Chapter Nine
Less than fifty minutes later, Jamilla Hughes and I were inside the morgue at San Francisco's famed Hall of Justice. We had joined the chief medical examiner, Walter Lee, and the dental expert, Dr fang.
Dr Alien Pang took his time examining both bodies. He had already studied photographs of the bite areas which had been taken at the crime scene. He was a small man, completely bald, with very thick black-rimmed glasses. At one point during his examination, I noticed Inspector Hughes give a wink to the ME. I think they found Dr Pang just a little strange. So did I, but he was very thorough, and obviously serious about the job he had taken on.
'Okay, okay. I'm ready to talk about the nature of the bites now.' He finally turned to us and made his pronouncement. 'I understand you're making casts of the bite marks, Walter?'
'Yes, we lifted the marks with fingerprint powder. The casts should be ready in a day or two. We swabbed to gather saliva, of course.'
'Well, good. That's the right approach, I think. I'm ready to state my piece, my educated guess.'
"That's excellent. Alien,'Lee said in a soft, very dignified voice. He wore a white coat with the nickname Dragon stitched on one pocket. He was a tall man, probably six-two, and weighed at least two-fifty. He carried himself with confidence. 'Dr Pang is a friend I have used before,' Lee continued. 'He's a veterinary dental expert from the Animal Medical Center in Berkeley. Alien is one of the best in the world, and we're lucky to have him on this case.'
'Thank you for your time, Dr Pang,' Inspector Hughes said. 'This is terrific of you to help.'
'Thank you.' I joined in with the hallelujah chorus of praise.
'It's perfectly all right,'he said.'I'm not exactly sure where to start, other than to say that these two homicides are most interesting to me. The male was severely bitten, and I'm relatively sure the attacker was, well, it was a tiger. The bites on the female were inflicted by two humans. It's as if the humans and the large cat were running together. Like they were a pack. Extraordinary. And bizarre, to say the least.'
'A tiger?' Jamilla was the one to express the disbelief we were all feeling.'Are you sure? That doesn't seem possible, Dr Pang.'
'Allen,'Walter Lee said.'Explain, please.'
'Well, as you know, humans are heterodonts; that is, they have teeth of different sizes and shapes, which serve different functions. Most important would be our canines, which are situated between the lateral and the first premolar on each side of each jaw. The canines are used to tear food.'
Walter Lee nodded, and Dr Rang continued. He was speaking solely to the ME at this point. I caught Jamilla's eye, and she gave me a wink. I liked that she had a sense of humor.
Dr Pang now seemed in his own world. 'In contrast to humans, some animals are homodents. Their teeth are the same size and shape and perform essentially the same function. This is not true of large cats, however, especially tigers. The teeth of tigers have been adapted for their feeding habits. Each jaw contains six pointed cutting teeth; two very sharp, recurved canines; and molars that have evolved into cutting blades.'
'Is that important in terms of these murders?' Jamilla Hughes asked Dr Rang. I had a version of the same question.
The smallish man nodded enthusiastically. 'Oh, of course. Certainly. The jaw of a tiger is extremely strong, able to clamp down hard enough to crush bone. The jaw can only move up and down, not side to side. This means the tiger can only tear and crush food, not chew or gnaw.' He demonstrated with his own teeth and jaw.
I swallowed hard, and found my head shaking back and forth. A tiger was involved in these murders? How could that possibly be?
Dr Pang stopped talking. He reached up and scratched his bald pate rather vigorously. Then he said, 'What completely baffles me is that someone commanded the tiger away from its prey after it struck - and the tiger obeyed. If that didn't happen, the prey would have been eaten.'
'Absolutely amazing,' the medical examiner said, and gave Dr Pang a pat on the back. Then he looked at Jamilla and me. 'What's the saying -"catch a tiger, if you can"? A tiger shouldn't be all that hard to find in San Francisco.'