Say Your DDS Is Dead...

As I've stated before, I'm not afraid to watch any number of miniseries on BritBox, Masterpiece, or whatever that might be dubbed, or even in the original foreign language, helped along with subtitles. I'm there, seeing the world though the eyes of the police in Shetland, Scotland, Usedom, Germany, Iceland, Sweden, or wherever the series is set. It's my way of joining the navy and seeing the world.

The best part of seeing the murder mysteries unfold in the north of Europe is realizing how many ferry rides those people take to get from A to B. I'm forever consulting my atlas to see that Denmark is really close to Sweden, borders Germany, and Scotland is close to Norway, 

Big ferries. Not like the Staten Island ferry, but huge jobbers that take on tractor trailers, buses, and look like cruise ships if the journey is long enough. Not that long ago I binged my way through the  series Shetland, and nearly came away talking with a Scottish accent. 

The lead investigator in the four person police shack in Shetland is from Fair Island, home to 700 people and 70,000 sheep. The island is known for making great use of all that wool, and I'm hear to tell you that the four pairs of brightly colored socks I bought from Fair Island are the warmest, best socks I've ever worn with my Timberlands. Just mentioning it.

Lately I'm making my way through "Nordic Murders" set in Usedom, Germany, hard by the Polish border, so close that if you can't get milk in Usedom, which is an island, you can drive to Swinoujscie, Poland and find a place open there.

These murder mysteries are set in contemporary times. In Usedom, the Berlin wall has fallen and East and West Germany are reunited, but the pain of the separation is not forgotten. And the enmity between the Germans and the Poles is very much a part of daily life, when for example, a German suspect is questioned about using a mechanic in Poland, he replies with clear disdain, "why would I take my German engineered car to a Polack?" Maybe it was a silly question, but they had to ask.

Murder mysteries of course need someone who is not only dead, but one whose life has been snuffed out by the actions of another. And let me tell you, the perps are not always so obvious. Children have  done in others.

No police department, no matter how isolated, cannot fail to call in a forensic unit to take photos, dust for prints, bag, and make plaster molds of tire tracks (tyre on the subtitles) tracks, footprints and extract fibers with a tweezer off a fence post. I learn that a woman who has washed up on the beach in Usedom has been at the Baltic bottom long enough, and in frigid temperatures long enough to be somewhat preserved in a waxy covering. The local paper headlines: Wax Woman Found on Beach

Who is she? Well, the prosecutor in Usedom tells the lead detective, an attractive woman from Denmark, that the deceased is so and so, a psychotherapist who lived in Usedom for two years. The female investigator, Ellen, asks how do they know all this? 

Now the woman detective is not incompetent, but in these European jurisdictions the public prosecutor is also an investigator who got the forensic report before she did. "Dental records, Commissioner."

Fair enough. We've probably all watched a crime show where the deceased is identified through their dental records. We've been so informed of this so often we've probably failed to ask, "well, how did you know what dentist to ask to see their records?" If she's only been in Usedom for two years, maybe she didn't have an dental appointment while there, no? Or, she's originally from Bulgaria.

No, we've accepted on faith that dental records can  get you the name of the deceased. Well, maybe if there's a National dental insurance and everybody's molars are on a database at the capital, but what if they're foreigners?

I will admit I've fallen for "we checked the dental records" statement from forensics as gospel, never thinking what lead them to check with the right dentist in the first place.

The light bulb finally came on in my head when it came to having a dental appointment yesterday. It was just after a Nordic Murders episode where the psychologist was found on the beach. Murdered. Reliably identified through her teeth.

My dentist is local, and as I was walking there I started to think what if my body washed ashore with no means of identification? Now, it's probably foolish to predict what will lead to my demise, but I really doubt it's going to be caused by what did this poor woman in, dumped in the ocean by a fellow who runs a marine salvage business and retrieved by another salvage ship and further dumped back in the ocean because the second salvage boat didn't want to draw attention to themselves since they were busy retrieving dumped WW II German ordinance and illegally putting it back on the Black Market. It's like being killed twice.

No, a feeling occurred to me. Since the dentist I was going was a fairly new dentist since my prior dentist who I had been seeing for decades has passed away, if my body were to lie somewhere and I couldn't be identified, what dentist would be consulted for my records, and what would lead the investigation team to that dentist?

The prior dentist was a one-man practice, so I don't know where his records might have wound up; maybe in his daughter's garage.

Am I headed to Potter's Field?

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