Spider Bones: A Novel

by Kathy Reichs

  Gingerly placing each foot, I crept forward.

  I was ten feet out when Ryan whipped around, ready to attack.

  His eyes widened, then tensed in anger. His upraised arms relaxed a hair. A downward move of one hand gestured me behind his back.

  I scurried to him and dropped to a squat.

  And noticed the boy.

  He lay hidden in shadow cast by the pillbox, dreadlocks haloing his head like snakes around Medusa. His eyes were closed. His chest looked still.

  I placed shaky fingers on the boy’s throat. Felt no pulse.

  I was trying again when his lids fluttered. Half-opened.

  I found and squeezed his hand. Bent close. Heard breath rattling in his chest.

  “Sarah?” His words barely carried above the wind. “It’s so cold.”

  I whipped my jacket off and spread it across him.

  He frowned, puzzled, a faraway look in his eyes.

  “It’s so cold. I’m freezing.” His limbs shivered uncontrollably.

  “You’re going to be fine,” I whispered close to his ear. “We’ll get you to a hospital. You’re young. You’ll make it.”

  “I can’t see, Sarah.”

  “Hold on.” I tightened my grip, felt slight pressure in return.

  “Everything’s black.” Mumbled. “Sarah, I’m dying.”

  I trembled from cold or fear. Goose bumps puckered my flesh.

  The boy coughed wetly. His mouth looked dark. Too dark.

  I pressed my chest to his, willing my warmth and strength into his body.

  Please, God!

  “I’m scared.” His lips were right at my ear. “Shit. I don’t want to d—”

  His words were cut off.

  By death?

  No! No!

  Hot tears streamed my cheeks.

  Beside me, I felt Ryan coil.

  I raised my head.

  Followed Ryan’s sight line.

  Every muscle in my body went rigid.

  A man was dragging Lily through one of the pillbox’s doorless openings. One beefy hand wrapped her throat. The other held a gun tight to her temple.

  Pukui? It had to be. Out to collect his twenty grand.

  Ryan tensed to spring.

  Pukui forced Lily toward the seaward side of the pillbox. I could see that the path at that point was less than a foot wide.

  Lily’s eyes looked like those of a terrified dog, the whites huge, and distorted with fear.

  I craned over Ryan’s shoulder, terrified to watch, terrified not to.

  In the gloom, Lô materialized atop the pillbox, hunched, Glock held two-handed and pointed at Pukui. He inched forward, feeling with his feet, not daring to glance down. One step. Two.

  Lô was almost to the front edge of the pillbox when Pukui shoved his gun under Lily’s jaw and forced her chin up. She yelped in pain.

  Lô froze.

  Ryan braced with one hand against the concrete.

  Pukui’s head swiveled from side to side.

  “We got company?” Pukui shouted. “Do yourself a favor, bro. Get the hell out of here.”

  Silence.

  “Don’t fuck with me, man.” There was true venom in Pukui’s voice.

  The next sixty seconds seemed to last an hour.

  Lô tensed. Fired.

  The shot and a scream exploded as one sound.

  Pukui’s upper body twisted left. His gun flew from his hand and cartwheeled into shadow.

  Lily broke free.

  Pukui yanked her back by the hood of her jacket.

  Lily went down hard on her bum, struggled for traction with her hands and feet.

  Ryan sprang. Drove the heel of his hand into Pukui’s Adam’s apple.

  Pukui staggered back.

  Ryan grabbed Lily. Dragged her away from the edge.

  Pukui doubled over, gasping. His face was just a mouth hole gaping in the deepening dusk.

  Another shot rang out.

  Pukui spun. Dropped to his back.

  Blood foamed from his mouth and oozed from his chest.

  One leg flexed in spasm. His hips bucked.

  Before Ryan could move, Pukui rolled and dropped over the cliff.

  A JET FLEW HIGH OVERHEAD, LEAVING A WHITE COTTON-CANDY trail to mark its passing. Hot breezes swayed the tops of the loblolly pines and rippled the grass like a bright green sea.

  The grave at our feet smelled of freshly turned earth. A bouquet lay on the patchwork sod, the supermarket carnations brown and wilted. Beside it, a tiny American flag drooped on its balsa wood stick.

