LITMIR.BIZ

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day,” she sympathized.

      “Yeah,” he said. “It goes with the territory. Cops just seem to fixate on death.”

      3

      The dental offices of Hennon and MacGrady were on Roxbury Drive, north of Wilshire, in Beverly Hills. Decker pulled his unmarked ’79 Plymouth into a loading zone—the only free space he could find—and placed his police identification card on the front dash. It was late in the afternoon, almost dusk, and he was tired from battling city traffic. If the meeting with the forensic odontologist wasn’t unduly long, he’d make it home before eight.

      He entered the waiting room, and immediately his nostrils were assaulted by pungent, antiseptic smells that plunged him into Pavlovian anxiety. The office decor did little to comfort him. The furniture was black and gray, the table, glass and chrome, and the eggshell walls were covered by monochrome graphic art—repetitive figure-ground designs, like a black-and-white TV test pattern. It made him dizzy and hostile.

      A hell of an unfriendly way to furnish a dental office.

      He walked up to a glass window and knocked on the frosted pane. The window slid open, and the receptionist, a blonde girl no more than eighteen, gave him a practiced smile.

      “Can I help you?” she beeped.

      “I have a five o’clock appointment with Dr. Hennon.”

      “Name?”

      “Decker,” he said.

      She scanned the appointment book.

      “Yes, you do,” she confirmed. “Is this your first time here, Mr. Decker?”

      “I’m not a patient.”

      The girl was thrown off balance.

      “Oh,” she said, then brightened. “You’re the salesman from Dent-O-Mart, right?”

      “No, I’m a police sergeant.”

      She frowned. “Is anything wrong?”

      “Why don’t you tell Dr. Hennon I’m here and you can call me when she’s ready to see me?”

      She was still puzzled.

      “She’s with a patient.”

      “Just poke your head in, huh?”

      The girl got up reluctantly and came back a moment later.

      “She’ll see you in a minute, Sergeant,” she announced, relieved.

      “Thank you.”

      She slid back the partition and it slammed shut. End of conversation.

      Decker sat down on an unyielding ebony cushion and squirmed uncomfortably. Sorting through the magazines on the table, he settled on Architectural Digest, skimming through pages of mansions he’d never be able to afford. He heard a door open, and glanced upward to see a woman at the reception desk. She had to be at least his age, he thought, maybe even a couple of years older, which would put her around forty-one or -two. Her face wasn’t anything to write home about, but her figure was tight—a good bust and a dynamite ass neatly packaged in designer jeans. She knocked loudly on the receptionist’s window, turned around, and flashed him a mouth full of ivories.

      “Nice smile,” Decker said, returning her grin.

      “It should be,” she said. “It cost me five g’s.”

      “Well, you got your money’s worth.” He realized he was coming on to her inadvertently and returned his eyes to the magazine. But he could feel the heat of her gaze.

      “What are you in here for?” she asked, pulling out a gold credit card.

      “Business,” he said.

      “Interested in a little pleasure?” she asked, lowering two inches of lash.

      “I’m married,” Decker lied.

      “So am I,” she responded. “I’m on number three and he’s unappreciative.” She puffed out her chest and gave him a full view. “He never notices my smile. And I do hate to drink alone.”

      “I’m happily married,” he said.

      “Yeah, aren’t all you guys with the roving eyes.” She signed the credit slip, threw the card into her purse, and snapped it shut. “Suit yourself,” she said, icily.

      The receptionist slid open the glass panel.

      “Dr. Hennon will see you now, Sergeant.”

      “Thanks,” he said.

      “Sergeant?” the toothy woman said. “You’re a military man?”

      “Cop.”

      “You don’t look like a cop.”

      “No?”

      “No. I would have said you were an architect or a producer.”

      Decker looked down at his outdated suit and white shirt. His striped tie was loosened and his shoes were scuffed. Nothing about his appearance suggested money or sophistication.

      “Then again,” the woman continued, “my second husband, Lionel, always said I was a good judge of lovers, but a lousy judge of character.”

      Decker agreed with Lionel on both counts.

      Dr. Hennon’s office was small but cheerful. Bright yellow walls full of posters with bold swatches of color. The room contained a cluttered desk, a corkboard full of notes and dental articles, and a Formica bridge table that held casts of teeth and jaws. Above the desk was a large, wall-mounted X-ray viewing box on which hung radiographs of teeth clipped to metal hangers.

      To the left of the viewing box was a waist-up frame photograph of a man and a woman at sunset. A striking shot streaked with brilliant oranges and lavenders, the sun highlighting, almost bleaching out, the woman’s face. She appeared to be in her thirties, with milky green eyes, and a head full of metallic auburn waves. Her features were sharp and her face was long, ending in a strong, dimpled chin.

      Decker took out a manila folder, opened it and began to scan for forensic reports on the two Jane Does. A moment later, the woman in the photo came in and offered him a delicate, manicured hand. He stood up and held out his own.

      “Annie Hennon,” she said shaking his big, freckled hand.

      “Pete Decker.”

      “Thanks for coming down to my office, Pete.”

      “No problem.”

      “I appreciate it. Most cops don’t know that forensic odontology isn’t a full-time job. I look at skulls maybe a dozen times a year—unless there’s a disaster. We haven’t had too many of those lately, thank God. If I have to take a day off from the office to meet you at the morgue, I lose a great deal of income.”

      “It’s a pleasure to be on the good side of town for a change,” he said. “That’s a nice picture of you.”

      “Better than the real thing, huh?”

      “I didn’t mean it that way.”

      She laughed. “I’m just terrible. Thanks. It is a nice picture. That’s my brother and me. Mom took the picture. Mom’s an okay photographer.”

      She pulled up a chair, and they both sat down.

      “Actually, my brother is the one who got me interested in forensic odontology,” she said. “Him and Heinz.”

      “Heinz?”

      “Heinz Buchholz. A little white-haired gnome of a man who made his mark in history by identifying Hitler’s jaw. When I went to dental school, he was sixty-five, maybe seventy, and he used to roam the labs asking us students if his denture set-up would pass the state licensing examination. Can you imagine that? An important

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