“I’ve been better,” Laurie said. She didn’t elaborate.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Not at the moment,” Laurie said. “I need some time by myself.”
“I understand,” Cheryl said. “Detective Lou Soldano called. He asked you to call him back as soon as you can. He said he tried to call Dr. Stapleton, but he was in the morgue. The detective seemed upset.” Cheryl stepped over to Laurie’s desk and put a yellow Post-it Note on the corner. She then quietly left.
Laurie pulled the note up off the desk and looked at the number. She could tell it was Lou’s mobile, which meant he was out on a case, possibly at a scene. As he was a dear friend and an extraordinarily committed Homicide detective who truly valued the contribution of forensic pathology, Laurie felt an irresistible urge to call him back despite her mental turmoil. Since there was a chance the call might have a personal aspect, she used her mobile. Lou answered immediately.
“Thanks for calling, Laur,” he said straight off. Laur was a name one of Lou’s children gave her way back when Lou and Laurie had first met. “I’m over here at the Manhattan General ED with one of my detectives who managed to get himself shot. It’s not a life-threatening injury but bad enough. By accident I happened to become aware of one of those cases that makes you sick.”
“Can you give me a bit more background?” she asked. There was little or no inflection in her voice, and she hoped Lou wouldn’t notice or question. She was trying her best under the circumstances to sound normal.
“Sure,” Lou said. “It’s a two-and-a-half-year-old Latina girl named Camila Ruiz, who supposedly fell into a hot tub and scalded herself. It reminded me of a case I had years ago, which I hope doesn’t repeat itself, because it gave me nightmares for years.”
“Is this child dead?”
“I wouldn’t be calling you guys if she wasn’t. I was hoping that Jack could look into it. I mean, this should be a medical examiner case, right?”
“Certainly, as an accident it’s a medical examiner case.”
“All right, that’s good to hear,” he said. “The kid was brought in by the mom’s boyfriend, which is exactly what happened in the case I mentioned years ago. It turned out in that case it was no fucking accident. Pardon my French. Anyway, this case needs a good look as it’s keying off my sixth sense that all is not right in never-never land.”
“I’ll let Jack know,” Laurie said. After a few more pleasantries, she disconnected. Then she called Bart Arnold to make sure Camila Ruiz would be posted and asked him to let Jack know when the child arrived.
With that small, sad dose of reality, she felt a bit less paralyzed and began to make some preliminary plans with how she would emotionally adjust to the positive breast-cancer screening result. Obviously, a positive screen didn’t necessarily mean she had breast cancer. It just meant that something had to be done to determine whether she did, and as far as she was concerned, it needed to be done immediately, the sooner, the better. But she didn’t get far with this line of thinking. Within minutes there was another quiet knock on her office door, followed by Cheryl reappearing. Cheryl never liked using the intercom.
“I hate to bother you again, Dr. Montgomery,” she said. “But Dr. Carl Henderson is on line one, and he says it’s urgent.”
“Okay, thanks,” Laurie said. Reluctantly she recognized that dealing with the emotions of her positive cancer screening would have to wait. Being chief medical examiner was far too demanding. As she picked up the phone, she felt mildly irritated that Chet must have taken it upon himself to speak with the chief of the NYU Department of Pathology about Dr. Aria Nichols even though Laurie had told Chet that she preferred to speak with the resident before speaking with her boss. Although Laurie had met Carl Henderson at several NYU functions, she had never spoken with him on the phone. He was relatively new to the NYU Medical School community, having been recruited from the University of Pittsburgh just two years earlier. She remembered he was a tall, slender, worldly-appearing man who dressed particularly nattily, in contrast with so many of the other male pathologists that Laurie knew.
“Dr. Montgomery,” she said into the phone in lieu of saying hello. As she had done with Detective Soldano, she struggled to sound normal.
“Thanks for taking my call,” Carl said with a certain urgency. He had a deep, commanding baritone voice. “I needed to talk to you about a developing problem. One of our own, a pediatric social worker named Kera Jacobsen, has apparently overdosed and will be coming into the OCME shortly if she is not already there.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Laurie said. Opioid overdose deaths were disturbingly common in NYC, occurring at a rate of one every six hours on average.
“As you know, the NYU medical community has been making a big effort to do something about this terrible, ongoing tragedy in our neighborhood and city,” Carl said. “Having one of our own succumb is hardly an appropriate advertisement for our efforts. As I’m sure you are aware, we have been spending considerable resources polishing our image in the city, as has Columbia-Cornell. It’s a dog-eat-dog world in medical academe.”
“I’m well aware of the competitive hospital environment,” Laurie said, wondering where this surprising conversation was going. She thought for sure it would be about Aria Nichols, not an overdose victim.
“I just got off the phone with our hospital president, Vernon Pierce,” Carl continued. “He thought that it would be a proper gesture to handle any autopsy that might need to be done here in-house rather than at the OCME. The idea would be to sort of bring her home since she is part of our community. I thought the idea has some merit even if it is a little unusual. I offered to do it myself in our autopsy theater in the Bellevue Hospital, which the president thought would be appropriate.”
“This is a rather strange request,” she said. She tried to keep her voice neutral, but she was shocked at the suggestion as it was unprecedented as far as she knew. The NYC OCME did not outsource its mandated autopsies, which an overdose was.
“I know it’s unusual,” he continued, “but Mr. Pierce also thought this might be a way of preventing the episode from possibly appearing in the tabloids. On occasion in the past the tabloids have seemed to have an inside source as to what’s going on in the OCME.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Henderson, but we are required by law to do the autopsy, and it will be done here.” She was aware there had been rare OCME leaks, as it was difficult to prevent them with as many employees as they had, but they certainly weren’t a justification for having an autopsy done elsewhere. She had tried to think of a diplomatic way to make this point clear, but nothing had come to mind. Instead she thought it best to be blunt.
“I see,” Carl said. By the tone of his voice it was apparent he was disappointed.
“But there is a way we could perhaps partially satisfy your president,” she added as a sudden idea occurred to her in an attempt to appease NYU’s fears. “We could have one of your pathology residents who is currently rotating through the OCME assist on the case. And I could make it a point to be involved personally. This would keep it in the family, because, as you know, I am officially part of the NYU family.”
“That’s a creative suggestion and very nice of you, Dr. Montgomery,” he said. “I’m sure Mr. Pierce would be pleased, especially if we can keep your in-house gossip to a minimum and, more important still, keep it out of the papers. Do you know offhand the name of our resident?”
“I do,” she said. “Dr. Aria Nichols. By coincidence I was scheduled to work with her this afternoon. What I can do is arrange for us to do the case together. What was the name of the victim?”