Barely breathing, I took the molar to the stereomicroscope and cranked up the power.
Yes! A wear facet.
After sealing the molar in a vial, I scrolled to a number on my mobile and dialed.
“Department of Anthropology.”
“Miller Barnes, please.”
A voice answered, broad and flat as a Kansas prairie.
I said hi. Miller said hi. We both agreed it had been a long time. Miller asked about Katy. I asked about his wife. Finally, I was able to make my request.
“Is there a scanning electron microscope on the McGill campus?”
“Engineering has one. What do you need?”
I explained.
“When do you need it?”
“Yesterday.”
Miller laughed. “I play racquetball with one of the guys over there. Always get my ass whupped. Should work for us.”
I paced, gnawed.
Joe cast curious glances my way. I ignored him. I’d buy cookies.
An eon later the phone rang.
“Ever watch
“Back in the Pleistocene.” Quiz shows?
“Come on down.” He mimicked the coveted invitation.
Locking Briel’s ziplock in my desk and Bergeron’s tub in its cabinet, I pocketed the vial containing Duclos’s “itsy bitsy spider” tooth, an upper-right M1, and the one containing the teeth from the Lac Saint-Jean child. Then I grabbed my jacket and purse and flew out the door.
McGill University lies in the heart of
After three loops up University and through a neighborhood dubbed the McGill ghetto, I spotted a possibility. Playing bumper cars for a good five minutes, I managed to wedge the Mazda into a gap probably vacated by a scooter.
I got out. The vehicles fore and aft had at least a foot each.
Attagirl!
The sky was tin, the temperature up a notch. Moist air pressed down on the city like a heavy wet quilt.
As I entered campus through the east gate, fat flakes began lazing down. Most melted on contact with the pavement. Others lingered, minimally enthused by thoughts of collective action.
Around the main quad, gaunt stone buildings climbed from Sherbrooke to Docteur Penfield, gray and solid as Mont Royal at their backs. Students scurried the pathways, shoulders rounded, heads and backpacks coated with wet snow doilies.
Above me, the spiffy new Wong Building looked square and stark, a poster child for modern efficiency. Its neighbor, Strathcona, was a sterner vision from a different time. Constructed in the late nineteenth century, Strathcona’s architect had not striven to showcase his feminine side.
I trudged uphill and pushed through the door of Wong. Miller was waiting inside. I got a bear hug.
“My contact is in Materials and Mining.”
“Lead on.”
He did. To an office with the name
The man behind the desk wore clothes that looked older than he. Plaid shirt, faded jeans, ratty wool sweater. I put their owner at maybe thirty-five.
Miller made introductions. Hanaoka was short and pudgy, with a very round face and very black hair.
“Please. Make yourselves comfortable.” More an exaggerated correctness than an accent.
We all sat, Miller and I facing the desk, Hanaoka behind it.
“My friend tells me we can be of help to your lab.” Hanaoka’s face went even rounder when he smiled.
I considered, decided against righting the record on exactly who was asking the favor. If my suspicions were upheld, the lab would benefit.
“While consulting to the United States central identification laboratory in Hawaii awhile back, I learned of research involving wear facets on isolated teeth. The study used scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.”
“That is the facility that identifies your lost soldiers from southeast Asia, yes?” Miller asked.
“Yes. And Korea and World War Two,” I said.
“A difficult task.”
“Very. Remains are often fragmentary. Sometimes a few teeth are all that return, and dental records become very important. Occasionally an antemortem file documents a restoration in an
“That’s where these facets come in,” Miller guessed.
“Yes. Wear facets are tiny abrasive patches that form between teeth. To the naked eye they appear to have little relief. When viewed microscopically, they’re actually all corners and angles.”
“Making them great repositories of particulate debris.”
“Exactly.” This guy was smart. “The CILHI researchers used SEM to visualize the facets and EDS to determine the elemental composition of restorative residue trapped inside them.”
“Good.” Hanaoka did a continuous, bobble-head nod. “Very good.”
I unpocketed the Lac Saint-Jean vial and set it on his desk. Then, avoiding specifics, I shared my idea.
“Teeth A are associated with a recently recovered juvenile skeleton. The two baby molars exhibit features inconsistent with the rest of the remains. One is an upper-right second, the other a lower-right second.”
“You refer to the brown, smaller ones?” Hanaoka was holding the vial inches from his face.
“Yes.”
“One has a filling?”
“The upper.”
I produced the vial with the “itsy bitsy spider” tooth from Bergeron’s tub.
“Tooth B was obtained from another context. It is also a baby molar, an upper- right first. It has a wear facet on its distal side. It has no restoration.”
Hanaoka got it right away. “You want to see if upper-first baby molar B, which has a wear facet, once sat beside upper-second baby molar A, which has a filling.”
“Bingo.”
“Why are child A’s baby teeth brown?”
I explained the link to tetracycline, and the timing of crown formation.
