Sacred and Profane Read Online Free PDF Page A

said.
    “Yeah, aren’t all you guys with the roving eyes.” She signed the credit slip, threw the card into her purse, and snapped it shut. “Suit yourself,” she said, icily.
    The receptionist slid open the glass panel.
    “Dr. Hennon will see you now, Sergeant.”
    “Thanks,” he said.
    “Sergeant?” the toothy woman said. “You’re a military man?”
    “Cop.”
    “You don’t look like a cop.”
    “No?”
    “No. I would have said you were an architect or a producer.”
    Decker looked down at his outdated suit and white shirt. His striped tie was loosened and his shoes were scuffed. Nothing about his appearance suggested money or sophistication.
    “Then again,” the woman continued, “my second husband, Lionel, always said I was a good judge of lovers, but a lousy judge of character.”
    Decker agreed with Lionel on both counts.
     
    Dr. Hennon’s office was small but cheerful. Bright yellow walls full of posters with bold swatches of color. The room contained a cluttered desk, a corkboard full of notes and dental articles, and a Formica bridge table that held casts of teeth and jaws. Above the desk was a large, wall-mounted X-ray viewing box on which hung radiographs of teeth clipped to metal hangers.
    To the left of the viewing box was a waist-up frame photograph of a man and a woman at sunset. A striking shot streaked with brilliant oranges and lavenders, the sun highlighting, almost bleaching out, the woman’s face. She appeared to be in her thirties, with milky green eyes, and a head full of metallic auburn waves. Her features were sharp and her face was long, ending in a strong, dimpled chin.
    Decker took out a manila folder, opened it and began to scan for forensic reports on the two Jane Does. A moment later, the woman in the photo came in and offered him a delicate, manicured hand. He stood up and held out his own.
    “Annie Hennon,” she said shaking his big, freckled hand.
    “Pete Decker.”
    “Thanks for coming down to my office, Pete.”
    “No problem.”
    “I appreciate it. Most cops don’t know that forensic odontology isn’t a full-time job. I look at skulls maybe a dozen times a year—unless there’s a disaster. We haven’t had too many of those lately, thank God. If I have to take a day off from the office to meet you at the morgue, I lose a great deal of income.”
    “It’s a pleasure to be on the good side of town for a change,” he said. “That’s a nice picture of you.”
    “Better than the real thing, huh?”
    “I didn’t mean it that way.”
    She laughed. “I’m just terrible. Thanks. It is a nice picture. That’s my brother and me. Mom took the picture. Mom’s an okay photographer.”
    She pulled up a chair, and they both sat down.
    “Actually, my brother is the one who got me interested in forensic odontology,” she said. “Him and Heinz.”
    “Heinz?”
    “Heinz Buchholz. A little white-haired gnome of a man who made his mark in history by identifying Hitler’s jaw. When I went to dental school, he was sixty-five, maybe seventy, and he used to roam the labs asking us students if his denture set-up would pass the state licensing examination. Can you imagine that? An important man like him decked with honors, a pioneer in forensic dentistry, and he was reduced to worrying about passing the state board.”
    She shook her head and turned to Decker.
    “You made quite an impression on Babs Terkel,” she said, dryly.
    “Pardon?”
    “My last patient. The bleached blond with the big boobs. She came back to my office girl and started pumping her about you.”
    “I thought she had a nice smile.”
    Hennon kissed her fingertips and spread them outward.
    “My six-to-eleven porcelain fused to gold. Didn’t I do a great job?”
    “I’ll say. She has a great set of teeth.”
    “ Now she does,” the dentist said emphatically. “You should have seen her when she walked through my door. Bucky Beaver.” She waved her hand in the air. “Babs is all