“And Bill said that they had crime scene photos, so it was perfectly okay with him,” Doc finished the sentence for her.

The roller coaster car moved upward, but not as far as Hannah would have liked. It was stalled between up and down, hanging there like her vacillating mood. The phrase “crime scene photos” had stopped the car in its tracks. She’d never expected to be personally involved in anything that required crime scene photos! But the news that Bill had given Norman permission to extract the tooth was very good indeed.

You have to take the bad with the good, another of her great-grandmother’s sayings ran through Hannah’s mind. And for the first time she could recall, she envied those people with boring, predictable, and uneventful lives.

“They did find the man’s car,” Delores said, sending the roller coaster car upward again. “Unfortunately, something called the VIN was filed off so they don’t have any way to track the owner. It’s probably stolen, though. Judging by what I heard, it was a model, make, and color that’s very popular with car thieves. Thousands of similar cars are stolen every year. I wonder what VIN stands for.”

“Vehicle identification number,” Hannah told her mother, trying not to react as the roller coaster car continued downward. Stolen car. No vehicle identification number. Even if they got lucky on their search through hundreds of stolen car reports, the man who had driven the car to Lake Eden wasn’t the owner of record.

“I asked Bill about the man’s body,” Doc said. “The sheriff’s department doesn’t need it for any further testing, so we’ll keep it in the hospital morgue for the present.”

That meant they could take more photos if they needed them, or check if they thought of something else. Hannah’s emotional roller coaster car stopped its descent and started up the slope again.

“Of course that will change if some relative comes forward to claim him,” Doc added.

That wouldn’t be a terrible thing, Hannah thought as the car climbed higher. Then at least we’d know who he was.

“But I don’t think anyone in Lake Eden will,” Delores continued, sending the roller coaster car downward again. “I activated the Lake Eden Gossip Hotline the moment that you were arrested. We asked everyone in town if they’d anticipated a visitor yesterday, a visitor who hadn’t arrived, but we didn’t get a single positive result.”

The car on the tracks was descending lower and lower and Hannah gave a deep sigh. No one in Lake Eden knew who the man was.

“But don’t lose hope, dear,” Delores told her. “We widened the telephone tree to include three neighboring towns.”

That was good! The car on the roller coaster slowed near the bottom, and started up a steep slope again. Things were looking up.

“I rode in with Doc,” Delores continued, “and he has to get back to the hospital. We’ll have to leave soon, but I brought you two throw pillows and a flowered bedspread. It’s so dreary in here. And Doc carried in something else I thought you could use to distract you from your surroundings.”