Spider Bones: A Novel Read online

  “You have to eat.”

  “No I don’t.”

  Score one for Katy.

  “I’m sure there’s something in the kitchen that I could throw together. Danny bought out the market.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Or I could drive into Kailua for more sushi.”

  “Look, Mom. I know you mean well. But the thought of food revolts me right now.”

  You have to eat. I didn’t say it.

  “Anything I can do to perk you up? A little Groucho?” I raised my brows and flicked an imaginary cigar.

  “Just let me be.”

  “I feel so bad.”

  “Not bad enough to stay home.”

  It felt like a slap. My expression must have said so.

  “I’m sorry.” Katy’s hand fluttered to her mouth, froze, as though uncertain of the purpose of its trip. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s just . . .” Her fingers curled. “I feel such rage and there’s nowhere to point it.” Her fist pounded one knee. “At dumb-ass Coop for going to Afghanistan? At the Taliban for gunning him down? At God for letting it happen? At myself for giving a shit?”

  Katy swiveled toward me. Though dry-eyed, her face was pallid and tight.

  “I know anger and self-pity are pointless and counterproductive and self-destructive and blah blah blah. And I’m really trying to pull out of my funk. I am. It’s just that, right now, life sucks.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you? Have you ever had someone just blasted off the face of the earth? Someone you really cared about?”

  I had. My best friend, Gabby. Cops I’d worked with and cared about. Eddie Rinaldi in Charlotte. Ryan’s partner, Jean Bertrand. I didn’t say it.

  “Look, Mom. I know you’ve come here to do a job. And I know Coop’s death is not your fault. But you’re gone all day, then you get back all sunshine and Hallmark compassion.” She threw up both hands. “I don’t know. You’re in the zone so you take the hit.”

  “I’ve taken worse.”

  Wan smile.

  Turning from me, Katy fidgeted with the tie at her waist, finger twisting and retwisting the string.

  Overhead, palm fronds clicked in the breeze. Down at the shore, gulls cawed.

  Katy was right. I’d dragged her thousands of miles, then dumped her in a place she knew nothing about. Yes, she was twenty-four, a big girl. But right now she needed me.

  The familiar old dilemma knotted my gut. How to balance motherhood and job?

  My mind flailed for solutions.

  Work alternating days at the CIL? Half days?

  Impossible. I’d come to Honolulu at JPAC expense. And Plato Lowery was anxious for an answer.

  Take Katy to the CIL with me?

  Definitely a bad idea.

  I started to speak. “Maybe I could—”

  “No, Mom. You have to go to work. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

  “It helps to stay busy.” Gently.

  I braced for incoming. Didn’t happen.

  “Yes,” Katy said. “It does.”

  Suggestions leaped to mind.

  No! yipped a wise sector of gray cells. Give her time. Space.

  Rising, I hugged Katy’s shoulders. Then I went inside, changed to shorts, and strolled down to the beach.

  The sun rode low, streaking the horizon and ocean tangerine and pink. The sand felt warm and soft underfoot, the breeze feathery on my skin.

  Walking the water’s edge, childhood memories popped into my brain. Summers at Pawleys Island. My sister, Harry. Gran. My mother, Katherine Daessee Lee.

  Daisy.

  Triggered by the setting and my recent encounter with Katy, synapses fired images and emotions.

  My mother’s eyes, green like my own. Sometimes radiant. Sometimes cool, refusing to engage.

  A child’s confusion.

  Which mother today?

  A woman driven by social pretension? The newest spa, the trendiest restaurant, the charity event receiving current social column ink.

  A woman in seclusion? Shades drawn, bedroom door locked, sobbing or silence within.

  How I hated Daisy’s frantic party mode. How I hated her withdrawal into her lilac-scented cell.

  Gradually, closed doors and distant eyes became the norm.

  As a child I’d loved my mother fiercely. As an adult I’d finally posed the raw question to myself: Did my mother ever love me?

  And I’d faced the answer.

  I didn’t know.

