Jean-Claude Hubert, the chief coroner, phoned at one o'clock. Hubert had located John Lowery's father, Plato Lowery, and informed him of the fingerprint ID on the body in Hemmingford. At first Plato was confused. Then shocked. Then skeptical.
The United States Army had also been brought into the loop.
"Now what?" I asked Hubert.
"Now we wait to see what Uncle Sam has to say."
At one thirty I headed to Marché Atwater, near the Lachine Canal in the Saint-Henri neighborhood. A ten-minute drive from my condo, the market there dates to 1933.
Inside the two-story art deco pavilion, shops and stalls offer cheese, wine, bread, meat, and fish. Outside, vendors hawk maple syrup, herbs, and produce. At Christmas, freshly cut trees fill the air with the scent of pine. In spring and summer, flowers turn the pavement into a riot of color.
When I first started shopping at Atwater, the neighborhood was blue-collar and definitely down-at-the-heels. Not so today. Since the reopening of the canal in 2002, upscale condos have replaced low- and modest-cost housing and the area has become a real estate hot spot.
Not sure I'm a fan of such gentrification. But parking is easier now.
Inside, I purchased meat and cheese. Outside, I bought produce, then flats of marigolds and petunias. Made of sterner stuff, I figured their sort might survive my regime of horticultural neglect.
Back home, I planted the flowers around my postage stamp patio and in my little backyard. Rain was still falling. Hot damn. No need to water.
I was cleaning dirt from my nails when my cell phone sounded. 808 area code. Hawaii.
Toweling off, I clicked on.
"Dr. Tandler. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?" Though a Sunday call was unexpected, I had no doubt the topic.
"What? I have to have a reason?"
"Yes."
Danny let out a long breath. "This Lowery thing is causing some concern on our end."
Sensing an edge of anxiety in Danny's voice, I waited.
"Yesterday Merkel got a call from Notter while driving home from the airport. You can imagine how getting tagged that soon after landing brightened his day."
JPAC employs more than four hundred people, both military and civilian. In addition to the CIL, situated at Hickam Air Force Base, there are three permanent overseas detachments: in Bangkok, Thailand; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Vientiane, Laos; and another U.S. detachment at Camp Smith, in Hawaii. Each is commanded by a lieutenant colonel. The whole JPAC enchilada is under the command of an army major general. For now.
Danny referred to Brent Notter, deputy to the commander for public relations and legislative affairs, and Roger Merkel, scientific director and deputy to the commander for CIL operations. Merkel was Danny's direct superior.
"After hearing from the Quebec coroner yesterday, Plato Lowery contacted his congressman," Danny went on.
"Oh, boy," I said. "What's Lowery's juice?"
"Juice?"
"Danny, we both know phone inquiries aren't handled that fast. It's been only twenty-four hours since Plato Lowery was informed of the situation. He must have connections."
"According to Congressman O'Hare, John Lowery came from a family with a tradition of sending its boys into the military."
"So do a lot of kids."
"I checked. O'Hare has to run for reelection this year."
"So do a lot of kids."
"O'Hare and Notter were frat bros at Wake Forest."
"That'll do it."
"Go Kappa Sig." Danny was trying hard for casual. It wasn't working.
"Is Notter worried?" I asked.
"Lowery was pretty upset. Wants to know why some guy in Canada is questioning his son's proud record."
"Understandable."
"Why some Frenchie's calling his kid a deserter."
"I doubt the coroner used that term." Or provided details of the circumstances surrounding John Lowery's death. I kept that to myself.
"Congressman O'Hare has vowed to protect his constituent from a smear campaign by our neighbors to the north."
"He said that?"
"In a statement to the press."
"Why would O'Hare notify the media?"
"The guy's a showboater, jumps at every chance he sees to ingratiate himself to the voting public."
"But it's ridiculous. Why would the government of Canada pick John Lowery of Lumberton, North Carolina, as someone to smear?"
"Of course it's ridiculous. Merkel thinks O'Hare's probably in trouble over NAFTA. Lashing out at Canada might make him look good with the home folk."
That theory wasn't totally without merit. North Carolina was hit hard by the North American Free Trade Agreement, lost thousands of jobs in the textile and furniture industries. But the agreement had been signed in 1994.
"Lowery senior also demands to know, if John died in Quebec, who the hell's buried in his son's grave."
Understandable also.
"Notter wants to make sure the thing doesn't turn into a media nightmare."
