Jan Burke - Goodnight, Irene

Frank stopped talking, and seemed to be watching something in his rearview mirror for a moment. I turned around and looked behind us. A dark car changed lanes, and began to pass us on the left.

“Don’t do that,” Frank said. “It’s not the Lincoln.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t turn around and stare at somebody if you think I’m looking at them in the rearview mirror. If they’re following us, I’d like to know for sure before you spook them off.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m pretty sure they’re just in a hurry to get past us.”

This seemed to be the case, as the car continued to weave in and out of traffic, moving on ahead of us.

“So what happened with Hernandez?”

“He got curious and put one of the assistants on the task of finding the evidence file. I guess the assistant wasn’t too happy with the job, since it was down in the morgue’s basement somewhere.

“Hernandez starts reading through the remarks about Hannah’s teeth. The autopsy report says that although her front teeth were broken, they found all the fragments and were able to reconstruct the jaw. No sign of decay, or of any dentistry work. Now, in 1955, Hernandez thinks, this isn’t too common, but it’s not unheard of.

“So he reads on. There were some tobacco stains, according to Woolsey. Hernandez looks back through the rest of the autopsy report and notices that there was no sign of nicotine in her blood work and that her lungs were clear and undiseased. He sets it aside and goes to work on something a little more recent.”

“And that’s it?”

“No, there’s more. Over an hour goes by, and the assistant comes back, mad as hell because he’s had to really dig around to find this evidence file. He’s carrying a box labeled ‘Jane Doe 6-17- 55’ with the matching evidence number on it. Hernandez opens the box, and guess what he finds?”

“Her teeth?”

“Her skull.”

“Good Lord,” I said. The thought of Hannah buried without her skull disturbed me. I didn’t know why it should; it all happened so long ago, and she was dead. But it just seemed you ought to have your head with you when you’re in your grave. Of course, you ought to have your feet and hands, too.

Frank negotiated an exit onto the Harbor Freeway. We headed south, toward San Pedro. The campus was down near the L.A. Harbor. I figured he had picked out a place near the harbor for lunch.

“So what else was in the box?” I asked, getting impatient for him to pick up the story again.

“What? Oh, sorry. No, nothing else in the box. But there’s more to the story. Hernandez is convinced that the teeth are not tobacco stained, but that the stain is something different. He said he’s pretty sure it’s a condition called fluorosis. It’s usually caused by drinking water that has too much fluoride in it, especially before the age of ten, when teeth are coming in.”

“I thought fluoride was good for teeth.”

“It is, at the right level. Too little, and you’re more prone to cavities. Too much, and your teeth can be mottled or stained. He told me that in some parts of the country fluoride occurs naturally in relatively high levels, and people from around these areas will get this staining on their teeth.”

“How does a coroner know so much about tooth stains?”

“Colorado is one of the places that has pockets of high-fluoride water supplies, and Hernandez had seen this staining on the teeth of some of the older people who were brought into the morgue there.”

I caught myself running my tongue over the surfaces of my teeth.

“He called O’Connor the next day,” Frank went on, “and told him to get in touch with this Dr. MacPherson, who’s an expert on forensic dentistry. He lectures all over the country. Hernandez sent the skull to MacPherson for some kind of special analysis on the teeth. He said they could tell more if they had the rest of her bones, but he had thought it could give them a start. They could always do an exhumation later.”

WE GOT OFF THE FREEWAY and went down Gaffey. We wound our way around to the cliffs of Palos Verdes. The scenery was soon distracting me from my morbid thoughts of Hannah. He turned down a small road and pulled off to the side. We were high above the ocean, the harbor off to our left.

Frank turned and said, “This is it.”

I knew there weren’t any restaurants or other buildings out on these cliffs. Watching my face, he laughed, and got out of the car. He went around to the trunk and opened it. I got out and walked back to see him taking out a blanket and a large white paper sack. “Ever eat at the Galley?” he asked. “It’s a great deli down on Hermosa Avenue. I picked up a couple of ham on ryes. That okay?”

“Fine,” I said, still caught off guard. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“All pleasant ones. Just thought you might need a little change of scenery.”

WE WALKED ABOUT HALFWAY out to the edge of one of the zigzagging cliffs and spread the blanket. Good thing I wear sensible shoes. He gave me a sandwich and then handed me a small carton of milk. “Hope it didn’t get too warm,” he said.

The milk was very warm. “Perfect,” I said. After all, who cared?

The Pacific spread out below us, whitecaps tossing in the wind. Sailboats glided effortlessly behind and beyond the breakwater, while huge ships made their way more cautiously. Who cared about anything but feeling the sun and the wind?

We sat there and ate a leisurely lunch. We didn’t say a word to one another, but enjoyed one of those rare companionships that are comfortable in silence.

WE ARRIVED AT THE CAMPUS at a little before one, and wound our way to the visitors’ parking lot. A student at the parking kiosk pointed us in the right direction, and we walked across a common to a tall brick building. As we walked, I was struck by how young the students looked to me. I stopped to calculate the number of years it had been since I got my bachelor’s, and realized why. To these people, the Beatles were what the Andrews Sisters had been to me-something your parents had danced to.

We found MacPherson’s office, but he wasn’t in. It was on the second floor of a building filled with labs and lecture rooms, with an occasional faculty office here or there. Between the rooms, the hallways were lined with lighted display cases. They were the old wooden-style cases, and they were all full of human jawbones and skulls. We started browsing among the displays while we waited.

There were little tags next to each set of bones and teeth, telling about conditions that could be found in them, as well as the gender and approximate age of the former owners. There were also some historical collections of dentures and an array of rather intimidating antique dental instruments. It made me glad I was born after Novocain was invented.

A tall, gray-haired gentleman in a tan corduroy sports jacket came walking past us, and put a key in the office door. He looked up at us as he let himself in.

“Miss Kelly?”

“Dr. MacPherson?”

We both nodded yes, and shook hands. He had a nice firm grip. I introduced him to Frank, and we went into the small cubicle of an office. He sat at his desk, the windows backlighting his hair, which was done up exactly like Albert Einstein’s. He looked like God had sent him.

“So, if you will excuse an old man for being particular, could I please see some identification, Detective Harriman?”

Frank obliged. Dr. MacPherson didn’t just glance at it; he could have written a dissertation on the subject if he had studied it much longer. He handed it back, saying, “Well, everything seems to be in order.”

“Dr. MacPherson,” Frank began, “I spoke with Dr. Carlos Hernandez of the Las Piernas Coroner’s Office earlier today.”