Spider Bones

by Kathy Reichs

  “Fair analogy. What Lady Liberty does for New York City, the Aloha Tower does for Honolulu. For four decades it was the tallest structure in Hawaii.”

  “The pilot also talked about shops and restaurants.”

  “The Aloha Tower Marketplace opened in nineteen ninety-four. But that’s just one feature. The Hawaii Maritime Center is there, and the historic vessel Falls of Clyde. I read somewhere that Honolulu Harbor is the only harbor in the nation to combine a visitor attraction, retail and restaurant outlets, and working commercial harbor facilities in a single location.”

  “I think they do that in Baltimore. My earphones were pretty buzzy. I missed a lot of the commentary. We also flew over something called the Punchbowl.”

  The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. A final resting place for American soldiers. I didn’t say it.

  “And we saw another lighthouse.”

  “At Makapu’u Point?”

  “I think so. And Mount Olomana. Cool name. Easy to remember.”

  “That’s over here, on the windward side of the island.”

  “The pilot said there was an awesome trail to the summit. I might try hiking it. And we overflew a place where some Hawaiian king won a battle to unite the islands. Didn’t catch his name or who he was fighting. But I’m guessing he won.”

  “Nu’uanu Pali. Ready for some history?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “In seventeen ninety-five King Kamehameha I sailed from his home island of Hawaii, leading an army of about ten thousand soldiers. After conquering the islands of Maui and Molokai, he moved on to Oahu. The defenders of Oahu, led by Kalanikupule, became trapped at Nu’uanu Pali. Kamehameha drove more than four hundred of them over the cliff to their deaths.”

  “Brutal.”

  “But effective.”

  “Will that be on the quiz?”

  “Yes.”

  For dessert we shared an order of cocolatta, a vanilla bean ice cream–coconut creation that filled us with awe. Our waiter, Fabio, provided instruction on topping the concoction with juice squeezed from fresh limes.

  Yeah. Fabio. Bleached hair, unbuttoned shirt, puka beads and all.

  Driving home we laughed until our sides hurt.

  WEDNESDAY I WAS BACK AT THE CIL BY NINE.

  Danny was in his office, hunched over his desk. He spun a wheelie with his chair when I entered.

  “Aloha.” Beaming.

  “You look like one of those obnoxious smiley-face logos.”

  I’d slept badly, awakened with bongos thumping in my head. The drive into Honolulu hadn’t helped.

  “I feel happy.” Danny spread both arms and feet.

  “And pretty, and witty, and gay?” Shoving aside journals, I dropped onto a love seat many years past its shelf life.

  “Are we having a grumpy-pants day?”

  “Headache.”

  “Did the ladies enjoy a hearty night out?”

  “Katy downed the ten-gallon mai tai, not me.” Rubbing circles on my temples. “What brings such glee into your world?”

  “I finally got the poop on the Huey crash.”

  “The chopper transporting Spider Lowery from Long Binh?”

  “The very one.”

  “And?”

  “According to the REFNO, the fifth body was never recovered.”

  Danny used the shortened version of “reference number.” REFNO files contain information on all military misadventures, including the names of those who died, those who survived, the location, the timing, the aircraft type, the artifacts recovered—all known facts concerning an incident.

  “The missing crew member?”

  “The maintenance specialist.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  Danny’s grin stretched so wide I thought his head might split and the top fall off, as in one of those Monty Python animation sequences. Maybe I was projecting.

  Impatient, I gestured for more.

  “Luis Alvarez.”

  It took a moment for the import to worm through my pain.

  “The guy was Latino?”

  “Presumably.”

  I shot upright. “Let me see.”

  Danny handed me a fax. “IDPF to follow shortly, I’m told.”

  The information was meager but telling.

  “Spec 2 Luis Alvarez, maintenance specialist. Date of birth February twenty-eighth, nineteen forty-eight,” I read.

  “Alvarez was a month shy of twenty when the chopper went down.”