  My mother loved my baby brother, Kevin. And my father, Michael Terrence Brennan. I was eight when both died, one of leukemia, one drunk at the wheel. The dual tragedies changed everything.

  But did they? Or had Daisy always been mad?

  Same answer. I didn’t know.

  I wanted a closeness with my daughter that I’d been denied with my mother. No matter the irrationality of Katy’s behavior or the unreasonableness of her need, I’d be there for her.

  But how?

  The cadence of the waves triggered no revelations.

  Katy was gone from the lanai when I arrived back at the house. She appeared as I was washing my feet at the outdoor shower.

  “You’re right. Moping is stupid.”

  I waited.

  “Tomorrow I’ll go parasailing.”

  “Sounds good.” It didn’t. I preferred Katy safely grounded, not dangling a hundred feet in the air.

  “Or I’ll sign up for one of those helicopter rides over a volcano.”

  “Mm.” I turned off the faucet.

  “Listen, Mom. I really am grateful for this trip. Hawaii is awesome.”

  “And I’m grateful you’re here.”

  “I took a dozen shrimp from the freezer.”

  “Fire up the barbie?” Delivered in my very best Aussie.

  “Aye, mate.”

  Katie raised a palm. I high-fived it.

  One dozen turned into two.

  BIRDIE WAS CHASING A VERY LARGE DOG ALONG A VERY WHITE beach. The dog wore an elaborate apparatus with lines rising to a bright red parachute high in the sky.

  Katy dangled upside down from the chute, long blond hair waving in the wind. Sunlight glinted from tears on her cheeks.

  A gull screeched.

  The dog stopped.

  Katy’s chute deflated and she drifted earthward.

  Fast. Too fast.

  The gull’s screeching morphed to a very loud buzzing.

  I raised one semiconscious lid.

  The room was dark. The bedside table was vibrating.

  I fumbled for my BlackBerry and clicked on.

  Don Ho was singing “Aloha Oe.”

  “How is my sweet rose of Maunawili?” A male voice. Not Don’s.

  Another twist to the dream?

  No. My eyes were open. One managed to drag the clock face into focus.

  “Do you know what time it is here?” Seemingly a frequent opener on calls to Hawaii.

  “Seven.”

  “Redo the math, Ryan.”

  “Give me a hint.”

  “There’s a five in the answer.” Technically, two. The little green digits said 5:59.

  “Oops. Sorry.”

  “Mm.”

  “That means I woke you.”

  “I had to get up anyway to answer the phone.”

  “That line is ancient.”

  “It’s way too early for anything original.”

  “Thought you’d want to know. Floating Florence gave up some DNA.”

  “Floating Florence?”

  “Nightingale? As in nurse? The Hemmingford corpse? Your lab pals did STR. Whatever that is.”

  “Short. Tandem. Repeat.”

  “Sorry. Too. Rarefied.”

  “Come on, Ryan. STR has been around since the nineties.”

  “So has cloning. Still no one gets it.”

  “It’s standard for most forensic DNA labs.”

  Ryan was smart, genius at
some things. Science was not one of them. Silence meant I was sailing right over his head.

  Great. Biology 101 at dawn.

  “Each DNA molecule is made up of two long chains of nucleotide units that unite down the middle like rungs on a ladder. Each nucleotide unit is composed of a sugar, a phosphate, and one of four bases, adenine, cytosine, guanine, or thymine. A, C, G, or T. It’s the sequencing of the bases that’s important. For example, one person can be CCTA at a certain position, while another is CGTA. With STR, four or five sequence repeats are analyzed.”

  “Why?”

  “Shorter repeat sequences can suffer from problems during amplification. Also, some genetic disorders are associated with trinucleotide repeats. Huntington’s disease, for example. Longer repeat sequences are more vulnerable to degradation. And they don’t amplify by PCR as well as shorter sequences.”

  “Ten words or less, how does STR work?”

  “Ten?”

  “I’ll go twenty, that’s my top.”

  “First, you extract nuclear DNA from your sample. Next, you amplify specific polymorphic regions—”

  “Flag on the field. Jargon violation.”

