“I received Cynthia’s dental records from the state police, who’d collected them after she went missing twenty years ago. I’m glad they still had them, because the dentist whose name is on the films closed up his practice over a decade ago, and he was legally required to only keep records for seven years. They might have been tough to hunt down.”

She touched the top image. “This is from the state police and was taken seventeen months before Cynthia disappeared. It’s a copy of the dentist’s original panoramic image, which is why it seems dark. Copies are good, but not as clear as original films. Below is an X-ray I took today on the skull. We don’t have a panoramic X-ray machine here, so I took it at a friend’s dental practice. It was a bit awkward to shoot.”

Zander had experienced the dental X-ray machine that rotated around his head as he stood in a booth.

“I had to crouch while holding the skull above my head with one hand. I’m just glad they kept their patients from walking by at that moment.”

The mental image made him snort. He looked from one image to the other. “They look different, though. The top one is grainier and seems to . . . uh . . . smile a little more?”

“It’s the angle that makes it smile. I tried to match it the best I could, but it always takes trial and error. The graininess is because mine is digital. The top one is real film that they had to run through a developer. They’re always sharper.” Her fingertip stopped on the last tooth on one side of the lower jaw and then touched the same tooth on the opposite side. “Wisdom teeth. As you can see, they’re both angled differently than the rest of the teeth. They tip in quite a bit instead of being straight up and down.”

“Right.”

“And up here.” She touched the corresponding teeth in the top row. “These wisdom teeth are still high in her maxilla. You wouldn’t see them if you looked in her mouth.”

“But you’d see the bottom ones?”

“Partially. The partial exposure shows better on the next set of films. But my point is that the wisdom teeth are in identical positions in the old film and the one I took today.” She moved her phone closer and shifted between the films a few times.

“Okay.” He took her word for it. They were blobs to him.

“She’s nineteen, right? The length of the roots and the position of the wisdom teeth don’t contradict that age.”

She indicated the bottom film. “She has two white fillings. Here and here.”

He squinted. More shades of gray.

“I can’t make them out.”

She clicked something, and the panoramic images vanished, replaced by eight little rectangular films. The type taken frequently at the dentist.

“Four copied original films at the top, and the four I took at the bottom. Film images versus digital images again, so mine will be grainy.” She picked up a pencil and pointed at a tooth on a lower X-ray, outlining a small shape. “Can you see the filling here?”

He could. It was whiter than the rest of the tooth. Automatically he checked the coordinating film above it. The same exact shape appeared in that tooth.

“It’s the same as the film from the state police.”

“Yes. And here is the other one.” Her pencil tapped the odd shape of another, whiter filling.

He compared it to the film above it. “But it doesn’t match the original X-ray.”

“Correct.”

“Why not?”

“She had the filling placed after the dentist took the films.”

“But you can’t know for certain. Doesn’t this bring everything into doubt?”

“It doesn’t.” She touched the state police’s film with a pencil and moved her phone in close to the film. “You probably can’t see this, but she has a cavity in this tooth. The dentist would have filled the cavity after diagnosing it on the films he took.

“A virgin tooth can acquire a filling. But you can’t return a tooth to its virgin state or make a filling disappear—there will always be something in that tooth once it has been worked on. It can be a bigger filling or a crown, or the tooth might have been removed.

“There are many other things that match up in the films. Bone levels, root shapes, sinuses. But the fillings and wisdom teeth confirm it for me. Teeth shape and positions are unique. You won’t find the same dentition in two people.”

“What if they’ve had braces?”

“The tooth positions and angles will be different, but the fillings and tooth shapes will be the same.”

He mulled it over.

Lacey appeared on his screen again. “Trust me. I can’t explain everything I learned in four years of dental school and ten years of practice in this call.”

She was right.

“I believe you. The missing filling made me doubt for a moment.”

“Good. I’m glad we identified her. Her family has been waiting a long time.”

“Did Dr. Peres find a cause of death?”

Lacey looked grim. “No. That’s common when the remains are completely skeletal. I’m sure you’ll have a report from her tomorrow. I’ll email my findings later tonight.”

Zander thanked her again and ended the call.

Cynthia Green. Nineteen-year-old African American woman. Missing twenty years.

What happened to you?

Vanished two weeks before Emily’s father was hanged.

She’d disappeared from the coast and turned up miles away in the forest. How?

It bothered him. In his short time on the northern coast of Oregon, he’d learned there usually wasn’t a lot of violent crime. Two incidents so close together made his senses tingle.

Zander checked the time. It was late, but he suspected he could reach his contact at the prison.

He needed a favor.

29

Zander studied his computer monitor early the next morning, waiting for the start of the video interview with Chet Carlson, the convicted killer of Emily’s father, from the state prison.

Chet shuffled into the frame and sat down.

He looked like a murderer.

If Chet had been cast in a movie, the audience would know he was the killer the moment he appeared on-screen.

He was big, intimidatingly big, with hands that appeared to be twice the size of Zander’s. The shaved head and neatly trimmed goatee enhanced the stereotype.

Chet studied Zander on his screen as a guard chained his hands to the bar in the table. His weight was on his forearms as he leaned on the table, curiosity on his face.

According to Zander’s research, Chet Carlson had lived at a dozen addresses before he was arrested in Astoria for Lincoln Mills’s murder. He was a wanderer, never in one place for very long, with a lengthy record of arrests for vagrancy, theft, and DUI. He’d been using a suspended driver’s license when he was arrested.

Zander introduced himself. “I have some questions about Lincoln Mills.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“It was.”

“What is the point of revisiting it now?” Chet spread his hands as far as the chains would let him, the restraints clinking. “I’m here. Lincoln’s dead. End of story.”

Zander had expected a low, rough voice to emerge from the large man, but instead Chet spoke in mellow tones. Not feminine, but serene and calming, as if he were settling a wild animal. Or an overstimulated toddler.

“Everything I read says you claim you didn’t kill him.”

“That is correct.”

“But you pled guilty to murder.”

“Also correct.” Indifference came through Zander’s monitor.

Zander considered the man. “Explain.”

Chet shrugged and averted his gaze.

“Did you kill Lincoln Mills?”

Chet picked at a notch in the tabletop. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have proof I didn’t do it.”

“Lincoln’s bloody jacket was found in your motel room.”

Chet said nothing.

“You’d lived in a dozen different cities in five states over four years before landing in Astoria. Why were you in Astoria?”

“Why are you asking questions that you already know the answer to?”

“I want to hear you say it, so I can judge for myself.”

“A real judge already took care of that. Who are you to pass judgment on me again?”

“Touché,” said Zander. “Humor me. Do you have somewhere else you need to be? My contact told me you rarely get visitors.”

Chet’s chin lifted, his eyes flat. “I got nothin’ going on right now.”

“So . . . why Astoria?”

He tipped his head and worked his lips, appearing to weigh a decision. “The ocean.”

“What about the ocean?”

“I wanted to work on a fishing boat. I like the ocean. I’d already tried in a few towns south of there with no luck.” He attempted to cross his arms, his biceps flexing. The chain stopped him.

Zander could easily imagine him pulling ropes and throwing lines or doing whatever physical work was needed on a commercial fishing boat.

“It smells good.” The prisoner’s nostrils flared slightly.

“Fish don’t smell good.”

“No. But the ocean does. And I like being outdoors.”