Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs
We advanced as one, students gathering around Mr. Wizard.
Perry was magnifying a discoloration barely visible in the glob of flesh I’d retracted from the malleolus. I’d noticed the little blotch earlier, but, distracted by the realization that we had a second victim, I’d ignored it.
“I’ll be damned,” Ryan said
Perry shot photos of the tattoo, then, with intersecting cuts of her scalpel, excised it. Using both palms, she spread and flattened the flap of skin on the stainless steel.
“Get the lights.”
Ryan hit the wall switch.
The room went black.
I heard a drawer open, close. A click.
A blue beam hit the flap of flesh.
Under UV lighting, the tattoo sharpened. I could make out black and red swirls within a half-sickle form. A filigreed strip extended outward from the sickle’s two sides.
“That’s a traditional shark tooth pattern.” Gearhart’s voice came from somewhere to my left.
“You sure?” Perry asked. “We haven’t got much here.”
“Absolutely. I collect shark images. Paintings. Prints. Tattoos. I’ve seen dozens of variations on this theme.”
Perry made a grunting noise in her throat.
“Must be part of a tapuvae,” Gearhart said. “An ankle band. The only unusual elements are these three loopy things.”
Gearhart indicated two backward C’s with a U between them sticking up from the filigreed strip.
A full minute passed, then the lights came on.
Without asking if we’d seen enough, Perry peeled the specimen free and dropped it into a jar of formalin. The tissue looked ghostly pale floating in the clear liquid.
“There we have it, sports fans.” Perry was marking the case number on the jar lid with a Sharpie. “Looks like Señor Shark ate a tattooee with a gimpy left leg.”
Cold, I thought.
“The cops can work the hospitals and tat parlors while I query the MP families.”
“You might try computer image enhancement,” I said. “To tease more detail out of the design.”
“Or high-contrast or infrared photography,” Ryan added.
“Will do.” Perry stripped off her gloves. “So. Not a bad morning’s work. Given our vic is the size of a pork roast.”
Toeing the lever on a bio-waste can, Perry tossed her gloves.
“Mahalo, Dr. Gearhart. I get you a set of photos, you’ll write up your thoughts?”
“No problem.”
Perry turned to me.
“You going to spend some time with the first kid?”
“Yes, I—”
To Ryan. “Come with me, champ. I’ll buy you a Danish while I ponder whether to close that beach.”
As the trio filed out, two Viking blues slid my way. Words snapped from my tongue before I could stop them.
“Think shark attack. Champ.”
My testiness surprised me. Was I really feeling threatened by Hadley Perry?
It amused Ryan. The smile that whispered in his eyes only goosed my resentment.
A reexamination of the cleaned bones turned up nothing new.
Thirty minutes later, Ryan and I took our leave. I didn’t bother to monitor his or Perry’s face for hidden meaning.
We were on Iwilei Road when my BlackBerry buzzed.
Danny.
“You coming in today?”
“Just leaving the ME’s office.”
“Was Perry her usual delightful self?”
Feeling a reply was pointless, I offered none.
“Got some info on 1968-979.”
“Good news or bad?”
“Yes.”
I could sense Ryan listening.
“Katy has my car. Detective Ryan was kind enough to give me a ride.”
I’d cleared with Danny that it was OK for Ryan to bunk at the Lanikai house. Knowing our history, he’d responded with a few lines of “Let’s Get It On.” Marvin Gaye he’s not.
“The girls are over the cat phase?” Danny asked.
I’d also told Danny about the friction between Lily and Katy. At that moment, I didn’t want to discuss it.
“Will Ryan have a problem getting past the gate?” I asked.
“Has monsieur le détective got plans for the day?”
“Why?”
“I’ll sponsor him. He can hang here if he wants. We can bounce ideas off him. Fresh perspective, you know.”
“Hold on.”
Pressing the device to my chest, I queried Ryan’s interest in visiting the CIL. To my surprise he gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
Good thing.
The idea-bouncing proved very useful.
