“Please.” David gestured for her to take a seat. He sat down in his own chair and pulled himself in to the desk. “So, you’re a pathology resident with the OCME for a month, and you are interested in the Kera Jacobsen case.”
“That’s my story,” Aria said.
“How can I help you?”
“I read your MLI report,” she said. “There is something missing.”
“Something missing?” he questioned with a hint of offense. “I don’t think there’s anything missing. What exactly do you mean?”
“I’ve been warned about who I can tell this to, but I assume you are legally in the loop. There was a surprise finding at the autopsy. The woman was ten weeks pregnant, give or take a week. That means around the first of March there had been some hanky-panky goingon, which I have to assume was consensual. Nothing in your report talks about a boyfriend or lover.”
“No one said anything about a boyfriend,” David said defensively.
“Did you ask?”
“I don’t remember,” he said. “Possibly. Wait, the mother might have mentioned something. Let me look at my notes.”
After clearing off his keyboard, David brought up the Kera Jacobsen case on his monitor.
“Okay, here we go. I remember speaking with the mother and a younger sister, both of whom had no idea Kera was using drugs. When I asked them if Kera had experienced any emotional problems or physical pain that might account for the drug use, they both told me no. But then the mother admitted that Kera had broken up with a long-term boyfriend over the summer, though she added that Kera had taken it in stride, using it as an excuse to move to New York, which had been a childhood dream. The mother did say that Kera sounded a bit down on the phone over the last few weeks and just a few days ago, for the first time, talked about possibly moving back to Southern California. She said this took her completely by surprise. But other than that, the mother thought she was a happy, well-adjusted woman who was enjoying New York.”
“Did you get this long-term boyfriend’s name?” Aria asked. She knew from experience that old boyfriends could be like a bad penny and turn up when not expected. In her senior year at Princeton, she thought she had fallen in love with a fellow student named Brian Higgins. It was the first time, and turned out to be the last. When things had advanced to the brink of being consummated, she interrupted their lovemaking to make sure he understood that it might not be the best time for what they were doing since she was smack-dab in the middle of her cycle. Brian’s response was that there was never a bad time to make love with the right person. Unfortunately, that turned out to be false on both counts. Not only did she get pregnant, but hedenied responsibility, claiming there was no way he could be the father, and if he was, she had seduced him against his will. Then, a year later, when she was in Boston in her first year of medical school and he in law school, he showed up, tail between his legs, hoping to patch things up. Aria had told him, appropriately enough, to go fuck himself.
“Yes, his name is Robert Barlow,” David said. “He’s a fourth-year medical student doing a sub-internship at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.”
“Okay, that lets him off the hook,” Aria said. She had a good idea of what surgical sub-internships were like since she had made the mistake of doing one. “What about this more recent depressive episode? Any clarification on that?”
“As far as they knew, it was only that Kera was homesick. I sensed from the mother that she was a homebody and very close to both the mother and the high-school-aged sister, who still lived at home. You’ll be able to check all this out yourself. The mother is on her way and will be here tomorrow.”
“What about this Madison Bryant, who was also mentioned in the report?” Aria asked.
“What about her?”
“You described her as a friend and coworker,” she said. “Did you get the impression they were good friends or more like acquaintances?”
“Close friends was my take,” he said. “At the same time, she said that since the holidays they hadn’t seen as much of each other as they had during the fall. Miss Bryant’s sense was that Kera was struggling with New York winter weather and preferred to stay in her warm apartment.”
“Did you ask her about Kera having any current boyfriends?” Aria said.
“I didn’t, but one of the patrolmen said he did prior to getting the apartment door open. The answer was no.”
“I guess you have investigated quite a few overdose cases,” she said.
“Tons,” he said. “We average about four a day, meaning one every six hours or so, twenty-four-seven, and I get my share.”
“Was there anything about this case that made it different from the usual?”
He stared off into the middle distance for a beat and then said: “Not really, but we don’t see cases where the syringe is still in the vein all that often, although it does happen, especially now that fentanyl has become so prevalent. The other thing I noticed was that she had quite a lot of drug available, meaning a full sack. My guess was that she’d gotten a recent delivery. That started me thinking that maybe the batch had a lot more fentanyl than she expected. We’ve seen that problem before, where the drug user assumes the new stuff is the same as the last batch. We’ll get a better idea if this played a role when the toxicology report comes back.”
Suddenly Aria’s phone sounded, indicating she had just gotten a text message. “Hang on,” she said as she got her phone out to look at the screen:Dr. Nichols, please give me a call as soon as possible. I need to see you. It’s urgent. Dr. Henderson.
“Now that’s big-time weird,” Aria said. It was her turn to stare off for a moment. She’d never gotten a text from the chief of the NYU Department of Pathology before, nor could she remember even speaking with him.
“Excuse me?” David said.
“Sorry,” she said, returning to the present. “Something has come up so we need to wrap this up for now. What I’d like is Madison Bryant’s contact information.”
“I’m not sure I should provide that information.” David knitted his brows as he turned to look off toward Bart Arnold’s desk for help. Bart was head of the MLIs, but his desk was vacant. It was obvious he had already left.
