“Interesting,” he mused. “You can tell all that just from the teeth?”
“You can tell a lot more than that just from the teeth,” I said. “You can also tell that she had good dental care as a kid, because the one filling she had was in a second molar—a ‘twelve-year molar.’ But then something happened, her life changed for the worse. She had a big unfilled cavity in one of her third molars—her wisdom teeth—which means that she wasn’t going to the dentist anymore. Maybe she’d run away from home; maybe she was on her own and not making enough money to afford dental care. I’ve seen this a lot over the years, and often far worse, in murdered prostitutes—they leave home, lose touch with their families, fall on hard times, can’t afford a dentist. So their teeth start to go. Which makes them less attractive, and makes it even harder for them to earn money. Vicious downward spiral.”
Angie picked at the chicken salad with her fork. “So this dead woman in South Dakota—she was a hooker?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “Unfortunately, she was never identified. Maybe a hooker, maybe a hitchhiker; maybe both. The body was dumped in a draw near Interstate 90, not far from an exit. I’m guessing a trucker picked her up, had sex with her, then killed her and dumped her body hundreds of miles from where she’d gotten into the truck.”
“And how do you know she was killed?”
“Because her hyoid bone—the U-shaped bone in the throat—had been crushed. Means she was strangled.”
Vickery nodded. “I’ll buy it,” he said. “It all fits together. Too bad. Young women without money are very vulnerable. Not many options, and plenty of people ready to prey on them.” He inspected his cigar again, frowned at it, and laid it on his plate, alongside his knife and fork and one uneaten bite of mashed potatoes. “So that was the case that got you going on modern forensics?”
“I guess it was,” I said. “After that, word got around South Dakota that I was willing to look at modern bones and bodies. At the end of the summer, when I went back to the University of Kansas, a KBI agent called me up. Turned out that he was the brother of a South Dakota sheriff I’d helped. Pretty soon I was looking at bones from all over Kansas. And by the time I moved to Tennessee, the TBI and the Tennessee state medical examiner knew about me, and asked me to consult on cases.” I sopped up the last of my coleslaw sauce with the last bit of hush puppy. “So. Like I said, one thing led to another. South Dakota led me to north Florida. And raw oysters. And fried cat.”
I left the Waffle Iron full and happy. The diner’s food was good, and I’d enjoyed reminiscing about my summer excavations in South Dakota. We’d parked the Suburban in the back corner of the parking lot, which had largely emptied out by now. As we neared the vehicle, I noticed a folded paper underneath the left windshield wiper—a sale circular or political flyer, I figured. “Uh-oh,” I joked over my shoulder to Angie and Vickery. “Looks like we’ve gotten a parking ticket. These Sinking Springs folks sure keep an eye out for foreigners.” I plucked the paper from beneath the wiper blade and unfolded it. It was not a circular or flyer; it was a hand-lettered note on plain white paper. It read, “Find the Bone Yard.”
I stared at the note; it was the second time I’d read the words bone yard today, but this note, I felt certain, had been written half a century after the diary entry. I shifted my fingers to a corner of the paper and showed the message to Angie and Vickery. Angie whistled softly. “I guess I shouldn’t have handled this,” I said. “Sorry. I might have just contaminated some evidence.”
Vickery shrugged, then took out a clean handkerchief and carefully wrapped the note in it, then handed it to Angie. “Hell, everything’s evidence of something, Doc,” he said. “This whole world’s one big crime scene. The trick’s figuring out what to send to the lab. And where to stop stringing the tape.”
As Angie and I followed Vickery’s taillights back to Tallahassee, I phoned my son, who was at Myrtle Beach with his wife and two boys. “Hi, Dad,” said Jeff when he answered. “How are you? What’s up?”
“I’m fine. Still in Florida. I just wanted to talk to Walker and Tyler.”
“So, what am I, chopped liver?”
“No, of course not.” I laughed. “I just wanted to talk to the boys. Just wanted to tell them . . .” Tell them what? Tell them how lucky they were? Tell them not to become orphans, not to be abused, not to get sent to reform school, not to get murdered and dumped somewhere in the woods?
Yes. Those things, and more.
Jeff put the speakerphone on and handed the phone to the boys.
“Grandpa Bill,” said Walker. “I caught a fish today.”
“I went body surfing,” Tyler shouted.
“Wonderful, boys,” I said. But what I meant was “what wonderful boys.”