“OK.” His palms came up. “Slow and simple. First, I got a topo map and located the grid coordinates for Lowery’s Huey crash. We all good so far?”
Ryan and I nodded.
“Then I had a J-2 analyst search to see how many troops went MIA within a fifteen-kilometer radius of those grid coordinates—air, ground, overwater, whatever. Next I had him narrow to losses occurring January twenty-third, nineteen sixty-seven, through August seventeenth, nineteen sixty-eight.
“From one year prior to the Huey crash up to the date 1968-979 was found,” I said, for Ryan’s benefit.
“Bingo.” Danny arced an arm at folders stacked on the love seat. “Those are the people who remain KIA/BNR.”
Ryan looked to me for translation.
“Killed in action, body not recovered. How many?” I asked.
“Eighteen,” Danny said. “I just signed the files out.”
“On the phone you said you had new info on 1968-979.”
“When the decomposed remains now designated 1968-979 went to Tan Son Nhut in sixty-eight, mortuary personnel found John Lowery’s dog tag inside the body bag. But Lowery had already been identified months earlier and sent stateside.”
“The burned body that ended up buried in North Carolina,” Ryan said.
“Yes,” I said. “Now exhumed and reaccessioned as 2010-37.”
“Since the decomposed remains, 1968-979, couldn’t, in the thinking of the military personnel, be Lowery, and they matched no one else reported MIA in that sector, they remained at Tan Son Nhut as an unknown until nineteen seventy-three. Then they went to CIL-THAI. In nineteen seventy-six they came to Hawaii. They’ve been on our shelves here ever since.”
A smile crawled Danny’s lips.
“What?” I prompted.
“Except for one brief sabbatical. While at Tan Son Nhut, hair and tissue samples were retained and sealed in jars. In 2001, because of similarities to another file open at the time, those samples were pulled for DNA testing.”
“Nuclear or mitochondrial?” I asked, referring to the two human genomes typically sequenced.
“Good old nuclear.” Danny’s grin spread. “The profile for 1968-937 is on file. We just need a relative for comparison.”
I glanced at the folders. Four decades. Was a family out there somewhere, still hoping? Or had everyone long since given up and moved on with their lives?
“Let’s do it,” I said.
With guidance, Ryan quickly became adept at reading files. He found the perfect candidate two hours after lunch.
Alexander Emanuel Lapasa. Xander to friends and family.
Lapasa’s folder was the slimmest of the lot.
Why? Xander Lapasa never served a day in the military.
But everything fit.
Alexander Emanuel Lapasa was a twenty-nine-year-old white male who stood six foot one and weighed two hundred pounds. Lapasa’s mother reported him missing in March 1968, two months after Xander’s weekly letters stopped arriving from Vietnam.
Ryan passed Danny a photo. He passed it to me.
The snapshot showed a tall young man from the waist up. His curly dark hair was tucked behind prominent ears. A mile-wide smile revealed straight white teeth.
Lapasa wore a striped shirt with the top buttons open, a knapsack over one shoulder. His arms elbowed out from hip-planted hands.
“Looks like he’s got the world by the tail,” Ryan said.
“Or believes he soon will,” Danny said.
I returned the photo. Danny studied it a moment.
“Looks like Joseph Perrino,” he said.
“Who?” Ryan and I asked.
“The actor? Appeared on
“I didn’t think civilians went to Nam in the sixties,” Ryan said.
“Sure,” Danny said. “Civilian employees of the army’s post exchange system, aid workers, missionaries, journalists. Check the wall. Quite a few nonmilitary personnel are listed.”
“Is there anything to indicate why Lapasa was in Nam?” I asked.
Ryan flipped a few pages, read.
“According to the mother, Theresa-Sophia Lapasa, Xander was, quote, pursuing business interests, unquote.
