The Breathtaker (20 page)
W
HAT WAS
that all about?” Sophie demanded to know on the ride home, her eyes bright with criticism.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You guys were, like, screaming at each other.”
“We weren’t screaming.”
On the road ahead, a giant white 1960 Polara station wagon was weaving all over the road, four teenagers crammed in the front seat together. The driver was a frazzle-haired idiot with a cell phone glued to her ear who kept screaming at her friends to shut up. He should hit his take-down lights and pull her over, but he and Sophie were in the middle of an argument, and for once he didn’t give a damn.
“What were you fighting about?” she asked.
“Do you not understand the word ‘grounded’?”
“I was lonely! Peg has a life, you know. She can’t be with me every single second of the day. What else am I supposed to do? You’re never home.”
The station wagon suddenly fishtailed in front of them, and Charlie slammed on his brakes. “Jesus, lady!”
“She has no concept of what a dangerous driver she is,” Sophie said softly.
He hit the horn in a short burst, and the station wagon took a right down a dirt road and sped off in a cloud of dust.
“Dad… aren’t you going to arrest them?”
“No.”
They drove along in stony silence, the car’s droning engine giving him a migraine. He would have to invent some excuse to go back and rummage around in his father’s house, find the peacoat and take some fiber samples to send off to the state lab for testing. If the fibers didn’t match, that would eliminate the problem quickly. He wanted to forget about this crazy notion and get back to the business of solving the case.
“So,” she said, “aren’t you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“What’s this thing between you and Grandpa? This thing that’s always been there?”
He felt the color draining from his face. Minutes ago, he’d demanded that his father face up to the truth about their past, and yet he’d spent his entire life hiding the same truth from Sophie. “It’s never been right between us,” he admitted.
“Duh.” She watched him with unwavering eyes.
“Your grandfather wasn’t always such a nice guy.”
“What d’you mean?”
“We’re all three-dimensional people, Sophie. We’re all complicated.” His neck muscles stiffened. “Your grandfather was a vicious drunk at one point in his life.”
She didn’t speak; she seemed caught on a barb of disbelief.
“This was before the fire,” he told her. “The fire sobered him up. But before then, he was a brutal man.”
She was staring at him, her tall forehead nibbled with worry. “Did he hurt you?”
There was a cold spot in the pit of his stomach.
Broken nose. Fractured bones. The belt. Yeah, he hurt me.
“He used excessive punishment,” he said. “He punished me excessively.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because. I didn’t want you to hate him.”
She sat rooted in fear. Huddled and shivering.
“I learned three things from my father,” he told her. “Don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel. I had to work very hard to overcome those early lessons. I felt a lot of deep-seated shame, as if I were to blame for his misery. I thought it was all my fault. I believed I wasn’t lovable.”
She gave him a strange look full of pity.
“Living with an alcoholic is a lot like living with a wild animal,” he said, trying to explain it to her. “You never know when they’re going to turn on you. I was in a perpetual state of anxiety whenever he was home.”
She edged closer to him.
“I love you very much, sweetie. I didn’t tell you about it because it’s ugly.”
She rested her head against his shoulder, and he thought about her mother. He’d been faithful to Maddie for seventeen years; not that their relationship hadn’t been rocky at times. They’d had their ups and downs, just like anybody else, but he’d loved her with all his heart. She’d accepted him, scars and all, warts and all. He was a head case when they first met—twenty-one years old, drinking and carousing. A fool. She helped him grow up. She helped him become a man.
“I know Grandpa has his faults,” Sophie said, “but this makes me sick to my stomach.”
“Don’t hate him,” he told her.
“Why not?”
“Because… he needs somebody good in his life.”
“Still…”
“It’s ancient history. He hasn’t had a drink in thirty years. But you asked. And I don’t want to lie to you.” He tried to slow his breathing. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry I overreacted tonight. I had no right to lose my temper like that.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay. And I’m sorry I can’t be home with you every night.”
“Sometimes it feels like you’re mad at me.”
“No. Never. Just overworked.”
She smiled, her arms elegantly poised in her lap. “You know what’s weird?”
“What’s that, sweetie?”
Her breathing came and went in little pauses. “Last month, during the tornado… all the roses in Mom’s rose garden blew around, and they were so beautiful. They shook in the wind, and the petals swirled up into the sky. It was beautiful and scary, all at once… like she was in the garden… watching over me.”
He smiled, but then his cell phone rang, spoiling the mood. “Sorry,” he said.
She gave him a forgiving look. “Go ahead and answer it.”
The phone felt cool in his hand. “Hello?”
“Charlie,” Roger Duff said, “I need you to come down to the morgue right away.”
“What’s up, Doc?”
“You’re gonna want to see this for yourself. Trust me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Go,” she said.
“You sure?” He pocketed his phone. “I won’t be long.”
I
THOUGHT
you’d want to see this right away, Charlie.” He could detect a pulse of fear in Duff’s tone. “Dr. Robles over at the state lab is an expert on this sort of thing. I was on the phone with him for over an hour.”
Charlie stood on the opposite side of the stainless-steel table, where five human teeth, each in its own plastic envelope, were splayed like a winning poker hand.