  “Regions on the genome where there is variability. You amplify, you know, make more copies. Then you determine how many repeats exist for the STR sequence in question.”

  I was oversimplifying for Ryan’s benefit. It seemed to be working.

  “Once you’ve got the genetic fingerprint from your suspect or unknown, in this case the Hemmingford floater, you compare it to that of a family member, right?” he asked.

  “Even better, you compare a sample from your suspect or unknown to another sample taken from him or her before death. Extracted or saved baby teeth. Saliva from a toothbrush. Mucus on a tissue.”

  “So our next step is to swab Plato’s cheek or find Spider’s own snot.”

  “Nice.”

  “You said it.”

  “With much more élan.”

  “But similar connotation. Think Daddy will agree to open wide and say ahh?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s doubtful he’s going to like the results.”

  “Very,” Ryan agreed.

  For several seconds empty air hummed across the line. Then Ryan asked about Katy.

  “She’s still pretty bummed,” I said.

  “You never mentioned a boyfriend. Did you know she was head over heels for the guy?”

  “No.”

  Absence? Inattentiveness? Whatever the reason, my ignorance spoke of remoteness.

  “She’ll come around.”

  “Yes. How’s Lily?”

  “Attending group and keeping appointments with her psychologist. Her color’s better and I think she’s gained a little weight.”

  “Don’t tell her that.” An attempt at levity. It fell flat.

  “The kid’s saying all the right things. But I don’t know.” Ryan drew a deep breath, exhaled. “Sometimes I get the feeling she’s just going through the motions. Telling me what she thinks I want to hear.”

  Not good. Ryan’s instincts were usually dead-on.

  “And she and her mother are like fire and ice. Lutetia’s trying, but patience is not one of her strengths. Lutetia says something, Lily overreacts, Lutetia comes down hard, they both explode, and I end up dealing with the aftermath.”

  “Sounds like they need a break from each other.”

  “You’ve got that right. But I can’t have Lily living with me. At this stage of rehab she needs someone around all the time. I’m away most days, often at night. You know.”

  I did.

  Ping!

  Bad plan.

  It’s perfect.

  “Fly out here.” Spoken before follow-up from the wiser brain cells.

  “What?”

  “Bring Lily to Hawaii. Katy’s alone all day. They’re close enough in age to be company for each other.”

  Twenty-four. Nineteen. From my perspective it looked like a match.

  “You’re nuts.”

  “You three can play tourist while I work. Then we’ll party at night.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’ve banked, what, ninety years of unused vacation time? All it will cost you is a couple of tickets. There’s plenty of room here.”

  I pressed on, though already I was questioning the wisdom of the whole idea.

  “A change of climate could help. Lily was born in the Abacos. Maybe Hawaii will remind her of home.”

  “Lily’s court agreement prohibits her leaving the province.”

  “Puh-leeze. She’d be with you, a sworn officer. Surely you know a judge who would bless that.”

  There was a very long pause.

  “I’ll call you back.”

  Danny wasn’t there when I arrived at the CIL. But Dimitriadus was. With a frosty nod, he disappeared into his office.

  Aloha to you, too, sunshine.

  Donning a lab coat, I picked up where I’d left off with 2010-37. Under the tap, a fragment grudgingly yielded a suture, a squiggly line where the occipital bone had once met the left parietal bone at the back of the skull.

  Oh?

  I scraped gently with my toothbrush. Detail emerged.

  Son of a gun.

  Remembering the maxilla, I returned to the table.

  Son of a gun.

  I was back at the sink when Danny’s laugh rang out, an unbridled soprano, infectious as typhoid.

  Minutes later, Danny strode toward me. At his side was a giraffe of a man, tall and sinewy, with elephantine ears.

  “Good to see you, Tempe.” Craig Brooks, a CIL dentist, shot out a hand.

  “Good to see you,” I said as we shook.

  “Danny claims you’ve discovered the lost Dutchman mine.”

  “Hardly.” Another girly giggle. “Tempe’s find is the size of a mite.”

