“She’d called me earlier,” Robert said. “She said to be sure to come over later on.”
“Was that customary?” Laurie asked.
Robert looked puzzled. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess.”
“Did she sound normal?” Laurie asked. “Could you tell if she’d taken any drugs yet?”
“I don’t think she’d taken anything,” Robert said. “She didn’t sound high. But I guess she didn’t seem normal either. She sounded tense. In fact, I was a little afraid she was planning on telling me something bad, like she wanted to break up or something.”
“Was there some problem in your relationship?” Laurie asked.
“No,” Robert said. “Things were great. I mean, I thought they were great. It’s just that she sounded a little funny.”
“What about that broken statue by the front door?”
“I saw that the second I came through the door last night,” Robert said. “It was her favorite possession. It was a couple of hundred years old. When I saw it was broken, I knew something bad was going on.”
Laurie glanced over at the shattered statue and wondered if Julia could have broken it while in the throes of a seizure. If so, how did she get from the foyer to the bedroom?
“Thank you for your help,” Laurie said. “I hope I haven’t upset you with my questions.”
“No,” Robert said. “But why are you going to all this trouble? I thought medical examiners just did autopsies and only got involved with murders, like Quincy.”
“We try to help the living,” Laurie said. “That’s our job. What I’d really like to do is prevent future tragedies like Julia’s. The more I learn, the more I may be able to do that.”
“If you have any more questions, call me,” Robert said. He handed Laurie his card. “And if it somehow turns out that it wasn’t drugs, please let me know. It would be important because…” Suddenly overcome with emotion, he wasn’t able to continue.
Laurie nodded. She gave Robert her own business card after scribbling her home phone number on the back. “If you have any questions for me or if you think of anything I should know, please give me a call. You can call anytime.”
Leaving Robert to grieve in private, Laurie left the apartment and boarded the elevator. As she was riding down, she recalled that Sara Wetherbee had said that Duncan had invited her over the night he’d overdosed. Laurie thought both Duncan’s and Julia’s invitations to their significant others were odd. If both were doing such a good job hiding their drug abuse, why invite someone over the very night they were indulging?
Laurie returned the key to Patrick the doorman and thanked him on her way out. She was a half dozen steps from the door when she turned around and went back.
“Were you on duty last night?” Laurie asked him.
“Indeed I was,” Patrick said. “Three to eleven. That’s my shift.”
“Did you happen to see Julia Myerholtz yesterday evening?” Laurie asked.
“I did,” Patrick said. “I’d see her most every evening.”
“I suppose you’ve heard what happened to her,” Laurie said. She didn’t want to offer any information the doorman might not be privy to.
“I have,” Patrick said. “She took drugs like a lot of young people. It’s a shame.”
“Did she seem depressed when she came in last night?” Laurie asked.
“I wouldn’t say depressed,” Patrick said. “But she didn’t act normal.”
“In what way?” Laurie asked.
“She didn’t say hello,” Patrick said. “She always said hello except for last night. But maybe that was because she wasn’t alone.”
“Do you remember who was with her?” Laurie questioned with interest.
“I do,” Patrick said. “Normally I can’t remember things like that since we have a lot of traffic going in and out. But since Ms. Myerholtz hadn’t said hello, I looked at her companions.”
“Did you recognize them?” Laurie said. “Had they been here before?”
“I didn’t know who they were,” Patrick said. “And I don’t think I’d ever seen them. One was tall, thin, and well dressed. The other was muscular and on the short side. No one said anything when they came in.”
“Did you see them when they went out?” Laurie asked.
“No, I didn’t,” Patrick said. “They must have left during my break.”
“What time did they come in?” Laurie asked.
“Early evening,” Patrick said. “Something like seven o’clock.”
Laurie thanked Patrick yet again and hailed a cab to return to her office. It was almost dusk. The skyscrapers were already lit and people were hurrying home from work. As the cab headed downtown in the heavy traffic, she thought about her conversations with the boyfriend and the doorman. She wondered about the two men Patrick had described. Although they were probably co-workers or friends of Julia’s, the fact that they had visited the same night that Julia overdosed made them important. Laurie wished there was some way she could find out their identities so she could talk with them. The thought even went through her mind that they could have been drug dealers. Could Julia Myerholtz have had a secret life her boyfriend wasn’t privy to?
Back at the medical examiner’s building, Laurie went first to George’s office to see if he’d returned from the dentist. Obviously he had come and gone; his office was dark.
Disappointed, Laurie tried the door, but it was locked. Not being able to talk with George, she’d had the sudden idea to get the address of the other overdose, Wendell Morrison.
Leaving her coat in her room and picking up some rubber gloves, Laurie went down to the morgue. She found the evening mortuary tech, Bruce Pomowski, in the mortuary office.
“Any idea of the dispensation of the Myerholtz remains?” Laurie asked. “Have they been picked up?”
“Was she one of today’s cases?” Bruce asked.
“Yes,” Laurie said.
Bruce opened a thick ledger and ran a finger down the day’s entries. When he got to Myerholtz, his finger ran across the page. “Hasn’t been picked up yet,” he said. “We’re waiting on a call from an out-of-town funeral home.”
“Is she in the walk-in?” Laurie asked.
“Yup,” Bruce said. “Should be on a gurney near the front.”
Laurie thanked him and walked down the corridor toward the walk-in refrigerator. In the evenings the environment of the morgue changed considerably. During the day it was full of frantic activity. But now as Laurie walked she could hear the heels of her shoes echo through the deserted and mostly dark, blue-tiled corridors. All at once she remembered Lou’s response when they’d come down Tuesday morning. He’d called it a grisly scene.
Laurie stopped and looked down at the stained cement floor that Lou had pointed out. Then she raised her eyes to the stacks of pine coffins destined for Potter’s Field with unclaimed, unidentified remains. She started walking again. It was amazing how her normal mental state shielded the ghastly side of the morgue from her consciousness. It took a stranger like Lou and a time when the morgue was empty of the living for her to appreciate it.
Reaching the large, cumbersome stainless-steel door of the walk-in, Laurie put on her gloves and pressed the thick handle to release the latch. With a hefty yank she pulled the heavy door open. A cold, clammy mist swirled out around her feet. Reaching in, she turned on the light.
Reacting to her mind-set of only moments earlier, Laurie viewed the interior of the walk-in cooler from the perspective of a nonprofessional person, not the forensic pathologist she was. It was definitely horrifying. Bare wooden shelves lined the walls. On the shelves was a ghoulish collection of cold, dead bodies and body parts that having been autopsied and examined were waiting to be claimed. Most were nude, although a few were covered with sheets stained with blood and other body fluids. It was like an earthly view of hell.