The Bone Bed

pull up the handle of the cooler door.
    “Exactly. Trauma resulting in an infection and ongoing inflammation that went unchecked, and he slapped a porcelain crown on top of it anyway. I’m guessing this joker cost her about forty-K, all told, and a lot of pain and inconvenience. Her bite’s messed up, I’m pretty sure, but can’t prove it because I can’t exactly ask her if she suffered chronic headaches. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had TMJ, though. When you go to search her house, look for a night guard.”
    As if that’s the most important thing I might find.
    “The time frame for when the infection started?” I guide the gurney through frigid air stale with death, pushing past a silent sad audience of black-pouched mounds on steel trays, many of the patients stored here still unidentified.
    “It’s hard to pinpoint, but based on her charts?” Ned’s breath fogs out. “I’d say it’s related to a root canal two and a half years ago, which was followed by the porcelain crown this past March.”
    “So she was in Palm Beach as recently as March,” I assume, as we exit through the rear cooler door that opens onto the decomp room.
    “She must have been.” Ned follows us in. “And it’s impossible for me to believe that by then the resorption hadn’t already progressed to involve the periodontal ligament space and the tooth. In other words, that damn tooth should have been extracted and not restored.”
    “Yet one more crook in the world,” Luke says.
    “Well, had she lived, she inevitably would have faced an extraction followed by an implant and another crown.” Ned sets his black bag on a countertop and drapes his coat over a chair as if he plans to stay for a while. “Lots of root canals—eight, to be exact—likely from trauma caused by drilling down healthy teeth for crowns that I doubt she needed. Her rear molars, for example? Why bother putting porcelain on teeth no one’s going to see? Use gold. Believe it or not, it’s cheaper.”
    “Money, money, money.” Luke hands me a mask and gloves, his blue eyes calmly on mine, as if he can explain everything that’s happened, as if I should have no reason to be concerned about him.
    “That and this same dentist was also doing facial injections,” Ned lets us know, as Luke and I put on shoe covers and gowns. “The newest trend that I have serious qualms about? Dentists injecting patients with Perlane, Restylane, Juvéderm, and other facial fillers, and also Botox. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I don’t think dentists should be plumping up cheeks and smoothing out frown lines.”
    We slide the body from the gurney to an autopsy table, and she looks tragically small and wizened on cold stainless steel. Turning on an examination light, I move it along its overhead track as Luke labels specimen containers on a cart, and my feelings about him are mixed and confusing. They’re ambivalent and scary, and I try not to think about the outrageous accusations Marino made in the car this morning. I don’t want to admit they might have merit.
    “So this Dr. Pulling, who saw her in March, also injected her with fillers or Botox during that appointment?” I direct six thousand foot-candles of light at the anterior upper arms.
    “Lip augmentation. One CC of Restylane,” Ned says. “It’s in her chart. At least the guy kept pretty good records.”
    “Four small contusions.” I direct Luke’s attention to them. “With another one here.”
    “A thumb bruise?” He reaches for the light’s handle, his arm lightly touching me.
    “Possibly. On the opposite side. Very possibly a thumb bruise. Yes.” I show him, and he leans against me.
    “Fingertip bruises from gripping her,” he describes. “Gripping her upper arm, four fingers there and the thumb here.”
    “Thank you, Ned.” It’s my way of letting him know I’ve got what I need.
    “At least it’s not one of these situations that I see all too often.” He picks up his black medical bag, worn and scuffed, a wedding gift from his wife, who’s dead. “All sorts of things charted that were never done so the dentist could submit claims to the insurance company or disguise noncovered services as those that are covered. Not to mention just plain shoddy work.”
    “It’s really difficult to see, in her condition.” Luke uses a hand lens to examine the subtle contusions I’ve pointed out, and I’m aware of the whisper of his white gown moving as he moves, the intense