“Be my guest,” Marvin responded.
On her way out, she stopped at Jack’s table, where he was already starting another case. Lou had long since departed for home and some much-needed sleep.
“How’d it go?” Jack asked, referring to Laurie’s case. When he’d returned to start his second case, he’d decided not to disturb Laurie, who’d appeared to be totally absorbed with the Asian. “What did you find?”
“Unfortunately, nothing,” Laurie responded. “And to make matters worse, it’s an unidentified body.”
“Why the long face?” Jack questioned.
“Don’t ask. I found no pathology whatsoever. And with no medical history, my chances of missing something important go up considerably.”
“So?” Jack questioned. “That happens. Sometimes there’s no pathology whatsoever. Not often, but it happens.”
“Yeah, it happens, but I didn’t want it to happen on my first case PMS.”
“PMS? You have PMS?” Jack was incredulous. Laurie never complained of PMS.
“Post-maternity sojourn.” Laurie said, trying to be funny to buoy her mood, but her would-be joke fell flat. “But I’m not going to give up. I’m going to find some pathology if it kills me. At least I have the time. It’s my only case.”
Jack merely shook his head, and without even smiling questioned, “You’re not using a negative autopsy to fan your professional competency concerns, are you? Because if you are, you’re being” — he paused, trying to find and appropriate word — “silly.”
“I refuse to answer on grounds of incriminating myself,” Laurie offered, and tried to smile.
“You’re impossible!” Jack said with a wave of dismissal. “I’m not even going to respond, for fear of encouraging such nonsense.”
“What’s your second case?” Laurie asked, to change the subject. She was glancing at the body of a young, healthy woman with no obvious abnormalities or trauma. Vinnie was standing at the table, obviously impatient to get under way, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“I guess similar to yours: sudden death. Boyfriend saw her walk out of the bathroom as you see her now, completely naked. He described her as looking surprised or confused, and then she just collapsed.”
“Any health problems?”
“Nope, no health problems. She was a cabin attendant for Delta and completely healthy. She had just returned from a trip to Istanbul.”
“You’re right. Sounds like my case,” Laurie suggested.
“Except for one thing,” Jack said. “The boyfriend wasn’t supposed to be there. There was a restraining order against him, as he’d supposedly tried to kill her a month earlier when she started dating a pilot colleague.”
“Uh-oh!” Laurie voiced.
“ ‘Uh-oh’ is right,” Jack agreed.
“Keep me informed,” Laurie said. It did sound like her case, except for the benefit of an identification and history.
Laurie left the autopsy room, carrying bags containing the histology and toxicology sample bottles. In the locker room, she got out of her Tyvek suit and dealt with her headgear. As she rode in the elevator to the fourth floor, she thought about Jack’s case. She was jealous that he would undoubtedly find some nefarious cause of the woman’s death. She wished her case could have been similar in that regard.
“Well, well, ladies!” Maureen O’Conner, the histology lab supervisor, cried out in her famous brogue as she took the brown bag from Laurie. Maureen had spent the first half of her life working at a hospital in Dublin, Ireland, before coming to New York. Vivacity was her middle name, and no one was spared her sharp and humorous tongue, from the chief down to the janitors. Laurie was a favorite, as she was the only medical examiner who made it a point to visit Maureen’s fiefdom regularly. Laurie was always eager to have the histology slides on her cases sooner rather than later.
“If it isn’t Dr. Laurie Montgomery!” Maureen continued, causing all heads in the department to turn in Laurie’s direction. “Welcome back! How is that little one of yours — well, I hope.” Everyone at OCME had heard the story of JJ’s neuroblastoma, as well as the good news of his miraculous cure.
Laurie took the added attention in stride, even the usual kidding about her frequent requests to have her slides back overnight. Maureen’s usual teasing was to remind Laurie that her patients were all dead, so there was no need for speed, a comment that never ceased to put all employees of the histology lab into fits of laughter.
Next Laurie descended back to the first floor and visited Sergeant Murphy of the NYPD. His tiny cubicle office was situated off the communications room, where operators were on call for reports of deaths twenty-four hours a day. Besides the desk, there was barely enough room for two metal folding chairs and an upright file cabinet. The desktop and the top of the file cabinet were strewn with newspapers, soiled coffee cups, and crumpled Burger King wrappers.
“Did you get word on the unidentified Asian that came in late yesterday afternoon?” Laurie questioned. She’d run into the sergeant earlier, and they’d already gone through their welcome-back greetings.
“I did,” Murphy said. “The transit patrolmen out of District One who responded to the nine-one-one call copied me on their report to the Missing Persons Squad as they were supposed to. Apparently, there was no billfold on the victim or other identification. In fact, there wasn’t anything whatsoever except a wedding band. There wasn’t even a watch.”
“Do you know if there were any witnesses to his wallet being swiped? As well groomed and dressed as he was, it seems unlikely that he’d not been carrying one.”
“None that I know of.”
“What’s the status of the case?”
“It’s been assigned to a missing-persons case detective out of Midtown North Precinct as an unidentified body. It’s being worked.”
“Do you have the detective’s name?”
“I do. It’s right here someplace.” Murphy pulled out the center drawer of the desk, requiring him to suck in his stomach. There was barely enough room to open the drawer. He fumbled through the contents for a moment before producing a crumbled single sheet. “Detective Ron Steadman, who also occasionally works out of Precinct Twenty.” He jotted the numbers on a piece of scrap paper and gave it to her. “If you try to call him, use the Midtown North Precinct, because that’s where he is ninety-nine percent of the time.”
“I’ll do that,” Laurie said. “In the meantime, if you hear anything, please let me know.”
“Will do!” Murphy said cheerfully.
Next Laurie climbed the stairs to the anthropology department, which had expanded significantly after 9/11, when identification had become an operational nightmare. She knocked on the closed glazed door of Hank Monroe, the director of identification. Originally, identification had been solely the purview of Sergeant Murphy as the liaison with NYPD Missing Persons Squad, but following 9/11 the job became much larger, and an in-house department had been created.
“Come in!” a voice called out. Hank Monroe was a medium-size individual with a face full of sharp angles.
“My name is Laurie Stapleton,” Laurie said, introducing herself. Hank was relatively new to OCME staff, and he and Laurie had never met. After some pleasant chitchat, Laurie asked if he’d heard about the unidentified case that had come in late the previous afternoon.
“Not yet,” Hank confessed. “There’s usually a note from one of the night mortuary techs, but not this time. The body probably came in around shift change, but it’s no problem. What’s the story?”
Laurie gave a rapid synopsis of her John Doe case.
“Not much to go on,” Hank said. He’d grabbed a pad and pencil to write down the critical details, which were limited to Asian, well groomed, and had been wearing a wedding band. “No scars or any other distinguishing characteristics?”