to be boring for you,” Dr. Harper said to Mercy as they looked at dental films in the medical examiner’s office for the second time that week.
“Heck no. I find it fascinating,” corrected Mercy. It was true.
The Hartlage films from the Burns office had been delivered to Dr. Harper, who’d called Mercy within an hour to tell her the first Caucasian skulls they’d found were definitely Corrine and Richard Hartlage. Mercy asked Dr. Harper to demonstrate how she’d come to the conclusion.
Again the small grayscale rectangles on the screen looked like a jumbled mess to Mercy.
“How long did it take for you to learn to read these?” she asked the dentist.
Dr. Harper tilted her head as she thought. “It feels like I’ve always known, but we learned to identify the teeth in films very early in dental school. Years of working with them after I graduated also taught me hundreds of things I never encountered during school. I’ve easily examined fifty thousand films. Everyone has unique qualities to their teeth, the roots, and the bone around them.”
Mercy looked again. She could recognize fillings and crowns and root canals, but that was about it.
“What did you find?” she asked.
“Let’s start with Richard Hartlage.” Dr. Harper’s lips twisted. “The copies his old office made aren’t the greatest. They’re dark. I would have told the assistant to redo them, but I can work with them. I put the films I shot at the top of the screen.”
Mercy nodded, noting the films on the bottom were much darker.
“On my film, he’s missing two molars on the lower right side.” She indicated a wide empty space on her film. “On the dark film, he has those teeth, but do you see how the crest of the bone steeply angles down toward the roots of both of those teeth? This was caused by gum disease. Over time it destroys the bone that anchors teeth. A healthy bone level would have been higher on the root, just below the bulbous part of the tooth, like on this one.” Dr. Harper pointed at another tooth on the film. The crest of bone was flat.
“You’re not surprised that those teeth are missing on the films you took.”
“Not at all. When comparing old films and new, teeth and their roots can always be missing on the newest films, but you can’t add a tooth and root that weren’t there before. Unless you count implants, but those are completely different. They look like screws in the jaw.”
“That still doesn’t prove this is Richard. It could be someone else.”
“It doesn’t. But then I look at the amalgam filling on tooth number thirteen on this old film, and it’s still the exact same shape on the new. Same with these three other amalgam fillings. They are identical on both sets of films. But on number five, the old film shows an amalgam filling that involves two surfaces of the tooth. Now that tooth has a filling that involves three surfaces.”
“There’s an inconsistency?”
“No. The filling was replaced with a bigger one. Fillings will never be replaced by smaller ones or disappear, but they can be replaced with larger ones. If tooth five had no filling, I’d know this isn’t Richard.”
“You’re convinced it’s him?”
“Without a doubt.” Confidence rang in her voice.
“And Corrine?”
Dr. Harper pulled up new films. “Corrine had better dental health. Her old films show no fillings, but she’s received two amalgam fillings which show up in the films I took on the skull.”
“Then how can you be sure it’s her?”
Mercy swore the dentist’s eyes twinkled.
“There are other markers besides fillings. Look at the roots on this tooth. See how the ends suddenly point toward the back of the mouth instead of going straight down?”
Mercy noted that all the other teeth had perfectly straight roots.
“I’d hate to extract this tooth with those difficult root tips—I’d send her to a specialist if she’d needed it removed. But my point is that the roots are identical on both sets of films. The same tooth on the opposite side of her mouth does the same thing, and they match.”
“It’s not a common root formation?”
“It’s not uncommon. But these are identical.” She moved one of her films over the old one and Mercy saw that everything lined up perfectly. The crooked roots, the straight roots, and the shapes of the other teeth. “I had to retake the new film a few times to match the angle of the old one, but I caught it.”
“It’s Corrine,” Mercy stated.
“Yes.”
“That poor family.” The photos from the home flashed in her memory. Alison, Amy . . . gone.
