I was asleep in my armchair counting dreams of productive sheep when my phone rang. It was constable Hibblet on the other end, more’s the pity.
“Get a load of this, sir!” he said in that gormlessly enthusiastic voice of his. “There’s been a murder!”
“Gosh,” I said.
“And it’s been done with TEETH. Isn’t that CRAZY, sir?”
“I’ll say. It’s almost as if the homicide department gets to see this kind of thing. Well, call Dr. Crobmonch immediately; if it’s been in a jaw and inside someone else’s business he’ll know it.”
“That’s the funny part, sir!”
“What is?”
***
Dr. Paulmonius Crobmonch had been seventy-six. He would not grow older.
This would’ve vexed him greatly had he been alive; he spent his days in careful regimens of diet and exercise, watching his vitals like a breeder with his prize pigeons. He was all too intimately familiar with what happened when they went wrong.
Really, not having to put up with his prissy little comments on my coffee ever again was worth the murder case. Provided we could solve it.
“Cause of death was uhhh…” I muttered, staring blankly at the shriveled old coot and wishing dearly for black coffee.
“Bite on the throat, sir! You can tell ‘cause it’s missing.”
“Thank you, constable Hibblet. Why don’t you go get me a coffee?”
“Oh yes sir sir sir!”
I had three minutes to think. This would take all my concentration. I narrowed my eyes, squinted down my nose, tightened my belt and loosened my gizzard. When I was done with all of that I had thirty seconds left so I had to think quickly.
“Cause of death was bite on the throat,” I said crossly. “Fine. Whatever.”
“Oooooh does this mean we get to check dental records, sir?” asked constable Hibblet, ahead of schedule and vibrating intensely at my elbow.
“You are perfectly half-right, constable,” I said, taking my coffee from him. “How many do we have again?”
“Oh gosh thousands sir!”
“Well, you’d better get started then. I’ll go interview the suspects.”
***
This didn’t take long. Dr. Paulmonius Crobmonch had been retired for years, with no contact with former students nor coworkers. He’d never married, never been close to the rest of his family, and saved little of his meager pension.
The only stuff he had of any value at all was upstairs: a single room, quietly kept and well-tended, stuffed to the absolute brim with jaws, beaks, mandibles, maxilla, and teeth of every colour of the rainbow. Fossil teeth fresh teeth big teeth little teeth miscellaneous teeth well-ordered teeth, teeth from afar and teeth from near and teeth from wherever they were. It was impressive in a sick sort of way. How Crobmonch had managed to sleep in the same building as the evidence of his dedication to his profession was beyond me.
None of them were missing. And so another potential motive was sunk beneath the waves. I kicked back at my desk and closed my eyes and thought about teeth, sharp and jagged and
(bicuspid, the nasally voice of Dr. Crobmonch supplied peevishly in my hindbrain)
bicuspid and all too bloody.
Someone had bitten out this boring, tepid, solitary academic’s throat. Awfully personal for someone with no enemies and no wealth worth speaking of.
I poured myself a big glass of illicit. I deserved it.
“Here’s to wherever the hell you’ve gone,” I toasted the room. “And stay there.”
It burned going down, but sweetly.
***
“Sir! Sir! Sir oh sirry sir sir!”
I woke to constable Hibblet as no woman should: three inches away and vibrating.
“Wussafuggoffff.”
“Sir! I have made a bold deduction and a breakthrough and MORE in our case!”
I blinked unspeakable and unidentifiable things from my eyes. “Hmmmurrr?”
“Sir, I was thinking sir, of how the doctor, sir, of how he was our tooth expert, sir, and it occurred to me, sir, what if, sir…. what if the teeth he was bitten with WEREN’T THE MURDERER’S OWN!”
“Fwee?” I inquired.
“Oh sir there was an entire roomful of murder implements upstairs! I’m shocked you didn’t mention it to me, sir! I brought the whole bunch downstairs and had them checked from prints and DNA and RNA and FBI profiles and anything and everything! Took all night, sir!”
I blinked. “Wow. That’s initiative. You’ve done initiative, constable. Give me the reports before you tell anyone, so that – “
“Have no fear, sir! I ran into Inspector Grablort on my way in and she was so excited when she heard that she read them all on the spot AND she wanted to come in and tell you too!”
I stared at constable Hibblet’s purely and utterly earnest face and I wondered if it was worth it.
“Sir!”
“Go away, Hibblet. Have lunch.”
Hibblet would never, ever be worth it. Besides, in his current state he might choke to death on his meal without outside assistance.
Inspector Grablort entered the room as he left. She was holding handcuffs, a sidearm, and a grim expression.
I raised my eyebrow. It didn’t happen on purpose, just went ahead and did it on its own. Like a mallet on the kneecap.
I’d been in awkward silences before, but this was a winner. The seconds stretched out, each an entire meal with the in-laws.
Grablort broke first. “Are you going to come quietly?” she asked.
I closed my eyes. “Now that I never have to hear someone explain the difference between a molar and a premolar? Yes. Very yes. Very yes forever.”
And it wasn’t, but it was thirty years, which was close enough. But at least nobody in the entire prison tried to talk to me about teeth.