“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
“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.
Katy said she preferred a day at Waikiki Beach. Lily wanted to go to Ala Moana. Katy said it was stupid to cross the whole frickin’ Pacific just to go shopping. Lily said it was dumb to lie around getting sand up your butt. At that point open battle erupted.
Fortunately, I’d paid the extra insurance and listed Katy as a driver on my rental Cobalt. After much discussion, a compromise was reached. Katy would drop Lily at the mall, spend the afternoon at Waikiki, then collect Lily at a mutually agreed time and location.
