“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.”
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.”