  “Five-nine, a hundred sixty-five pounds. Home of record, Bakersfield, California.”

  I looked up.

  “Alvarez is listed KIA/BNR.” Killed in action, body not recovered.

  Danny nodded. “Here’s my take. Lowery was just out of jail, so the mortuary staff at Tan Son Nhut assumed the victim wearing no uniform insignia was him. The profile fit, the location, it all made sense. But they blew it. The burned corpse was really Alvarez.”

  “If Alvarez was still MIA, why do you suppose they ruled him out?”

  “You and I agree that 2010-37’s racial architecture is a mixed bag. Given body condition, the guys at Tan Son Nhut probably missed what we saw. Or maybe someone with little knowledge of bone noted only the more Caucasoid craniofacial features. Either way, they concluded that the guy was white.”

  “Thus Lowery.”

  “I’ll bet the farm Alvarez’s records say Latino.”

  I agreed.

  “Dr. Brennan, I think we’ve done it.”

  “Dr. Tandler, I think we have.”

  “Oh, Cisco.” Danny raised a palm.

  “Oh, Pancho.” I high-fived it.

  We whooped. It hurt.

  “Here’s what I don’t get.” Danny began swiveling his chair from side to side. “Alvarez ends up buried in North Carolina. Lowery ends up diddling himself in Quebec. How’s that roll?”

  I had no explanation.

  Seconds passed. Watching Danny loop back and forth started making me seasick.

  I shifted my gaze to the desk. Remembered the gold whatsit locked in the drawer.

  “Has Craig come up with any ideas on the duck-mushroom thing?”

  “Not that he’s shared.”

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Now we await the Alvarez file.”

  “And?”

  “Reconstruct what’s left of the skull.”

  That’s what we did. I did. Danny was busy with a case review meeting most of the morning.

  As I maneuvered and glued fragments, a maelstrom of emotions swirled inside me. If we were right about the mix-up back in ’68, the Alvarez family would finally have closure. Plato would be forced to accept an altered reality.

  So goes life. A positive for one, a negative for another.

  Images elbowed for attention in my aching head. Plato leafing through photos in my car. Squinting in the sun at the Lumberton cemetery.

  I wondered. I seemed to have his trust. Now, how to tell the old man that the grave at which he’d mourned all those years had never held his son?

  I was squeezing Elmer’s on a hunk of frontal when a thought blindsided me.

  My hands froze.

  Spider Lowery was from Lumberton, North Carolina. Robeson County.

  No way.

  I pictured Plato.

  The faces in his album.

  The boy in the snapshot in Jean Laurier’s desk.

  Way?

  I returned to Danny’s office and checked Spider’s file.

  Wherever a form queried race, a check marked the little box beside the word white. A handwritten note in the dental record described Lowery as “Cauc.” Caucasian.

  Yet.

  I looked at the clock. Twelve forty.

  I went to the kitchen and downed a yogurt and a granola bar. Popped a Diet Coke. Considered.

  Returned to gluing.

  Again and again I circled back to one simple truth.

  People misrepresent when filling out forms. Men record them
selves as taller. Women record themselves as slimmer, younger.

  People lie.

  One thirty.

  Not too late.

  I punched a number into my BlackBerry. Area code 910.

  Twelve rings, then the line went dead.

  Clicking off, I entered a different set of digits. Though the lab was cool, sweat now beaded my brow.

  “Sugarman’s Funeral Home,” a syrupy voice purred.

  “Silas Sugarman, please. Temperance Brennan calling.”

  “Hold, please.”

  “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” from Orpheus and Eurydice? Meant to be soothing, the music only agitated me further.

  “Dr. Brennan. What a pleasure. You’ve returned from Hawaii?”

  “I’m calling from Honolulu.”

  “How may I help you?”

  “I’m in need of personal information on Spider Lowery.”

  “Perhaps you should talk to Spider’s daddy.”

  “Plato isn’t answering his phone.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” Apprehensive. “Within the bounds of ethical constraints, of course.”