  “Let’s check it out.”

  Craig spent a long time at the scope, positioning and repositioning our mushroom-duck thing, adjusting and readjusting the two snake lights. Finally he sat back.

  “Danny boy’s right. The material is gold.”

  “Part of a filling or cap?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’ve seen a lot of melted dental work, and this doesn’t fit the pattern. There’s some distortion due to heat exposure, but that’s localized along the rounded edge. The rest of the shape looks original. And it doesn’t track right for either a restoration or crown.”

  “How so?”

  “First, it’s far too thin. Second, one surface is smooth but has some rounded relief. The other surface is roughened but flat.”

  “So what is it?” I asked.

  Craig raised and lowered his shoulders. “Beats me.” He rose. “But I’ll think about it.”

  When Craig had gone I told Danny I had something to show him. He asked if it could wait ten minutes. He needed to place a call before nine.

  I was walking toward the sink when my mobile sounded. I checked the LCD screen, expecting Ryan’s number. The line was local, but not the Lanikai beach house.

  Curious, I clicked on.

  “ALOHA.” WHEN IN ROME, RIGHT?

  “Aloha. Dr. Temperance Brennan, please.” The voice suggested years of unfiltered cigarettes. I was unsure if it was male or female.

  “This is she.”

  “Hadley Perry here.”

  Great. A unisex name. Pulling back a chair beside 2010-37, I sat.

  “M.E.” Medical examiner.

  That Hadley Perry. Though we’d never met, I knew Perry by reputation. Chief medical examiner for the city and county of Honolulu for over two decades, the woman’s antics were legendary and the press ate them up.

  On one occasion Perry rolled blanket-covered bodies into her facility’s parking lot to protest crowding at the morgue. Turned out the gurneys held inflatable dolls. Another time she issued death certificates for two state senators. Said their opposition to increased funding
for her office was clear proof of brain death.

  “Hope you don’t mind me calling your private number.”

  “Of course not.” Actually, I did. But curiosity ruled.

  “I’m told you’re the best forensic anthropologist in the Western Hemisphere.”

  A warning bell tinkled.

  Danny and I have a history of practical jokes running back decades. Five days on his turf, and so far no prank.

  OK, buckaroo. Bring it on.

  “Yes, ma’am. That would be me.”

  A beat. Then, “I have a booger of a case. I’d like your help.”

  “A humpback with implants?”

  “Sorry?”

  “A transgender ne-ne-?”

  “It’s a homicide.”

  “A garroted gecko?” I was on a roll.

  “I think the victim is young and male, but can’t be sure. Few parts were recovered.” Grim-toned. I had to admit. The woman was good.

  “What parts? Gizzard? Wing?”

  I was grinning at my own hilarity when Danny appeared.

  “Nice try,” I mouthed, pointing at the phone.

  “What?”

  “Hadley Perry,” I mouthed again, rolling my eyes.

  Danny looked genuinely confused.

  “Please hold a second.” I pressed the handset to my chest. “Gosh, there’s a woman on the line claiming to be Hadley Perry.”

  “Must be Hadley Perry.”

  “It’s not going to work.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Payback for showing that slide at AAFS.” I’d Photoshopped Danny’s head onto an orangutan wearing a Speedo and flippers. “I’m wise to you.”

  “I will get you. Take that to the bank. But adequate revenge will require time and intricate planning.”

  “Come on, Danny. It bombed.”

  “What bombed?”

  “Your little farce.”

  “What farce?”

  “Having a caller pretend to be the chief ME.”

  “Wrong guy.” Danny placed spread fingers on his chest. “Perry scares the crap out of me.”

  I felt a tiny flame spark in my gut.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Totally.”

  Uh-oh.

  “Are you still there, Dr. Perry?”

  “Yes.” Terse.

  “We have a terrible connection. May I phone you back?”

  She provided the number.

  I clicked off and dialed.

  “Aloha. Honolulu medical examiner.”

  “Dr. Brennan returning Dr. Perry’s call.” Face burning.