VIABLE (11 page)

‘No. I never got his name.’

Silence again.

She heard her flight being called, and told the sheriff that she had to go.

‘Of course. Well, thank you for the call Doctor Stone. You have a safe trip now.’

13

IT
WAS
AFTER seven when Lars made it back to Hawthorne. It had been a long day and he was keen to get home to Ellie but he had to stop by the office first. He didn’t know what to make of Alison Stone’s claim that she had met Gant. He was convinced that Gant’s blood had something to do with his abduction however. He had called Connie from the car and asked her to search NCIC for anything connected with the
hh
blood type. Minutes after he arrived he was sitting behind his desk staring at three printouts she had left for him.

The first was for Shilpa Desai, a fifteen-year old high school student who had gone missing from Rockport, Massachusetts in 1965. There was little other than personal details and the fact that she possessed a rare blood group. The database indicated that she had never been found.

The second report was for Cindy Rowe, a primary school teacher from Pleasant Grove, Utah who had been reported missing a decade later. Her body had never been recovered but the entry had been amended to reflect the fact that a man named Joseph Brandt had been charged with and convicted of her murder.

The final printout was for Robin Taft. Taft had been reported missing in 1981, and, like Shilpa Desai, had never been found. There was something familiar about Taft, some half-remembered detail that made Lars think he knew the name. But after a few minutes it had not come to him and with a sigh he pushed the button on the computer that normally lay dormant on his desk, waiting while the hard drive went through a series of muted clicks and the screen on his desk came to life.

He started with Robin Taft, convinced that he should somehow recognize the name. An internet search revealed three articles.

The first was a brief report of a car accident Taft had been involved in on a stretch of I-79 just past Hurricane, Utah in the summer of 1975.

The other articles were longer.

The second was an appeal two days later from the man’s uncle, Byron Sedgwick Taft, the governor of Utah, for donors to come forward for his nephew. The article explained that the young man had an exceptionally rare blood type and needed a transfusion from a compatible donor before he could undergo surgery necessary to save his life.

The third article, a week later, reported that after an emotional television appeal by the governor a schoolteacher had come forward and donated blood. Robin Taft had undergone surgery and was now expected to make a full recovery.

So that was it – that was where he must have heard of Robin Taft. Byron Taft had been an important man; he remembered the press coverage at the time. It really didn’t help to explain why six years later the man had gone missing though. He typed Cindy Rowe’s name into the search field and hit ‘Enter’.

Again there were only three articles.

The first, a short piece in the
Daily Herald
about how a local schoolteacher had responded to an appeal from the governor of Utah for a donation of a rare blood type that his nephew desperately needed following his involvement in a car accident.

The second article was from the
Salt Lake Tribune
, ten days later. It described how a man had been arrested in connection with the disappearance of a young schoolteacher and mother of two from Pleasant Grove who had been missing for a week. Joseph Brandt, from Bluffdale, worked as a driver for a car service that Mrs. Rowe had used on the day of her disappearance and was believed to be the last person to have seen her alive. The police wouldn’t comment further, although sources close to the investigation had revealed that traces of what was believed to be Mrs. Rowe’s blood had been found on the back seat of the car he had been driving on the day she had gone missing.

The last article, also from the
Salt Lake Tribune
, was from 1976, almost a year later. It described Brandt’s trial. Brandt had been charged with the abduction and murder of the schoolteacher, who had been missing for almost a year. Her body had never been recovered, but traces of her blood and fragments of her underwear had been found on the back seat of the car Brandt had used to collect her from the airport that day. The jury had found Brandt guilty on both counts and he had been given a term of not less than thirty years at the Utah State Penitentiary, the state’s maximum security prison. Passing sentence the judge had referred to the fact that Brandt had failed to show even a trace of remorse for his actions, maintaining his innocence throughout in spite of the overwhelming forensic evidence, forcing Mrs. Rowe’s husband and young family to endure a protracted public trial. Brandt had also refused to disclose the whereabouts of the young woman’s body, denying her family even the possibility of a burial. The article concluded by reporting that the jury had been particularly moved by a statement read to the court by the governor of Utah, Byron Sedgwick Taft, in which he indicated that he felt responsible for her fate given that it had been his office that had arranged for the car service for which Brandt had worked to collect Mrs. Rowe after she had flown to St. George to donate blood in order to save the life of his nephew.

There was still nothing to connect the disappearance of Robin Taft with that of Cindy Rowe six years earlier but now Lars’ curiosity was piqued. The only thing that seemed to link the two was their blood type.

Last he searched for anything that might have been written about the schoolgirl. This time he found only two articles, both from the
Gloucester Daily Times
. The first was dated 27
^th
October 1965 and described how Shilpa Desai had been admitted to the Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester following a road traffic accident. The girl had been given an emergency blood transfusion after which her condition had rapidly deteriorated, prompting the hospital to conduct further tests that resulted in her being diagnosed with a rare blood type.

The second article was dated three weeks later and described how a local schoolgirl had been reported missing from her parents’ home in Rockport. The article contained a recent picture from her high school yearbook and urged anyone who might have seen her to contact the local sheriff’s office with information.

Another person with the
hh
blood group who had gone missing shortly after her details had been published. Was it more than a coincidence? How did three missing persons, the most recent gone for almost thirty years, stack up against - what had Sue Ellis said about the
hh
blood group – maybe only a handful of people in the United States having it? He had no idea. But there was something about it that was bothering him.

And there was something else Sue had said: even amongst those few that were living with it most would be unaware of the fact.

Until they needed a transfusion.

