Okay? Satisfied?'
With a gratifying
'Satisfied,” he said.
[Back to Table of Contents]
CHAPTER 15
* * * *
'Hello, welcome to McDonald's; may I take your order, please?'
John stuck his head out the car window to get closer to the microphone-speaker. “Hamburger, large fries, strawberry shake.” He turned back into the car. “Doc, you sure you don't want something?'
'No, thanks.” Gideon's stomach still wasn't quite settled, and the heat wasn't helping. But he was thirsty. “Well, maybe a shake. Chocolate.'
'And a chocolate shake,” John yelled into the mike.
'Yo,” the speaker said metallically, and then a moment later: “That'll be $3.54 at the first window, please.'
John drove twenty feet to the first window and paid.
'Thank you, drive to window number two and await your order,” he was told, this time by a living person.
John drove to window number two and awaited. “And so that's what the big secret is?” he said to Gideon. “They had a roast and Jasper took it the wrong way?'
'According to Les.'
'So what's the big deal?'
Gideon explained some of what Les had told him.
John shook his head. “Hell, I don't know what to make out of that. I asked Nellie about it twice and both times he told me he didn't know what Leland was talking about.” He turned away to collect their order. “I just wish the guy would level with me,” he muttered.
As John got the car moving north on Highway 20 toward Whitebark Lodge, Gideon continued going through Albert Jasper's old file, which John had copied at the Medical Examiner's office.
After three or four miles, John glanced over at him. “What do you think?” He was getting restive. The hamburger had been consumed in a few bites; the french fries were being plucked one at a time from the bag beside him on the seat.
'Tell you in a minute,” Gideon said.
Side by side on his lap he had set two forms, slightly different in their layouts, but each diagramming the same thing: a set of all thirty-two human teeth, “folded out” to show the five surfaces of each. One of the forms bore the logo, “Victor MacFadden, D.D.S., 333 Montezuma Avenue, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504.” Under it, alongside “Patient Name,” was “Jasper, Albert E.” The diagram had been crosshatched and shaded to show a variety of dental problems and treatments; to judge from them, Jasper had spent a lot of time in the dentist's chair, as Les had implied.
And crammed in between the lower-right canine and first bicuspid was an extra tooth that had no business being in anybody's mouth: Les's supernumerary.
The other form, plainer and more cheaply printed, had Harlow Pollard's finicky signature at the bottom, and a date of June 13, 1981. This was a standard odontological postmortem diagram, and it had apparently been filled out after the crash, directly from the remains. Naturally enough, only the part representing the eight teeth in the right half of the mandible had been marked up.
And those markings, as Les had told him more than once, perfectly matched those on Dr. MacFadden's chart: five fillings, all on the identical surfaces of the identical teeth, one gold inlay, one missing molar with its space closed...and one highly unusual supernumerary, between canine and bicuspid.
'I can tell you what Nellie said,” John volunteered. “What'd Nellie say?” Gideon murmured, studying the charts.
'He said you're nuts,” John informed him cheerfully. “He took one look at MacFadden's chart, that one you've got right there, let out a yelp, and said it proves once and for all that Jasper died on that bus.'
'Mm?” Gideon said without looking up. “And how does he account for the reconstruction looking so much like Jasper?'
'I can give you his exact words.” John took out the notepad he carried in his shirt pocket and glanced at it from the corner of his eye as he drove. “'Occultism...humbuggery...subliminal suggestion...hocus—’”
Gideon laughed and took his milkshake from the opened lid of the glove compartment. “Well, he's wrong, John. Sharp as he is, Nellie's got a blind spot when it comes to reconstructions. The fact is, Jasper never got on that bus. He was buried at Whitebark, and what's left of him is now sitting on a shelf in the sheriff's evidence room.'
'What about these charts?” John asked. “They match, don't they? And this one's from Jasper's dentist, right? How do
'Faked,” Gideon said. “Or rather, one of them is. The postmortem one that Harlow filled out after the crash is accurate, all right. It shows exactly what was in the burned mandible that came from the bus. But this one—” he held up the form with Dr. MacFadden's logo on it “—is a fake. It isn't really Jasper's chart, John.'
'Now wait a minute, Doc. You know I don't argue with you when it comes to bones and things—'
