After hanging up his towel, Jack stepped into the changing room to start dressing.
Meanwhile Laurie, facing the mirror over her sink, turned her attention to her hair. “It’s so different with the kids gone!” she called while getting out the hair dryer. Before switching it on, she added: “I have to tell you: It’s hard for me to adjust, especially it being only the second morning.”
“You got that right,” Jack called back through the open bathroom door loud enough to be heard. That Sunday the whole family had driven up to the Catskill Mountains to visit two different summer camps. At the first, they had deposited Jack Junior—or JJ—who was now fourteen and in the eighth grade, and then at the second it had been Emma, who was now age eight and had been in a specialized school for almost a year. Although JJ had been to camp every summer since he was seven, this was the first time for Emma. Since she was on the autistic spectrum, Jack and Laurie both had their fingers crossed that the camp experience was going to work out. Yet they were hopeful since they had been encouraged by Emma’s behavior therapist, who’d been very much in favor of the plan, and so far they’d not heard of any problems.
“And with Dorothy and Caitlin gone at the same time, it’s like a different planet around here,” Jack added, still yelling. Dorothy Montgomery was Laurie’s mother, who had been living with them for the last several years, following the death of Laurie’s emotionally distant, cardiac surgeon father. Dorothy was currently visiting a friend out in the Hamptons. Caitlin O’Connell, their live-in nanny, was off on her yearly two-week vacation visiting family on the West Coast.
“Truly,” Laurie agreed as she continued to blow-dry her long, thick auburn hair, which she considered her best feature. It tooksignificant effort to deal with it each morning, but she thought it well worth it.
When finished dressing in his summer uniform of stone-colored khaki trousers, chambray shirt, and knit tie, he stepped back into the bathroom just as Laurie was putting away the dryer.
“When I came in from basketball last night did I tell you the news about Warren? I can’t remember.”
“I don’t think so,” Laurie said as she leaned toward the mirror and began to apply a small amount of makeup. “What’s up with Warren?”
Warren, an athletic Black man in his early thirties and a natural born leader, lived in the neighborhood and played basketball as often as Jack on the court just across the street from Jack and Laurie’s townhouse. This was the court that Jack had paid to have renovated with new backboards and outdoor lighting. According to Jack, Warren was the best player of the thirty or so local men, women, boys, and girls who showed up on a reasonably regular basis for pickup games, mostly during the spring, summer, and fall. Jack, Laurie, and Warren had become quite good friends and had even all gone on a wild trip to West Africa that they still frequently reminisced about.
“He told me last night that he has a new girlfriend who he wants us to meet. What do you think? Are you up for it? I told him that I thought the timing was good because JJ and Emma were off at camp.”
“I’m sorry to hear he’s given up on the last one,” Laurie said. “I rather liked her. But, sure, we can get together with them, provided it doesn’t turn into a late night unless it’s Friday or Saturday. But you know that. What’s her name?”
“Oops,” Jack said, making an exaggerated painful expression. “Iwas afraid you’d ask. To be truthful, I don’t remember. But I’ll ask him tonight.”
“No need,” Laurie said, finishing with her makeup. “I’ll meet her when I meet her, so say yes. Try to pick a weekend.”
“Will do,” Jack said as he headed out of the changing room on his way down to the kitchen. “I’ll make some coffee then be on my way.” Jack made it a point, come rain or shine, to be on his bike by quarter of seven to get to the OCME well before any of the other medical examiners, or MEs as they liked to refer to themselves.
Chapter 4
Tuesday, July 22, 7:10a.m.
New York, New York
Putting a bit of effort into his pedaling while heading east on East 30th Street to up his speed, Jack just made the light at the intersection of First Avenue before it changed. Consequently he was able to sail across the otherwise chockablock main north–south roadway. Reaching the opposite side, he then had to begin braking as he coasted downhill alongside the worse-for-wear, old OCME building. Surrounded by scaffolding that apparently was put up to protect pedestrians from falling debris, the six-story structure was slated for demolition as soon as a new morgue was available, hopefully four blocks south in the soon-to-be built Kips Bay Science Park and Research Campus.
He braked hard when he reached the turn-in for the OCME vans that brought in the dead bodies and the funeral home hearses that came to pick them up. After riding between two OCME Sprinter vans, he came to a stop at the loading bay. Hopping off his relatively new, fire-engine-red Trek road bike and hoisting it up ontohis shoulder, he climbed the half dozen steps to enter the building’s basement. After waving hello to the guard in his security cubical and the night mortuary tech in his office, Jack headed down the interior hall to where he always locked his bike to a convenient standpipe. This was the same location where the Hart Island coffins that were used to bury the unclaimed dead were stored. Since Jack was the only OCME employee to commute by bike, there was no official designated location.
It was now close to 7:30a.m., so Jack lost no time getting himself up the back stairs to the first floor on his way to the Identification Section, which was where families gathered to identify their dead. In the mornings the ID room also served as the section of the morgue where the day began for the medical examiners. Here on the central desk were all the autopsy folders of the cases that had come in late the previous day and during the night, to be gone over by one of the more junior medical examiners who happened to be on call for that week. It was the on-call ME who decided which cases needed to be done.
