victim's arm. 'I would just prefer you didn't smoke,' she replied evenly.
He flashed another smile, made a show of taking the cigarette out of his mouth and putting it back in the pack – just for her. 'So, what'd you find? Anything interesting?'
Sara picked up the camera to document the wound. 'Not yet.'
'You're a pediatrician, right?'
'That's right.' She felt the need to add, 'I'm also a medical examiner.'
'Didn't think people could afford to be doctors anymore.' Bart gave a dry laugh, and Sara didn't know if she was just being sensitive or if the man knew about the malpractice suit. He would've had to do some digging to find that out; she was probably just being paranoid. After what she'd been through over the last few days, Sara figured she had an excuse.
Bart walked around the body, stopped at the tattoo. 'Figures,' he said. 'I got one of these bastards here last month. Took out a telephone pole out on Highway 16. Sideswiped a family in a minivan while he was at it.' He glanced up quickly. 'Family made it. Just bumps and bruises.'
Sara realized she might be able to get some information from him if she tread carefully. 'Are skinheads a problem around here?'
Bart shrugged. 'Meth's the big problem, and skinheads come with it. Good luck for me, though.' Sara must have looked confused, because he clarified, 'I'm a dentist. I thought for sure Jake would've told you that.' He crossed his arms, the shoulders of his cheap suit riding up to his ears. 'Ten years ago, I'd be lucky if I got one root canal a month. Now, I do two, maybe three, a week. Get them from all over the county, sometimes into the next. Crowns, bridges, veneers. It's boom-time.'
Sara had seen what meth could do to a person's mouth. Most heavy users lost their teeth within the first year.
'Big business,' Bart said. 'But I'd trade it all in if I never had to see another kid hooked on that shit.' His face reddened. 'Sorry for my language, ma'am.'
Sara didn't know if it was his apology or his obvious concern, but she felt herself not hating him so much.
Bart said, 'Let me help you turn the body.'
Sara was still reluctant to accept his offer, but she had to admit she wasn't relishing maneuvering Gibson over on the table. She took a few more photographs, then waited for Bart to glove up again. He took the head and shoulders and Sara took the feet. It gave her some amount of pleasure to watch the dentist struggle under the weight as they rolled Gibson onto his back. It also gave her pause, because if the two of them were having trouble just flipping the body on the table, it must have taken some pretty strong men to toss him through a window.
She said, 'Big guy, huh?'
Bart shrugged his shoulders, but she could see a bead of sweat roll down his cheek. 'I've seen worse.'
'I can imagine.'
She saw his eyes flash as he registered the comment, probably wondering if she was being condescending. Sara kept him wondering, all but batting her eyelashes when she said, 'Thanks so much for lending me some of your muscle.'
Instinctively, he reached for his cigarettes, then stopped himself. 'I see you figured out Bertha.' He pointed to the X-rays. 'I keep asking the county to replace that thing and they keep telling me no.'
'It serves its purpose,' Sara allowed. If you watched enough television, you would assume that all police departments were at the cutting edge of forensic technology. In reality, no lab in the country could afford the billions of dollars of equipment you saw being used on an average Thursday night drama. What little equipment the state had was in high demand, and sometimes it took up to a year to get an analysis back.
Bart was still studying Boyd Gibson's X-rays. He gave a low whistle. 'Not much of a childhood.' He traced a faint line along the clavicle. 'Nasty break.'
'Did you know him?'
Bart turned around, and for the first time since he'd come into the room, he seemed to be really looking at her. 'Yeah,' he said, his tone filled with sadness. 'His mama used to bring him in. She was always torn up.' He indicated his face, and Sara realized he was indicating abuse. 'Never saw it in Boyd or his brother – he's got an older brother -but I called the sheriff plenty of times about Ella. That was her name.' He turned his back to Sara as he looked at the films again, or maybe he just didn't want her to see him upset. 'She was a great lady. Quiet, respectful, good cook. Everything you'd want in a wife. I guess some men can't be happy with that. Grover sure as hell wasn't.'
Sara waited to make sure he was finished speaking before asking, 'What did the sheriff do when you reported it?'
'This was back when Al was in charge,' Bart said, turning back around. 'Al was a good man, but you couldn't press charges back then without the wife on board to testify, and Ella wasn't going to say a word against Grover. Not that she had any love left for him, but she knew what he would do to the boys, and it wasn't like she could go out and get a job to support all of them.'
'Is she still with him?'
'No,' he said, looking down at his feet. 'Cancer took her when Boyd was about ten, maybe eleven. I didn't see him much after that. Grover wasn't gonna waste his drinking money on having their teeth cleaned.' He pointed to the corpse. 'Course, I've seen him plenty lately.'
'How's that?'
Bart directed his gaze toward Gibson's forearms, where track marks scarred the flesh. They were fairly healed, at least four to six months old. Gibson was also heavy, and meth users tended to be extremely thin.
She said, 'He doesn't look as if he's been using lately.'
'Yeah, he got cleaned up for a while.' Bart shrugged. 'Lots of 'em clean up for a month, sometimes a year. Then something happens and they're back on the needle quick as you please.'
'Is that what happened to Boyd?'
Bart didn't exactly answer her question. 'He came in about six weeks ago. He didn't have the money for the work, but I set up a payment schedule for him. He was in awful pain. His whole mouth was infected. Would've lost the rest of his teeth if I hadn't done something.'
'I saw the bridge,' Sara said, indicating the dental film. She hadn't yet examined Gibson's mouth.
Bart looked at the X-ray. 'Not as bad as it could've been.' He gave a quick smile. 'You must see that kind of thing a lot more than me.'
'What's that?'
'Indigents,' He pronounced the word sharply, but Sara could not tell if she was meant to infer derision or pity. 'They come in and you know they can't afford it but you can't turn them away because that's not why you went to school.'
Sara nodded and shrugged at the same time, not knowing what else to say. She was hardly going to have a protracted discussion about the dismal state of healthcare with this man.
'Well.' Bart glanced at his watch as if he had just remembered an appointment. 'Anyway, I just wanted to drop by and make sure you were making yourself at home. Let me know if you need anything, all right?'
'Thank you,' Sara said, and she really meant it until he flashed one of his ferret smiles.
'You take care now, darlin'. Wouldn't want you to get mixed up in any of this.'
She felt her own smile tighten on her face. 'Thank you,' she repeated,