“We didn’t find any remains of shoes, or belts, or wallets,” Mercy mused out loud. “Does that mean they were put in the culvert naked? Or were they already skeletal remains when they were hidden there?”
“Did you see the soil report that was just finished?”
“Not yet.” She made a mental note to check her email.
“I read it. The soil tests indicate that the bones have been there the whole time.”
“Interesting.” Mercy tried to imagine the work involved in dumping an entire unclothed family in the culvert. “I wonder if he put them in the other end first. Maybe the bodies are what caused part of the backing up of the culvert to start with.”
“And the bones were eventually washed out the other end?” suggested Dr. Harper.
“Yes. They were really embedded in the debris backing up the culvert, weren’t they?”
“They were.” One side of Dr. Harper’s lips curved up. “Could be ironic that the way he disposed of the bodies is what caused them to be eventually found.”
“And it’s reasonable that the remains could have skeletonized since last summer?”
“Absolutely.”
“How will we figure out if the last skull is the brother-in-law?” Mercy asked. The brother-in-law could be the murder suspect she was searching for. But did he kill the Jorgensens too? “I still don’t know his name. I can’t find any records of Corrine’s family, and Richard’s uncle was no help.”
“There’s always DNA testing, but it will take time. We can compare the unknown skull’s DNA to Corrine’s. If they’re siblings, they should have about fifty percent matching DNA.”
“I plan to get that test rolling as soon as possible,” Dr. Victoria Peres said as she entered the room. “Nice to see you, Agent Kilpatrick. I’m glad we had some good news for you.” She frowned. “I guess it’s not good news, but helpful news.”
“Definitely helpful,” agreed Mercy, noticing Dr. Peres carried a skull. “Now we’re down to two mystery skulls instead of four.”
“Actually we’re down to one mystery skull.” The usually calm and collected woman spoke in a voice that was higher than normal.
Mercy’s skin tingled. “What did you find?”
Dr. Peres held up the skull, and Mercy recognized the different shape of the eye sockets. “That’s the Asian skull,” said Mercy.
“Yes.” The forensic anthropologist flipped it over and indicated the opening on the bottom. “Can you see in here?” She shone a penlight inside the skull.
Mercy leaned closer, wondering what the doctor expected her to see. She couldn’t read every bump and fossa the way Dr. Peres could.
“It’s always bothered me that the color of the skull was slightly different from the other five,” Dr. Peres said. “And it felt more brittle to me. I was about to run dating tests on it when I spotted something inside. I blame myself for not getting it fully cleaned out right away. Stubborn dirt and the awkward location kept me from seeing it.”
Mercy searched the inside of the skull. Her gaze stopped on some small scratches. “Is that a year?” Mercy took the penlight from the doctor and moved closer to the opening. “It says 1969. But what do the letters spell?” She squinted. Someone had awkwardly carved the numbers and letters inside the skull.
“I think they’re someone’s initials.”
“Someone put the identity inside?” Her mind raced. It must be a birth year and the victim’s initials.
“No. I think this is a war trophy from Vietnam.”
Mercy drew back, horrified at the thought. “Seriously?”
“It’s my theory. I’ve heard of soldiers smuggling back skulls or bones or clothing from wars. All the wars.”
“That’s sick.”
“There’s a market for it.”
“That’s even sicker.”
“Let me see it,” requested Dr. Harper. She opened a case and took out a pair of glasses with loupes attached to the lenses. Mercy’s dentist wore the same type. “The initials are HRR. I assume they belong to whoever originally brought home the skull?”
“Who knows?” asked Dr. Peres. “It could have had multiple owners over the last fifty years.”
“But why place it in the culvert? And was it put there at the same time as the Hartlages?” questioned Mercy, thinking out loud.
“I suspect you won’t know the answer to that until you make an arrest,” Dr. Peres said solemnly.
It wasn’t the answer Mercy wanted to hear, but she knew the forensic anthropologist was correct.