"Was she a hygienist?"
Pepper nodded.
"I'm glad I never got on Dr. Latham's bad side. She made it a point to destroy people. Talk about vindictive.”
"Do you have contact information for Hannah?”
She nodded, and I gave her my card. Pepper texted me Hannah’s information, and it buzzed my phone a moment later.
"What about surveillance cameras?”
"We don't have any in the office," Pepper said. "There are some on the grounds that cover the building entrances and exits, but there is nothing in the common areas for privacy reasons. I don't think the cameras have worked in a couple of years. The management company is terrible about maintenance around here. I had been telling Dr. Latham we should move out of this building for a long time.”
I asked her a few more questions, then we stepped back into the waiting room. Forensics investigators dusted the door handles for prints.
I moved back to the scene of the crime.
Brenda still examined the remains.
"Do we have a time of death?"
"I'd say last night between 9 and 11:00 PM. But I'll know more when I get her back to the lab.” Then she added, “I’m going to go out on a limb and say this was personal.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Somebody drilled out all of her lower molars.”
I winced.
“I’d dare say it was done without anesthesia. Somebody wanted her to suffer, and that, she did.”
I searched Dr. Latham's pockets and found two cell phones. If she was having an affair and going through a divorce, I figured one of the phones might be a burner—common among people in contentious separations.
I held both devices in front of Dr. Latham's face, hoping to clear the security screen, but neither device accepted her lifeless gaze. It worked about half the time. This time, I was batting zero.
I talked to JD after he had spoken with Becky and Rachel. They had pretty much said the same thing as Pepper. We collected their contact information and exchanged cards. Then JD and I started knocking on neighboring doors to see if anyone had seen anything.
That didn't prove fruitful. No one had been in the office building at the time of the murder. It was well after business hours.
From Dr. Latham's office, you could see directly across the atrium to Dr. Stockton's office. Jack and I walked to the other side of the building and stepped into his office. I flashed my badge to the receptionist and made introductions.
Concern tensed her eyes. "What's going on over there?"
I told her, and she gasped.
"Is Dr. Stockton available? We’d like to ask him a few questions.”
“He's with a patient right now, but I'll let him know you're here."
She stood up from her chair and walked into the treatment area. Dr. Stockton's voice bounced down the hallway as he talked to a patient. The receptionist gave him the news, and she returned a moment later. "Please have a seat. He'll be with you shortly.”
JD and I took a seat in the waiting room and flipped through magazines while we killed the time.
About 10 minutes later, Dr. Stockton pushed open the door and stepped into the waiting room with a solemn face. "Good morning, deputies." He extended his hand. "Jim Stockton. Goodto meet you." He said as we shook. He frowned and shook his head. "Just terrible about Dr. Latham. What happened?"
He held the door for us and escorted us down the hallway to his office. We stepped inside, and he offered us a seat across the desk from his. He closed the door behind us and took a seat.
Dr. Stockton was a handsome man in his mid-40s with a square jaw, ice-blue eyes, and slicked-back brown hair that was just starting to gray at the temples, giving him a distinguished look. He wore a white lab coat and looked like he kept himself fit.
