Ted Botha - The Girl with the Crooked Nose

Frank Bender is one of the unsung heroes of crime detection... In an original and highly readable nonfiction thriller, this book brims with authenticity and the complexities of crime-solving procedurals... [A] fascinating story of a brilliant forensic artists quest to solve some of the most baffling murder cases ever. It is exceptional crime writing that is timely and informative.Tucson Citizen

Action-packed... Bothas work relays Benders surprising conclusions about the case and imparts more information about reconstructing the faces of the dead than most readers will expect.Booklist

[A] crackling account of a quirky, maverick forensics artist, Frank Bender, and his largely successful efforts in facial reconstruction of murder victims... What is extraordinary is Bothas writing, with his unerring depiction of Benders painstaking work and the eventual unraveling of the brutal crimes it solves... The tales in this book accurately capture the dark motives and complexities of senseless murder, and even the most savvy true crime reader will not be able to resist the authors insightful storytelling.Publishers Weekly

ALSO BY TED BOTHA

The Animal Lover

Mongo: Adventures in Trash

Apartheid in My Rucksack

The Expat Confessions (with Jenni Baxter)

T HE G IRL WITH
THE C ROOKED N OSE

A Tale of Murder, Obsession, and Forensic Artistry

TED BOTHA

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright 2008 by Ted Botha and Frank Bender.

Cover design by Pyrographx.

Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

The B design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

PRINTING HISTORY

Random House hardcover edition / May 2008

Berkley trade paperback edition / January 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Botha, Ted.

The girl with the crooked nose / Ted Botha.Berkley trade pbk. ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-101-55412-8

1. Bender, Frank, 1941-2011. 2. Police artistsUnited StatesBiography. 3. CriminalsIdentification. 4. Composite drawing. I. Title.

HV8073.4.B67 2012

363. 25'8dc23

[B]

2011037750

For Jan Bender

INTRODUCTION

The poster on the side of the bus shelter at Villelobos Ocho was frayed and faded from the sun and the sandstorms that blew through town every afternoon, whipping up dust and trash left behind by the days travelers. The poster had probably been put up a few years earlier, but when it wore out, no one bothered to come back and replace it with something new. The words written across the bottom of the torn ad, as far as she could make out, read Qu pasa, hermoso?

Her guess was that it advertised a mens fragrance, although it was hard to tell. The only clues she had to go on were the lower section of a stubbled chin, three well-manicured male fingers clasping what looked like a bottle, and the word Gabbana. Perhaps it was liquor, but she preferred the idea of cologne.

She stared at the ad whenever she was standing at the bus shelter, which was often. She stood there for at least an hour every day, seven days a week. First she took a bus from her home in Puerto Anapra that dropped her at Villelobos Ocho, where she waited for another bus to the maquiladora on the eastern side of the city. At night she made the same trip in reverse, stopping once again at the bus shelter, where the man from Gabbana would be waiting with his truncated bottle of cologne.

After a few moments she would find herself staring at it once again, all the while imagining. She wondered who could afford such an expensive-looking fragrance. Maybe some of those businessmen she had passed as they went into the Hotel Lucerna or Maria Chuchenas. Everyone else who wanted to smell good used soap or rosewater. Agua de rosa. She knew agua de rosa well because her mother wore it on special occasions, like her nephews baptism and funerals. That was also where shed gotten her name from.

The incongruity of a cologne decorating a decrepit bus shelter that reeked of old urine didnt matter to her. It gave her all the more reason to immerse herself in this other life, this poster life. The ad for Gabbana, as well as the others for Toyota Hilux and Kelvinator T2000 refrigerators (at Villelobos Siete and Nueve), transported her to another place, making life just that little bit more exciting. And she took what little excitement she could find with open arms.

Today, for what seemed like the millionth time, she imagined what it must be like to have all the things from the world of the posters. El mundo del fotografa, she called it. She pictured herself in that world. Yes, she would live in a house across the border, in El Paso, and she would have not one refrigerator but three, which she would stock with beef and cheese and those candies whose wrappers she saw floating around the bus depot when the wind came up, the ones with words written on them that she didnt understand. American words. She would have a husband who drove a Toyota Hilux, and when he took her out in it, for dinner at the McDonalds in downtown El Paso, he would dab himself with Gabbana. The manicured fingers would hold her face, the stubble would brush her as he kissed

Hola, linda!

A car pulled up in a rush of noise and dust, frightening her out of her reverie. It was dark, and she had been standing at Villelobos Ocho for over an hour. The bus was later than usual. She was annoyed that shed been taken away from el mundo del fotografa, but then she saw the vehicle was a Toyota Hiluxat least it looked like one in the poor lightand that was comforting.

Qu pasa, linda?

She could feel herself blushing, surprised and embarrassed at the same time. The drivers words were exactly the same as those in the Gabbana ad, and one of them was a word that people seldom used for her,