“The missus bailed during his second stretch at Bordeaux.”
“Ouch.”
“I checked Kaplan’s prison sheet. The guy caused no problems, appeared sincere in his desire to improve himself, got cut loose at half time.”
“So he has a parole officer?”
“Michael Hinson.”
“When was he released?”
“Two thousand and one. According to Hinson, Kaplan’s been a legit businessman ever since.”
“What business?”
“Guppies and guinea pigs.”
I raised a quizzical brow.
“Centre d’animaux Kaplan.”
“He has a pet store?”
Ryan nodded. “Owns the building. Guppies down, Kaplan up.”
“Does he still meet with the PO?”
“Monthly. Been a model parolee.”
“Admirable.”
“Never missed a check-in until two weeks ago. He failed to call or show up on February fourteenth.”
“The Monday following the weekend Avram Ferris was shot.”
“Want to pet the Pomeranians?”
“Bergeron’s expecting me at one.”
Ryan looked at his watch.
“Meet you downstairs at two-thirty?”
“I’ll bring a Milk-Bone.”
Bergeron’s office is at Place Ville-Marie, a multitowered high-rise at the corner of Rene-Levesque and University. He shares it with a partner named Bougainvillier. I’d never met Bougainvillier, but I always pictured a flowering vine with glasses.
After driving to the centre-ville, I parked underground, and rode an elevator to the seventeenth floor.
Bergeron was with a patient, so I settled in the waiting room, box at my feet. A large woman sat opposite, thumbing a copy ofChatelaine. When I reached for a magazine, she looked up and smiled. She needed a dentist.
Five minutes after my arrival, theChatelaine woman was invited into the inner sanctum. I suspected she’d be there awhile.
Moments later a man exited the inner sanctum. His jacket was off and his tie was loose. He was moving fast.
Bergeron appeared and led me to his office. A high whining emanated from down the hall. I pictured theChatelaine woman. I pictured the plant inThe Little Shop of Horrors.
As I unpacked my box, I sketched some background for Bergeron. He listened, bony arms crossed on bony chest, white frizz luminous in the window light.
When I’d finished Bergeron took the skull and examined the upper teeth. He examined the jaw. He articulated the jaw and studied the molar occlusion.
Bergeron held out a hand. I placed the tiny brown envelope in it.
Clicking on a light box, Bergeron arranged the dental X-rays and leaned close. His hair haloed like a dandelion in the bright fluorescence.
Seconds passed. A full minute.
“Mon Dieu, no question.” A skeletal finger tapped the second and third right upper molars. “Look at these pulp chambers and canals. This man was at least fifty. Probably older.”
The finger moved to the row’s first molar.
“There’s much less dentin deposition here. This tooth is unquestionably from a younger person.”
“How much younger?”
Bergeron straightened, pooched air through his lips. “Thirty-five. Maybe forty. No more.”
Bergeron returned to the skull.
“Minimal cusp wear. Probably the lower end of that range.”
“Can you tell when the molar was reinserted?”
Bergeron looked at me as though I’d asked him to calculate quadratic equations in his head.
“A rough estimate?” I amended.
“The glue is yellowed and flaking.”
“Wait.” I raised a palm. “You’re saying the tooth’s glued in?”
“Yes.”
“So it wasn’t reinserted two thousand years back?”
“Definitely not. Maybe a few decades back.”
“In the sixties?”
“Very possible.”
Option B or C, insertion during Yadin’s excavation, or at the Musee de l’Homme. My gut was still going with the former.
“Would you mind extracting those three upper molars?”
“Not at all.”
Bergeron reboxed the skull and hurried from the office, his six-foot-three frame moving with all the grace of an ironing board.
I gathered the X-rays, wondering if I was making a big deal over nothing. The odd tooth came from a younger individual. Someone stuck the thing into the wrong jaw. Maybe a volunteer digger. Maybe Haas. Maybe an unskilled museum worker.
Down the hall, the whining continued.
There are myriad points at which errors of individuation can occur. Recovery. Transport. Sorting. Cleaning. Maybe the admixture took place in the cave. Maybe in Haas’s lab. Maybe later at the museum in Paris.
Bergeron returned and handed me the box and a ziplock bag.
“Anything else you can tell me?” I asked.
“Whoever replaced that molar was a dental jackass.”
Le centre d’animaux Kaplan was a two-story glass-fronted store in a row of two- and three-story glass-fronted stores on rue Jean-Talon. Signs in the window offered Nutrience dog and cat foods, tropical fish, and a special on parakeets, cage included.
Two doors opened directly off the sidewalk, one wood, one glass. Chimes jangled as Ryan pushed through the latter.
The shop was crammed with odors and sounds. Tanks bubbled along one wall, birdcages lined another, their occupants ranging from the drab to the flamboyant. Beyond the fish I could see other representatives of the Linnaean hierarchy. Frogs. A coiled snake. A small furry thing curled into a ball.
Up front were rabbits, kittens, a lizard with a wattle to rival my great aunt Minnie’s. Puppies dozed in cages. One stood, tail wagging, front paws pressed to the wire mesh. One gnawed a red rubber duck.
Parallel shelves shot the center of the store. A kid of about seventeen was sliding collars onto hangers halfway down the side opposite the birds.
Hearing chimes, the kid turned, but didn’t speak.
“Bonjour,”Ryan said.
“Yo,” the kid said.
“Some help, please.”
Dropping his carton, the kid slouched toward us.
Ryan badged him.
“Cops?”
Ryan nodded.
“Cool.”
