“Here is an angle match radiograph of your Jane Doe. Now, if we superimpose one on top of the other…”

The matches of the landmarks said it all, from the orbits of the eyes to the deteriorated bridge of the nose. These images together with the dental X-rays were proof enough for even the biggest skeptics.

“If there’s a trial, I’m sure you’ll be asked to testify,” Decker said.

“Not a problem. The only thing that doesn’t line up nearly perfectly is the indentation around the periphery of the skull where her head was bashed in.”

A beep sounded. “All right, here we go,” Salvo said. “We’ve got our two-dimensional faces and the computer is adding an underlying skeleton. In age progression, the computer essentially does the same thing that Lauren does. It pinpoints anatomical landmarks and then goes from there. The computer doesn’t take into consideration anything intuitive. That’s why Lauren’s input is so valuable.”

“You make me blush,” Lauren said.

Norton smiled. It was shy and boyish. “So I’m going to ask the program to age the soft tissue for thirty years.”

“Adding in the wrinkles and the bags and the lines,” Lauren said. “As you get older, the collagen breaks down.”

“Here we go.” Salvo clicked the mouse and the computer spat back an image. Manny was now fifty-five with a full face that had been incised with wrinkles. His nose had broadened, his eyes were underlined with bags, and his mouth had widened, his lips thin, the corners of his mouth turned down. His once-dark hair was streaked with gray.

Lauren asked. “What did this guy do for a living before he disappeared?”

“He was a janitor,” Decker said.

Marge said, “Alyssa Bright Mapplethorpe told us that he was a very talented carpenter.”

Lauren said, “Do you think this guy would have had a desk job?”

“With a father and a brother in prison, not too likely,” Marge said. “I’m still wondering if he’s in the prison system somewhere.”

“So if he were alive today, what would he do to support himself?”

“Probably what all the cons do,” Oliver said. “A roofer.”

“Maybe a framer, since he has carpentry experience,” Decker said.

Salvo said, “In either case, that’s sun exposure.”

Lauren said, “And viewing the occupation and family history, he probably also smokes.”

“A good bet,” Decker said. “From the two pictures, his eyes look brown, but his brother has dark blue eyes. So he could be fairer than he looks.”

“That would mean lots of liver and sun spots,” Salvo made some modifications and the face returned, but this time leaner, older, and more desiccated. His hairline had receded, exposing a lined forehead and sparse tresses. “What about the teeth? If he smokes and drinks, chances are he’s lost a couple of teeth in the process.” Another click and the front part of his mouth caved in. “What do you think?”

Decker stared at the image. With his eyes still on the monitor, he said, “What do you think, Lauren?”

She regarded the computer image. “You’re not happy with it.”

“How can you tell?”

“I’m a professional face reader. What don’t you like, Lieutenant?”

Decker finally took his eyes off the screen. “Let me see the faxes again.”

Lauren handed them to him. “I know what’s probably bothering you. Both Manny and his brother have round faces. Your image of Manny doesn’t conform to the computer image because it looks way too lean.”

“You nailed it,” Decker told her. “If Manny were alive today, I think he’d be heavier.”

“A football player gone to seed,” Lauren remarked.

“You’ve got it,” Decker said. “Even Manny’s father, who started out being thin and wiry, put on weight.”

“Prison food is high in fat, sugar, and carbohydrates,” Marge said.

“Aren’t meals supposed to be nutritionally balanced?” Lauren asked.

“I’m sure there’s protein somewhere on the menu,” Marge said, “but you don’t keep the groundlings quiet by feeding them salad.”

Salvo said, “If I plump up the face, I’m going to have to take away some of the wrinkles.”

“Fat is a great filler,” Lauren said. “Cosmetic surgeons use it all the time to smooth out wrinkles.”

Salvo clicked some buttons on the computer and the next face that appeared was fuller and less wrinkled.

But Decker still wasn’t satisfied.

“The old man gained a lot of weight in prison. This guy started out stockier. To me, he still looks too thin.”

Oliver said, “Loo, if he worked construction, maybe he did more exercise and was thinner than his old man, who has been sitting on his ass in prison for the last fifty years.”

Decker shook his head. “Logically, you’re right, Oliver, but I just have an image of this guy as someone I’ve seen before. Indulge me. Put some more fat on his face.”

Salvo complied. The next image showed a clearly rotund man with a smooth face.

Lauren said, “You know, heavier older men, more often than not, have more head hair than lean men their age. I don’t know why that is, but it’s true. Maybe it has to do with hormone levels. In any case, give him a little more hair, Norton.”

“Will do.” Again he played with the mouse. “What do you think?”

Again, Decker looked at the picture of Manny’s father, Martin. “Cave in his chin a little…like his dad has.”

Salvo complied and the five of them stared at the image. Marge scratched her head and turned to Decker. “You’re right about one thing, Pete. This guy looks familiar.”

“He does?” Oliver said.

“Yes, he does…” Decker’s heart started racing, but he shook his head in disbelief. There were coincidences and there were coincidences.

Rina’s words: What goes around comes around. Middah keneged middah.

The aphorism was nothing more than a cliché, but sometimes adages became clichés because they were true.

“Give the guy some half-glasses.”

“Why?”

“A gut feeling. Please?”

“Sure.” A minute later the revised image appeared on the monitor.

“Holy shit!” Marge slapped her forehead. “That’s Raymond Holmes!”

Decker said, “I.e., Manny Hernandez, whose given name was Ramon Hernandez.”

Oliver was confused. “Are you talking about the Raymond Holmes as in Roseanne Dresden’s boyfriend?”

“Lightning does strike twice,” Decker said. “Two missing women and one guy. Of course Marge and I could be wrong and the Raymond Holmes that we interviewed in San Jose could just be a guy who owns a construction business who happens to be a twin for that computer image.”

“Do you have a picture of Raymond Holmes?” Salvo said. “We could superimpose one image on top of another.”

“No, I don’t,” Decker said.

Lauren said, “Norton, why don’t you go on Google-face and see if the site has a picture of him.”

“An excellent idea, Lauren.” Clicks of the keyboard combined with clicks of the mouse. Within a minute, they were looking at a tiny group picture from four years ago that included Raymond Holmes. He had been one of five recipients of the Golden Heart Award for builders who had participated in low-income housing construction.

Marge said, “You can barely see his face, let alone get any idea of his bone structure.”

“I have to agree with you on that one,” Salvo concurred. “Let me Google him and see if he’s been mentioned in any other capacity.” The site pulled up eight hundred references to Raymond Holmes, including a doctor, a minister, a poet, an educator, a writer, and loads of other occupations. “It’s going to take up a lot of time to go through each of these references. Why don’t you fly up to San Jose and take a picture of the guy with a zoom lens.”

“This is the guy that passed the lie-detector test,” Oliver said.

Marge said, “The very one.”

“If I were Manny Hernandez, as soon as that plane crashed into that apartment and I knew I’d hidden a body there, I would have rabbited.”

“Well, he didn’t rabbit then, but I’m sure he’s rabbited by now,” Decker said. “When we talked to him, I, being an idiot, told him that the body we found in the apartment wasn’t Roseanne Dresden. I think in the back of his mind, Raymond Holmes was hoping that we’d mistake Beth’s body for Roseanne.”