“I don’t think so,” Jack said. From Lou’s tone it sounded as if it should have.
“It stands for Gulfstream 4,” Lou explained. “It’s what you would call the Rolls Royce of the corporate jet. It’s like twenty million bucks.”
“I’m impressed,” Jack said.
“You should be,” Lou said. “Okay, let’s see what else I learned. Ah, here it is: The plane is owned by Alpha Aviation out of Reno, Nevada. Ever hear of them?”
“Nope,” Jack said. “Have you?”
“Not me,” Lou said. “Must be a leasing organization. Let’s see, what else? Oh, yeah! This might be the most interesting. My friend from Immigration called his counterpart in France at his home, if you can believe it, and asked about Carlo Franconi’s recent French holiday. Apparently, this French bureaucrat can access the Immigration mainframe from his own PC, because guess what?”
“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 busy work. 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.”