Error message.
Philip said, “Looks like it’s broken. I’d better report it.”
Milo said, “Fast-forward to make sure it’s blank.”
Philip complied. Nothing on the rest of the tape.
“Give us a key to fourteen fifty-five.”
“I guess it’s okay.”
“Think of it this way,” said Milo. “If there is something dangerous in there, we’ll be the ones who get zapped, not you.”
“I need to stay up here, anyway,” said Philip, scrounging in a drawer. “This one should work. If it doesn’t, I don’t know.”
On the way to the bin, I said, “T. Sawyer.”
“Huck’s buddy. Har dee har har.”
The facility was laid out in a series of dim, narrow hallways that right-angled and continued, a broken snake of cement block tunnel. Door after plywood door, a variety of padlocks, some of them serious.
Company key-bolt on the hasp of 1455. Milo gloved up, unlocked, pulled the door open on fifty square feet of unlit vacancy.
Floors swept clean, not a speck of dust. The smell of bleach floated to the hallway.
He rubbed his eyes, ran his penlight over every surface. “Do I bother wasting the techie’s time?”
“Depends on how much butt-covering you need to do.”
“I’ll tell ’em to luminol, maybe we’ll get lucky.”
We returned to the front office. Philip was playing a game on the company computer, some floridly colored thing featuring ninjas and space aliens and sloe-eyed women whose chests defied gravity.
“Hi,” he said, continuing to work the mouse.
Milo said, “Are vacant units generally cleaned by the company?”
“Uh-huh.”
“With bleach?”
“It’s a special solution we get from the home office,” said Philip. “Kills anything. So the next person doesn’t have to worry.”
“How considerate,” said Milo.
“Yup.” Philip, encountering a lance-wielding demon materializing out of a massive, mauve cloudburst, squinted, hunched forward, and braced himself for battle.
Milo gunned the unmarked and played NASCAR on side streets all the way to the station. Itching to get back to see if a warrant on Travis Huck’s quarters at the Vander house was feasible.
The assistant D.A.’s he’d talked to so far weren’t encouraging, but he had a couple more to go. “John Nguyen’s sometimes helpful.”
“Lawyer-surfing,” I said.
“Talk about toxic waste.”
I left him to the legal system and drove home thinking about molars and incisors.
DeMaura Montouthe, the leading candidate for Jane Doe Three, was fifty-one, a fossil by street standards. The ten-year mug shot Moe Reed had unearthed showed a droopy-eyed, wrinkled, lantern-jawed visage crowned by a platinum bird’s nest. The life she’d led was a road map to mental and physical breakdown and she looked well into her sixties.
Yet she’d held on to her teeth.
Lucky genetics? Or was full dentition her last shred of vanity, the result of special care?
I looked up free facilities offering dental services in L.A. County, found eight, began calling, using my title.
Success at number four, a neighborhood walk-in clinic run by the dental school at the U.
Rose Avenue, south of Lincoln. Walking distance to Selena Bass’s garage digs.
Another brief car ride to the Bird Marsh.
I asked the receptionist when Ms. Montouthe had last visited. “Doctor” only went so far.
“She’s on our files, that’s all I can tell you.”
“Who’s her dentist?”
“Dr. Martin. She’s with a patient.”
“When will she be free?”
“She’s busy all afternoon-can I put you on hold?”
“No need.”
Western District Community Adjunct Dental Health Center was a converted storefront wedged between a designer ice cream parlor and a vintage-clothing shop. Pretty people flocked to both of the neighbors. A couple of homeless men hung out near the clinic’s wide-open door, smoking and laughing. One guy’s worldly belongings were piled on the sidewalk. The other held up a set of dentures and guffawed through a black maw. “They did me good, Mr. Lemon!”
Shopping Bag said, “Lemme try ’em!”
“Gimme a can of soup!”
“Yeah!”
The exchange was aborted when they saw me coming. Two cracked palms blocked my way as they panhandled me simultaneously.
“Breakfast money, Perfesser?”
“It’s afternoon, Mr. Lemon. Pancakes for the people!”
“Powder to the people!”
High-fives and raucous, phlegmy laughter.
I gave them each a five and they whooped, stepped aside. When they tried the same routine with a woman in dance tights leaving the ice cream joint clutching a double cone studded with candy bits, she said, “Fuck off.”
Inside the clinic’s aqua-blue waiting room a heavy woman with fearful eyes clutched a squalling baby and snuck glances at a sunken-faced codger slumped, half asleep. His clothes were filthy. He could’ve turned the scene outside into The Three Amigos. Sitting upright in a corner was a skinny-flabby Mohawked kid around twenty, with branded arms, a missing frontal incisor, and vengeful eyes.
The receptionist was cute and buxom and blond. Whatever her black tank top revealed was smooth and tan. She remembered my name and that killed her smile.
“Dr. Martin’s still busy, sir.”
“I’ll wait.”
“It could take a while.”
“When she takes a break, please let her know DeMaura Montouthe may be dead.”
“Dea-” Her hand jetted to her mouth. “What kind of doctor are you?”
I showed her my LAPD consultant badge.
Her lips worked. She looked ill. “Oh, my God. Hold on.” She hurried through a back door.
The kid with the Mohawk drawled, “Everyone gets dead.”
Faye M. Martin, D.D.S., was thirty or so and gorgeous, with ivory skin, a heart-shaped face framed by gleaming red-brown hair, liquid dark eyes, and a figure a white coat couldn’t camouflage.
Stunning resemblance to Robin-she could’ve been Robin’s younger sister-and, God help me, I felt a tug below my waist.
I worked at staying business-like as we shook hands. Her businesslike manner and my thinking about DeMaura Montouthe helped.
As she led me to an unused treatment room, she asked what a psychologist was doing working with the police. I gave her the short version and it seemed to satisfy her.
The room smelled of raw steak and mint. Gum care posters, and ominous photos of what happened when gum care was abandoned, papered the walls. Canisters of free toothbrushes and paste shared space with chrome-plated picks and curettes and bottles of cotton balls. Off to one side was a bright red patient chart.
Faye Martin perched on a rolling stool and placed her hand on the chart. Crossing her legs, she unbuttoned her coat, revealed a black blouse, black slacks, a gold chain bearing chunky, free-form amethysts. Her figure was fuller than first impression. She seemed unaware of her looks.
The only other seating was the dental chair, still in full recline. She said, “Oh, sorry,” got up and adjusted the tilt. I climbed on.
“As long as you’re here, open wide and let’s have a look at your bite-sorry, it’s terrible about DeMaura, I shouldn’t joke.”
I said, “There’s no better reason to joke.”
Faye Martin said, “Guess so… I’m assuming it was a violent death?”
“If the body we have is her, it was.”
“The body.” She sat back down. “Poor DeMaura. Do you have any idea who did it?”
“Not yet. Confirming identity would be a big help.” I described the dental irregularities Dr. Hargrove had listed.
“It’s her,” said Faye Martin. “Darn.”
“You don’t need to look at X-rays?”
“Before I swear to anything I’ll need to, but it’s her. That combination of anomalies is rare. DeMaura and I used to joke about it. Baby teeth. ‘Guess I never grew up, Doc.’ ”