“Why are you worrying yourself about this?” Jack said. “This is the front office’s problem.”
Laurie pulled on her coat and got her keys. “Let’s just say that I’ve taken a personal interest in the case.”
Jack rolled his eyes as they exited into the hall. “Laurie!” he intoned. “You’re going to get yourself in trouble over this. Mark my word.”
Laurie pushed the elevator button then glared at Mrs. Engler, who’d cracked her door as usual.
“That woman drives me crazy,” Laurie said as they boarded the elevator.
“You’re not listening to me,” Jack said.
“I’m listening,” Laurie said. “But I’m still going to look into this. Between this stunt and my run-in with Franconi’s predecessor, it irks me that these two-bit mobsters think they can do whatever they please. They think laws are for other people. Pauli Cerino, the man Lou mentioned this morning, had people killed so that he didn’t have to wait too long to have corneal transplants. That gives you an idea of their ethics. I don’t like the idea that they think they can just come into our morgue and walk off with the body of a man they just killed.”
They emerged onto Nineteenth Street and walked toward First Avenue. Laurie put up her collar. There was a breeze off the East River, and it was only in the twenties.
“What makes you think the mobsters are behind this?” Jack asked.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to assume as much,” Laurie said. She put up her hand as a cab approached, but it zoomed past without slowing. “Franconi was going to testify as part of a plea bargain. The higher-ups of the Vaccarro organization got angry or scared or both. It’s an old story.”
“So they killed him,” Jack said. “Why take the body?”
Laurie shrugged. “I’m not going to pretend I can put my mind into a mobster’s,” she said. “I don’t know why they wanted the body. Maybe to deny him a proper burial. Maybe they’re afraid an autopsy would provide a clue to the killer’s identity. Hell, I don’t know. But ultimately it doesn’t matter why.”
“I have a sense the ‘why’ might be important,” Jack said. “I think by getting involved you’ll be skating on thin ice.”
“Maybe so,” Laurie said. She shrugged again. “I get caught up in things like this. I suppose part of the problem is that at the moment my main focus in life is my job.”
“Here comes a free cab,” Jack said, deliberately avoiding having to respond to Laurie’s last comment. He sensed the implications and was reluctant to get drawn into a more personal discussion.
It was a short cab ride down to the corner of First Avenue and Thirtieth Street. Laurie climbed out and was surprised when Jack did the same.
“You don’t have to come,” Laurie said.
“I know,” Jack said. “But I’m coming anyway. In case you haven’t guessed, you have me concerned.”
Jack leaned back inside the cab and paid the driver.
Laurie was still insisting that Jack’s presence was not needed as they walked between the Health and Hospital’s mortuary vans. They entered the morgue through the Thirtieth Street entrance. “I thought you told me your bed was beckoning?”
“It can wait,” Jack said. “After Lou’s story about your getting carted out of here nailed in a coffin, I think I should tag along.”
“That was a totally different situation,” Laurie said.
“Oh, yeah?” Jack questioned. “It involved mobsters just like now.”
Laurie was about to protest further when Jack’s comment struck a chord. She had to admit there were parallels.
The first person they came to was the night security man sitting in his cubbyhole office. Carl Novak was an elderly, affable, gray-haired man who appeared to have shrunk inside his uniform that was at least two sizes too big. He was playing solitaire but looked up when Laurie and Jack passed by his window and stopped in his open doorway.
“Can I help you?” Carl asked. Then he recognized Laurie and apologized for not having done so sooner.
Laurie asked him if he’d been informed of Franconi’s body’s disappearance.
“By all means,” Carl said. “I got called at home by Robert Harper, head of security. He was up in arms about it and asked me all sorts of questions.”
It didn’t take Laurie long to learn that Carl had little light to shed on the mystery. He insisted that nothing out of the ordinary happened. Bodies had come in and bodies had gone out, just the way they did every night of the year. He admitted having left his post twice during his shift to visit the men’s room. He emphasized that on both occasions, he’d only been gone for a few minutes and that each time he’d informed the night mortuary tech, Mike Passano.
“What about meals?” Laurie asked.
Carl pulled open a file drawer of his metal desk and lifted out an insulated lunch box. “I eat right here.”
Laurie thanked him and moved on. Jack followed.
“The place certainly looks different at night,” Jack commented as they passed the wide hall that led down to the refrigerators and the autopsy room.
“It’s a bit sinister without the usual daytime hubbub,” Laurie admitted.
They looked into the mortuary office and found Mike Passano busy with some receiving forms. A body had recently been brought in that had been fished out of the ocean by the Coast Guard. He looked up when he sensed company.
Mike was in this early thirties, spoke with a strong Long Island accent, and looked decidedly Southern Italian. He was slight of build with sharply defined facial features. He had dark hair, dark skin, and dark eyes. Neither Laurie nor Jack had worked with him although they had met him on multiple occasions.
“Did you docs come in to see the floater?” Mike asked.
“No,” Jack said. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem,” Mike said. “It’s just in bad shape.”
“We’ve come to talk about last night,” Laurie said.
“What about it?” Mike asked.
Laurie posed the same questions she’d put to Carl. To her surprise, Mike quickly became irritated. She was about to say as much when Jack tugged on her arm and motioned for her to retreat to the hall.
“Ease off,” Jack recommended when they were beyond earshot.
“Ease off from what?” Laurie asked. “I’m not being confrontational.”
“I agree,” Jack said. “I know I’m the last person to be an expert in office politics or interpersonal relations, but Mike sounds defensive to me. If you want to get any information out of him, I think you have to take that into consideration and tread lightly.”
Laurie thought for a minute then nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”
They returned to the mortuary office, but before Laurie could say anything, Mike said: “In case you didn’t know, Dr. Washington telephoned this morning and woke me up about all this. He read me the riot act. But I did my normal job last night, and I certainly didn’t have anything to do with that body disappearing.”
“I’m sorry if I implied that you did,” Laurie said. “All I’m saying is that I believe the body disappeared during your shift. That’s not saying you are responsible in any way.”
“It sort’a sounds that way,” Mike said. “I mean, I’m the only one here besides security and the janitors.”
“Did anything happen out of the ordinary?” Laurie asked.
Mike shook his head. “It was a quiet night. We had two bodies come in and two go out.”
“What about the bodies that arrived?” Laurie asked. “Did they come in with our people?”
“Yup, with our vans,” Mike said. “Jeff Cooper and Peter Molina. Both bodies were from local hospitals.”