  The old headstone was gone. Its replacement gleamed speckled pink in the sun. The inscription was sharp and bone white, a raw wound in the granite.

  Spec 2 Luis Alvarez, United States Army

  February 28, 1948–January 23, 1968

  He died a hero

  When JPAC failed to locate an Alvarez family member, Plato offered the grave at Gardens of Faith Cemetery. Said the spot belonged to Alvarez, that he’d be more at peace in familiar soil than elsewhere. Purchased the marker.

  Behind us, beside a smaller stand of pines, another pair of headstones threw shadows on the lawn. Katy and I had placed flowers on the one marking a second new grave.

  John Charles “Spider” Lowery

  March 21, 1950–May 5, 2010

  He loved all living things

  The other stone waited above unbroken lawn.

  Plato Maximus Lowery

  Loving husband of Harriet Cumbo Lowery

  Father of John and Thomas

  December 14, 1928–

  Sheriff Beasley was right. Plato Lowery was a good man.

  Ironically, it was the science that Plato distrusted so fiercely that vindicated his faith in wife and family. DNA had confirmed my suspicion that Harriet was a chimera.

  At my request, Reggie Cumbo turned over letters Harriet had mailed to her son following his departure for the army. Saliva on the stamps and envelopes yielded a testable sample. The DNA sequencing differed from that obtained from Harriet’s pathology slides, and matched the sequencing found in samples taken from the Hemmingford pond victim, Spider Lowery.

  Providing the letters was perhaps Reggie Cumbo’s final redemption. Shortly after that, he’d gone into hospice care.

  Pinky Atoa had gotten it wrong about Cumbo’s status with the Sons of Samoa. Cumbo was an OG, yeah, but not an “original gansta,” just an “old guy” who owned an SOS hangout.

  Cumbo had probably turned a blind eye at the Savaii, maybe taken kickbacks, but it was unlikely he’d sent Kealoha and Faalogo to Hawaii. Expansion into the islands was apparently their own brainchild.

  Cumbo wouldn’t be charged with any crime. He’d soon be dead. We’d probably never know his full culpability.

  I still wondered about Cumbo’s motivation for coming forward after so many years. Was it a Lee Atwater moment? A change in heart—and priorities—as his life drew to a close? Remorse for killing Xander Lapasa, as he claimed? Or the vision of a new business op, a score with Theresa-Sophia’s will? We’d probably never know that either.

  I never quite understood Cumbo’s speech to an unseen Nickie Lapasa in Schoon’s conference room. There was no evidence they’d ever met. Perhaps Cumbo felt it was important as he faced death to make his confession to Xander’s brother. He’d researched the Lapasas on the Internet and taken the opportunity to go to Hawaii, probably expecting to see Nickie.

  Nickie Lapasa had finally agreed to allow his sister to submit a DNA sample. I had no doubt Xander would soon be returned to his family.

  I suspected my first guess about Nickie’s initial reluctance was right. Even if he now ran a clean business, Nickie schooled at Alex’s knee, saw his father’s troubles, probably absorbed the old man’s distrust of cops and government.

  Hadley Perry survived the political storm created by her closure of Halona Cove, once again ruled her kingdom of death. I never learned if she and Ryan had history. Never would ask.

  The
boy at the pillbox also survived. His name was Barry Byrd. He was nineteen, played sax in a jazz band, attended university part-time with his sister Sarah.

  Lily met Byrd during her visit to the Ala Moana mall that had so irritated Katy. The two kept in contact by phone. They had plans to meet the night Katy saw Byrd by our pool.

  Pukui’s bullet took out a piece of Byrd’s shoulder and fractured his clavicle. He’d lost a lot of blood, but medics brought by helicopter got to him in time. He was released from The Queen’s Medical Center two days after his admission.

  To date, Ted Pukui’s body hadn’t been found. Perhaps he’d fallen into a crevice or wedged between rocks. Perhaps he’d washed out to sea. Somehow the latter seemed fitting, poetic justice for Kealoha and Faalogo.

