At the counter, we chatted a moment with Sergeant Dix Jackson, a black man with mulberry splotches on his face and arms the size of sequoias. Needless to say, no one ever mentioned the splotches.
Jackson and I reminisced, each trying to top the other with recollections of practical jokes from the past. He won with a story involving Danny, a toilet stall, a burning bag, and buckets of water raining down from above.
Feigning annoyance, Danny filled out a request for the file on 1968-979, the unknown recovered near Long Binh in '68.
Jackson read the form. "When you need this, Doc?"
"Yesterday."
"You got it."
Danny signed for and scooped up Alvarez's IDPF.
We started to leave.
"And, Doc?"
We both turned.
"You feel the urge to do your business, relax. We got no fire drills scheduled this month."
Back in Danny's office, we cleared the love seat and coffee table. No banter. We were both very focused on learning everything we could about Spec 2 Alvarez.
Work space readied, we sat. Danny unwound the string, spread the file, and extracted the contents.
I swallowed.
Throughout my years consulting to CILHI, the photos always distressed me more than anything else. Alvarez's lay smack on top.
The old black-and-white showed a Latino-looking man in his army uniform. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and lashes that were wasted on a Y-chromosomer.
A second photo captured nine soldiers, hair sweat-pasted to their temples and brows. All wore fatigues with the sleeves rolled up. One sported a Tilley hat, fishing lure pinned to a rakishly flipped brim.
The name Alvarez was scrawled in faded blue ink across the chest of the third man from the right. Third kid from the right.
Alvarez wasn't big, wasn't small. Of the group, he alone wasn't looking at the camera. His face was turned, as though a momentary distraction had caught his attention.
What, I wondered? A bird in flight? A passing dog? Movement in the brush?
Had he been mildly curious? Startled? Afraid for his life?
"¡Ay, caramba!" Danny was looking at Alvarez's induction record. "The gentleman in question was Mexican-American."
"That fits our profile for 2010-37. Any medical or dental records?"
Danny viewed the stack side-on. "Yep. Let's save those for last."
Danny skimmed a sheet of blue-lined notebook paper, the kind kids use for middle school essays.
"A letter from Fernando Alvarez, Luis's father," he said. "You read Spanish?"
I nodded.
Danny handed me the paper.
The letter was written in a neat, almost feminine hand. No header indicated the recipient's name. The date was July 29, 1969. The English stopped after "Dear Sir."
The message was poignant in its simplicity.
I'd read many. Every single solitary one had touched me deeply.
"What's he say?" Danny asked. Knowing.
"My son was a hero. Find him."
Next came clippings from a Spanish-language newspaper. One announced Luis Alvarez's graduation from high school. The photo showed a younger version of the man in uniform. Mortarboard. Tassel. Somber grin.
One story announced Alvarez's departure for Vietnam. Another reported his status as MIA.
Danny picked up a telegram. I felt no need to read it. We regret to inform you. Maria and Fernando Alvarez were being notified that their son was missing.
Next came statements from witnesses who saw the Huey go down. A guard on his way from the Long Binh jail to his barracks. A motorist traveling the road to Saigon. A maintenance worker at the helicopter landing pad. One soldier had provided a hand-drawn map.
The file also contained a standard DD form recording the loss incident, and unclassified documents compiled by analysts attempting to determine what had happened to Alvarez.
An hour after leaving the J-2 shop, Danny and I turned to Luis Alvarez's medical and dental records.
Only to be disappointed.
Nothing in the antemorts positively linked the missing Spec 2 to the bones accessioned as 2010-37. Either Alvarez had enjoyed the best health on the planet or, like Lowery, his records were incomplete.
"Maria Alvarez died in nineteen eighty-seven," I read aloud. "No other maternal relative provided a DNA sample."
"We probably won't get sequencing on 2010-37, anyway," Danny said.
I agreed. "Probably not."
"Nothing excludes Alvarez from being your Lumberton guy."
I agreed again. "No. Or he could be 1968-979."
I thought a moment.
"Think it would be worthwhile trying to track down the witnesses? Maybe one saw something that never made the files."
Danny returned to the statements. Read.
"The maintenance worker was a guy named Harlan Kramer from Abilene, Texas. Kramer was regular army. If he stayed in, it would be fairly easy to find him."
Danny made a note.
"Ready to hit it?" he asked.
I nodded.
Danny and I moved to the lab.
Though some bones were damaged by erosion, trauma, or animal scavenging, most of 1968-979's skeleton was in pretty good shape. While Danny opened an anthropology update file, I laid out my usual stick figure man.
