City of the Dead

»37«

“Twenty-nine out of the full complement of thirty-two teeth gone. Fifteen of those old extractions, fourteen recent.”

“Postmortem?”

“No doubt. See how the bones healed in the old extractions and the sockets closed completely? Now look at the recent.”

“No clotting.”

“Right. And the sockets are still open. Those were yanked to make identification by charts impossible.”

Dr. Barnett Rossman, forensic odontologist, squints up at a series of freshly developed X rays illuminated on a scanner. The room in which the two men stand is full of skulls, jawbones, grinning dentures mounted on stands, plaster casts of jaws and mandibles with teeth set in them. And all around them teeth—thousands of teeth—and gold crowns, and the air reeking with the thick, smarting fumes of the hypo in the developing tanks.

“And something else,” Rossman goes on. “Those extractions were made with dental forceps, and by someone who knew how to use them.”

“Oh?” Konig’s brow cocks upward. “Anything else?” He scribbles something onto a pad under a list of general data headed “ROLFE.”

Rossman shrugs. “With only three teeth left in the jaws, there’s not a helluva lot to go on. And two of those three are just stumps—the upper left second premolar and the third molar. The other one—the lower right third molar—has a crown, but the tooth’s nearly completely destroyed by that large cavity you see there.”

Together the two men ponder the ghostly gray-white illuminations on the screen.

“But here’s something that might be of interest.” Ross-man jabs a pencil up toward one of the illuminated negatives. “Look at this area right here. See the gap? Upper left lateral incisor, canine, and first premolar?”

“It’s continuous,” says Konig, catching instantly the seed of an idea.

“Right. Would have been very obvious and very unsightly during life, unless—”

“—he wore a denture,” Konig says, completing the thought.

“A possibility. Probably a Nesbitt type. Lousy dentristry. Anyway, I took a few X rays of the upper left second premolar.”

“And?”

“Well, see for yourself.” Once more Rossman’s pencil jabs upward at something that looms on the screen like an immense Arctic ice floe seen through curling mists. “See how the convex surface of the stump is nearly level with the gum? There’s a complete root canal there. Has the appearance of having been recently ground with a dental drill.”

Konig glances away from the screen. “Meaning that at one time the stump might have carried a supporting clasp for a denture.”

“I’d say so.” Rossman beams. “I’d say very probably.” Konig scribbles hastily onto his pad. “Anything you can tell me about the age, Barney?”

Rossman sighs, removes his bifocals and set them carefully on the desk, then proceeds to slowly rub his eyes. “Well, all the wisdom teeth were erupted. Two of them shed for some considerable time. So he had to be over twenty-five years of age. Afraid that’s all I can offer you there.”

“Over twenty-five,” Konig murmurs aloud as he scribbles more notes. “Well, at least that gives me the lower range. I’ve got an upper range in my figures here of about forty to forty-five. Truth probably lies somewhere in between those limits, but I’d say more toward the upper.”

“What’d you get from the skull?”

Konig licks his thumb and flicks back several pages through the pad, his eyes skimming up and down the dirty, hectic scrawl there. Slowly, he starts to read &loud. “‘Cloture of sagittal, coronal, lambdoidal sutures nearly complete.’ That starts somewhere around age thirty. Then I found incipient cloture of the parietomastoid and squamous sutures on the inner surface. You don’t get that till somewhere between thirty-five and forty.”

“What about the limb bones?” asks Rossman.

Konig starts to mumble over his pad again. “‘Epiphyseal ends of all limb bones completely united.’ That takes place between twenty-two and twenty-five years. Which jibes with your minimum figure of twenty-five.”

“So you’re between twenty-five and forty-five, but leaning toward the upper limit?”

“Only because of the skull sutures and the amount of calcification at the epipyhses. There was also a great deal of ossification in the thyroid and cricoid cartilages, and osteoarthritic changes in the right hipbone—sacroiliac joint. Lipping changes in the cervical vertebrae. You don’t see that sort of thing until middle age. Poor bastard must have had some God-awful backaches. Also the entire thymus had turned to adipose tissue.”

“So the total picture sounds pretty much like”—Ross-man’s eyes narrow as he calculates aloud—“oh, I’d say—about age thirty-seven.”