  “Of course. Are the Lowerys Native American?”

  Sugarman didn’t reply for so long I thought he’d found my question offensive. Or an invasion of privacy.

  “You mean Indian?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hell’s bells, little lady, most folks in Robeson County have a papoose or two up the old family tree. My own great-grandma was Indian, God rest her soul.”

  “The Lowerys, sir?”

  “Course they’ve got blood. Plato’s half Lumbee, his wife too, come from up the road in Pembroke.”

  Sugarman referred to the Lumbee, a Native American group taking its name from the Lumber River.

  Descended mainly from Cheraw and related Siouan speakers, the Lumbee have occupied what is now Robeson County since the eighteenth century. They’re the largest tribe in North Carolina, the largest east of the Mississippi River, and the ninth largest in the nation.

  And perhaps the most disadvantaged.

  The Lumbee were granted formal recognition as a tribe by North Carolina in 1885. Three years later they started pressing claims with the federal government for similar recognition. To date, they’d met with limited success.

  In 1956, Congress passed a bill acknowledging the Lumbee as Indian, but denying them full status as a tribe. As a result, they are ineligible for the financial support and Bureau of Indian Affairs program services provided to officially recognized groups.

  All forty-seven thousand are pretty cheesed off.

  “—don’t take my meaning wrong.”

  “Of course not.” I couldn’t wait to get off the phone. “Thank you so much.”

  Danny was still in his case review meeting.

  Damn. I was seriously jazzed.

  Back to gluing fragments.

  By the time Danny broke free I practically manhandled him into his office.

  When I’d explained my misgivings, he checked Spider’s file as I had done.

  “Mongoloid features. Alvarez was undoubtedly Latino. Lowery had Native American blood. So probably we’re back to square one. Your boy could be Lowery or Alvarez.”

  “Fingerprints say Lowery died in Quebec.”

  “Maybe the screwup belongs to the FBI, not to Tan Son Nhut.”

  “Maybe.”

  I thought for a moment.

  “What if 2010-37 is neither?”

  “Neither?”

  “Alvarez or Lowery.”

  Danny’s brows shot up.

  “Was anyone else BNR from the region where the Huey went down?”

  “I could do a REFNO search using geographic coordinates. What do you think?”

  “I think you dazzle,” I said.

  “As do you.”

  “Me?”

  “Don’t forget.” Danny winked. “I’ve seen you naked.”

  Heat flared across my face.

  “How about I go back a month from the date 2010-37 was recovered?” Danny was once again all business.

  “I should think that would do it, given the mortuary officer’s description of decomp.”

  “Could take a while.”

  “I’ll soldier on with the Elmer’s.”

  Danny wasn’t kidding. It was 4:45 when he finally reappeared. One look told me that something was up.

  “You got a hit?” I asked.

  “No. But I found this.”

  Danny waved a paper. I grabbed, but he held it beyond my reach.

  “A decomposed body was recovered on August seventeenth, nineteen sixty-eight, less than a quarter mile from the site of the January Huey crash. The remains were processed through Tan Son Nhut. White male, midtwenties to midthirties. The deceased came stateside as case number 1968-979.”

  “And?”

  “There is no and.”

  “Was he identified?”

  “No.”

  “Where are the bones?”

  “Here.”

  Danny strode toward Red Sweater, who was sitting at his desk. I watched as he requested the case. Red Sweater disappeared into the movable shelving.

  Time passed. A lot.

  Red Sweater reappeared carrying what looked like a very old box. The color was different and the cardboard corners looked scraped and worn.

  Danny accepted the box, swiped his badge, and rejoined me. Together we moved to the designated table.

  Questions winged in my brain.

  Was Luis Alvarez Latino, as his name implied?

  Was 2010-37 Luis Alvarez?

  Was 1968-979 Luis Alvarez? If so, why weren’t Alvarez’s remains ID’ed back in August of ’68?

  If 1968-979 turned out to be Alvarez, then who was 2010-37? And how did this man end up designated as Spider Lowery and shipped to Lumberton, North Carolina?