OVERNIGHT, DANNY HAD HAD AN IDEA. THAT MORNING HE’D been busy in the J-2 shop.
“Circle search.” He smiled and leaned back, fingers laced on his chest.
Ryan and I regarded him blankly.
“Civilians.” Danny’s head wagged in mock disgust.
“You’re a civilian,” I pointed out.
“OK.” His palms came up. “Slow and simple. First, I got a topo map and located the grid coordinates for Lowery’s Huey crash. We all good so far?”
Ryan and I nodded.
“Then I had a J-2 analyst search to see how many troops went MIA within a fifteen-kilometer radius of those grid coordinates—air, ground, overwater, whatever. Next I had him narrow to losses occurring January twenty-third, nineteen sixty-seven, through August seventeenth, nineteen sixty-eight.
“From one year prior to the Huey crash up to the date 1968-979 was found,” I said, for Ryan’s benefit.
“Bingo.” Danny arced an arm at folders stacked on the love seat. “Those are the people who remain KIA/BNR.”
Ryan looked to me for translation.
“Killed in action, body not recovered. How many?” I asked.
“Eighteen,” Danny said. “I just signed the files out.”
“On the phone you said you had new info on 1968-979.”
“When the decomposed remains now designated 1968-979 went to Tan Son Nhut in sixty-eight, mortuary personnel found John Lowery’s dog tag inside the body bag. But Lowery had already been identified months earlier and sent stateside.”
“The burned body that ended up buried in North Carolina,” Ryan said.
“Yes,” I said. “Now exhumed and reaccessioned as 2010-37.”
“Since the decomposed remains, 1968-979, couldn’t, in the thinking of the military personnel, be Lowery, and they matched no one else reported MIA in that sector, they remained at Tan Son Nhut as an unknown until nineteen seventy-three. Then they went to CIL-THAI. In nineteen seventy-six they came to Hawaii. They’ve been on our shelves here ever since.”
A smile crawled Danny’s lips.
“What?” I prompted.
“Except for one brief sabbatical. While at Tan Son Nhut, hair and tissue samples were retained and sealed in jars. In 2001, because of similarities to another file open at the time, those samples were pulled for DNA testing.”
“Nuclear or mitochondrial?” I asked, referring to the two human genomes typically sequenced.
“Good old nuclear.” Danny’s grin spread. “The profile for 1968-937 is on file. We just need a relative for comparison.”
I glanced at the folders. Four decades. Was a family out there somewhere, still hoping? Or had everyone long since given up and moved on with their lives?
“Let’s do it,” I said.
With guidance, Ryan quickly became adept at reading files. He found the perfect candidate two hours after lunch.
Alexander Emanuel Lapasa. Xander to friends and family.
Lapasa’s folder was the slimmest of the lot.
Why? Xander Lapasa never served a day in the military.
But everything fit.
Alexander Emanuel Lapasa was a twenty-nine-year-old white male who stood six foot one and weighed two hundred pounds. Lapasa’s mother reported him missing in March 1968, two months after Xander’s
Ryan passed Danny a photo. He passed it to me.
The snapshot showed a tall young man from the waist up. His curly dark hair was tucked behind prominent ears. A mile-wide smile revealed straight white teeth.
Lapasa wore a striped shirt with the top buttons open, a knapsack over one shoulder. His arms elbowed out from hip-planted hands.
“Looks like he’s got the world by the tail,” Ryan said.
“Or believes he soon will,” Danny said.
I returned the photo. Danny studied it a moment.
“Looks like Joseph Perrino,” he said.
“Who?” Ryan and I asked.
“The actor? Appeared on The Sopranos now and then? Never mind.”
“I didn’t think civilians went to Nam in the sixties,” Ryan said.
“Sure,” Danny said. “Civilian employees of the army’s post exchange system, aid workers, missionaries, journalists. Check the wall. Quite a few nonmilitary personnel are listed.”
“Is there anything to indicate why Lapasa was in Nam?” I asked.
