The Toothsmith

Ravenswood, Texas, a small, isolated community between Dallas and Houston, is located a few miles from Interstate 45. Unless they are desperately low on gas, few tourists deviated from the highway to visit the small village. Those that do often report  feeling apprehensive due to the townspeople's suspicious looks, as if they were about to kidnap children or pillage stores.

Early August, with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees, and no rain for weeks on end, left the dusty streets intolerably hot. Add a hot breeze and a coyote dead from the drought, the smell of death could drift through the town for days. A smell Samuel Graves knew very well.

Even after eleven years of residency, Samuel was met with mistrust wherever he went. He occasionally worked at a local funeral home. They hired him to oversee the cremation of unclaimed and unidentifiable bodies. He was comfortable with death. Corpses were not judgmental. Only the living disdained his profession and by extension himself for choosing it. He could feel their disgust as if it were permeating the pores of his skin. He learned to ignore their contempt.

Nor was he bothered by the irregular employment prospects because he had other pursuits. More interesting on a personal level. Things he hid from the eyes of the general population.

The mortuary director's phone call didn’t surprise him. A month had passed and still no one had come forward to claim the body.

“Sam, I got one that needs your services. Can you come by tonight?”

“Sure. Ten okay? I’m involved right now. Will you leave the key in the usual place?”

“You got it. Make sure to lock up when you leave.”

“Understood.”

No further conversation.  Concise, simple and direct. No small talk..."Hey, how are you doing, what did you think of the Astros last night, and do you have any plans for lunch tomorrow?" The locals of Ravenswood still saw him as an outsider.

Kneeling he wrenched apart the jaws of the young man whose eyes remained wide open, an expression of fear even in death. He removed the maxillary lateral incisors and the maxillary central incisors with his dentist pliers and put them in their respective numbered plastic bags. For the time being, he was well-stocked with molars, but he yanked out the kid's molar and rammed an old one into the socket from another of his victims. Let the forensic pathologists sort it out, those idiots.  That is assuming this corpse was transported to their facility.

An autopsy would be conducted if the body could be positively identified. If not, the local funeral home was responsible for arranging for disposal. His job.

You'll be wishing you'd never let me go by the time I'm done.  A another unfortunate soul to fall prey to "The Toothsmith”.

He felt the moniker suited him. In the news, it was a big deal. It gave his killings a macabre air.

Removing his latex gloves, he walked confidently to his vehicle, double-checking his surroundings before emerging from the bushes. He climbed into his car and returned to Interstate 45, and drove to the storage unit he rented under a false name miles from his apartment in Ravenswoo

Most of his victims were homeless people and runaways who traveled the roads. He favored the younger generation. Innocent. Clean.

Most of the homeless people had really offensive body odor. As little time as possible was spent on his interaction with their corpses. Yet he delighted in giving the younger, healthier patients more attention. It amused him to leave them teeth with massive cavities.

He sometimes made dental casts mixing the teeth of many of his victims. Bite marks on  bodies, as if someone had tried to devour them, was a great way to taunt the pathologist. He had his PhD in the field himself, so he knew their procedures well.  Laughing to himself he thought, hell, I should be teaching this stuff.

Though overqualified for the job of mortician, it gave him time to indulge his passion for collecting teeth.

At ten he examined the body as promised, all by himself in the morgue. After breaking his jaw bone, he opened the mouth and grinned. Definitely one of his works. A homeless man who could never have afforded such a cosmetic procedure of a gold star incisor implant. It's a shame it wasn't sent to the forensic lab. He carefully withdrew the tooth that might be reused, and inspected the others for anything special. He always made room for the unusual tooth among his ghoulish trophies.

He waited a week for his next hunt. Evenings were best. It was when hikers and motorists with broken down cars are most likely to be desperate for help. He could be the good Samaritan who rescues them by offering a ride to the nearest gas station or motel.

 At sundown the temperature was still above ninety with the asphalt radiating the baking heat of the day. Vegetation along the interstate was sparse and lifeless. It would leave a pervading mood of desperation for anyone stranded at this hour. A condition that would enhance Steven’s opportunity during the hunt.

There it was. A woman standing next to a car with the hood open was desperately waving for him to halt. Beautiful as she was, sex was not his objective. When she smiled, that was the invitation that thrilled him.

Together, they peered into the engine compartment. Not knowing what mechanical anomaly to search for was of no concern. When the highway was clear, he moved behind her and slashed her throat to silence the screams. She was hurriedly encased in a yard bag and tossed into the back of his automobile. Miles further down the highway he finally settled on an isolated wayside where he could work in peace.
Removing the cast of his grotesque amalgamation of teeth, he lifted her top. Teethmarks at the belly button would give that stomach some panache.

A missing person report was sure to be completed on this one. The body would undoubtedly be taken to the nearest forensics facility. After leaving his signature imprint on the stomach, he then opened her mouth. She resembled a monster Bugs Bunny when he pulled two upper incisors and replaced them with two enormous green ones.

Back in his hotel room in Ravenswood he waited for another call from the mortuary. If the wait was long, there was always the hunt. Who said he couldn’t have it all?

People tended to pay little attention to morticians. That was okay with him. The Toothsmith never lacked the opportunity to hone his craft. The respected one or the private one.