Skull. Jaw. Arms. Legs. Sternum. Clavicles. Ribs. Vertebrae. Only the kneecaps and some hand and foot parts were missing.
Didn't matter. I knew straight off that 1968-979 was neither Spider Lowery nor Luis Alvarez. So did Danny.
"This dude was a tree-topper."
I nodded agreement. "Lowery and Alvarez were both five-nine. This man was much taller."
"What the hell is he doing with Spider Lowery's tag?"
I had no explanation.
"We've got dentition." Danny checked the jaw. "Two molars and a second bicuspid on the right. Two molars on the left." He rotated the skull to sit palate up. "Two molars on the right, two on the left, and a second bicuspid. Ten teeth. I'll get X-rays."
Feeling a vibration at my hip, I checked my BlackBerry.
"It's Katy."
"Take it. I'll do inventory."
"Hi, sweetie."
"I am so outta here. First flight I can get."
Great.
"Lily is a complete wack job."
"Where are you?" Anticipating a less than pleasant exchange, I put distance between myself and Danny.
"Pearl Harbor."
"What's the problem?"
"Where should I start? First, there's the trip into town. Ms. Head Case has to ride in front so she won't get sick. Guess who ends up stuffed in back? Then we get to the park and at least a million people are waiting in line. Guess who has to sit on a bench so her feet won't hurt? Big surprise, island girl! You're wearing heels that would kill the average pole dancer. Then-"
"Katy."
"-we have to eat at this totally gross ptomaine haven because Lily can't handle-"
"Katy."
"What?" Snapped.
"She's going through a rough patch."
"I'm not?"
"Is Lily really so bad?"
"She's a freak show. This was supposed to be our time together."
"I thought you'd enjoy Lily's company."
"Oh, yeah. The bitch is so cool I may vomit from sheer envy."
"I'm sorry. I should have asked your opinion before inviting them to join us."
"You think?"
Danny passed me holding the skull and jaw. I assumed he was going for X-rays.
"Where is Ryan?" I asked.
"Paying the bill."
"I'll call him."
I was answered by the silence of unspoken anger.
* * *
After a quick lunch, Danny and I constructed a biological profile for 1968-979.
Gender: male.
Race: white.
Age: twenty-seven to thirty-five years.
Height: six-one, plus or minus two inches.
Unique skeletal identifiers: possible healed fractures of the right mandibular ramus, right clavicle, and right scapula.
Unique dental identifiers: fragment of a restoration in the first upper left molar.
By three we'd taken X-rays and confirmed the dental work and the old jaw and shoulder trauma.
Danny was on the phone with J-2 when my BlackBerry buzzed again.
Hadley Perry.
The ME skipped all preliminaries.
"Divers found another hunk of leg."
"Where?"
"Halona Cove, lying on a coral ledge about twenty feet down."
I checked the time. Five thirty. I was living the movie Groundhog Day. New day, same scene.
"Have Tuesday's remains been cleaned?"
"Down to nice shiny bone."
"Have you contacted a shark expert?"
"The National Marine Fisheries Service has an office on Oahu. I called a guy I know over there. He's off-island, but a Dr. Dorcas Gearhart is coming by tomorrow at nine."
"I'll be there. But-"
"I know. You can't stay long."
THAT NIGHT WE OPTED FOR AN EVENING AT HOME. AT LEAST Ryan and I did. Lily and Katy added little but tension to the decision-making process.
Ryan purchased New York strips and tuna fillets, which he grilled to perfection. Amazingly, all dietary obstacles vanished. Both daughters downed bounty of land and sea, along with fingerling potatoes and spinach salad.
To describe the conversation as stiff would be like calling Ahmadinejad's reelection in Iran a tad contentious. Lily's favorite group was Cake. Katy found their music sophomoric. Katy loved classic blues, Etta James, Billie Holiday, T-Bone Walker. Lily said that crap put her to sleep. Lily wore Sung by Alfred Sung. Katy found the perfume overly sweet. Katy favored L'eau d'Issey by Issey Miyake. It made Lily sneeze. iPhone. BlackBerry. PC. Mac.
You get the picture.
Ryan and I insisted on courtesy. But one thing was apparent. Not only did our offspring have differing tastes and opinions, they were becoming masters at refining their expressions of contempt for each other.
After dinner I served fresh pineapple wedges. Ryan proposed another outing for the following afternoon. The Punchbowl or, perhaps inspired by my dessert, the Dole Plantation.