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.’
‘So was I,’ Laurie said. ‘I tried to call Dr. Besserman, who’d done the
original autopsy. I wanted to ask if the body had been recently
identified as Frank Gleason, but he’s out of the office. Do you think it
was surprising that Mike Passano didn’t know the body was still labeled
in the computer as an unidentified corpse?’
‘Not really,’ Marvin said. ‘I’m not sure I would have, either. I mean,
you enter the accession number just to find out if the body is released.
You don’t really worry too much about the name.’
‘That was the impression you gave me earlier,’ Laurie said. ‘There was
also something else you said that I’ve been mulling over. You said that
sometimes you don’t get the body yourself but rather one of the funeral
home people does.’
‘Sometimes,’ Marvin said. ‘But it only happens if two people come and if
they’ve been here lots of times so they know the process. It’s just a
way of speeding things up. One of them goes to the cooler to get the
body while me and the other guy finish the documents.’
‘How well do you know Mike Passano?’ Laurie asked.
‘As well as I know most of the other techs,’ Marvin said.
‘You and I have known each other for six years,’ Laurie said. ‘I think
of us as friends.’
‘Yeah, I suppose,’ Marvin said warily.
‘I’d like you to do something for me as a friend,’ Laurie said. ‘But
only if it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable.’
‘Like what?’ Marvin said.
‘I’d like you to call Mike Passano and tell him that I found out that
one of the bodies that he sent out the night Franconi disappeared was an
unidentified corpse.’