“Consistent with the reported chopper crash,” I said. “As are the missing hands and feet and the cranial fractures.”
“The biological profile, the trauma, the timing, the body recovery location. It all fit. Thus the ID at Tan Son Nhut back in sixty-eight.”
“Johnson, Dadko, and some writing-challenged medical officer shipped this guy home as Spider Lowery.”
“Weickmann.”
“What?”
“The medical officer’s name was Weickmann.”
“You could read that scrawl?”
“Years of practice.”
“Whatever. Prints from my Quebec floater say they were wrong.”
“Nam was exploding in sixty-eight. The system was overwhelmed.”
Indeed.
Early in the war, a single facility processed all Americans killed in Southeast Asia. When fatalities soared in the spring of ’67, it became apparent that the
As a result, a second mortuary was opened at the Da Nang Air Base. Beginning in June 1967, remains recovered in the I Corps tactical zone went to Da Nang.
But the Tet offensive shot numbers into the biosphere. In February 1968, the two mortuaries processed roughly three thousand sets of remains, a total greater than for any comparable period to that point.
The upshot was the construction of a modern twenty-table facility on a new patch of ground at Tan Son Nhut. The new facility became operational in August 1968.
Spider Lowery’s Huey crashed at Long Binh in January of that year, shortly after Tet and eight months before the revamped Tan Son Nhut mortuary came online.
In the chaos of war, a mistake had been made.
At a little past one Danny and I took a break. Wanting to accomplish as much as possible that day, we passed up a nice lunch at the Officers Club or the Mamala Bay Golf Course in favor of a quick pizza at the BX. The food hole. There’s a reason for the nickname.
While driving back to the CIL, I called Katy. To describe her as unhappy would be like saying Nixon was a bit bummed by the tapes.
By two fifteen Danny and I were back with 2010-37. For the next two hours we scraped desiccated flesh and fabric from bone, a job I find excruciatingly tedious. And the smell is revolting.
Adipocere is a waxlike substance formed by the hydrolysis of fat during decomposition. I’d about had it when a small chunk of the stuff dropped into the sink from the fragment of upper jaw I was scrubbing. I watched water eddy around it, swirling bits away and down into the drain.
I shifted my gaze to the newly exposed facial architecture. None of the cheekbone survived, and the zygomaxillary suture was unremarkable.
I rotated the fragment.
The upper palate was broad, its intersecting sutures largely unfused.
I inserted my probe into one of the empty tooth sockets. Another crumb of adipocere popped free. My eyes followed its flight path into the sink.
The original chunk had now been reduced by half. I was returning my attention to the maxilla when something caught my attention, more a glint of light than a visual impression.
Reaching down, I scooped the remainder of the original chunk onto my glove. When I poked, the thing split into two halves.
An object lay glistening in my glove.
“WHATCHA GOT?” DANNY NOTICED ME STARING AT MY PALM.
I extended my hand.
Whipping off his glasses, Danny brought his nose to within inches of my find. Seconds passed.
“Flip her over.”
I turned the thing with my probe. “Look familiar?”
“Nope.”
“Think it’s something?”
“Everything’s something.”
“Profound.”
“Looks like metal. Where was it?”
