Робин Кук - Genesis

“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?”

“Kera Jacobsen,” Carl said.

Laurie wrote the name down on the Post-it Note alongside Lou Soldano’s number. As she was doing so, she heard another knock on her office door. She looked up, expecting to see Cheryl, but instead it was Jack, dressed in scrubs. Laurie pointed to the phone pressed against her ear. He nodded, closed the door behind him, and went to the couch, where he sprawled out. He looked annoyed. Still, she was glad to see him to share the bad news about the MRI and mammogram.

“Okay,” Laurie said into the phone as she struggled with herself, trying to decide if she should bring up Dr. Nichols’s less than exemplary professional behavior during her OCME rotation.

“I’d personally like to know if anything abnormal is found on the autopsy,” Carl said. “And to emphasize, I’m sure Vernon Pierce will be pleased that it’s being kept quiet, particularly in regard to the media.”

“With as many overdose cases as we handle, I can’t imagine there would be any particular media interest,” Laurie said. “But I will let our public relations department know of your president’s wishes. Of course, Kera Jacobsen’s family will have the last word. As for anything out of the ordinary I might find during the case, I will personally let you know.”

“That would be terrific. I appreciate your help, Doctor,” Carl said sincerely. “Let me give you my mobile number so you have it if you need to get in touch with me after hours.”

Laurie dutifully wrote down the number although she doubted she would need it.

“Again, I appreciate your cooperation and understanding,” Carl said. “If I can be of any help to you in the future, please let me know.”

Laurie kept the receiver in her hand even after she’d disconnected the call. Ultimately, she had decided not to say anything about Aria Nichols’s odd behavior as it would complicate an already mildly complicated situation. Instead she turned to face Jack. “You won’t believe the call I just had.”

“Who was it?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” she said as she placed a call to Bart Arnold, the head of the Medical Legal Investigator Department. The MLIs were the physician assistants or paramedics who did all the investigative work for every death in New York City, which was a lot of effort, considering that between a hundred and a hundred and fifty people died in the city every day. Of those, about ten percent were judged by the MLIs as needing to be brought to the OCME for further review, and of that ten percent a bit more than half ended up being autopsied.

“Has a Kera Jacobsen been brought in yet?” Laurie asked when she had Bart on the line.

“Let me check,” Bart said. She could hear the click of his keyboard. “Yes,” he said after a pause. “She arrived just after noon.”

“Anything abnormal in the MLI’s report?” Laurie said.

“Nothing noteworthy,” he said after another pause. “Seems a straightforward opioid overdose. Death must have been rapid because the syringe was left in the vein.”

After thanking Bart, Laurie put in a call to Chet McGovern.

“What’s going on?” Jack questioned impatiently. He was still reclined on the couch but careful to keep his shoes from touching the upholstery. He’d made that mistake in the past.

She held up her hand, mouthed that she had one more call to make, and motioned for Jack to be quiet. As soon as she had Chet on the line she said, “Have you spoken with Dr. Nichols about working with me this afternoon?”

“I certainly did,” Chet said. “And I made sure she understood it is a command performance. And I found an interesting teaching case for you two, which will demonstrate the value of forensics and possibly pique her interest.”

“I appreciate your efforts,” Laurie said. “But there’s another case I want to do with Dr. Nichols instead of the one you picked out. I’m sorry for the change. The name is Kera Jacobsen. Your case is most likely a better teaching case, since Jacobsen is apparently a routine overdose. Nonetheless, we’re going to do this one.”

“Okay, fine by me,” Chet said agreeably. “Do you want me to get it all prepared?”

“I’d appreciate it,” she said. “And see if Marvin Fletcher is available?” Back when Laurie did almost daily autopsies before becoming chief, she liked to work with Marvin for a variety of reasons, mainly because she thought he was possibly the best mortuary tech at the OCME and a pleasure to work with. And today, not knowing what to expect from Aria Nichols, she preferred that the general logistics went smoothly. She knew Marvin would guarantee that.

“What kind of time frame are we looking at?” Chet asked.

“An hour from now should work for me,” she said, glancing at the clock on her desk. “Are you expecting any difficulty locating Dr. Nichols?”

“We’ll see,” he said. “She said she would be in the library, but I do have her number just in case she’s left the building. I offered to have her come up here to my office and go over histology slides with me, but she blew me off big-time.”

“What exactly did she say?” Laurie couldn’t help but remember the woman’s mildly bawdy response to Chet’s having caught her over at the Tisch Hospital when she was supposed to be in the OCME.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Try me,” Laurie said.

“She told me that she would prefer to be run over by a herd of buffalo in heat,” Chet said with obvious disgust.

“Sounds like a charmer,” she said, smiling in spite of herself. Once again, the idea of Jack’s being right about Chet initially trying to make time with the woman went through her mind. Particularly in the current social environment, any suggestion of sexual harassment of any form often evoked a significant response. Laurie told herself to keep an open mind when it came to Aria Nichols.

“If you have trouble finding her, let me know immediately,” Laurie said. “Otherwise, I’ll expect to see her down in the autopsy theater within the hour.”

“You are going to do an autopsy on an overdose?” Jack asked with disbelief as she hung up the phone. “I thought you’d decided not to do autopsies on general principle. And why an overdose?”

“This is a unique situation,” Laurie said. “I don’t have time to explain completely, but it is going to be with the problematic resident I mentioned to you this morning. I’d arranged it with Chet before I went down to City Hall, but then there’s been a new development. When you first came in here, I was talking with Dr. Carl Henderson.”

“The chief of NYU Department of Pathology?” Jack asked.

“None other,” Laurie said.

“I’ve never met the man,” he said. “Wait! I take that back. I have met him briefly. A tall, good-looking guy, for a pathologist, with a sense of humor to boot, which is why I remembered him.”

“I’ve only met him on a few occasions,” Laurie said. “He’s relatively new.”

“What does your conversation with Carl Henderson have to do with the overdose case you’re doing with the resident? With as many overdoses as we process, it doesn’t sound so exciting to me.”

“The case itself most likely won’t be exciting or challenging,” she said. “There’s a political angle that’s developed, which is why Carl was calling. But the main reason for my doing it is an opportunity for me to get a feel for this problematic NYU pathology resident. Still, I’m looking forward to it. I know that sounds pathetic, but I do truly miss doing autopsies. But we are not going to advertise that I’m doing it. Okay? I’m going to tell anyone I run into down in the pit to keep it under wraps. Hopefully, because of the time there shouldn’t be too many people down there.”