Robin Cook - Critical

"Well, it's about time, you guys," Detective Lieutenant Lou Soldano said. He tossed his newspaper aside and made a production out of examining his watch. "You've always bragged how early you get here. This ain't that early."

"What is this?" Jack questioned. "Is this today, or is it yesterday? We don't see you for months, and here you are two days in a row. What gives?"

"I imagine my appearance gives away the fact that once again I've been up all night."

"How come you don't let anyone else in your department do any work?"

Lou thought for a minute. It was a question he'd never asked himself. "I guess because I don't have anything else to do. I suppose that sounds rather pathetic."

"You said it, I didn't," Jack said, as he settled into one of the brown vinyl chairs and elevated his bad knee.

"We would have been earlier," Laurie said, "but we had to stop at the hospital for Jack's pre-op workup."

Lou looked from Laurie to Jack. "Are you still going through with the surgery tomorrow?"

"Let's not get into that," Jack said. "Rather, let's hear why you were up all night!"

"It was a bit of deja vu," Lou said.

Laurie called over to Jack to ask if he wanted coffee, and he gave the usual thumbs-up sign. He then motioned for Lou to continue.

"I was out with the harbor guys once again. Just like the previous night, they'd come across a floater who'd been shot in the exact same fashion as the one the previous night. I'd left word to call me if it happened, and they did. It's just what I didn't want to see. Most of the other wars the competing organized-crime syndicates have waged have started out the same way. First a hit, then another, and then a goddamn avalanche."

Laurie brought over Jack's coffee in one hand and hers in another. She sat on the arm of Jack's chair, listening to Lou.

"The only hopeful sign is that this hit was a little different."

"How so?" Jack asked.

"The victim's a girl," Lou said, but then quickly added, "I mean, a woman." He glanced up guiltily at Laurie. He knew she was sensitive to feminist issues, such as calling women girls. "That's rather novel," he continued. "We haven't seen too many women bumped off gangland-style, so I suppose there's hope this episode is unrelated to yesterday's, meaning it's not necessarily an escalation of whatever was the cause of yesterday's hit."

"The floater is not the only bit of deja vu," Dr. Riva Mehta called out from the desk where she was going over all the cases that had come in overnight and deciding which ones needed to be autopsied and who in the ME staff would do them. "Laurie, you asked about MRSA cases. There's another one here. I assume you want it."

"Absolutely" Laurie said, slipping off the arm of Jack's chair and scooting over toward Riva. "Is it from an Angels Healthcare hospital?"

"Nope. It's from University Hospital."

Laurie took the case folder and walked over to the chair next to Vinnie's, who was engrossed as per usual in the sports section of the Daily News.

"Damn!" Jack whispered, returning his attention to Lou. "She's probably going to use this new case as more grist for her mill about canceling my surgery tomorrow. So please, don't bring it up."

"I'll try, but when it comes to common sense, you are not even in Laurie's league. Are you sure you shouldn't follow her advice?"

"Don't start," Jack said, holding up his hand as if to ward off a literal attack. "Let's get back to your case. Was the floater clothed or naked?"

"Interesting you should ask. She was half and half."

"What the hell does that mean? Bottom but no top or vice versa?"

"Sort of. She had outerwear but no underwear. She had on one of those shirtdresses. I think that's what you call them, and she was wearing a coat but no bra and no panties. I don't know if it's significant or not. I mean, isn't it kind of a fad these days for some girls, I mean women, to go out without underwear?"

"You got me," Jack said. "I haven't the faintest idea. Regardless, we're obligated to use a rape kit to cover all bases."

"I think I was born too early," Lou said with a laugh.

"Has this floater been IDed?"

"No, in that way, it's similar to yesterday's."

"How about yesterday's? Have you identified the victim?"

"No. And I put some serious time in on it yesterday. I can't figure it out. The guy was wearing a wedding ring and was well dressed. I don't understand why the family hasn't called in. In such a case, Missing Persons ordinarily solves the mystery in twenty-four hours or less. My only thought is that maybe he's a foreigner. Now, with today's case, who I suspect is single, I will be less surprised if it takes a few days, unless the woman has a roommate or the kind of employment where a supervisor or a coworker will call the police."

"How old approximately?"

"Young, late teens, early twenties."

"Does she look like a hooker?"

"How can you tell these days the way the kids dress? The only thing unique is some lime-green highlights in her hair."

"Lime green?" Jack questioned with disbelief.

"As I said, it's unique."

"Does she have the same depressions in her legs like she was chained, possibly to a weight, like yesterday's?"

"She does, which is why I've tried to keep that fact quiet. If there is to be more of these gangland executions, I want them to keep bobbing up. I want the perps to continue making the same mistake."

"What do you expect out of the autopsy?"

"Hey, I don't know," Lou said, throwing his hands into the air. "You're the magician."

"I wish that were the case."

"I do want the slug. If it's again a Remington high-velocity hollow point like I believe yesterday's was, we'll at least have to consider the same gun was used for both cases."

"Was the body found where the other one was?"

"Not really but not that far away either. The way the current and tides move around out there, it's anybody's guess where flotsam will end up."

"All right, let's do it," Jack said. He got to his feet and collected his crutches, then hobbled over to Riva. "Is the new floater file handy?" he asked her. "And can I do the case?" Riva was happy to hand over the case file, and Jack used it to swat Vinnie's newspaper. "Let's go, big guy," Jack said, as he dropped the case file into Vinnie's lap. "Let's lend a hand to the halls of justice."

Vinnie groused, as was his habit, but to his credit, he put away the paper and got to his feet.

"We'll need a rape kit," Jack added.

Vinnie nodded and headed toward communications on his way down to the autopsy room.

Jack looked over Riva's shoulder at the stack of cases she was reviewing. "Looks like a busy day."

"Even busier than yesterday," Riva said.

"Hey, I'll meet you downstairs," Lou called over to Jack. Jack waved for him to go ahead.

"Have any corkers?" Jack asked. He tried to rifle through several of Riva's carefully organized case files, but she smacked the back of his hand with the ruler she kept handy for that very purpose. "Ouch," Jack said as he grabbed his hand and rubbed it, pretending he'd been truly hurt.

"There's a couple in here which I think will be a challenge," Riva said.

"That sounds good," Jack said. "How many can I expect?"

"At least three," Riva said. "I've got two people who've requested

paper days, so the rest of us will have to pick up the slack." Paper days were days that medical examiners did not do autopsies but rather concentrated on getting all the information needed to finish their pending cases and finalize the death certificates.

"Jack, I'm afraid you have to look at this," Laurie said. She'd gone through the MRSA case that Riva had given her.

Jack rolled his eyes. It wasn't difficult for him to guess that Laurie was about to mount one more effort to get him to change his mind.