gauging my mental state. “No witnesses so far,” he says at length. “We canvassed like crazy. We’re still trying to locate a couple of neighbors, but so far, nobody saw anything.”
“The killer could have entered the house during the night,” I point out. “And only left during the day.”
“Let’s get off Calhoun for a minute,” Sean says, tapping a pen on some papers in front of him. “The whole string—all five victims—what are you thinking? Just off the top of your head.”
“I think it’s Malik. And if he didn’t do Calhoun this morning, somebody’s helping him.”
“That’s who’s leaving the bite marks? An accomplice?”
“Maybe, but not necessarily. That could still be Malik.”
Sean squints as though he doesn’t understand. “Yesterday you said something about the killer using fake teeth to make the marks. I didn’t really catch all that. And when you got home …” He trails off, not wanting to mention the awful scene we played out while I was drunk.
“I said the killer could be using someone else’s teeth.”
“What did you mean? Like dentures?”
“Dentures would work.”
“But how would he make the marks look real? Wear them over his own teeth?”
“He could do that. But he’d get his own saliva in the wound doing that. There’s another way. When dentists make dentures, they’re attached to a hinged metal device called an articulator. It simulates the opening and closing of the jaw. That’s how we fine-tune the dentures for proper occlusion.”
“Occlusion?”
“The way the teeth come together. The bite. Malik could make the marks with that.”
Sean looks intrigued. “How easy would it be for him to get one of those?”
“He could order one off the Internet. Or as I said yesterday, he could have stolen one out of Dr. Shubb’s office lab. You should check and see if Shubb has lost an articulator in the past couple of years. He might not even have noticed it missing.”
Sean makes a note in a small wire-bound pad. “And the dentures?”
“Same thing. Malik could have stolen them. Or they might belong to a relative, like Francis Dolarhyde’s grandmother.”
Sean looks blank. “Who?”
“The killer in Red Dragon.”
“Oh, yeah. You mentioned that. I saw the movie, but I don’t remember anything about dentures.”
“You should have read the book. It was a big deal psychologically, those teeth. But for us, the point is that Malik could be using dentures, and he could get them almost anywhere. A family member—living or dead—is one possibility. I want to go through everything you know about Malik’s family.”
“Just a minute. You couldn’t tell the bite marks were made by dentures as opposed to real teeth?”
“No.”
“What about the saliva in the wounds?”
“Again, that could still be Malik’s. But it’s more likely to belong to an accomplice, if there is one. Or the killer could even be swabbing in someone else’s saliva.”
“Where the hell would he get that?”
I shrug. “One of his patients? All we know from the saliva so far is that the DNA in it belongs to a Caucasian male.”
Sean mulls this over. “I guess all Malik needs is some spit from a guy he knows we’d never check. I can see it.” He takes a sip of coffee. “The paralyzing gunshot keeps coming back to me.”
“It’s not always paralyzing.” I shuffle through the autopsy reports of previous victims. “Call it incapacitating.”
“That’s splitting hairs. The point is, excellent marksmanship.”
“The fax you sent me said Malik served in Vietnam. As a medic, I think. Which means he probably saw action.”
“That doesn’t make him a good marksman. Especially with a handgun.”
“Does Malik have any handguns registered in his name?”
“One. A .45 automatic.”
The murders were committed with a .32-caliber pistol. “And they searched Malik’s house already?”
“Top to bottom. No other weapon found.”
“What did they find? A shrink’s house … had to be some weird stuff in there.”
Sean waves his hand as if he doesn’t want to be distracted. He’s always been more linear in his thinking than I have. “Let’s stay with the gun for now. Funny weapon for this kind of crime, you ask me.”
“More of a Saturday night special than an organized killer’s weapon.”
He nods. “Or maybe a cop’s throwdown gun.”
“Well, it obviously does the job.” I point at a photo of Colonel Frank Moreland’s naked corpse, a neat hole drilled through its forehead. “We should find out if Malik visits any shooting ranges around here. See if anyone knows how good a shot he is.”
“The task force is already on that. We need to get outside the box, Cat. Think of things they’ll miss. Like the dentures thing.”
“Are you going to tell the task force my theory about that?”
“Sure,” Sean says casually. “I’m talking to John Kaiser. He’s a good guy, for a Fed.”
“Are you going to tell him I came up with it?”
Sean freezes, his face uncertain. “Do you want me to?”
“What if I say yes?”
“If you say yes, I’ll tell him.”
I hold his gaze without blinking. “Yes.”
“Okay, then. I’ll tell him.” Sean looks sincere, but I wonder if he’ll follow through.
Colonel Moreland’s photo brings another thought to mind. In some serial murder cases, close analysis of the first murder scene ultimately breaks open the case. The reason is simple. Serial killers, like any other hobbyist, get better with practice. They’re frequently very anxious during their first murder—they may not even have meant to kill their first victim—and they make stupid mistakes. Mistakes they never repeat at later scenes. But the NOMURS killer is different.
“First-victim angle,” I say, knowing Sean will understand my shorthand.
“Yeah?”
“It’s
