Chromosome 6

by Robin Cook

  “I’m on pins and needles,” Jack said.

  “Franconi never visited France!” Lou said. “Not unless he had a fake passport and fake name. There’s no record of his entering or departing.”

  “So what’s this about the plane incontrovertibly coming from Lyon, France?” Jack demanded.

  “Hey, don’t get testy,” Lou said.

  “I’m not,” Jack said. “I was only responding to your point that the flight plan and the Immigration information had to correlate.”

  “They do!” Lou said. “Saying the plane came from Lyon, France, doesn’t mean anybody or everybody got out. It could have refueled for all I know.”

  “Good point,” Jack said. “I didn’t think of that. How can we find out?”

  “I suppose I can call my friend back at the FAA,” Lou said.

  “Great,” Jack said. “I’m heading back to my office at the morgue. You want me to call you or you call me?”

  “I’ll call you,” Lou said.

  After Laurie had written down all that she could remember from her conversation with Marvin concerning how bodies were picked up by funeral homes, she’d put the paper aside and ignored it while she did some other busywork. A half hour later, she picked it back up.

  With her mind clear, she tried to read it with fresh eyes. On the second read-through, something jumped out at her: namely, how many times the term “accession number” appeared. Of course, she wasn’t surprised. After all, the accession number was to a body what a Social Security number was to a living individual. It was a form of identification that allowed the morgue to keep track of the thousands of bodies and consequent paperwork that passed through its portals. Whenever a body arrived at the medical examiner’s office, the first thing that happened was that it was given an accession number. The second thing that happened was that a tag with the number was tied around the big toe.

  Looking at the word “accession,” Laurie realized to her surprise that if asked she wouldn’t have been able to define it. It was a word she’d just accepted and used on a daily basis. Every laboratory slip and report, every X-ray film, every investigator’s report, every document intramurally had the accession number. In many ways, it was more important than the victim’s name.

  Taking her American Heritage dictionary from its shelf, Laurie looked up the word “accession.” As she began reading the definitions, none of them made any sense in the context of the word’s use at the morgue, until the next to last entry. There it was defined as “admittance.” In other words, the accession number was just another way of saying admittance number.

  Laurie searched for the accession numbers and names of the bodies that had been picked up during the night shift of March fourth when Franconi’s body disappeared. She found the piece of scratch paper beneath a slide tray. On it was written: Dorothy Kline #101455 and Frank Gleason #100385.

  Thanks to her musing about accession numbers, Laurie noticed something she’d not paid any attention to before. The fact that the accession numbers differed by over a thousand! That was strange because the numbers were given out sequentially. Knowing the approximate volume of bodies processed through the morgue, Laurie estimated that there must have been several weeks separation between the arrivals of these two individuals.

  The time differential was strange since bodies rarely stayed at the morgue more than a couple of days, so Laurie keyed Frank Gleason’s accession number into her computer terminal. His was the body picked up by the Spoletto Funeral Home.

  What popped up on the screen surprised her.

  “Good grief!” Laurie exclaimed.

  Lou was having a great time. Contrary to the general public’s romantic image of detective work, actual gumshoeing was an exhausting, thankless task. What Lou was doing now, namely sitting in the comfort of his office and making productive telephone calls, was both entertaining and fulfilling. It was also nice to say hello to old acquaintances.

  “My word, Soldano!” Mark Servert commented. Mark was Lou’s contact at the FAA in Oklahoma City. “I don’t hear from you for a year and then twice in the same day. This must be some case.”

  “It’s a corker,” Lou said. “And I have a follow-up question. We found out that the G4 plane I called you about earlier had flown from Lyon, France, to Teterboro, New Jersey, on January twenty-ninth. However, the guy we’re interested in didn’t pass through French Immigration. So, we’re wondering if it’s possible to find out where N69SU came from before it landed in Lyon.”

  “Now that’s a tricky question,” Mark said. “I know the ICAO . . .”

  “Wait a second,” Lou interrupted. “Keep the acronyms to a minimum. What’s the ICAO?”