  L’il Bud T’eo was claiming Pukui acted alone. Could think of no reason why he’d do such a thing. So far the cops had nothing but rumors to tie him to the Atoa hit. Or to the murders of Kealoha and Faalogo. Lô and Hung weren’t giving up. They’d nail him one day.

  So much deception. So many secrets. Is that how we live our lives?

  Lily deceived us about her relationship with Barry Byrd. Reggie deceived the world by living first as John Lowery, later as Al Lapasa. Spider did the same by going underground as Jean Laurier, by concealing his addiction to plastic, proctoscopes, and pink panties. Plato hid the painful possibility that his family might not be what it seemed, though in fairness he never believed the allegations he was suppressing.

  Who knew what Nickie Lapasa kept out of sight?

  So questions remained.

  And Katy had questions of her own.

  Why couldn’t Coop have left a day earlier? Or later? Why was he on that road at that precise moment?

  Why do any of us make the decisions we do?

  Charlie Hunt phoned the day I got back to Charlotte. I was friendly but noncommittal. Why?

  Was it because of Ryan? If so, why did I keep Ryan outside the emotional guardrail?

  Why does Ryan blame himself for Lily’s addiction? Why does Lily poison her body with drugs?

  I watched my daughter as she considered Alvarez’s epitaph. I knew the pain she was feeling. Alvarez was twenty when he died. Coop was twenty-five.

  Katy, with the characteristic droop to her shoulders, upper teeth on lower lip, hair draping the sides of her face.

  Looking at my daughter, I felt almost giddy with love. Knew I would do anything for her. Risk my life to protect her.

  But I knew I couldn’t shield her from all pain.

  Ryan had returned with his daughter to Montreal. His fears about her using heroin again seemed unfounded. For now. I hoped with all my heart that Lily would stay straight.

  Lutetia wouldn’t be there to welcome her daughter. She’d returned to Nova Scotia. Another irony. Lutetia’s call to Lily was the spark that had caused Katy to thaw.

  I’d asked about the sudden bonding, been surprised by Katy’s answer. By the compassion and maturity it revealed.

  Lily grew up without a father, Katy said, and is desperate for approval, especially from men. She found her crying in her room. She complimented her shoes.

  I smiled at the memory of that conversation.

  Katy turned. Ear-tucked her hair.

  “Why are you grinning?”

  “No reason,” I said. “On to Charleston?”

  She nodded.

  We took a gravel path that curved through gravestones and manicured shrubs.

  “It’s such a waste,” Katy said. “Coop. Luis Alvarez. That Xander guy. They were all so young and full of life. Now they’re dead.”

  I let her talk. We’d been over this, but I understood her need to vent.

  “I even wonder about the two guys thrown off Makapu’u Point. And the guys who threw them.”

  “That’s totally different. Those men made life choices, to both harm others and put themselves at risk. They hardly deserve pity.”

  Katy’s face clouded. “But, at some level, there is a similarity. Decisions are made by young people that cause them to die.”

  “It’s unfair to equate soldiers or cops or firemen with people who cause harm and place themselves in danger for personal gain.”

  “Of course it is. That’s not what I’m saying. Soldiers like Luis Alvarez are selfless heroes. Bangers like Kealoha and Faalogo are self-serving scum.”

  “I guess I’m missing the point,” I said.

  “I don’t know.” Katy sighed. “I keep asking myself why one person takes risks to do something meaningful, while another takes risks to cause harm.”

  “And why on both sides of the equation some live and some die.”

  “And that.”

  “People have been asking those questions since they started painting pictures on the walls of caves.” I reminded myself to get her a copy of the The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

  As we exited through the big wrought-iron gates, I turned for one last look at John Lowery’s grave.

  What a spider’s web you and Reggie wove, I thought. So much grief and deceit. So many people tangled in the threads.

  Aloha, Spider.

  Gracias, Luis.

  Find peace here, Plato.

  My Mazda was in the same place I’d parked on the day of the exhumation.

  “Got your game on, tough stuff?”

  “Ready for the play-offs.” Katy grinned. Bleakly.

  “What do you suppose Coop left you?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Let’s find out.”