As Jack was about to enter, he found himself wondering if Laurie had already arrived, which he assumed was the case, as she was to be picked up soon after he had left, at 7:15. If so, at that moment she would not be not too far away in her office in the Administration Section, which was on the same floor but the opposite side of the building.
The moment he did enter he immediately caught sight of Dr. Nala Washington, one of the recently hired MEs. A slim, youthful Black woman who wore her hair in stylish cornrows, she made Jack feel ancient in comparison. When he had originally joined the OCME, most all the MEs were male. Times had certainly changed. Now half were female, and from Jack’s perspective they all seemedto be getting younger and younger every year. At that moment Nala was just seating herself at the central ID department desk with the stack of new autopsy folders in front of her. She would go through them, decide which cases needed to be autopsied, and then assign them to the various MEs.
The second person Jack saw was Vinnie Amendola, one of the more experienced mortuary technicians, who had been chosen way back when to come in early to make the communal coffee. Vinnie, already dressed in scrubs, was busy at his assigned task in the small kitchenette installed for just that purpose. He and Jack, always the first two to arrive, had formed a close bond over the years. Since Jack invariably started his autopsies before anyone else, often even before the other mortuary techs showed up, Vinnie usually assisted, and over time they had clicked personality-wise. It was obvious to everyone at the OCME that they shared a deprecatory sense of humor, often mercilessly teasing each other. At the same time, it was with obvious mutual respect and appreciation.
“Good morning, Nala,” Jack said brightly. He also waved to Vinnie, who had turned when he’d heard his voice. “What you got? Anything particularly interesting this morning?” Jack began glancing briefly at the autopsy folders as he did every morning. The whole reason Jack made a decided effort to get to the OCME early every morning was to have this opportunity to cherry-pick through the cases that had come in overnight or the previous afternoon to find the most challenging.
Although he acknowledged this was not particularly fair to the other MEs, he justified it because he always made it a point to do far more autopsies than anyone else, carrying much more than his share of the burden, and everybody knew it. He recognized and admitted he was in a very real sense a workaholic. For him it was away of controlling the mental demons that still plagued him from the tragic death of his first family, a wife and two young daughters, in a commuter plane crash decades earlier. Despite the passage of time and having an entirely new family, the plight of his first still haunted him, as he still felt responsible. They’d been flying to see him when he was retraining in forensic pathology.
“I haven’t any idea as of yet,” Nala said. “I just sat down and haven’t had a chance to go through the cases. But there’s got to be something interesting, considering the number. As you can see it was one busy night for our MLIs.” The medicolegal investigators were members of a relatively new career path open to physician assistants who were willing to undergo significant extra forensic training. It was the MLIs who responded to every death in the city to determine if an investigation was required, meaning a possible scene visit and an autopsy. “But before you get caught up in going over the cases, you need to know that your detective friend is here waiting for you.” She gestured over Jack’s shoulder toward one of the two aged overstuffed leather chairs that faced each other on the opposite side of the room.
Mildly surprised, Jack turned and caught sight of Detective Lieutenant Lou Soldano, who was sound asleep with his arms splayed out on the chair’s very worn ones. He was as usual attired in civilian clothes that looked as if he’d been living in them for days. His white shirt, which was more gray than white, was unbuttoned at the collar, and the knot of his gravy-stained tie loosened. The openNew York Timeson his chest rose and fell with each of his deep breaths.
Always glad to see him, Jack immediately walked over. Lou Soldano was a particularly close friend of both Laurie’s and Jack’s. He was known to frequently show up at the OCME. Early in hishomicide career, he’d been impressed with the power of forensics, specifically in regard to solving difficult homicide cases, and accordingly made it a point to observe autopsies where there were questions that the post could answer. This appreciation of forensics had begun first with Laurie, who had preceded Jack as a medical examiner at the OCME, and which had led to a social connection between the two.
When it quickly became clear that romance was not in the cards—mostly because of Lou’s insecurities and Jack’s arrival on the scene, not only as a medical examiner but also as a potential contender for Laurie’s affections—Lou became Jack’s strong advocate. Consequently, the three ended up becoming committed friends who saw one another socially on a fairly regular basis. Now, they still did on occasion, but much less with Jack and Laurie’s growing family demands as the parents of JJ and Emma.
Standing over the sleeping Lou, Jack looked down on him with affection and concern. The man’s jacket was unbuttoned and the lapels had fallen to the sides such that his holstered service revolver could be seen. Even in sleep he appeared exhausted and certainly far from healthy. He was even more of a workaholic than Jack, which took some effort. In Lou’s case it involved often being out all night on homicide cases after having already put in a full day. On top of that abuse, he was unable to stop an entrenched habit of chain-smoking even though he supposedly tried just about every other day. As a consequence, his face appeared pasty with a doughy consistency. Even more remarkable were the strikingly dark circles under his eyes.