Ryan flipped a few pages, read.
“According to the mother, Theresa-Sophia Lapasa, Xander was, quote, pursuing business interests, unquote. That sound kosher?”
“Oh, yeah,” Danny said. “There were plenty of opportunists in-country back then. Knowing the fighting would eventually end, some balls-to-the-wall entrepreneurs went over to establish position for the postwar boom. Several ran bars and restaurants in Saigon.”
“Where was Lapasa from?” Not sure why I asked. Place of residence didn’t really matter. Guess it was my way of personalizing.
Ryan shuffled pages. Read. Shuffled a few more. Then, “Ke aloha nô!”
Danny grinned. I resisted the impulse to roll my eyes.
“Lapasa was a home boy.” Ryan had switched back to English. “Honolulu, Hawaii.”
“Got an address?” I asked.
Ryan read out a street number on Kahala Avenue.
“Cha-ching!” I pantomimed a cash register. Or something.
Ryan looked at me.
“Kahala has some of the priciest real estate in Honolulu.”
Danny’s smile faltered, slowly faded. He looked down, then to his left, as though searching for an answer deep in his memory. Wordlessly, he jotted a note.
“Got antemorts?” I asked.
“Your bailiwick.” Ryan handed me the folder.
The men watched as I leafed through papers.
There were multiple letters from Lapasa’s mother to the army. A couple more photos. Statements from witnesses who’d seen or been with Lapasa before his disappearance. The last was dated January 2, 1968. Lapasa had rung in the New Year at Saigon’s Rex Hotel with one Joseph Prudhomme, a member of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support Agency.
According to Prudhomme, Lapasa planned to travel to Bien Hoa and Long Binh during the month of January. I assumed that was the reason Lapasa came up in Danny’s circle search.
At the very back of the folder was a manila file. I flipped through the contents. Charts. Narrative. A small brown envelope. I peeked inside and saw the little black squares I was hoping for.
“The dentals are here, including X-rays.” I read the final page of the file. “Lapasa’s last dental appointment was on April twelfth, nineteen sixty-five.”
I backtracked. Skimmed.
“Theresa-Sophia Lapasa states in a letter dated November sixteenth, nineteen seventy-two, that medical records can be provided.” I looked up. “Why wouldn’t she just do it?”
“Makes it too real,” Danny said.
I raised questioning brows.
“It’s a form of denial. Sometimes families can’t face the possibility that their loved one really is dead.”
I read a few more of the letters Theresa-Sophia had written over the years.
“The old gal must have faced reality. In two thousand, Mrs. Lapasa expressed her willingness to provide a DNA sample.”
“Did she?”
I looked. Found no lab report. Shook my head.
We all went still, thinking the same sad thought. Had Theresa-Sophia Lapasa died never knowing what happened to her son?
Ryan spoke first.
“Lapasa wasn’t military. How could he have been on that chopper?”
“Civilians hitched rides all the time,” Danny said.
“And your CIL-1968—” Ryan circled a hand in the air.
“1968-979.”
Ryan nodded. “1968-979 was found a quarter mile from the crash site, seven months later, too decomposed for visual ID or fingerprinting, wearing a dog tag but no insignia?”
“The mortuary affairs people at Tan Son Nhut assumed the body had been looted.”
“Like 2010-37,” I said.
Danny nodded. “Apparently it was a problem in that area.”
“Why leave the dog tag?” Ryan asked. “You’d think that was a priority item for looters.”
Good question, I thought.
“Who knows?” Danny said.
“I’m confused,” Ryan said. “Spider Lowery was army. Wasn’t Tan Son Nhut an air base?”
Danny crossed his arms. “Long or short version?”
“Short.”
“First off, army personnel moved through air facilities all the time. That’s how they got there. But beyond that, during the early years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, death rates were low and mortuary services were provided by the air force. A civilian mortician was assigned TDY to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, and only preliminary preparation of remains took place in-country. At that time the mortuary at the Tan Son Nhut Air Base consisted of just two rooms.” Danny had clearly given the briefing before.
