Milo gunned the unmarked and played NASCAR on side streets all the way to the station. Itching to get back to see if a warrant on Travis Huck’s quarters at the Vander house was feasible.
The assistant D.A.’s he’d talked to so far weren’t encouraging, but he had a couple more to go. “John Nguyen’s sometimes helpful.”
“Lawyer-surfing,” I said.
“Talk about toxic waste.”
I left him to the legal system and drove home thinking about molars and incisors.
DeMaura Montouthe, the leading candidate for Jane Doe Three, was fifty-one, a fossil by street standards. The ten-year mug shot Moe Reed had unearthed showed a droopy-eyed, wrinkled, lantern-jawed visage crowned by a platinum bird’s nest. The life she’d led was a road map to mental and physical breakdown and she looked well into her sixties.
Yet she’d held on to her teeth.
Lucky genetics? Or was full dentition her last shred of vanity, the result of special care?
I looked up free facilities offering dental services in L.A. County, found eight, began calling, using my title.
Success at number four, a neighborhood walk-in clinic run by the dental school at the U.
Rose Avenue, south of Lincoln. Walking distance to Selena Bass’s garage digs.
Another brief car ride to the Bird Marsh.
I asked the receptionist when Ms. Montouthe had last visited. “Doctor” only went so far.
“She’s on our files, that’s all I can tell you.”
“Who’s her dentist?”
“Dr. Martin. She’s with a patient.”
“When will she be free?”
“She’s busy all afternoon-can I put you on hold?”
“No need.”
Western District Community Adjunct Dental Health Center was a converted storefront wedged between a designer ice cream parlor and a vintage-clothing shop. Pretty people flocked to both of the neighbors. A couple of homeless men hung out near the clinic’s wide-open door, smoking and laughing. One guy’s worldly belongings were piled on the sidewalk. The other held up a set of dentures and guffawed through a black maw. “They did me good, Mr. Lemon!”
Shopping Bag said, “Lemme try ’em!”
“Gimme a can of soup!”
“Yeah!”
The exchange was aborted when they saw me coming. Two cracked palms blocked my way as they panhandled me simultaneously.
“Breakfast money, Perfesser?”
“It’s afternoon, Mr. Lemon. Pancakes for the
“Powder to the people!”
High-fives and raucous, phlegmy laughter.
I gave them each a five and they whooped, stepped aside. When they tried the same routine with a woman in dance tights leaving the ice cream joint clutching a double cone studded with candy bits, she said, “Fuck off.”
Inside the clinic’s aqua-blue waiting room a heavy woman with fearful eyes clutched a squalling baby and snuck glances at a sunken-faced codger slumped, half asleep. His clothes were filthy. He could’ve turned the scene outside into The Three Amigos. Sitting upright in a corner was a skinny-flabby Mohawked kid around twenty, with branded arms, a missing frontal incisor, and vengeful eyes.
The receptionist was cute and buxom and blond. Whatever her black tank top revealed was smooth and tan. She remembered my name and that killed her smile.
“Dr. Martin’s still busy, sir.”
“I’ll wait.”
“It could take a while.”
“When she takes a break, please let her know DeMaura Montouthe may be dead.”
“Dea-” Her hand jetted to her mouth. “What kind of doctor are you?”
I showed her my LAPD consultant badge.
Her lips worked. She looked ill. “Oh, my God. Hold on.” She hurried through a back door.
The kid with the Mohawk drawled, “Everyone gets dead.”
Faye M. Martin, D.D.S., was thirty or so and gorgeous, with ivory skin, a heart-shaped face framed by gleaming red-brown hair, liquid dark eyes, and a figure a white coat couldn’t camouflage.
Stunning resemblance to Robin-she could’ve been Robin’s younger sister-and, God help me, I felt a tug below my waist.
I worked at staying business-like as we shook hands. Her businesslike manner and my thinking about DeMaura Montouthe helped.
As she led me to an unused treatment room, she asked what a psychologist was doing working with the police. I gave her the short version and it seemed to satisfy her.
The room smelled of raw steak and mint. Gum care posters, and ominous photos of what happened when gum care was abandoned, papered the walls. Canisters of free toothbrushes and paste shared space with chrome-plated picks and curettes and bottles of cotton balls. Off to one side was a bright red patient chart.
Faye Martin perched on a rolling stool and placed her hand on the chart. Crossing her legs, she unbuttoned her coat, revealed a black blouse, black slacks, a gold chain bearing chunky, free-form amethysts. Her figure was fuller than first impression. She seemed unaware of her looks.
The only other seating was the dental chair, still in full recline. She said, “Oh, sorry,” got up and adjusted the tilt. I climbed on.
“As long as you’re here, open wide and let’s have a look at your bite-sorry, it’s terrible about DeMaura, I shouldn’t joke.”
I said, “There’s no better reason to joke.”
Faye Martin said, “Guess so… I’m assuming it was a violent death?”
“If the body we have is her, it was.”
“The body.” She sat back down. “Poor DeMaura. Do you have any idea who did it?”
“Not yet. Confirming identity would be a big help.” I described the dental irregularities Dr. Hargrove had listed.
“It’s her,” said Faye Martin. “Darn.”
“You don’t need to look at X-rays?”
“Before I swear to anything I’ll need to, but it’s her. That combination of anomalies is rare. DeMaura and I used to joke about it. Baby teeth. ‘Guess I never grew up, Doc.’ ”
She picked up the chart, read for a few seconds, put it down. “She had a nice laugh. The rest of her was so… what you’d expect from her lifestyle. But her teeth could’ve belonged to a healthy woman.”
An unpolished fingernail plinked a button of her white coat. “She was a nice person, Dr. Delaware. Almost always cheerful. Considering her situation, I found that pretty remarkable.”
“Sounds like you knew her pretty well.”
“As well as you can know anyone in this setting,” she said. “Except for kids, we mostly treat a transient population. But DeMaura was pretty regular about her appointments.”
She checked the chart again. “She’s been coming in for three years. For the first six months she saw Dr. Chan. He retired and I picked her up.”
“The patients get regular dentists?”
“When the workload permits, we try to make it as much like a private practice as possible. For DeMaura that was easy because all she needed were cleanings-oh, yes, and one replaced amalgam right at the beginning.”
“Why would she need to be a regular just for cleanings?”