"What's his plan?"
"You live in North Carolina."
"I do." Wary.
"Y'all speak the native lingo."
"Uh-huh."
"Notter wants you to go to Lumberton and dig up whoever is in that grave."
PLATO LOWERY WAS YOUNGER THAN I EXPECTED, EARLY EIGHTIES at most. His hair was the kind that turns L.A. waiters into stars. Though white with age, it winged thick and glossy from a center part to swoop down over his ears.
But Lowery's eyes were what grabbed you, black as wormholes in space. His gaze seemed to laser straight into your soul.
Lowery watched as I called a halt to the digging. Others in the assembly: the backhoe operator; two cemetery workers; two coroner's assistants; a reporter from the Robesonian; another from WBTW; a Lumberton cop; an army lieutenant who looked all of sixteen.
It was Tuesday, May 11. Two days since my call from Danny.
Though the time was barely 10 a.m., the temperature already nudged ninety. Sun pounded the cemetery's psychedelically green lawn. The scent of moist earth and cut grass floated heavily on the air.
I squatted for a closer look at one side of the freshly opened grave.
Stratigraphy told the story.
The uppermost layer was a deep black-brown, the one below an anemic yellow-tan. Four feet down, the bucket's teeth had bitten into a third stratum. Like the topsoil, the dirt was rich with organic content.
I gestured the tractor back and the cemetery workers to action. Collecting their spades, the men hopped in and began shoveling dirt from the grave.
In minutes a coffin lid took shape. I noted no protective vault, only the remnants of a crushed burial liner. Bad news.
A vault, whether concrete, plastic, or metal, completely encloses a coffin. A burial liner covers only the top and sides and is less sturdy. Dirt is heavy. The absence of a vault boded ill for the integrity of a box forty years underground.
In an hour a casket stood free within the excavated grave. Though flattened at one end, it appeared largely intact.
While I shot pictures, one of the coroner's assistants drove the van graveside.
Under my direction, a plank was positioned beneath the bottom and chains were wrapped around the casket's head and foot ends. With the cemetery workers directing movement with their hands, the backhoe operator slowly raised the box up, swung left, and deposited it on the ground.
The coffin looked jarringly out of place on the emerald grass in the warm spring daylight. As I made notes and shot pictures, I thought of John Lowery's other sun-drenched resurrection far to the north.
And of the buoyant young man in the photo from Jean Laurier's desk drawer.
I'd read the entire IDPF that morning, the Individual Deceased Personnel File, including paperwork sent by the military back in 1968. DD Form 893, the Record of Identification Processing Anatomical Chart; DA Form 10 – 249, the Certificate of Death; DD Form 1384, the Transportation Control and Movement Document; DD Form 2775, the Record of Preparation and Disposition of Remains.
I understood the acronym TSN-RVN. Tan Son Nhut – Republic of Vietnam. Lowery's body had been identified and readied for transport at Tan Son Nhut, one of two U.S. military mortuaries in Vietnam.
The preparing official, H. Johnson, probably a GS-13 civilian identification officer, had listed John Lowery as the decedent on the DD 893, and provided Lowery's grade and service number. He'd checked both "decomposed" and "burned" for condition of the remains.
In the front and back body views, Johnson indicated that Lowery's head was severely injured, and that his lower arms and hands and both feet were missing. He diagrammed no scars or tattoos.
In the remarks section, Johnson stated that Lowery was found wearing army fatigues but no insignia, dog tags, or ID. Odd, but not unheard of. I'd handled one such case during my time consulting to the CIL. Since villagers had been caught looting bodies in the area, Johnson suggested these items had probably been stolen before Lowery's body was found.
A medical officer with an indecipherable scrawl had completed the DA 10-249, listing cause of death as "multiple trauma." Again, a common finding, particularly with victims of plane and chopper crashes.
Finally, a mortician named Dadko had signed the section titled Disposition of Remains. Dadko had also handled the DD 2775.
The DD 1384 listed Saigon as Lowery's point of exit from Vietnam, and Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, as his point of arrival onto home soil.
No form detailed the basis for the positive ID.
Who, I wondered, had we just raised from this grave?
Ordering the chains removed, I took a few final pictures. Then, with much grunting and sweating, the plank was lifted by joint effort of the cemetery workers, the cop, the backhoe operator, the army lieutenant, and one less-than-enthusiastic television journalist.