“Casey? Pete. Can you get an obit for me? Yeah…Ida Pode—Peter-Ocean-David-Edward—died May 17, 1977 in a fire. I know she was survived by her husband and son, I want to find out if there were any other children in the family…. Yeah. Thanks, I’ll hold.”

He tucked the receiver under his chin, rubbed his hands together, and waited.

“Margie, did the original fire report say where Ida Pode died?”

“I think they found the body—or what was left of it—in bed.”

“Sure?”

“No. I’ll look it up again.”

Casey came back on the line.

“The woman left behind her husband and two sons—Dustin, 22, and Earl, 17.”

Bingo!

“Thanks, Casey.” Decker hung up.

“What did he say?” Marge asked.

“Dustin has a little brother, Earl.”

“Aha. So whose bones are in deep freeze?”

“Either Dustin’s or Earl’s. And the living Dustin is either Dustin or Earl. What I need are their respective sets of dental X rays to make a positive ID, and to do that, I need the family dentist.”

Decker lit a cigarette and ruminated.

“Jesus, seems I’ve been talking to a lot of tooth jockeys these past couple of weeks. Might as well make an appointment for a cleaning.”

“Bowl ’em over with your grin.”

Decker laughed.

“Problem is, Marge, if I call up the living Dustin and ask for his family dentist, he’s going to get suspicious if he’s really Earl. I have to do it on the sly without his catching on.”

“You know,” Marge said, “the 1040s sometimes list the name of the accountant who prepared the tax forms. You could probably get the name of Pode’s insurance carrier from him. If Pode had dental insurance, we could trace the dentist from insurance records.”

“Good point, except their 1040s are in transit.”

“The medical charts!” Marge shouted.

“Of course!”

He opened his file, pulled out Dustin Pode’s folder, and took out the chart. Ten minutes later he plunked the medical files back into the folder and closed the drawer.

“No such luck?”

“You’d think a pediatrician would have at least listed the kid’s dentist.”

Decker knitted his brow and thought. “How about this? Cecil lived in the same house for the past twenty-two years. I bet the boys went to the local high school. And I bet they filled out health forms. Maybe I’ll check it out while I’m waiting for the tax records to come in.”

“Okay,” Marge said. “And while you’re at it, take a look at the yearbooks and get a picture of Earl.”

His phone rang again. MacGruder from Culver City PD.

“Thanks for returning my call,” Decker said.

“No problem, Sergeant. The bomb wasn’t triggered by a timing device. It was detonated by a remote-control unit—a BSR. One of those fourteen-button jobs that can turn on your jacuzzi by phone while you’re still at the office.”

“Long range of operation?”