“You were gone a while,” Jenn said. “I was getting a little antsy.”
“You could have called me.”
“I did. Your phone was off.”
“Oops.”
“You need to stay in touch.”
“Don’t worry so much. I have a mother for that.”
“Consider me her stand-in. So what happened? Find anyone who saw him?”
I filled her in on my talks with the cyclist and the trolley driver. When she had taken in all the details, she said, “So, someone really tried to grab David that night.”
“Yes.”
“But he got away.”
“For the moment,” I said. “They could have tried again and succeeded.”
“Or he found a good hiding place and doesn’t want to come out.”
“Not even to call his parents? He’d know they’d be worried sick.”
“I know. I’ve got a couple of things on my end,” she said. “I called the New England Organ Bank and spoke to a woman named Wendy Carroll who confirms what Stayner told you. There’s no way a doctor can manipulate the waiting list for a transplant. When an organ becomes available, the bank evaluates the candidates on the list as far as their health, their readiness for surgery, the severity of their illness, etcetera, and they contact the hospital. It doesn’t work the other way around.”
“So David didn’t get that money for influence peddling.”
“No. Have you signed your donor card, by the way?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Me too. ’Cause I’ll tell you, the numbers are scary. There’s over five thousand people in Massachusetts alone waiting for organs, mostly kidneys, and maybe one in five will get one. Cadavers are hard to come by.”
“Not in Mattapan, I hear.”
“Next,” she said. “Carol-Ann Meacham.”
“The one who called David all those times.”
“And vice versa. But when I asked her about it, she couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. And I don’t think it was just a matter of being busy. These are all busy people. I just mentioned David’s name and boom, she shut down. Said she couldn’t help me. Pretty much hung up on me.”
“You get the feeling they were dating?”
“I’d like to ask, if we can get some face time with her.”
“What does she do again?”
“According to the hospital website, she coordinates a gene study there.” She called up the web page on her laptop, then swivelled it so I could see the screen.
It was a year-old news release announcing that Sinai Hospital would be asking all patients seeking treatment to provide a blood sample for genetic testing, with the results to be used to build a massive genome database.
According to the release, the research team hoped to collect samples from a hundred thousand patients, even those seeking routine care, and follow them over time to see how their genetic makeup, lifestyle and environment affected their health.
At the bottom was a contact number for media relations. I called it, got voice mail and left a message saying I wanted to interview Carol-Ann Meacham about the gene study as soon as possible. Then Jenn and I went over other options for the next day.
“With luck,” I said, “Karl will get David’s computer open and we can find out more from his email and browser. I also want to talk to Gianelli again, tell him about the attempted grab.”
“The alleged grab, he’ll say.”
“The problem is all the different police forces at work here. The fact that Mr. Patel is missing too, that would normally stir some interest, but one’s in Brookline, the other’s in Somerville. Can you imagine Toronto working this way?”
“I’m just trying to imagine Toronto working,” she said.
CHAPTER 10
Gerard van Vliet, of the Sinai Hospital media relations squad, called just after nine the next morning. I told him I was writing a feature on genome studies at leading American hospitals, which I hoped to sell to the Globe and Mail.
“Oh, yes,” he said brightly. “Well, I’m glad you picked Sinai Hospital. We are certainly at the forefront of this type of research. If you like, I can set up an interview with the lead researcher, Dr. Tim Sellers, who’s a cancer specialist here.”
“I thought I’d start with the coordinator,” I said. “Dr. Carol-Ann Meacham?”
“Ms. Meacham isn’t a physician,” he said. “She can’t really speak to the medical aims of the project. But she could give you an overview of the structure and process.”
“Great,” I said. “Once that’s done, I’ll be able to speak to Dr. Sellers from a more informed point of view.”
“Good plan. Where can she reach you? At the number I just called?”
“Yes.”
“Let me call her office then. Our policy is that she’ll return your call within one business day.”
“The earlier the better,” I said.
“I know, I know. Deadlines. I used to be a reporter myself. Let me see what I can do.”
While we waited, I called Mike Gianelli and told him what I had found out the night before.
“This cyclist,” he said. “Why didn’t he call us?”
“Because the guys took off and he didn’t think it would be taken seriously.”
“Or he wasn’t sure what he saw. It’s tainted either way.”
“I’m just telling you what he told me. It looked like these guys were waiting for David and jumped out of their van as he was coming up the sidewalk.”
“Looked like. They could have been getting out for any number of reasons.”
“One of them grabbed David.”
“Maybe he just wanted his briefcase. And the cyclist, he didn’t get a licence plate?”
“Says it was covered with mud.”
“Big help.”
“It’s more than you had before.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s something else,” I said. “Another missing person.”
“In Brookline?”
“No. Somerville. But they’re connected.”
“How?”
“David had a copy of a flyer about this man in his apartment. An Indian man who owns a grocery store. I went there and spoke to his son. The father went missing a week before David.”
“That’s not exactly-”
“David went there the day before he disappeared.”
“To the store?”
“Yes. And it wasn’t to shop because nothing they have is kosher.”
“I still don’t see-”
“You think you could talk to your counterpart in Somerville about this other man? See if they have any leads? I know he’ll tell you more than he would me.” I wished I could tell him about the money that linked the men so surely in my mind, but that’s where that had to stay for now.
He sighed. “All right. I know one of the detectives there pretty well. We were on the Boston beat together. I’ll see what he’s got. But don’t get your hopes up, Geller. Even if some connection pans out somehow, they’ve both been gone too long.”
“For what?”
“For there to be any good news.”
Carol-Ann Meacham was around thirty, dangerously thin with dull brown hair and a pinched mouth with turned-down corners that she stretched into a smile cold as tundra. A face we’d call mieskeit in Yiddish. It generally means plain, veering into ugly. She was easily that and, by the look of her, not a woman who approved of much.
Her office was in a warren of small offices in the north end of the hospital. Grey metal cabinets lined both walls, and cardboard boxes of files were piled on top of them. More loose files were piled on top of those. One match in that room would have sent up a fireball.
We settled into chairs opposite her desk. Jenn got out our digital camera and took a couple of test shots to see if there was enough light in the office to get away without using a flash. There wasn’t.
“My colleague will take some candids while we’re talking,” I said. “And then maybe we’ll pose a couple.”
“You said this is for the Globe and Mail?”
“Yes.”
“I looked it up this morning to prep for this. You don’t have any bylines with them.”