“Of course! We’ve been expecting both of you. Please, come on in here! We’re dealing with a mini-emergency.”
Jack started down the hallway with Laurie close behind.
“Welcome to Essex Falls,” the woman said as they approached. “I’m Melanie Hopkins, Dr. Nielson’s nurse.”
“She’s more than that,” a voice called out from inside the room. “She’s in charge here. I’m just the worker bee.”
Melanie rolled her eyes and gestured for Jack and Laurie to enter one of the treatment rooms, which had a distinctive, period feel in furniture and cabinetry. An adolescent male was lying prone on the antique treatment table with a sterile drape placed over his head. Visible in the drape’s central opening was a small portion of shaved scalp with a half-sutured rather large laceration.
“Welcome, folks!” Bob Nielson said with great enthusiasm, raising his gloved hands in greeting. He was sitting on a mobile stool, wearing a surgical gown and face mask with a needle holder in one hand and a square of sterile gauze in the other. “Sorry about this less-than-welcoming episode, but we’ve been expecting you. We canceled all the afternoon appointments, but then my friend George Arturo and his bike had other plans. Say hello to Drs. Stapleton, George!”
“Hello,” the boy said dutifully. His voice was mumbled by his position and the drape.
Both Laurie and Jack responded in unison, saying hello back.
“I’ll only be another fifteen to twenty minutes to finish up with George,” Bob said. “Why don’t you check out my forensic setupwhile you’re waiting? It’s on this floor in the back beyond the receiving bay. As I mentioned on the phone, the one thing I have is lots of space, since I own the whole building and have yet to find a single tenant to share it with.”
“No problem,” Jack said. “Take your time. We’ll entertain ourselves.”
Jack followed Laurie back into the hallway. Melanie leaned out behind them and pointed farther down the hall. “Go down to the end, turn right, which will take you out to the main hallway. The forensic setup is in the rear part of the building beyond the freight dock.”
“Wow,” Laurie commented. “I’m impressed. This was a large clinic in its day.”
“It was for sure,” Melanie agreed. “The Bennet family was very civic minded, and this clinic is just one example. Did you notice the impressive library and elementary school buildings in the center of town?”
“We certainly did,” Laurie responded.
“The Bennets built both of those,” Melanie said. “And even before providing those generous gifts to the town, they had the foresight to create a modern Municipal Water Department and treatment plant. They did it back when they built the original dam on the Roaring Fork River to power their sewing machines.”
“That’s impressive,” Laurie said. “I certainly can understand with that kind of generosity over the years why it was so traumatic for the town when the shoe company closed its doors.”
“You have no idea. For most of the population it was like Judgment Day. Essex Falls residents had learned to take their drinking water, schools, and book borrowing for granted. Anyway, feel free to look around. Dr. Nielson won’t be long.”
“We will so don’t worry about us,” Laurie added.
It was not difficult to find where Bob changed his role from town doctor to county coroner, and both forensic pathologists were pleasantly surprised. They found themselves standing in an actual autopsy room tiled in attractive blue ceramic and equipped with a central drain. It was certainly more pleasant than the current aged autopsy room at the OCME, and they took their time wandering around. A coiled garden hose hung on the wall. In the center of the room was a battered but adequate stainless steel dissecting table with its own water source and drain to handle body fluids. A handy spring-loaded scale hung from the ceiling along with a large overhead light. Along one wall a series of glass fronted cabinets contained a reasonable collection of autopsy tools, including a Stryker saw to remove skullcaps. On the opposite wall was another cabinet with an extensive collection of specimen bottles of all sorts and sizes. On the far wall was the telltale door to a walk-in cooler.
“Well, this is going to be a hell of a lot easier than I thought,” Laurie said, glancing at what appeared to be a new pair of rib shears. She then opened one of the cabinets and handled some of the knives used to section internal organs to assess their sharpness.
“I’ll say,” Jack agreed. He looked into a good-sized adjacent changing room, which had personal protective equipment including face shields and various types of surgical gloves, including the double layered, cut-proof variety. There were also several battery powered respirators with N95 filters as well as a few lockers.
“There’s even a dual-view binocular microscope in here,” Laurie said, glancing in the neighboring room where there was the necessary equipment for creating microscopic slides from various tissue specimens.
“So, what’s the verdict, my friends?” a jolly voice suddenlyquestioned, reverberating around the tiled room. “Does it all pass muster?”
Both Jack and Laurie turned to see Bob Nielson stride into the room without his mask and gown.
“With flying colors,” Laurie answered, surprised by his physique. Considering the shape of his face, his obvious general fitness, and even his skin tone, he could easily pass for Jack’s brother. The major difference was that he was several inches taller and that his facial skin was significantly more weathered, suggesting he’d spent a lot of time outdoors in seriously inclement weather.
Without a second’s hesitation, he and Jack enveloped each other in a sustained bear hug while saying how great it was to see each other after so many years. When they disentangled, Jack gestured toward Laurie: “Please, meet Laurie Montgomery Stapleton, my lovely wife!”
“My pleasure,” Bob said as he swept Laurie up into a similar, sustained embrace. “Welcome! Welcome!” Bob repeated when he released her. “I’m so glad you two are here. Thank you so much for coming. Truly. And sorry about my being caught up in a bit of a bike accident just when you arrived. That’s what being a general practitioner in a small town is all about.”
“Not a problem,” Jack assured him. He then gestured around the room. “And, let me say this: You’ve got a truly impressive forensic setup out here in the middle of the woods. We’re both pleasantly surprised.”
“As I said on the phone, once I made the decision to assume the role of county coroner, I intended to give it my best shot. To that end, I’ve plowed the rather meager salary I get as the coroner into this ensemble. Of course, I don’t have any idea of what I’m to dowith it when my term is over, if I don’t get re-elected. But I’m not overly worried about it, as it is what it is.”
“That could be a conundrum,” Jack agreed. “Autopsy rooms are not much good for anything other than autopsies. But it is going to make our doing the autopsy on the pest control fellow a hell of a lot easier than we anticipated.”