  “International Civil Aviation Organization,” Mark said. “I know they file all flight plans in and out of Europe.”

  “Perfect,” Lou said. “Anybody there you can call?”

  “There’s someone I can call,” Mark said. “But it wouldn’t do you much good. The ICAO shreds all their files after fifteen days. It’s not stored.”

  “Wonderful,” Lou commented sarcastically.

  “The same goes for the European Air Traffic Control Center in Brussels,” Mark said. “There’s just too much material, considering all the commercial flights.”

  “So, there’s no way,” Lou remarked.

  “I’m thinking,” Mark said.

  “You want to call me back?” Lou said. “I’ll be here for another hour or so.”

  “Yeah, let me do that,” Mark said.

  Lou was about to hang up when he heard Mark yell his name.

  “I just thought of something else,” Mark said. “There’s an organization called Central Flow Management with offices in both Paris and Brussels. They’re the ones who provide the slot times for takeoffs and landings. They handle all of Europe except for Austria and Slovenia. Who knows why those countries aren’t involved? So, if N69SU came from anyplace other than Austria or Slovenia, their flight plan should be on file.”

  “Do you know anybody in that organization?” Lou asked.

  “No, but I know somebody who does,” Mark said. “Let me see if I can find out for you.”

  “Hey, I appreciate it,” Lou said.

  “No problem,” Mark said.

  Lou hung up the phone and then drummed his pencil on the surface of his scarred and battle-worn gray-metal desk. There were innumerable burn marks where he’d left smoldering cigarette butts. He was thinking about Alpha Aviation and wondering how to run down the organization.

  First, he tried telephone information in Reno. There was no listing for Alpha Aviation. Lou wasn’t surprised. Next, he called the Reno police department. He explained who he was and asked to be connected to his equivalent, the head of Homicide. His name was Paul Hersey.

  After a few minutes of friendly banter, Lou gave Paul a thumbnail sketch of the Franconi case. Then he asked about Alpha Aviation.

  “Never heard of them,” Paul said.

  “The FAA said it was out of Reno, Nevada,” Lou said.

  “That’s because Nevada’s an easy state to incorporate in,” Paul explained. “And here in Reno we’ve got a slew of high-priced law firms who spend their time doing nothing else.”

  “What’s your suggestion about getting the lowdown on the organization?” Lou asked.

  “Call the Office of the Nevada Secretary of State in Carson City,” Paul said. “If Alpha Aviation is incorporated in Nevada, it will be on public record. Want us to call for you?”

  “I’ll call,” Lou said. “At this point, I’m not even sure what I want to know.”

  “We can at least give you the number,” Paul said. He went off the line for a moment, and Lou could hear him bark an order to an underling. A moment later, he was back and gave Lou the telephone number. Then he added: “They should be helpful, but if you have any trouble, call me back. And if you need any assistance in Carson City for whatever reason call Todd Arronson. He’s head of Homicide down there, and he’s a good guy.”

&n
bsp; A few minutes later Lou was on the line with the Office of the Nevada Secretary of State. An operator connected him to a clerk, who couldn’t have been nicer or more cooperative. Her name was Brenda Whitehall.

  Lou explained that he was interested to find out all he could about Alpha Aviation out of Reno, Nevada.

  “Just a moment, please,” Brenda said. Lou could hear the woman typing the name onto a keyboard. “Okay, here it is,” she added. “Hang on and let me pull the folder.”

  Lou lifted his feet up onto his desk and leaned back in his chair. He felt an almost irresistible urge to light up, but he fought it.

  “I’m back,” Brenda said. Lou could hear the rustle of papers. “Now what is it that you want to know?”

  “What do you have?” Lou asked.

  “I have the Articles of Incorporation,” Brenda said. There was a short period of silence while she read, then she added: “It’s a limited partnership and the general partner is Alpha Management.”

  “What does that mean in plain English?” Lou asked. “I’m not a lawyer or a businessman.”

