“What’s going on?” Jack questioned impatiently. He was still reclined on the couch but careful to keep his shoes from touching the upholstery. He’d made that mistake in the past.
She held up her hand, mouthed that she had one more call to make, and motioned for Jack to be quiet. As soon as she had Chet on the line she said, “Have you spoken with Dr. Nichols about working with me this afternoon?”
“I certainly did,” Chet said. “And I made sure she understood it is a command performance. And I found an interesting teaching case for you two, which will demonstrate the value of forensics and possibly pique her interest.”
“I appreciate your efforts,” Laurie said. “But there’s another case I want to do with Dr. Nichols instead of the one you picked out. I’m sorry for the change. The name is Kera Jacobsen. Your case is mostlikely a better teaching case, since Jacobsen is apparently a routine overdose. Nonetheless, we’re going to do this one.”
“Okay, fine by me,” Chet said agreeably. “Do you want me to get it all prepared?”
“I’d appreciate it,” she said. “And see if Marvin Fletcher is available?” Back when Laurie did almost daily autopsies before becoming chief, she liked to work with Marvin for a variety of reasons, mainly because she thought he was possibly the best mortuary tech at the OCME and a pleasure to work with. And today, not knowing what to expect from Aria Nichols, she preferred that the general logistics went smoothly. She knew Marvin would guarantee that.
“What kind of time frame are we looking at?” Chet asked.
“An hour from now should work for me,” she said, glancing at the clock on her desk. “Are you expecting any difficulty locating Dr. Nichols?”
“We’ll see,” he said. “She said she would be in the library, but I do have her number just in case she’s left the building. I offered to have her come up here to my office and go over histology slides with me, but she blew me off big-time.”
“What exactly did she say?” Laurie couldn’t help but remember the woman’s mildly bawdy response to Chet’s having caught her over at the Tisch Hospital when she was supposed to be in the OCME.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Try me,” Laurie said.
“She told me that she would prefer to be run over by a herd of buffalo in heat,” Chet said with obvious disgust.
“Sounds like a charmer,” she said, smiling in spite of herself. Once again, the idea of Jack’s being right about Chet initially trying to make time with the woman went through her mind. Particularly in the current social environment, any suggestion of sexual harassment of any form often evoked a significant response. Laurie told herself to keep an open mind when it came to Aria Nichols.
“If you have trouble finding her, let me know immediately,” Laurie said. “Otherwise, I’ll expect to see her down in the autopsy theater within the hour.”
“You are going to do an autopsy on an overdose?” Jack asked with disbelief as she hung up the phone. “I thought you’d decided not to do autopsies on general principle. And why an overdose?”
“This is a unique situation,” Laurie said. “I don’t have time to explain completely, but it is going to be with the problematic resident I mentioned to you this morning. I’d arranged it with Chet before I went down to City Hall, but then there’s been a new development. When you first came in here, I was talking with Dr. Carl Henderson.”
“The chief of NYU Department of Pathology?” Jack asked.
“None other,” Laurie said.
“I’ve never met the man,” he said. “Wait! I take that back. I have met him briefly. A tall, good-looking guy, for a pathologist, with a sense of humor to boot, which is why I remembered him.”
“I’ve only met him on a few occasions,” Laurie said. “He’s relatively new.”
“What does your conversation with Carl Henderson have to do with the overdose case you’re doing with the resident? With as many overdoses as we process, it doesn’t sound so exciting to me.”
“The case itself most likely won’t be exciting or challenging,” she said. “There’s a political angle that’s developed, which is why Carl was calling. But the main reason for my doing it is an opportunity for me to get a feel for this problematic NYU pathology resident. Still, I’m looking forward to it. I know that sounds pathetic, but I do truly miss doing autopsies. But we are not going to advertise that I’m doing it. Okay? I’m going to tell anyone I run into down in the pit to keep it under wraps. Hopefully, because of the time there shouldn’t be too many people down there.”
“Okay, fine by me,” Jack said, pretending to zip his lips closed.
“Oh, by the way,” she said. “I spoke to Lou briefly a few minutesago. He wants you to give him a call about a case. Do you need his number?” Laurie held up the Post-it Note.
“No, I’ve got it,” he said.
“Now tell me what happened at the Brooks School,” Laurie said. “You did go, didn’t you?”
“Of course I went,” Jack snapped. He sat up and put his feet on the floor. “And it turned out to be a disaster like I feared. I’m sorry, but I didn’t make us any friends at the school. I tried to just listen as you said, but they were telling me such nonsense, I couldn’t restrain myself from letting them know exactly how wrong I felt they were. I even accused them of colluding with the goddamn pharmaceutical industry. That was right after Miss Rossi actually said that she felt strongly JJ needed Adderall. That’s when I flipped out.”
“Oh, God,” Laurie said with frustration. With her elbows on her desk, she closed her eyes and rubbed her temples firmly while her mind did somersaults, trying to think of what they would do if JJ was asked to leave the school. She also realized as much as she wanted to share what she had learned over at NYU Radiology, it would have to wait as it would surely provoke a serious discussion. After a deep breath she said, “Maybe you better tell me exactly what happened, provided you can do it in fifteen minutes. I’ve got to get downstairs and get into some scrubs.”
CHAPTER 5