“By sixty-three the TSN mortuary had a USAF civilian mortician, a U.S. Army graves registration NCO, and a couple of locals. As casualties escalated, the facility was expanded and an embalmer and more graves registration personnel were added.
“In 1966 the air force transferred operational control of the mortuary to the army and procedures changed. In previous wars, temporary cemeteries were established to hold bodies until hostilities ceased. Remains were later disinterred and returned to next of kin, or at the request of next of kin, relocated to permanent U.S. cemeteries overseas. Embalming was done at the cemetery.
“When the army took over in Nam, it phased in a concurrent return program. Remains were processed through collection points to the Tan Son Nhut mortuary or to Da Nang after that one was built. There they were identified, embalmed, and evacuated home. Processing took place in a matter of days, not months or years, as with the old temporary burial system.”
“That’s fast.”
“In most cases a KIA was helicoptered from the battlefield to the nearest collection point in a matter of hours. Within a day the remains were at one of the two in-country mortuaries.”
“I guess you had to move quickly in that climate.”
“You’ve got that right. With so much heat and humidity, skin soon sloughed and corpses swelled and doubled in size. Especially during the monsoons. And scavenging bugs and animals moved in before a body even hit the ground. Thank God refrigeration was available at the collection points and at the mortuaries.”
“But it didn’t help 1968-979.”
“Once you get inland from the coast, a lot of Vietnam is pure jungle,” I said. “The dead weren’t always found right away.”
“And think about the timing,” Danny added. “The revamped TSN mortuary only went online in August of sixty-eight, the month 1968-979 was found.”
“Did you shoot dental X-rays for 1968-979?” I asked Danny.
He lifted a tiny brown envelope from his blotter. “Shall we?”
We were rising when my BlackBerry sounded.
As I answered, Ryan’s mobile chirped the Sesame Street song.
“HI, SWEETIE.” I WAS FOLLOWING DANNY TOWARD A LIGHT BOX located against the left wall of the lab.
“Don’t you dare sweetie me. I can’t believe you made me do this.”
Katy’s tone was pure outrage.
“This vacation was supposed to be fun. Surfing? Diving? Aloha? Remember? Alo-Ha! I’m a friggin’ taxi service!”
I could hear traffic in the background. Something bluesy blasting from a radio.
“Where are you?”
“Heading home, that’s where I am. After cooling my heels for so long I thought I’d qualify for old-age benefits.”
I checked my watch. Four forty. Obviously the rendezvous had not gone well.
“Where is Lily?”
“No idea. Couldn’t care less.”
“You never connected?”
Behind me I sensed Ryan having essentially the same conversation.
“Oh, I found her. After sweltering in the car for almost an hour.”
How does one simultaneously swelter and cool one’s heels? I didn’t ask.
“The AC went out?”
“That’s not the point,” Katy said.
I caught a snippet of Ryan’s exchange.
“Katy, turn down the music.”
The noise level dropped a microdecibel.
“Did you leave Lily at the mall?”
“Do you have any idea how long I waited? I got there on time, early even. No Lily. I circled, thinking I might have misunderstood her instructions. No Lily. I waited some more. An hour after she told me to be there, the little bitch comes strolling out. Laughing, not a care in the world. And get this. She’s with some loser mall crawler thinks he’s 50 Cent.”
“You took off and left her?”
My gaze met Ryan’s. I could hear shrill indignation buzzing through his handset.
“As far as I’m concerned, Miss Island Diva can spend the rest of her life shopping her little black ass off.”
“Katy!”
“Ex-cuuus-ay-moi! Lily’s a prima donna junkie and everyone coddles her. Ask me, she’s heading for a smackdown.”
“Are you finished?”
Silence.
“Here’s what you will do.”
More silence.
“Are you listening?”
“Like I have a choice.”
I do not react well to histrionics. To me, drama queen displays are a waste of time and energy. My tone reinforced what my daughter already knew.