  FROM THE FORENSIC FILES OF DR. KATHY REICHS

  UNTIL THEY ARE HOME

  The mission of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, JPAC, is to locate Americans held as prisoners of war and to recover those who have died in past conflicts. JPAC was created in 2003 by merging CILHI, the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii, and JTF-FA, the Joint Task Force–Full Accounting. To date, the United States government has found no evidence of any POW still in captivity, so JPAC’s day-to-day focus is on the investigation of leads and the recovery and identification of remains.

  On average, JPAC identifies six sets of human remains each month. The process is complicated, requiring substantial forensic expertise and multiple levels of review.

  That’s where I came in. Back in the CILHI day, I served as an external consultant. My duties included analyzing the dossiers of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines for whom positive IDs had tentatively been established, and visiting the Honolulu lab twice yearly for oversight and briefing.

  Hawaii. Midwinter. Think that was an easy sell to my department chair at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where I was on faculty with a full-time teaching load?

  As Ryan complained to Tempe, the military loves its alphabet soup. At CILHI, I was issued a glossary of acronyms as thick as my arm. KIA/BNR: killed in action, body not recovered. DADCAP: dawn and dusk combat air patrol; AACP: advance airborne command post; TRF: tuned radio frequency. Or trident refit facility. I guess context is important for that one. But you get the idea. It makes a civilian want to join the AAAAAA: the Association for the Abolition of Abused Abbreviations and Asinine Acronyms.

  While I’ve tried to provide a peek into some of the operations at JPAC, much goes on that I’ve not described in Spider Bones. JPAC representatives engage in constant negotiation with governments around the globe, and they work closely with various U.S. agencies to pursue all leads that might bring missing Americans home.

  Each year JPAC recovery teams travel by horseback, boat, train, and helicopter to recover the bodies of U.S. troops missing from World War II, Korea, the Cold War, and Southeast Asia. They slash through jungles, rappel cliffs, scuba dive into trenches, and climb up mountains, toting their weight in survival and excavation equipment. In comparison, my job was a stroll through the park. Physically, at least. Emotionally, it was gripping.

  Through Tempe, I’ve tried to convey the feelings I experienced while examining the files of men and women killed long ago and
far from home while serving their country. The maps, photographs, correspondence, unit histories, and medical and personnel records made each case painfully real.

  But my time with CILHI wasn’t all sad. When not focused on work my colleagues and I had fun. I remember when Hugh Berryman, P. Willey, and I splashed in the Waikiki surf, giggling like kids. And the trip Jack Kenney blew multiple traffic signals and earned the enduring nickname “Red Light.” Or when Mike Finnegan and team posed as my undercover security unit and literary manager at a book signing. Through both work and play, I forged bonds that will last a lifetime.

  JPAC wasn’t always as I describe it today. When headquarters moved to Hickam Air Force Base in the early nineties, the staff included only a handful of anthropologists. Today there are more than two dozen.

  And the scope of operation has expanded. In 2008, the CIL opened the Forensic Science Academy, an advanced forensic anthropology program taught under the auspices of the DoD. Department of Defense. (Yep. There’s another one.). In 2009 a U.S. Navy hydrographic survey vessel, the USNS Bruce C. Heezen, conducted underwater investigation operations in Vietnam’s territorial waters, a historic first, marking a strengthening of cooperation between JPAC and the Vietnamese government.

  Change was afoot even as Spider Bones went to press. On January 29, 2010, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Donna L. Crisp relinquished command of JPAC to Army Major General Stephen Tom. (Had to scramble to include that update.)

  JPAC’s mission is daunting. Approximately 78,000 Americans remain missing from World War II, 8,100 from the Korean War, 120 from the Cold War, and 1,800 from the Vietnam War. Tirelessly, personnel continue to interview, search, dig, analyze, measure, and test.

  A commemorative board hangs in the lobby of JPAC headquarters, engraved with words similar to those found on POW/MIA flags: Not To Be Forgotten. Tiny brass plaques bear the names of those identified since 1973. Happily, there are many plaques.

  JPAC’s motto appears at the front of this book: Until They Are Home.

  JPAC staff close their meetings and events by repeating the words aloud. In 2009, recovery teams deployed to sixteen countries on sixty-nine missions. JPAC scientists identified the remains of ninety-five men and women.

  And they will identify many more.