“Two incisors, one cuspid, one bicuspid and one molar.” Duff used his ballpoint pen to point them out. “That’s what we’ve got so far. Five calling cards.”
“The replacement teeth?”
Duff wiped his moist brow, then straightened his shoulders importantly. “We’re each born with two sets of teeth, Charlie. A set of milk teeth and a set of permanent. Most of us have all our milk teeth by the age of three, but then, between the ages of three and six, our permanent teeth start to erupt. By the time we’re thirteen, we’ve pretty much got all our permanent teeth. You with me so far?”
Charlie nodded.
“Okay. Everyone’s teeth are unique,” he continued. “Their shape, their juxtaposition inside the mouth, et cetera. Now, through analysis and comparison, and without destroying any of the teeth for verification, Dr. Robles has concluded that, within a reasonable degree of certainty, all five of these teeth came from the same mouth.”
Charlie’s heart leaped, a new fear gripping him.
“But…,” Duff said. “But…” He pointed at the various plastic envelopes. “Each one was extracted during a different stage of development within the victim’s lifetime.”
Charlie glanced up, sweat collecting on his brow.
“Two are milk teeth, three are permanent. The three permanent teeth are no older than preteens.”
“And you know this how?”
“Dr. Robles compared the imperfections on the biting surfaces—microscopic pits, broken edges, wear patterns. He also reconstructed their alignment inside the jaw.”
Charlie stared at the teeth, each one indistinguishable from the next to his unpracticed eye. “How does he know some of these are milk teeth and others aren’t?”
“The roots of the baby teeth are designed to dissolve as the permanent teeth develop.” He pulled a lab sheet out of the stack on the countertop. “Using something called panoramic radiography, he was able to measure the secondary dentin inside the pulp. There’s a correlation between the reduction of the coronal pulp cavity and the victim’s chronological age, but apparently this method is only accurate to within five years. The most common method of age detection relies on microscopic examination of the structural changes inside the tooth. There are chemical tests as well, but unfortunately each of these methods would require the complete destruction of the tooth. And we’re not ready to go there yet, are we, Charlie?”
“Am I hearing you correctly?” he said angrily. “Some poor kid’s been getting his teeth yanked out year after year?”
Duff tugged on his silver-stubbled face. “Dr. Robles found pliers impressions on some of the enamel surfaces, yes. Now, listen to me. He’s not a hundred percent sure all five teeth came from the same mouth. It’s just a theory at this point. For him to be absolutely certain, he’d have to perform mitochondrial-DNA testing, which again would require the complete destruction of the teeth.”
“So it’s possible they might’ve come from several different victims?”
“That’s still a possibility, Charlie.” He put down the report. “It’s also possible that the victim or victims are dead.”
Charlie pictured Jonah Gustafson clutching his son. “I just interviewed a suspect whose kid is missing a few teeth.”
“How old?”
“Seven or eight. By his own admission, the guy was out chasing on the fifteenth. I’ve been told he’s quite capable of predicting when and where a tornado will drop. He’s got three sons altogether. I don’t know their ages… I only met one of them.”
“Okay. Look. Your main concern is for those kids,” Duff said. “If they’re being abused, I want them out of there.”
Charlie nodded. “I’ll contact the local law.”
Duff slid his ballpoint pen back into his breast pocket. “I promised I’d get these back to the lab as soon as possible.”
Charlie crossed his arms. “So we have another victim to worry about? The kid or kids whose teeth these are?”
The overhead fluorescent tubes cast a stark, incandescent glow.
“In all my years as county medical examiner, I’ve never seen anything like it, Charlie. And I’ve witnessed plenty of viciousness, cruelty and rage. But this… I can’t even begin to understand it. Where’s the sense?”
“There is no sense, Duff,” he said, wondering how long the killer sat beside his victims, looking into their faces. “No sense at all.”
T
HE NEXT
day, Social Services took Jonah Gustafson’s sons away from him. The official reason was neglect. The house was neat but the cupboards were bare. Four six-packs in the refrigerator and no milk. Plenty of bourbon, no Flintstones vitamins. A heavyset woman from Social Services tossed the kids’ clothing into a gym bag, while several police officers held Jonah at bay. He stood moaning in the wild weeds as the county van drove off, three stunned little faces pasted to the rear window like pale decals.
Jonah clutched himself as if he’d been punched in the gut, then looked into Charlie’s eyes.
“What’ve you done to me?”
he screamed.
It pricked Charlie’s conscience; he knew exactly how he would feel if anyone tried to take his daughter away from him. It would rip a huge hole in his heart. There was a brief period after Maddie had died when he’d been careless and irresponsible, no kind of father at all. He’d gone on a drinking binge that’d lasted several weeks, secretly hoping to drown himself in a bottle of whiskey, tequila, whatever. For three weeks, Mike had followed him around from bar to bar, patiently explaining, “Okay, Chief. Time to go.” Reminding him, “Sophie’s waiting for you.” His best friend and conscience had sobered him up and driven him home on more than one occasion. He’d listened patiently to Charlie’s drunken ramblings. He’d stood by him.
