“The keys were made by Connecticut locksmiths. One is imprinted with the words DEPIERNE, NORWALK, CONN. and one reads KARPELOW SAFE AND LOCK. I can even read a partial address on that one.” I couldn't read it all, but I had managed to make out a few key letters and numbers: _82 ELM STREET, ____________________PORT, CT. When I called the U.S. Post Office, they told me that those two-letter state designations were implemented in 1963. So the Karpelow key might have been made any time after 1963, and the DePierne key was imprinted no later than 1963, maybe earlier.
Daly's reaction was all I could have hoped for. “Doc, this is huge,” he said hoarsely. “Let me make some calls, and I'll get back with you as soon as I know something.”
Early the next morning, he called back. “Okay, we've narrowed down the time just a bit more. Seems DePierne went out of business about twenty-five years ago, and Karpelow moved from that Elm Street address back in the 1970s.”
From that point on, the investigation took on a life of its own as the answers to the previous week's questions started pouring in. The Cross company told me that the particular model of pen and pencil I'd sent them had been made only between 1965 and 1970. The nickel did indeed bear the date of 1964. The eyeglasses had most likely been made during that same era in either Japan or Germany, which might help to explain my European imagery. And although he described the dental work much more clinically in his report, Dr. Bernstein told me that in his opinion, the teeth in our guy's mouth looked like expensive Park Avenue dentistry at its finest.
Then, on May 25, Daly called me at home a little after dinner. As soon as I heard his voice I knew he had exciting news, otherwise he'd have waited till the next day. “Do you feel lucky?” he asked me. He started to chuckle, then laughed out loud. “I had a reporter, Mike Mayko, run a piece about our John Doe in the Connecticut Post, and I just now spoke with him. He has a tip for us that came in through their crime stoppers hotline.”
A wealthy businessman had apparently disappeared from Weston, Connecticut, on March 25, 1966, right after he'd made an appearance before a New York City grand jury. This man had been one of three people accused of conspiring to evade $7 million in taxes owed on foreign stock trades. He'd reportedly left his home around 4:00 p.m. in a 1965 green Corvette Stingray and boarded an American Airlines flight from Kennedy Airport to Cincinnati under the assumed name of Mr. Henry. Then he simply vanished.
“Now here's the best part,” Daly told me. “The man's name is Henry Scharf.”
“Oh, my God. The initials on the money clip. So they were H.S. That's got to be him. Was he as big as I estimated?”
“You were right on target about everything. Mayko told me the guy was really tall and built like a pro football player. Obviously, he had money. He was 46 when he disappeared. And remember those German eyeglass frames? This guy traveled regularly to France and Germany.”
Now it was my turn to be stunned.
“So,” Daly went on, “I've got a Connecticut detective working on the next step. The tipster who saw the article in the paper, though, said contacting the family might not be too easy. He knows them, and they were so devastated by the incident that they may not want to have anything to do with the police.”
“But that was almost thirty years ago,” I said without thinking. “They have to be ready to talk about it now.” I couldn't stand the idea of being so close and then losing all hope of identification, especially for such a sad reason: decades of unhealed bitterness.
“First things first,” Daly told me. “Let me talk to them.”
As it turned out, the Scharf family was reluctant to talk to the police, but they were willing to talk to me. Perhaps a scientist or a doctor seemed less threatening to them than someone in law enforcement. When I spoke with Henry's son-in-law, who was acting as the spokesman for his wife and mother-in-law, I could tell that the wounds were still fresh, a quarter-century later, but the family was being as cooperative as they could be.
Then we ran into a different kind of problem. Because of the time lag, nothing was falling into place. Mrs. Scharf didn't recognize the money clips. Henry's dentist had died years ago, and his inactive records had been destroyed. (I couldn't help feeling pleased to learn that he actually was from Park Avenue!) Henry had had fingerprints on file with the FBI, but the skin was long gone from our victim's phalanges. Although Henry had been in the U.S. Army, his medical and dental records had been destroyed when a fire had ripped through the military archives in St. Louis.
Undaunted, I asked the family for a photograph, and they sent one that showed a robust, smiling Henry standing on a boat, holding up a large fish. To my artist's and anthropologist's eyes, it looked like a match to John Doe's skull. Now I was personally convinced that we had found the remains of Henry Scharf. But I still had to prove it.
Then I got what I thought was another break. With the help of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, I discovered that Henry had filed a claim for benefits, which had left a dental chart on file with the department. With help from the FBI, I got a copy of this chart and set about comparing it to the teeth in the victim's skull.
They didn't match.
No. It wasn't possible. I knew the chart had to be wrong. But how could I explain the discrepancy? The chart indicated that Henry was missing a molar. That same molar was present in the skull I held in my hand.
I decided that the dentist had simply made a mistake, and with more bravado than brains, I ignored the dental chart. “Let's do a DNA comparison,” I told Mark and Detective Daly. “At this point, we've got to know.”
I guess Mark and Daly were as eager as I was to know the truth, because they eventually agreed. But a DNA analysis wouldn't be easy. DNA analysis is based upon the premise that every cell of our bodies contains a genetic code, identical throughout our bodies and highly similar to the codes found among our close relatives. In theory, then, any cell from any body can be used to do a comparative DNA analysis.
When living people or fresh bodies are involved, this process is relatively easy. You use the DNA found in a cell's nucleus, but nucleic DNA is quite fragile and cannot withstand the ravages of time. So when long-dead bodies are involved, another part of the cell must be invaded to extract the more durable mitochrondrial DNA, a tedious and expensive process.
Extraction is only half the problem. Mitochondrial DNA is only inherited from the mother. So it must be compared to the blood of a relative within the maternal lineage.
Then we got our final and most important break. We found out that Henry Scharf's sister was still alive.
“Mrs. Greenberg?”
After delicate negotiations with members of Henry's extended family, I had been granted permission to speak with Henry's sister, Minna Greenberg (not her real name). Henry's niece had told her mother that Henry's body had been found, and Mrs. Greenberg knew I'd had something to do with that. But this eighty-year-old woman knew very little else, only that her beloved brother had mysteriously disappeared well over a quarter of a century ago, leaving his family bereft.
It wasn't the first tragedy Minna had suffered. In 1939, she and her brother had fled Austria in the wake of the Nazi invasion. As Jews, they were eager to leave, though they'd had to leave behind a large number of loved ones. Although Minna had eventually lost everyone except her beloved brother, she had never given up hope until now.
“So, you're the one who found my dear Henry.” Her voice was quavering but surprisingly strong, her Austrian accent still evident.