  “It simply means that Alpha Management is the corporation that runs the limited partnership,” Brenda said patiently.

  “Does it have any people’s names?” Lou asked.

  “Of course,” Brenda said. “The Articles of Incorporation have to have the names and addresses of the directors, the registered agent for service of process, and the officers of the corporation.”

  “That sounds encouraging,” Lou said. “Could you give them to me?”

  Lou could hear the sound of rustling papers.

  “Hmmmm,” Brenda commented. “Actually, in this instance there’s only one name and address.”

  “One person is wearing all those hats?”

  “According to this document,” Brenda said.

  “What’s the name and address?” Lou asked. He reached for a piece of paper.

  “It’s Samuel Hartman of the firm, Wheeler, Hartman, Gottlieb, and Sawyer. Their address is Eight Rodeo Drive, Reno.”

  “That sounds like a law firm,” Lou said.

  “It is,” Brenda said. “I recognize the name.”

  “That’s no help!” Lou said. He knew that the chances of getting any information out of a law firm were unlikely.

  “A lot of Nevada corporations are set up like this,” Brenda explained. “But let’s see if there are any amendments.”

  Lou was already thinking of calling Paul back to get the rundown on Samuel Hartman, when Brenda made a murmur of discovery.

  “There are amendments,” she said. “At the first board meeting of Alpha Management, Mr. Hartman resigned as president and secretary. In his place Frederick Rouse was appointed.”

  “Is there an address for Mr. Rouse?” Lou asked.

  “There is,” Brenda said. “His title is Chief Financial Officer of the GenSys Corporation. The address is 150 Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts.”

  Lou got all the information written down and thanked Brenda. He was particularly appreciative because he couldn’t imagine getting the same service from his own Secretary of State’s Office in Albany.

  Lou was about to call Jack to give him the information about the ownership of the plane, when the phone literally rang under his hand. It was Mark Servert calling back already.

  “You are in luck,” Mark said. “The fellow I’m acquainted with who knows people in the Central Flow Management organization in Europe happened to be on the job when I called him. In fact, he’s in your neck of the woods. He’s out at Kennedy Airport, helping direct air traffic across the north Atlantic. He talks to these Central Flow Management people all the time, so he slipped in a query about N69SU on January twenty-ninth. Apparently, it popped right up on the screen. N69SU flew into Lyon from Bata, Equatorial Guinea.”

  “Whoa!” Lou said. “Where’s that?”

  “Beats me,” Mark said. “Without looking at a map, I’d guess West Africa.”

  “Curious,” Lou said.

  “It’s also curious that as soon as the plane touched down in Lyon, France, it radioed to obtain a slot time to depart for Teterboro, New Jersey,” Mark said. “Near as I can figure, it just sat on the runway until it got clearance.”

  “Maybe it refueled,” Lou offered.

  “Could be,” Mark said. “Even so, I would have expected them to have filed a through-flight plan with a stop in Lyon, rather than two separate flight plans. I mean, they could have gotten hung up in Lyon for hours. It was taking a chance.”

  “Maybe they just changed their minds,” Lou said.

  “It’s possible,” Mark agreed.

  “Or maybe they didn’t want anyone knowing they were coming from Equatorial Guinea,” Lou suggested.

  “Now, that’s an idea that wouldn’t have crossed my mind,” Mark admitted. “I suppose that’s why you’re an engaging detective, and I’m a boring FAA bureaucrat.”

  Lou laughed. “Engaging I’m not. On the contrary, I’m afraid this job has made me cynical and suspicious.”

  “It’s better than being boring,” Mark said.

  Lou thanked his friend for his help, and after they exchanged the usual well-meaning promises to get together, they hung up.

  For a few minutes, Lou sat and marveled at why a twenty-million-dollar airplane was carrying a midlevel crime boss from Queens, New York, from some African country Lou had never heard of. Such a third-world backwater certainly wasn’t a medical mecca where a person would go to have sophisticated surgery like a liver transplant.