Nobody’s innocent. We’re all guilty of something.
“My boys.” Jonah’s voice rose heatedly.
“What’ve you done to me?”
“You did this to yourself,” Charlie answered, all sympathy gone. The moment had passed. Jonah had a full-page rap sheet for assault and battery, several DUIs, possession with intent to distribute. Although he was a widely known drug dealer, the Tulsa Police Department’s investigative unit didn’t have enough on him yet to make the charges stick. And since Charlie couldn’t connect him to the homicides yet, there would be no arrest warrant forthcoming. The important thing was that the kids were safe.
Charlie visited the Gustafson boys at a local children’s shelter. Three little towheaded boys, all under the age of ten, sat on the same bed together, staring down at their tapping feet.
“How’re you guys doing?”
“Fine,” they murmured.
Charlie knew from firsthand experience that living with an alcoholic was like playing hopscotch in a minefield. He wanted to tell them they’d be better off without their abusive father, but said nothing. It wasn’t his job. The unpacked gym bag slouched on the floor at the foot of the bed, and he noticed there was a yellow chalklike substance on the blue nylon handles. “What’s that yellow stuff?” he asked, pointing at the bag.
They looked. Shrugged. The oldest one was nine. The others were seven and five. All three were missing some of their teeth, and their smiles were riddled with decay.
“Does your dad ever hurt you?” he asked the oldest boy. “Does he ever spank you?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. He had light blond hair and blue eyes, was pretty as a girl, but whenever he opened his mouth, you could see the rot.
“Does he use his hand or a belt?”
The boy shrugged. “Both, I guess.”
Charlie eyed them with tremendous sympathy, wanting to protect them from harm. They wore baggy corduroy pants, dark blue hoodies and baseball caps that kept their unruly hair in check. “Mind if I took a look at your back?” he asked the nine-year-old, then caught the others’ furtive glances. “Just a peek?”
The boy’s mouth grew pinched. He got off the bed and walked over to Charlie, then turned and raised his hoodie and T-shirt. There were old scars on his back—pale pink, about the size of two fingers making a peace sign.
“Where’d you get these?”
“We were just foolin’ around. I fell on a fence or something.”
“Or something? You’re not sure?” It was exactly the kind of lie Charlie used to tell. “Okay, siddown.”
He went back to his brothers. “Can we go home now?” he asked plaintively.
Charlie took a patient breath. “You guys are gonna have to stay here for a while.”
“How come?”
“It’s better this way.”
The seven-year-old rolled his tongue around inside his cheek. “How’d you get them?” he asked, pointing at Charlie’s scarred left arm.
Charlie glanced down. “Those are second- and third- degree burns from a fire.”
“Did it hurt?”
“The second-degree burns were extremely painful. The third-degree burns didn’t hurt because the nerves’d been destroyed. So your father never pulled any teeth out of your head?”
The boys looked at one another and seemed confused by his question. “No,” the nine-year-old said.
“He never helped your teeth come out? Any of you?”
“Yep, he did,” the littlest one admitted.
“Shut up,” his older brother said, “if you ever wanna see Dad again.”
Charlie held the five-year-old’s eye and said, “How’d he help your teeth come out?”
He pointed inside his mouth. “Pulled ’em wiff a pair of pliers.”
A shiver crawled up Charlie’s spine.
“He was just helping you because that tooth was hanging on for dear life,” the nine-year-old said. “And I don’t think we should talk about this anymore.”
“One more question…”
“Dad says we don’t have to talk to the police,” he said angrily. He turned to his brothers. “If you say another word, I’m gonna make sure Dad finds out, understand?”
Charlie let it go, and they talked sports for a while. The boys liked baseball best. They liked the Sooners and Greg Dobbs. They said their mother had left them one fine spring day and had never come back.
“And you haven’t seen her since?” Charlie asked.
They shook their heads.
“Not even a phone call?”
The nine-year-old’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I think she must’ve forgotten all about us by now.”
They hadn’t been able to locate Gustafson’s wife. By all accounts, she’d disappeared several years ago, vanished without a trace. Jonah hadn’t been charged, since there was no body. No evidence of foul play. But it raised suspicions. The whole thing stank, and Charlie decided he was going to work very hard to find out exactly what’d happened.
He drove back to the house to talk to Jonah, but he was busy on the phone, trying to get his kids back. Jonah’s criminal defense attorney met Charlie out in the front yard. They stepped gingerly over broken toys as they approached one another.
The lawyer, Andrew Findale, had so many hair plugs his scalp looked like a doll’s head. He wore a tweed jacket and horn-rimmed glasses, and his eyes had the edgy, irritable look of a midlife-crisis male. “Jonah doesn’t want to talk to you right now,” he said, enunciating each syllable. “Jonah feels betrayed.”
“The guy’s a piece-of-shit drug dealer and God knows what else,” Charlie told him angrily. “You tell him I’m gonna make sure his kids stay safe.”
He drove into the dying sun, so tired he could barely think straight. Then his cell phone rang. “Hello?”
“Dad?” It was Sophie. “You’re late.”