“Right.” Konig nods. “And that’s just where I’m placing poor Rolfe. Thirty-seven years—maybe forty. Now what d’ya have for me on Ferde?”

Rossman moves quickly around his desk and back to the scanner. “Ferde’s mote interesting. Wait a sec while I stick up his pictures.”

In the next moment both men are back at the scanner, staring up at a row of seven X-ray negatives depicting skull, jaw, mandible, and dentition from various angles. “Now Ferde,” Rossman begins, “was left with twenty-five teeth. All seven of the missing teeth are postmortem extractions.”

“Postmortem.” Konig scribbles into his pad.

“There’s extensive abrasion due to bruxism. He was a tooth-grinder. Probably high-strung. Nervous type.”

“Fine.” Konig scribbles rapidly. “Keep going.”

“I found innumerable carious lesions. Ferde was undoubtedly a big candy eater. And absolutely no fillings at “None?” Konig glances up questioningly.

“None. Not a filling in his head.”

“Curious.”

“Not really. Not in lower-income classes. Fairly common. They’re generally big sugar eaters, and they don’t get their teeth cared for. Just chew with them till they fall out, then chew with their gums. But I did find something curious. Look over here on the lower left central incisor. See that milky white patch?”

“Where?” Konig squints upward at the scanner.

“Right there. Incisal third of the outer surface.”

“Oh, yes.” Konig nods. “Small stain in the center of it What is it?”

“Don’t know.” Rossman shakes his head. “Can’t figure out what the hell it is.”

“Nicotine?”

“Wouldn’t think so. Those are not smokers’ teeth. No signs of tar anywhere else.”

“Looks like a fairly young mouth,” says Konig.

“It is. All four of the wisdom teeth are unerupted. But the left upper is showing signs of impaction. See there? Just look at the jaws.”

Squinting up at the negatives, Konig can see clearly all four of the wisdom teeth still embedded in the jaws, completely unerupted. He knows quite well that wisdom teeth rarely appear before the seventeenth year, and that they are most commonly all erupted by the twenty-first to twenty-fourth years.

“And look at those roots, Paul,” Rossman chatters on eagerly. “Note how they don’t appear completely in the radiographs.”

“Meaning they’re not fully calcified?”

“That’s right. That suggests a person not fully mature.” Konig’s steely eyes quickly run down a list of notes on the condition of Ferde’s remains… “‘No sign of cloture in any of the skull sutures. All epiphyseal seals of limb bones united but some not completely fused.’” He looks up from his notes. “I’d say between eighteen and twenty-five, but based on the unerupted wisdom teeth, I’d say closer to eighteen. Ferde eighteen. Rolfe thirty-seven.” Konig scribbles into his pad then claps it shut. When he looks up again, Rossman is beaming down upon him with pleasure.

“Thank you, Barney. That was very helpful.”

“Always a pleasure, Paul. Oh—just one other thing. Just as a matter of passing interest, the job done on Ferde was not as clean as the one done on Rolfe.”

“Nor as thorough,” Konig agrees. “Only seven extractions as compared to the fourteen done on Rolfe.”

“Right.” Rossman nods. “It’s as if the maniac who did this—”

“—ran out of time,” Konig says, completing the thought for him. “The dismemberment obviously started with Rolfe, took more time than was anticipated. The cutting is much cleaner, the mutilation much more, extensive on the older cadaver. By the time our man got to Ferde he was getting sloppy. Either he was tired or he was running out of time. Yes’, Barney, I thought of that too.”

For a moment the two men gaze at each other. Suddenly Rossman’s phone rings. As he picks it up Konig waves at him and starts out “Yes, he’s here,” Rossman murmurs into the phone. “Just a moment, please. For you, Paul.”

Moving back across the room Konig feels an icy sense of mounting fright. Almost afraid to take the call, his hand trembles as he reaches for the receiver. But it’s only Carver. The moment he hears that warm, husky voice the fear melts. Once again he’s in command, brusque and as imperious as ever.

“Ratchett calling, Chief. You want me to switch it up there?”

“No”—Konig chews furiously on the end of a cold cigar—“I’ll take it in my office.”