  After entering Frank Gleason’s accession number into the computer, Laurie sat pondering the apparent discrepancy for some time. She’d tried to imagine what the information meant in terms of the Franconi body disappearance. Slowly, an idea took root.

  Suddenly pushing back from her desk, Laurie headed to the morgue level to look for Marvin. He wasn’t in the mortuary office. She found him by stepping into the walk-in cooler. He was busy moving the gurneys around to prepare for body pickups.

  The moment Laurie entered the cooler, she flashed on the horrid experience she’d had during the Cerino affair inside the walk-in unit. The memory made her distinctly uncomfortable, and she decided against attempting to have a conversation with Marvin while inside. Instead, she asked him to meet her back in the mortuary office when he was finished.

  Five minutes later, Marvin appeared. He plopped a sheaf of papers on the desk and then went to a sink in the corner to wash his hands.

  “Everything in order?” Laurie asked, just to make conversation.

  “I think so,” Marvin said. He came to the desk and sat down. He began arranging the documents in the order that the bodies were to be picked up.

  “After talking with you earlier, I learned something quite surprising,” Laurie said, getting to the point of her visit.

  “Like what?” Marvin said. He finished arranging the papers and sat back.

  “I entered Frank Gleason’s accession number into the computer,” Laurie said. “And I found out that his body had come into the morgue over two weeks ago. There was no name associated with it. It was an unidentified corpse!”

  “No shit!” Marvin exclaimed. Then realizing what he’d said, he added: “I mean, I’m surprised.”

  “So was I,” Laurie said. “I tried to call Dr. Besserman, who’d done the original autopsy. I wanted to ask if the body had been recently identified as Frank Gleason, but he’s out of the office. Do you think it was surprising that Mike Passano didn’t know the body was still labeled in the computer as an unidentified corpse?”

  “Not really,” Marvin said. “I’m not sure I would have, either. I mean, you enter the accession number just to find out if the body is released. You don’t really worry too much about the name.”

  “That was the impression you gave me earlier,” Laurie said. “There was also something else you said that I’ve been mulling over. You said that sometimes you don’t get the body yourself but rather one of the funeral home people does
.”

  “Sometimes,” Marvin said. “But it only happens if two people come and if they’ve been here lots of times so they know the process. It’s just a way of speeding things up. One of them goes to the cooler to get the body while me and the other guy finish the documents.”

  “How well do you know Mike Passano?” Laurie asked.

  “As well as I know most of the other techs,” Marvin said.

  “You and I have known each other for six years,” Laurie said. “I think of us as friends.”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Marvin said warily.

  “I’d like you to do something for me as a friend,” Laurie said. “But only if it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable.”

  “Like what?” Marvin said.

  “I’d like you to call Mike Passano and tell him that I found out that one of the bodies that he sent out the night Franconi disappeared was an unidentified corpse.”

  “That’s strange, man!” Marvin said. “Why would I be calling him rather than just waiting for him to come on duty?”

  “You can act like you just heard it, which is the case,” Laurie said. “And you can say that you thought he should know right away since he was on duty that night.”

  “I don’t know, man,” Marvin said, unconvinced.

  “The key thing is that coming from you, it won’t be confrontational,” Laurie said. “If I call, he’ll think I’m accusing him, and I’m interested to hear his reaction without his feeling defensive. But more important, I’d like you to ask him if there were two people from Spoletto Funeral Home that night, and if there were two, whether he can remember who actually went to get the body.”

  “That’s like setting him up, man,” Marvin complained.

  “I don’t see it that way,” Laurie said. “If anything, it gives him a chance to clear himself. You see, I think the Spoletto people took Franconi.”

  “I don’t feel comfortable calling him,” Marvin said. “He’s going to know something is up. Why don’t you call him yourself, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I already told you, I think he’ll be too defensive,” Laurie said. “Last time he was defensive when I asked him purely vague questions. But okay, if you feel uncomfortable, I don’t want you to do it. Instead, I want you to go on a little hunt with me.”