An idea was starting to form. Could there be a connection between the disappearance of Shilpa Desai, Cindy Rowe and Robin Taft after all? If you had this blood group, and you needed a transfusion, you’d be in trouble. The odds of finding a compatible donor, at least within the time frame that you’d be likely to have, would be slim.

But then if you knew you had the condition there would have to be things you could do to prepare. Fitzpatrick had mentioned that the base stored supplies of Gant’s blood in case he was injured. Couldn’t everyone who had this condition just do that? There was something here he wasn’t getting. After a few moments he picked up the phone and dialed Mount Grant, asking to be put through to Sue Ellis in the lab, hoping that she would still be there.

The phone was answered on the second ring.

‘Sue, Lars here over at the sheriff’s office. Listen, we’ve found out that the guy we’re looking for is actually Navy – he’s been stationed up at Fallon for the last ten years. Now I’ve spoken with the base commander up there who says they keep supplies of his blood, in case he’s ever injured. I assume most people who knew they had this blood type would do something similar, to make sure they never ran into problems like this.’

‘Sure, Sheriff. Although in practice it’s actually a lot more difficult to maintain stocks of your own blood than you’d think. Firstly there’s a limit to the amount any person can safely donate over a given period – typically one unit, about a pint, every eight weeks or so. And while serum can be frozen and stored almost indefinitely, red blood cells only remain viable in storage for a matter of weeks. And that all assumes that there’s nothing wrong with your own blood that’s causing the need for the transfusion in the first place.’

Was there something here that had been missed? What did he have? Four people with an incredibly rare blood type, three of whom had disappeared, the fourth who had possibly been the target of an abduction. Byron Sedgwick Taft had publicly sought donors for his nephew and when Cindy Rowe had come forward that had also been reported in the press, so the fact that both of them had the
hh
blood type would have been publicly known. The schoolgirl from Massachusetts’ blood group had also been reported. Given how rare it was and how difficult it was to detect not many people would be on record as sharing the blood type – Byron Sedgwick Taft had made a public appeal for donors and had found only one.

So if you were someone who had an illness that required a transfusion of that blood type then Robin Taft, Cindy Rowe and Shilpa Desai would have appeared on your radar pretty quickly. But then why wouldn’t you just ask them to donate blood? Cindy Rowe had been happy enough to, and he assumed that most people would probably act in the way she had. Why would you need to go to the trouble of abducting them? And the Rowe woman and the Desai girl had disappeared immediately after their existence had become known yet Robin Taft had only gone missing six years after the appeal that had identified him as having the
hh
blood group.

‘Sheriff, are you still there?’

‘Sure Sue, sorry, I was just thinking about something. Listen, why else might someone with the
hh
blood type be valuable, I mean for medical purposes, other than as a potential blood donor?’

‘Well that’s easy Sheriff. Matching blood groups is vitally important for organ transplantation. Although it’s probably more of a theoretical point for persons with that blood group. However slim the chances might be of finding a person with the
hh
type to donate blood, imagine how hard it would be to convince them to give you a kidney. And if you needed a liver, well unless you could time your liver failure to coincide with their death you’d be out of luck.’

Lars thanked her again and put the phone down. Had Shilpa Desai, Cindy Rowe and Robin Taft each been abducted for their organs? Was that why the men in the van had wanted Gant? Or was he getting carried away, looking for a link between three persons who had gone missing decades ago that didn’t actually exist? All he had at the moment was supposition – a crazy theory with no evidence to back it up, no suspect, hell no way to even prove that any of the victims other than the Rowe woman hadn’t just decided to up and start a new life somewhere else. He had to admit it was pretty thin. Cindy Rowe wasn’t even technically a missing person. She was presumed dead and a man had been convicted of her murder. Although her body had never been recovered and Brandt had continued to protest his innocence even when changing his plea and disclosing where he had disposed of the body would almost certainly have shortened his sentence. If he were to justify his theory in relation to Cindy Rowe first he would need to show that Joseph Brandt had been framed for her murder.

He sat back in his chair, thinking for a moment.

Was that where he should start?

14

HE
WAITED
UNTIL the sun had set before venturing out.

The parking lot was deserted. He found a vending machine around the corner from his room and spent five dollars of what remained of his cash, returning to his room with an armful of candy bars and cola. He switched on the TV while he ate, flicking through the channels in search of any news of his escape from the hospital.

Thankfully there was very little. Most of the networks were leading with news of a storm that was dumping snow across the midsection of the United States, stranding Christmas travellers. CNN was reporting a passenger aboard a Delta Air Lines flight from Amsterdam had attempted to blow up the plane as it landed in Detroit. Only a local station, KHNV, seemed interested in Hawthorne. The report recapped the events of the last few days at Mount Grant hospital, repeating the theory that the three men who had been in the crashed van, two of whom were still at large, had been planning some sort of terrorist attack on the arms depot situated just outside the town. The report didn’t reveal his identity or that of any of the other men. It concluded with a segment from a CNN interview, a senator from Alabama in a seersucker suit querying whether the base should be kept open.

Well, at least it didn’t look as though he was a priority for the authorities. Whoever had tried to abduct him at Salt Wells was a different matter. He had to assume they would still be looking for him. He hadn’t covered his tracks well. If they had found him before they could find him here, which meant he was still in danger. At least his side was healing well. Soon he would be able to think about moving on.

When he had escaped from the hospital he had considered taking the security guard’s Taurus straight back to Fallon. But he had quickly dismissed the idea. The men who had tried to abduct him were professionals. They had known his movements, had identified the most opportune time to snatch him. Which meant the base had been under surveillance for some time.  They would have expected him to try and return there.