'I knew it.'
'But there's some circumstantial evidence to support it.” “Oh, great, now I feel better.'
'For example, this would explain why Salish's dental chart is missing from the file. Harlow removed it, probably back in 1981, to use as Jasper's. And he didn't have to bother about replacing it with still another fake, because nobody was interested in Salish's teeth right up until yesterday.'
'Why wasn't anybody interested in Salish's teeth?” “Because the remains that they tentatively ID'd as Salish back then didn't have any teeth.'
John chewed for a while. “Okay,” he said slowly, “I see what you're saying. I think.'
'Look, there's a simple enough way to verify this. Just ask Dr. MacFadden to send Jasper's chart again. We'll see if it's the same one we have here—which it won't be—or if it matches what's in the skull in the evidence room —which it will.” He laughed. “I think.'
John grunted. “Okay, I will. We'll see what happens.'
'There's something else. When a dentist sends in records, some x-rays usually come with them. But there aren't any here. According to Les, that's because Jasper was afraid of them. So said Harlow.'
John glanced at him. “This is supposed to tell us something?'
It told them, Gideon explained, that Harlow had been lying. Gideon recounted how the hapless Casper Jasper had been knocked cold by an awning rod, and how his solicitous father had immediately hustled him off to the hospital to be x-rayed. Did it stand to reason that a man leery of fluoroscopic radiation would unhesitatingly put his son through it?
'Maybe not,” John admitted. “So why is that important?'
'John, if you photocopy x-rays onto ordinary paper, they're not much good because so much of the clarity is lost. So dentists use a special copying machine to reproduce them onto transparent film. Well, that's what MacFadden would have done—and that would have been hell for Harlow to fake. You're not talking about a simple cut-and-paste job to change the names anymore. And he would have had to get access to the right kind of machine himself. Not easy to do without anybody knowing.'
John nodded, finally beginning to come around. “Easier just to say there weren't any x-rays, and invent a reason for it.'
'That's right. I'm betting MacFadden actually did send a set and Harlow just tossed them. Any dental reports corning in would have gone straight to him, so who would know? And there wasn't a chance in a million MacFadden would ever find out about it. He'd just read in the newspapers like anybody else that Jasper was identified from his teeth, period. And maybe he'd get a nice, polite thank-you call from Harlow.'
'Yeah, but what about the rest of the file?” John said. “There's a report from a doctor, something from a physical therapist. How could he fake all that stuff and hope to get away with it? He'd be bound to slip up somewhere,'
'He didn't have to fake anything else. The rest of the file is really Jasper's, Look.'
He thumbed through the folder until he found the physician's report, a three-page form signed with a looping flourish by Willa Stover, M.D. —Post-traumatic osteoarthritis, right first and second metatarsophalangeal joints,” he read. “That's the big toe and the one next to it. And here: ‘Fractured left ulna, childhood fall.’”
John nodded slowly. “Just like on the skeleton Nellie dug up.'
'Sure, because the skeleton's really Jasper. But at the time, it was buried under the floor of the shack where nobody knew about it—and the remains Harlow said were Jasper's were nothing but those teeth and a few splinters of bone that were just about unreadable. Every damn joint in the body could have been arthritic, and nobody would have known the difference. So there wasn't any risk. All Harlow had to fake was the dental stuff. And that's what he did.'
'You think.'
'I think.'
They pulled off the highway and into the graveled parking area at the entrance to the lodge. Even in the shade of the ponderosas, getting out of the car was like stepping into a smelter. Gideon glanced at the rusting metal Dr. Pepper thermometer nailed to the bulletin board. Ninety-four, it said, and it felt as if the relative humidity was about the same.
'God, what weather.'
'Yeah,” John said absently, “great, isn't it?'
They began walking toward the main building. John had a ruminative look on his face. “Harlow,” he said, as if he were testing the name on his tongue. “Seems like such a meek, harmless little guy. Kind of hard to see him as a killer.'
Gideon nodded. “It's a surprise. I was starting to wonder if Julie might not be right, if you want to know. About Callie.'
'Let's concentrate on Harlow. Any idea why he'd want to do in Jasper?” He looked up at Gideon's laugh. “Did I say something funny?'
'John, let me quote Les Zenkovich on Albert Jasper: ‘To know him was to want to punch him out.’ That would have applied to Harlow as much as any of them.'
'Why? What'd they have against him?'
'Well, he wasn't the kindliest man in the world. From what I know about him, he was short-tempered, spiteful, contentious...inconsiderate...'
John waved an impatient hand. “Doc, you don't usually kill people because they're inconsiderate. Or even inconsiderate and contentious.'
'John, you asked me what they had against him, and I'm trying to tell you.'
