Free Lake of Tears by Mary Logue

clean. Or maybe Pinkers had cleaned them. “I’m amazed how good they look. Doesn’t seem like the fire hurt them at all.”
    “Oh yeah, teeth last through almost anything. They’re the hardest part of the human body, the last thing to go. That little fire didn’t come close to destroying them. They can last in blast furnaces up to two thousand degrees Fahrenheit.”
    He walked up to the x-ray, took off his glasses and stood inches away from it, staring with the intensity of a creature ready to pounce. “These are going to serve the purpose.” He pointed at the x-ray with his glasses. “These are decent x-rays, which will make my work easy.”
    “Can you always get a positive ID?”
    “Not always. If we have a strong suspicion, if the teeth have been damaged in some way and we’re not sure, we can extract DNA from the pulp and make a positive ID using that method.”
    Pinkers went back to staring at the x-ray. Claire stared with him. She could see the eye sockets floating like ghoulish orbs above the flattened jawbone—the teeth were lined up like a rock wall with the roots stretching out above and below them. The whitest objects on the screen were the bright almost-twinkle of the fillings. She counted eight white splots, mainly in the back teeth.
    “What exactly are you looking for?” she asked. “What do you concentrate on to do the match?”
    “I study the arrangement of the teeth, the fillings, and other dental work. I count the teeth to see if any are missing. I look for any anomalies—broken teeth, noticeable crookedness. Every mouth is different. Even the bite marks are recognizably different.”
    “I know about that. I’ve worked on cases where we’ve had to take an imprint of a bite mark from an assailant.”
    “Yes, that can work.”
    “What do you think?”
    Dr. Pinkers circled the x-ray with his finger. “Looks like she had braces. Her teeth are pretty regular and evenly laid out. But she has a lot of fillings. Must have eaten candy when she was a kid.”
    “Who didn’t.”
    “I don’t really care for candy myself.”
    Somehow she was not surprised. Claire stepped back and watched him. He continued to look at the x-ray from very close range, his eyes traveling up and down the film, his mouth moving with no sound coming out as if he was holding a private conversation with himself. He snuffled through his nose; he nodded his head; he turned and put his glasses back on.
    “I would say that the teeth that we have found definitely match the teeth in this x-ray. What did you say her name was?”
    “Tammy Lee Johansen.”
    “And her family filed a missing persons?”
    “Her fiancé.”
    “Sad. She will not be getting married. But at least they can bury her, knowing what has happened.”
    “Not everything. Not who did this.”
    Doctor Pinkers stared at Claire in the same way that he had been looking at the x-ray, close and concentrated. “My work is done. That is your job.”

    The Johansens lived just on the outskirts of the small town of Arkansaw, only about a ten minute drive from Durand. Pretty country, rolling hills, with a creek running right through town.
    By the time Claire got to their house, the sun was setting and she could see the ghostly light of a TV flickering in what she guessed was the living room. Claire knocked on the front door, staring right at an orange pumpkin head that had been hung at eye level. Yes, Halloween was on its way.
    A woman with straw blond hair and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth came to the door. She looked to be in her forties and dressed like she was in her twenties: tight jeans, tight top with writing on it, and her hair pulled close to her head.
    She took the cigarette out of her mouth and said, “Yeah,” then did a double take when she took in the uniform. The woman sucked in her breath. “Tammy Lee?” she asked.
    “Mrs. Johansen?” Claire asked.
    The woman nodded, but didn’t step back inside the house. Then she said, “Bobby, you