Alright, let's lay off the "is Gene Dykes the real Gene Dykes" subject. That is entirely secondary to the subject of the this discussion, which is, did Frank Meza cheat.
Interestingly, I think Gene Dykes's performances can contribute to the discussion. Here are his 5K splits from 2018 Toronto Marathon in which he ran a near-record 2:55:17 (I can't find any splits from the Jacksonville Marathon where he got the record):
20:48, 20:42, 20:47, (there was no mat at 20k, but the 10K from 15K to 25K was 41:27 - so basically the exact same pace, averaging 20:43.5 per 5k), 20:45, 20:41, 20:56
taking a guess at the 5k splits in his middle 10k, that gives us:
20:48, 20:42, 20:47, 20:40, 20:47, 20:45, 20:41, 20:56
Not bad pacing, I must say. Maybe 15-20 seconds variation between the fastest and slowest 5k splits.
Do you see a picture emerging? Basically, to almost get a WR for his age, he ran almost exactly even pace, with a microscopic fade at the end.
OK, change to a higher gear. Here are Eliud Kipchoge's 5k splits from his 2:01:39 in Berlin:
14:24, 14:37, 14:37, 14:18, 14:28, 14:21, 14:16, 14:31
So, same thing. A 21-second variation between fastest and slowest 5k splits for this otherworldly performance.
Note that to get these times, both runners had almost flawless races. No stopping to take a dump, no slowing down and speeding up and slowing down again and speeding up again.
Here are Frank Meza's 5k splits from his LA Marathon performances:
2015: 20:47, 19:03, 20:28, 25:01, 18:34, 19:22, 21:28, 18:30 (chip time 2:52:47)
2016: no result
2017: 20:24, 20:28, 20:48, 21:13, 20:11, 20:35, 23:37, 20:25 (chip time 2:57:30)
2018: 20:32, 18:55, 22:03, 21:45, 19:39, 24:13, 19:44, 19:51 (chip time 2:56:12)
2019: 20:02, 20:17, 20:33, 21:21, 20:02, 21:23, 20:44, 19:47 (chip time 2:53:10)
Some years are definitely more extreme than others, but all are suspect. All have at least one severe increase/decrease in pace.
If you don't see anything odd about those splits, I'm reminded of the Jan Ullrich quote about doping in cycling: "Whoever still can't put one and one together about what happened in cycling is beyond my help".