“Steve and Lisa?” The dentist looked at the floor as if he might be trying to picture the couple there. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

He was a poor liar.

“We’re not looking to bust his balls over it,” Mendez said. “We need a clear picture of what was going on in her life before she was killed. That’s all.”

Crane shrugged. “Sorry. I can’t help you with that. So, what can I help you with, detectives?”

“Some remains were discovered this morning during a search,” Mendez said. “A skull, to be exact. We were hoping you could compare the teeth against the X-rays you took of Miss Vickers’s mouth last week.”

Crane eyed the brown paper bag Hicks set on the counter. “Let me get the X-rays.”

Mendez took the skull out of the bag and set it on the counter. The bone was dingy white, clean of all flesh. It seemed unlikely the person it belonged to had been alive a week past, that this shell had been filled with a brain, covered by a face, crowned with hair. It had been attached to a living breathing human, a person with thoughts and opinions and goals for a life that was then abruptly ended.

Crane returned with the X-rays and clipped them to the light box on the wall, then he took a deep breath, sighed, and carefully picked up the skull, turning it upside down to look at the teeth.

“No,” he said almost immediately. “Miss Vickers had several amalgam fillings in the upper molars. See here?” he said, pointing to the X-rays of individual teeth.

“These teeth,” he said, looking at the thing he held in his hands like a halved cantaloupe, “were in need of attention. There’s significant decay in a couple of them. This filling in the premolar needed replacing. This bicuspid is chipped.”

“How much can you tell about the person by looking at the teeth?” Mendez asked. “Can you tell their age?”

“Like a horse?” Crane asked. “Not exactly. But this is a full set of teeth, so the person had to be at least a teenager. The teeth aren’t worn down, so not an older person. They haven’t been cared for, which would tend to make me think of someone in a poor financial situation. The teeth are on the small side, the jaw is relatively narrow, the skull is smallish with no pronounced brow ridge, so I’d guess it was a woman.”

“How about a name and address?” Hicks asked.

Crane gently set the skull down. “That’s your department, gentlemen. Can I ask where this came from?”

“Sells Salvage Yard, outside of town.”

“That’s the man you have in custody, right? That’s where you found the women’s cars? I saw it on the news this morning. You think he’s the killer.”

“He’s being questioned,” Mendez said.