“I don’t know,” Laurie said. “How about eight a.m.”
“Eight a.m. it is,” Dr. Arun Ram said.
After terminating the call with Dr. Ram, Laurie called Shirley back and thanked her for the referral.
“You’ll like him,” Shirley said. “He’s very smart, has a great sense of humor and good stats.”
“One can’t ask for much more than that,” Laurie said before ringing off.
With all the calls out of the way, Laurie glanced briefly at her watch. It was time to head over to the company to which India had outsourced its visa service. She got out her and Jack’s passports from her briefcase and wedded them with the photos they’d had taken that morning.
With the passports and photos tucked into her shoulder bag along with her mobile phone, Laurie stepped back out of her office and headed for the elevators. When she heard the elevator door open ahead, she quickened her step to catch it and bumped head-on into her officemate, Dr. Riva Mehta, exiting. Each apologized. Laurie actually laughed.
“My, you are in a good mood,” Riva commented.
“I guess I am,” Laurie responded cheerily.
“Don’t tell me you are pregnant,” Riva said. Not only were Riva and Laurie officemates, they were also confidantes. Riva was the only person other than Shirley with whom she had shared all the stresses of the infertility treatment.
“I wish,” Laurie said. “No, Jack and I are making an emergency trip to India.” Laurie struggled with the elevator door that desperately wanted to close.
“That’s terrific,” Riva said. “Where in India?” Riva and her parents had emigrated to the United States when she was eleven.
“New Delhi,” Laurie said. “Actually, I’m on my way over to get our Indian visas. I’ll be back in a half-hour or so. I’d love to talk to you about it and maybe get some tips.”
“By all means,” Riva said with a wave.
Laurie ducked into the elevator car and let the insistent door close. As she descended, she thought about Riva’s comment regarding her mood and realized that she was truly on a high, magnified by the low she’d been on over the last two to three months. Vaguely, she hoped that the strain of infertility wasn’t making her bipolar.
Getting off at the basement level, Laurie hurried down to the autopsy room. Knowing she was going to be in there for only a few moments, she grabbed just a gown and a hat, and pushed in through the main double doors. Although it was almost eight-forty-five, Jack and Vinnie were the sole team working. Several other mortuary techs were preparing cases and putting out bodies, but the associated docs had yet to appear. Jack and Vinnie were well along. The body they were working on already had the large Y incision over the chest and abdomen sutured. At the moment, the individual’s skull cap was off and they were working on the brain.
“How’s it going?” Laurie asked, coming up alongside Jack.
“We’re having a ball as usual,” Jack responded, straightening up and stretching.
“A typical gunshot suicide?” Laurie asked.
Jack let out a short laugh. “Hardly. At this point, it’s pretty clear it was homicide.”
“Really?” Laurie questioned. “How so?”
Jack reached over to the corpse and grabbed the reflected and inverted scalp and pulled it from covering the face back into its original position. High on the side of the head and in the center of a shaved area was a sharply defined circular deep-red entrance wound surrounded by a number of two-to-three-inch black speckles.
“My word,” Laurie exclaimed. “You are right. This is not suicide.”
“And that is not all,” Jack said. “The path of the bullet is steeply downward such that it ended up in the subcutaneous tissues of the neck.”
“How can you guys read so much into this?” Vinnie asked.
“It’s easy,” Laurie said. “When someone shoots themselves, they almost always place the barrel against the skin. What happens then is the explosive gases go into the wound along with the bullet. The resultant entrance wound becomes raggedly stellate as the skin blows away from the skull and tears.”
“And you see this stippling?” Jack said, pointing with the handle of a scalpel to the ring of black spots around the wound. “That’s all gunpowder residue. In a suicide, all that goes into the wound.” Then, turning back to Laurie, he asked, “How far away do you think the barrel was when the gun was fired?”
Laurie shrugged. “Maybe fifteen to twenty inches.”
“That’s exactly my thought,” Jack agreed. “And I think our victim was lying down when it happened.”
“You’d better let the boss know as soon as possible,” Laurie advised. “This is the kind of case that invariably has political fallout.”
“That’s my plan,” Jack said. “It’s amazing, isn’t it, how many cases we see where the manner of death is different after the autopsy than what it was thought to be before.”
“It’s what makes our job so important,” Laurie said.
“Hey!” Jack voiced. “Did you get to see Calvin yet?”
“Oh, yeah!” Laurie said remembering her mission. “That’s why I popped down here. I’m on my way to Travisa to get our Indian visas. Calvin has given us the green light for a week.”
“Damn,” Jack said, but then he laughed before Laurie could get miffed.
Chapter 20
October 17, 2007
Wednesday, 7:40 p.m.
New Delhi, India
Raj Khatwani cracked the door from the stairwell and peered out into the wedge of the third-floor corridor of the Aesculapian Medical Center hospital that was visible. There was no one in his line of sight, but he could hear a medication cart approaching with its characteristic rattling of glass against glass. He let the door close. Through its fire-resistant thickness, he heard the cart roll past.
Leaning back against the concrete-block wall, he tried to control his breathing. With the tension he was experiencing, it was difficult. Sweat dotted the upper part of his forehead. All he could think of was his new respect for Veena and Samira. Now that he was in the middle of putting his first patient to sleep, he realized it was a lot more stressful than he had anticipated, especially after Samira had told him it was a breeze. Some breeze, he thought grudgingly.
When an adequate amount of time had passed, he cracked the door again. Not seeing anyone or hearing anything, he opened the door farther and slowly stuck his head out, looking up and down the hallway. The only people he saw were two nurses a distance down the main corridor at the central desk, talking to an ambulatory patient. They were far enough away so that Raj could just barely hear them. In the opposite direction, there were only three more patient rooms on either side of the corridor before a terminal conservatory. There were conservatories at both ends of the long corridor, each filled with plants and chairs for those patients able to use them.
In his mind, Raj could hear Samira’s advice: Don’t be seen, but if you are, act normally. Let your nurse’s uniform do the talking. Don’t be seen! Raj scoffed silently. Since he was a big man, slightly more than two hundred pounds, not being seen was particularly difficult, especially on a full hospital floor with nurses and aides scurrying about on any one of myriad possible errands.
Raj had gone to Samira and Veena’s room to seek advice that evening before he’d left for the Aesculapian Medical Center. He didn’t think he’d really need help and did it more out of respect for his female colleagues, but now that he was there, he was glad he did. Samira had finally admitted she had been nervous, which was good to know, since he, too, was definitely nervous. Veena, however, had said nothing.