Goodnight, Irene

“Oh, forgive me. I just haven’t seen work this bad in years. To continue-according to the report, this is a pregnant female who was approximately twenty to twenty-five years of age. Now, the body was found-or, I should say, most of the body was found-in June 1955. That means this woman was most likely to have been born between 1930 and 1935. Most unfortunate. If she had been born just a few years later, her teeth might not have carried these stains.”

Here he pulled out the contents of the box, and there, gri

Although I had known what was in that box, it was still an unsettling sight. Her eye sockets staring out, areas around her nose and teeth obviously made up of fragments glued in place.

After the first shock of seeing her passed, I felt ashamed to be looking at her. Although I had just looked at cases full of skulls, I didn’t know anything at all about those people, while I had known at least one part of Ha

“Just about the time she was born,” MacPherson went on, “a group of American dental researchers had figured out that high levels of fluoride in the water supplies caused this stain, but nothing was scientifically proven until about 1931, and it was sometime after that that the U.S. Public Health Service surveyed fluoride levels.

“As anyone who has waited for the tooth fairy knows, teeth are developed in childhood. The staining appears to occur partly from surface contact, but mainly from fluoride in the bloodstream. During the years of dental development-that is to say, in children under ten-those who ingest too much fluoride are likely to develop fluorosis. So your Jane Doe-I believe Mr. O’Co

He stood up and paced the two or three steps he could pace in the area behind his desk. He gestured as he spoke, a natural showman.

“Fluoride occurs naturally in a great many substances. It occurs in varying levels in water supplies, generally low in most areas, especially in the Great Lakes region. There are primarily three regions of the country where the levels would be high enough to produce fluorosis.”

“So we might narrow down the areas she could come from by knowing she had this condition?” I asked.

“Precisely!” Bang! went the hand again. I won’t say we didn’t jump, but we were starting to brace ourselves whenever we saw him raise his hand near the desk.

“As I told Mr. O’Co

I didn’t think this did much narrowing, although I supposed it was better than nothing. Dr. MacPherson must have noticed my disappointment.

“You give up too easily, my dear. Your friend Mr. O’Co

“Such as?” Frank asked.

“According to the autopsy report, her skin was fairly ta

“The autopsy report also indicates that the time of death was about seven P.M. the evening she was found. Her stomach contents showed she had been killed shortly after she ate her di

Frank and I shrugged.

“Tacos!” he shouted, slamming his hand on the desk again. It must be harder than hell to doze off in this guy’s classes.

“This blond woman ate tacos for di

“This is just a hypothesis, of course, but I believe that this woman may have spent at least some of her childhood years in a su

“Can we be certain that she didn’t get the stains from fluoride added to the water supply or by fluoride tablets from a dentist?” Frank asked.

“Certain? No, nothing is certain. Reasonably sure? Yes. Fluoride wasn’t added to water in the United States until the mid-1940s, and Ha

“Is there any kind of listing of communities that might fit that level of natural fluoridation?” Frank asked.

“Of course. I’ve had copies of a fluoridation survey of the Southwest prepared for you.”

He thumbed through the papers and handed over a few pages. “I gave a copy of this same report to Mr. O’Co

“Thank you, Dr. MacPherson,” said Frank, glancing at the report. I tried to read over his shoulder.

“Of course,” MacPherson said as we read, “you’ll also want her picture.”

“What!” we shouted in unison, both startled into looking up at the old man.

MacPherson couldn’t have been more pleased with himself.

“The picture is what took so long. Amazing what these computers can do. I sent copies of the photos from the autopsy and measurements of the skull to a fellow who is quite good at visual reconstructions.”

From his papers, he pulled out a computer-generated drawing that, across the desk, did not look unlike a photo.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “allow me to introduce Ha

16

LOOKING BACK AT US from the photo was an attractive young woman with medium-length, curled blond hair and a tan complexion. She had high cheekbones and dark, arching brows over dark eyes. The computer artist had given her make-up and a hairstyle circa 1955, and, with an understanding of human frailties, a closed-mouth smile.

The professor had several other views, a couple with smiles showing the stained teeth; there were even some with slightly different noses.

“The nose suffered the most damage in the violence done to her face,” MacPherson explained. “Interestingly, the eyes weren’t touched. As I said, this case was, in my opinion, badly mishandled. Had the head been severed and removed from the scene with the hands and feet, then I could understand the lack of progress. But this type of battering is not impossible to reconstruct-indeed, someone did take the time to remove the flesh from the skull, to painstakingly glue her skull back together, but then, it seems, did not proceed from there. The photos from the autopsy wouldn’t be a pretty sight for the lay person, but to someone who works in a field which constantly exposes him to the very worst sorts of damage human beings can suffer, it would not be so bad.”

At this point, he pulled out one of the autopsy photos. I guess I’m still a lay person; to me it looked awful. Frank didn’t flinch, though, so I suppose the professor was right.