could not be any more different.’
‘Hey, that’s good news,’ Jack said. ‘Then, it was a transplant.’
‘I guess,’ Ted said without conviction. ‘But the sequence with the DQ
alpha is identical, right down to the last nucleotide.’
‘What does that mean?’ Jack asked.
Ted spread his hands like a supplicant and wrinkled his forehead. ‘I
don’t know. I can’t explain it. Mathematically, it couldn’t happen. I
mean the chances are so infinitesimally small, it’s beyond belief. We’re
talking about an identical match of thousands upon thousands of base
pairs even in areas of long repeats. Absolutely identical. That’s why we
got the results that we did with the DQ alpha screen.’
‘Well, the bottom line is that it was a transplant,’ Jack said. ‘That’s
the issue here.’
‘If pressed, I’d have to agree it was a transplant,’ Ted said. ‘But how
they found a donor with the identical DQ alpha is beyond me. It’s the
kind of coincidence that smacks of the supernatural.’
‘What about the test with the mitochondrial DNA to confirm the floater
is Franconi?’ Jack asked.
‘Jeez, you give a guy an inch and he wants a mile,’ Ted complained. ‘We
just got the blood, for crissake. You’ll have to wait on the results.
After all, we turned the lab upside down to get what you got so quickly.
Besides I’m more interested in this DQ alpha situation compared to the
polymarker results. Something doesn’t jibe.’
‘Well, don’t lose any sleep over it,’ Jack said. He stood up and gave
Ted back all the material Ted had dumped in his lap. ‘I appreciate what
you’ve done. Thanks! It’s the information I needed. And when the
mitochondrial results are back, give me a call.’
Jack was elated by Ted’s results, and he wasn’t worried about the
mitochondrial study. With the correlation of the X rays, he was already
confident the floater and Franconi were one and the same.
Jack got on the elevator. Now that he’d documented that it had been a
transplant, he was counting on Bart Arnold to come up with the answers
to solve the rest of the mystery. As he descended, Jack found himself
wondering about Ted’s emotional reaction to the DQ alpha results. Jack
was aware that Ted didn’t get excited about too many things.
Consequently, it had to be significant. Unfortunately, Jack didn’t know
enough about the test to have much of an opinion. He vowed that when he
had the chance he’d read up on it.
Jack’s elation was short-lived; it faded the moment he walked into
Bart’s office. The forensic investigator was on the phone, but he shook
his head the moment he caught sight of Jack. Jack interpreted the
gesture as bad news. He sat down to wait.
‘No luck?’ Jack asked as soon as Bart disconnected.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Bart said. ‘I really expected UNOS to come through,
and when they said that they had not provided a liver for Carlo Franconi
and that he’d not even been on their waiting list, I knew the chances of
tracing where he’d gotten the liver fell precipitously. Just now I was
on the phone with Columbia-Presbyterian, and it wasn’t done there. So
I’ve heard from just about every center doing liver transplants, and no
one takes credit for Carlo Franconi.’
‘This is crazy,’ Jack said. He told Bart that Ted’s findings confirmed
that Franconi had had a transplant.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Bart commented.
‘If someone didn’t get their transplant in North America or Europe,
where could it have taken place?’ Jack asked.
Bart shrugged. ‘There are a few other possibilities. Australia, South
Africa, even a couple of places in South America, but having talked to
my contact at UNOS, I don’t think any of them are likely.’
‘No kidding?’ Jack said. He was not hearing what he wanted to hear.
‘It’s a mystery,’ Bart commented.
‘Nothing about this case is easy,’ Jack complained as he got to his
feet.
‘I’ll keep at it,’ Bart offered.
‘I’d appreciate it,’ Jack said.
Jack wandered out of the forensic area, feeling mildly depressed. He had
the uncomfortable sensation that he was missing some major fact, but he
had no idea what it could be or how to go about finding out what it was.