  The Lowerys had Native American blood. Could 2010-37 be Spider after all?

  Clearly the body shipped from Long Binh and the body in the pond in Hemmingford could not both be Spider Lowery.

  Danny lifted the cover on the box holding 1968-979.

  We both leaned in.

  Seconds passed.

  Our eyes met.

  Reflected mutual shock.

  THE SKULL WAS NESTLED IN ONE CORNER, WITH THE REST OF the skeleton packed above and around it. Every element was dappled yellow and brown. Nothing special. Exposure to sunlight bleaches bone. Contact with soil and vegetation darkens it.

  It wasn’t the state of the remains that shocked us.

  It was the object wedged behind an infolded flap of cardboard rimming the inside of the box.

  “Is that a dog tag?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That shouldn’t be in there.”

  “You think not?” Sarcasm not directed at me.

  After wiggling the tag free, Danny whipped off his glasses, scrunched his eyes, and brought the small metal rectangle to his nose.

  “Can you make out a name?” I asked.

  “No.” He thumbnail-scratched one side, flipped the tag, scratched the other.

  “There’s a thick accretion covering both surfaces. Let’s try some water.”

  At the sink, Danny scrubbed the tag with a hard-bristle brush, then repeated the glasses-squinty-eye thing.

  “If the raised lettering is abraded or squashed, usually I can dig out and read the indentation on the back. But this gunk’s like cement. Let’s give it a whirl in the sonicator.”

  Sonicators are used to clean jewelry, optical parts, coins, watches, dental, medical, electronic, and automotive equipment. The gizmos rely on ultrasound, usually in the 15–400 kHz range. No rocket science. Using liquid cleanser, you just shake the crap out of whatever is dirty.

  Danny placed the tag in the stainless steel basket, added a vinegar-water solution, and closed the cover. Then he set the timer.

  We were both staring at the thing, pointlessly, when a thought occurred to me.

  “Who was the last
person to examine this case?” I asked.

  “Excellent question.”

  Danny crossed to Red Sweater. He was explaining what he wanted when my BlackBerry pinged an incoming text.

  Katy.

  Invasion!

  Ants? A marching army?

  Home shortly, I texted back.

  Fast.

  What?

  This blows.

  Great. A new crisis.

  Problem?

  Unbelievable.

  ???? I was clueless as to the basis of Katy’s current discontent.

  Vacation over, she replied.

  ???? I repeated.

  A minute passed with no response.

  What the hell?

  I called Katy’s cell.

  Got voice mail.

  Terrific. She’d turned off or was ignoring her phone.

  I was clipping the BlackBerry onto my belt when Danny returned, his expression troubled.

  “Dimitriadus,” he said. “Back in nineteen ninety-eight.”

  “Could Dimitriadus have missed seeing the tag?”

  “It might have been jammed way up under the lip of the box. When the cardboard loosened with age, it could have slid into view.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  Danny removed the tag from the sonicator and returned to the sink for another go with the brush.

  Seconds passed. A full minute.

  Scrub.

  Glasses off.

  Squint.

  Glasses on.

  Scrub.

  Repeat.

  Agitated by Katy’s texting, I almost snatched the tag from his hand.

  At last, the glasses came off and the myopic eyes narrowed.

  “Holy shit.”

  Danny rarely used profanity.

  “What?” I asked.

  Danny read aloud.

  “Let me see.” I shot out a hand.

  Danny yielded the tag.

  He was right. The stamped info was easier to discern as an indentation.

  I reversed the letters and digits in my mind.

  John Charles Lowery

  477 38 5923

  A pos Bapt

  Did Baptists commonly have A positive blood?

  Inane, but that’s the first question that formed in my mind.

  “That’s a Social Security number, right?”

  Danny nodded. “The military made the switch from service numbers sometime in the sixties.”

  “This can’t be our John Lowery.” I knew as I said it that I was wrong. But what were the chances?