“Sure.”
“And watch what you say within earshot of anyone in the newsroom.”
“Okay, but it’s pretty empty right now. People are either out on a story or getting lunch. What’s up?”
“You know Anna better than I do. She ever mention to you that she’s related to the Fletchers?”
“What?!”
“Surprised me, too. Some sort of a cousin. But in a family that size…”
“I know. I’m starting to feel like I’m running into something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They’ve taken over the city. I saw some of them this morning, too. But Anna…”
“Not just Anna,” Frank said. “Sheila Dolson was part of the family, too.”
“I just learned that Sheila was a Fletcher this morning-how did you find out?”
He told her about running into Dennis Fletcher. “Makes me wonder what was going on with the dog group and all of that,” Frank said. “I haven’t even called Vince and Reed about this yet, just thought I’d find out if Anna had ever mentioned the family connection to you.”
“No, she didn’t. Not even yesterday, when she might have tried to use it to get Altair.” She paused, then said, “I see what you mean. This explains why she trusted Sheila so much, I suppose. I wonder if she mentioned it to Ben?”
“Ben, who works with their long-lost cousin, Caleb?”
There was a long silence.
Frank said, “The dog group Ben is in-I guess I should say was in-was started by his closest friend, David Niles.”
He heard her intake of breath. Irene had been on the expedition with David when he lost his life.
“David taught forensic anthropology,” Frank said.
“A subject her cousin Caleb was studying,” she said. “Caleb, who had severed ties with the family.”
Irene never took long to see where he was heading with something. And she reached the next point immediately.
“Oh, shit. If she got into the group to keep tabs on Caleb, and then David died and Ben took over handling David’s dogs…Oh, no…Damn her!”
“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
“Like hell. The conclusions are jumping at us.”
“No. That’s not true. Irene, we’ve seen them together. Do you think she faked her affection for him? Over all that time?”
There was another small silence. She was, he knew, trying to get a handle on her temper. Almost reluctantly, she said, “No. No, I-I can’t.”
“Me neither. I just hope she told Ben about the family connection.”
“How does a guy in your line of work come up with that kind of optimism?”
“That wasn’t really optimism. I just don’t want to be the one to tell him.”
She fell silent again, and he heard the sound of someone talking in the background. Irene said, “Let me call you right back. You’re on the cell?”
A FEW minutes later, his phone rang.
He answered and heard her say, “Sorry, newsroom crowded up again. Listen, I spent the morning at the dentist.”
“You did? I didn’t know you were having-”
“No, I mean, about the teeth Sheila supposedly found.” She told him about the number on Sheila Dolson’s message pad and the Fletcher dentists.
“Okay, now I remember you mentioned this to Caleb at dinner.”
“Right. So I went over to this dental office today. When I got there, I ended up talking to a receptionist. Young guy. I told him that I had heard that one of the dentists, Dr. Arnold Fletcher, helped search groups train dogs for finding missing children by letting them use teeth that would otherwise just go to waste.”
“Hmm. Did you read his name tag?”
“Yes. Not Fletcher, but so what? Our good friend Anna Stover-would that have told you she was a Fletcher?”
“Good point.”
“This guy’s name was Bobby Smith, but he’s in the family, all right. Pod people. Seriously. What Caleb’s dad said about the effing clan? Not far off. Anyway, at first Bobby is telling me that I must be mistaken, but everything in his body language tells me he knows something. So I say, ‘Oh no, Sheila Dolson said she couldn’t have done such wonderful work without help from this office,’ and I’d love to start by interviewing him about that. Thank God I used that wording.”
“Why?”
“Because instead of reacting the way I thought he would-you know, sort of excited that something complimentary about the place might be in the paper, and that I’d be helping him get his own first few minutes of fame-he got really flustered and upset, then asked me to wait outside for a few minutes.”
“Did he lock the door and close up for the day?”
“I half-worried about that. But he came back out, sweating and wringing his hands, and said, ‘My cousin promised she’d never tell where she got those teeth!’ And babbles for a minute about how Uncle Arnold, the dentist, will fire him if he finds out. None of this was what I expected to hear, and learning that Sheila was one of the Fletchers left me speechless. Raised more questions than it answered. So I just waited. He said, ‘I took the teeth from a box of old ones that Dr. Arnold keeps in his office. He never does anything with them. I didn’t think he’d miss a few. I felt sorry for her. I wanted to help her out. But she swore that if anyone asked, she’d say that she was the one who took them.’”
“Hmm,” Frank said. “Did he say ‘my cousin’ or ‘Sheila’ when he told you about it?”
“My cousin.”
“I wonder if he thought you meant Anna?”
She considered that for a moment, then said, “No, I only mentioned Sheila to him. Besides, Anna wouldn’t have used the ‘feel sorry for me’ approach to get the teeth. That was Sheila’s M.O.”
“True. Mind if I tell Reed what you’ve told me?”
“I’d hate to get poor Bobby at the dentist’s office in trouble. And-Mark might be able to trade some information for his story. I’ll urge him to call Reed with it.”
“And if he won’t make the call?”
“He will,” she said with conviction.
Knowing Mark Baker, he had to agree. “You left the pad of paper in Sheila’s kitchen?”
“I haven’t started stealing things from crime scenes,” she said indignantly.
He suppressed a laugh. If he told her to calm down now, she’d completely blow her top. “Sorry,” he managed. “I didn’t mean to imply that.”
“You are trying not to laugh,” she said, which made him lose it. But she laughed with him.
“All right,” she said, “I see what you mean. Reed and Vince would get there on their own. Eventually.”
“You and Mark could save them some time,” he agreed.
She was quiet for a long time. “I’m starting to wonder about this family. I started out believing Sheila Dolson didn’t know a hell of a lot of people in Las Piernas. Now I think I was as wrong as I could be about that.”
“It’s something we’ll be looking at,” Frank said.
“I didn’t take all of Altair’s equipment with me the other night-they only let me walk away with the dog and his collar and leash. It might be worthwhile searching those SAR equipment bags and Sheila’s other belongings. If they find a little collection of teeth, it will be easier to prove that Sheila planted the ones she found out at the Sheffield Estate.”
“I’ll mention it to them,” Frank said. “What are you doing the rest of the day?”
“Taking Ethan to see Dr. Robinson at one. Then after that, I’m meeting a photographer at Blake Ives’s house. I’m starting on that follow-up story about families with missing children.” She sighed.
“Not an easy assignment.”
“The best ones never are. Besides, I volunteered for it.”
