“What an effort!” Laurie exclaimed. “One thing is for sure, I’m glad I foisted this case onto you.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Jack quipped. “It’s certainly a frustrating case. On a happier note, last night at basketball, Warren told me that Natalie has been asking about you. What do you say that we all get together this weekend for dinner and maybe a movie, provided they don’t have any plans?”
“I’d enjoy that very much,” Laurie said. “I hope you told Warren that I was asking about them as well.”
“I did,” Jack admitted. “Not to change the subject, but how was your day? Did you make any headway in figuring out how Franconi managed to go on his overnight? I mean, Lou telling us that a crime family was responsible isn’t telling us a whole bunch. We need specifics.”
“Unfortunately, no,” Laurie admitted. “I was caught in the pit until just a little while ago. I’ve gotten nothing done that I’d planned.”
“Too bad,” Jack said with a smile. “With my lack of progress, I might have to rely on you providing the breakthrough.”
After promises to talk with each other by phone that evening, specifically about the weekend plans, Laurie headed to her own office. With good intentions she sat down at her desk and started to go through the lab reports and other correspondence that had come in that day involving her uncompleted cases. But she found it difficult to concentrate.
Jack’s generosity in crediting her with providing the breakthrough in the Franconi case only made her feel guilty for not coming up with a working hypothesis about how Franconi’s body was taken. Seeing the effort Jack was expending on the case made her want to redouble her efforts.
Pulling out a fresh sheet of paper, Laurie began to write down everything Marvin had related. Her intuition told her that Franconi’s mysterious abduction had to involve the two bodies that went out the same night. And now that Lou had said the Lucia crime family was implicated, she was more convinced than ever that the Spoletto Funeral Home was somehow involved.
Raymond replaced the phone and raised his eyes to Darlene who’d come into his study.
“Well?” Darlene asked. She had her blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. She’d been working out on an exercise bike in the other room and was clothed in sexy workout gear.
Raymond leaned back in his desk chair and sighed. He even smiled. “Things seem to be working out,” he said. “That was the GenSys operational officer up in Cambridge, Mass. The plane will be available tomorrow evening so I’ll be on my way to Africa. Of course, we’ll stop to refuel, but I don’t know where yet.”
“Can I come?” Darlene asked hopefully.
“I’m afraid not, dear,” Raymond said. He reached out and took her by the hand. He knew he’d been difficult over the previous couple of days and felt badly. He guided her around the desk and urged her to sit on his lap. As soon as she did, he was sorry. She was, after all, a big woman.
“With the patient and the surgical team, there’ll be too many people on the plane on the return trip,” he managed, even though his face was becoming red.
Darlene sighed and pouted. “I never get to go anywhere.”
“Next time,” Raymond croaked. He patted her on her back and eased her up into a standing position. “It’s just a short trip. There and back. It’s not going to be fun.”
With a sudden burst of tears Darlene fled from the room. Raymond considered following her to console her, but a glance at his desk clock changed his mind. It was after three and therefore after nine in Cogo. If he wanted to talk to Siegfried, he felt he’d better try now.
Raymond called the manager’s home. The housekeeper put Siegfried on the line.
“Things still going okay?” Raymond asked expectantly.
“Perfectly,” Siegfried said. “My last update on the patient’s condition was fine. He couldn’t be doing any better.”
“That’s reassuring,” Raymond said.
“I suppose that means our harvest bonuses will be forthcoming,” Siegfried said.
“Of course,” Raymond said, although he knew there would be a delay. With the necessity of raising twenty thousand cash for Vinnie Dominick, bonuses would have to wait until the next initiation fee came in.
“What about the situation with Kevin Marshall?” Raymond asked.
“Everything is back to normal,” Siegfried said. “Except for one incident when they went back to the staging area around lunch time.”
“That hardly sounds normal,” Raymond complained.
“Calm down,” Siegfried said. “They only went back to look for Melanie Becket’s sunglasses. Nevertheless, they ended up getting fired at again by the soldiers I’d posted out there.” Siegfried laughed heartily.
Raymond waited until Siegfried had calmed down.
“What’s so funny?” Raymond asked.
“Those numbskull soldiers shot out Melanie’s rear window,” Siegfried said. “It made her very angry, but it had the desired effect. Now I’m really sure they won’t be going out there again.”
“I should hope not,” Raymond said.
“Besides, I had an opportunity to have a drink with the two women this afternoon,” Siegfried said. “I have a feeling our nerdy researcher has something risque going on.”
“What are you talking about?” Raymond asked.
“I don’t believe he’ll be having the time or the energy to worry about smoke from Isla Francesca,” Siegfried said. “I think he’s got himself involved in a ménage à trois.”
“Seriously?” Raymond asked. Such an idea seemed preposterous for the Kevin Marshall Raymond knew. In all of Raymond’s dealing with Kevin Marshall he’d never expressed the slightest interest in the opposite sex. The idea he’d have the inclination and stamina for one woman let alone two seemed ludicrous.
“That was the implication I got,” Siegfried said. “You should have heard the two women carrying on about their cute researcher. That’s what they called him. And they were on their way to Kevin’s for a dinner party. That’s the first dinner party he’s ever had as far as I know, and I live right across from him.”
“I suppose we should be thankful,” Raymond said.
“Envious is a better word,” Siegfried said, with another burst of laughter that grated on Raymond’s nerves.
“I’ve called to say that I’ll be leaving here tomorrow evening,” Raymond said. “I can’t say when I’ll arrive in Bata because I don’t know where we’ll refuel. I’ll have to call from the refueling stop or have the pilots radio ahead.”
“Anyone else coming with you?” Siegfried asked.
“Not that I know of,” Raymond said. “I doubt it because we’ll be almost full on the way back.”
“We’ll be waiting for you,” Siegfried said.
“See you soon,” Raymond said.
“Maybe you could bring our bonuses with you,” Siegfried suggested.
“I’ll see if it can be arranged,” Raymond said.
He hung up the phone and smiled. He shook his head in amazement concerning Kevin Marshall’s behavior. “You never know!” Raymond commented out loud as he got up and started from the room. He wanted to find Darlene and cheer her up. He thought that maybe as a consolation they should go out to dinner at her favorite restaurant.
Jack had scoured the single liver section Maureen had given him from one end to the other. He’d even used his oil-immersion lens to stare vainly at the basophilic specks in the heart of the tiny granuloma. He still had no idea whether they were a true finding, and if they were, what they were.
Having exhausted his histological and pathological knowledge with respect to the slide, he was about to take it over to the pathology department at New York University Hospital when his phone rang. It was Chet’s call from North Carolina, so Jack asked the appropriate question and wrote down the response. Hanging up the phone, Jack got his jacket from the file cabinet. With the jacket on, he picked up the microscopic slide only to have the phone ring again. This time it was Lou Soldano.