“Lindsey know anybody deaf or hard of hearing?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Ever seen this girl?” Decker showed him a head shot of the female with the peg teeth.

He glanced at it and shook his head.

“Look carefully.”

Truscott took the picture and examined it closely.

“Don’t know her. What does this have to do with Lindsey?”

“I’m not sure.”

But I hope something, he thought.

By the time he got back to the station, a manila envelope was waiting on his desk. Dependable Freddy! Decker opened the gummed seal, pulled out the enlargement, and grinned.

The man is on fire, he’s so hot.

He headed for Captain Morrison’s “office” on the other side of the building. Morrison and the station’s day watch commander, Roy Ordik, shared a pint-sized cubicle—barely enough room for the two desks, two chairs, a computer on a stand, and a filing cabinet. At least Morrison was thin and could squeeze through the cracks, but Ordik was fat. Decker rarely saw them in the office at the same time. Maybe that was the secret.

Morrison raised his head when Decker entered.

“What’s up, Pete?”

Decker placed the original porno photo and the enlargement on the captain’s desk. Morrison looked at the obscene portrait and the enlargement and waited for the explanation.

Decker said, “This is a blowup—the ear of this peg-toothed girl. She’s wearing a hearing aid.” He pointed to a tiny nub behind the ear lobe.

“Go on.”

“I’m hoping this is the Jane Doe found with Bates. That skeleton had the same peg teeth. The dentist said that people with this kind of teeth often have hearing problems.”

“How many people have teeth like that?”

“I don’t know. I’m taking the photos over to Dr. Hennon this afternoon. I’ll see what she says.”

The captain nodded approval.

“Check out the boyfriend?”

“Yeah, his alibi panned out. I’m going to drive by his place again, just to make sure he hasn’t decided to split. If he stays put, I see no reason to consider him a suspect. He seemed to have been broken up by her death.”

“Good,” Morrison said. “Keep it up.”

Decker rushed out of the office and bumped shoulders with Marge.

“Gotten a whiff of a scent, Peter?” she asked, smiling.

“Just call me bloodhound.”

“Cecil Pode,” Marge said, reading off of a page. “He’s fifty-two—a self-employed photographer with a studio in Culver City. Stable little bugger. Same business for over twenty years. Ran him through NCIC. No wants, no warrants, no priors.”

Decker frowned.

“Yeah, it would have been nice if he’d have come back a scumbag,” she said.

“He’s a scumbag,” Decker said. “Nice guys don’t snap Polaroids of young girls smothered in spunk.”