Kathy Reichs - Spider Bones

“Took a bus. TheBus, it’s called here. I like that. Direct.”

“What did you see?”

“Downtown Honolulu, the harbor, some tower with a marketplace.”

“The Aloha Tower at Pier 9. One of the premier landmarks of the state of Hawaii.”

“The pilot mentioned that.”

“Since the twenties, that lighthouse has guided ships at sea and welcomed visitors and immigrants to Honolulu.”

“He mentioned that too. Compared it to the Statue of Liberty.”

“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.