“Hey, I’m not knocking your questioning it,” Lou said. “Your recall always impresses me. I’m not sure I would have made the association. Anyway, what about some dinner?”

“As tired as you look, how about just coming over to my apartment for some spaghetti?” Laurie suggested. Lou and Laurie had become best of friends over the years. After being thrust together on the Cerino case five years previously, they’d flirted with a romantic relationship. But it hadn’t worked out. Becoming friends had been a mutual decision. In the years since, they made it a point to have dinner together every couple of weeks.

“You wouldn’t mind?” Lou asked. The idea of kicking back on Laurie’s couch sounded like heaven.

“Not at all,” Laurie said. “In fact, I’d prefer it. I’ve got some sauce in the freezer and plenty of salad makings.”

“Great!” Lou said. “I’ll grab some Chianti on my way downtown. I’ll give you a call when I’m leaving headquarters.”

“Perfect,” Laurie said.

After Lou had left, Laurie went back to her slide. But Lou’s visit had broken her concentration by reawakening the Franconi business. Besides, she was tired of looking through the microscope. Leaning back, she rubbed her eyes.

“Damn it all!” she murmured. She sighed and gazed up at the cobwebbed ceiling. Every time she questioned how Franconi’s body could have gotten out of the morgue, she agonized anew. She also felt guilty that she couldn’t provide even a modicum of help to Lou.

Laurie got up and got her coat, snapped shut her briefcase, and walked out of her office. But she didn’t leave the morgue. Instead, she went down for another visit to the mortuary office. There was a question that was nagging her and which she’d forgotten to ask Marvin Fletcher, the evening mortuary tech, the previous late afternoon.

She found Marvin at his desk busily filling out the required forms for the scheduled pickups for that evening. Marvin was one of Laurie’s favorite coworkers. He’d been on the day shift before Bruce Pomowski’s tragic murder during the Cerino affair. After that event, Marvin had been switched to evenings. It had been a promotion because the evening mortuary tech had a lot of responsibility.

“Hey, Laurie! What’s happening?” Marvin said the moment he caught sight of her. Marvin was a handsome African-American, with the most flawless skin Laurie had ever seen. It seemed to glow as if lit internally.

Laurie chatted with Marvin for a few minutes, catching him up on the intraoffice gossip of the day before getting down to business. “Marvin, I’ve got to ask you something, but I don’t want you to feel defensive.” Laurie couldn’t help remembering Mike Passano’s reaction to her questioning, and she certainly didn’t want Marvin complaining to Calvin.

“About what?” Marvin asked.

“Franconi,” Laurie said. “I wanted to ask why you didn’t X-ray the body.”

“What are you talking about?” Marvin questioned.

“Just what I said,” Laurie remarked. “There was no X-ray slip in the autopsy folder and there were no films down here with others when I looked prior to finding out that the body had disappeared.”