Робин Кук - Genesis

Being late and having no coat other than her white resident’s jacket, she went directly to the ID, or identification, unit, where she had been told all the medical examiners gathered in the morning. She’d learned that one of the medical examiners on a weekly rotating basis made a final decision about which of the bodies that had come in during the night should be autopsied and dispersed them among his or her colleagues. By the time Aria walked in there were only two medical examiners still there, Dr. Chet McGovern and a woman of Indian extraction named Dr. Riva Mehta. Both were seated at what was generally called the scheduling desk. A small number of case charts littered the desktop. Everyone had already gotten their assignments and had left to descend to the pit.

“Well, well!” Chet said. “It’s so nice of you to grace us with your presence.”

Aria ignored his sarcasm and went to the communal coffee pot, which she had been pressured to contribute to monetarily. She poured herself a cup and mentally prepared to deal with McGovern, who had rubbed her the wrong way from the first moments she’d met him. It was the way he had looked at her that keyed off her sixth sense even before he’d said anything. Dr. Mehta she had also met and had observed doing a trauma victim. It had been a pedestrian hit and run over by a yellow cab and dragged a hundred yards or so. Aria had found the case mildly interesting although she’d not learned anything that wasn’t obvious. To her, so much of forensics was just common sense.

“There was more traffic than usual,” Aria said after walking back to the scheduling desk.

“How come your colleague, Dr. Muller, manages to get here on time every day?” Chet said more as a statement than a question. He had an accusatory smirk on his face that irked Aria to no end.

“I wouldn’t know,” she said with disinterest. And then, not being able to control herself, added, “Maybe he mistakenly thinks he is learning something valuable.” The reality was that she had little respect for Tad Muller. The ass-kisser was still acting like he was trying to get into medical school rather than someone who was almost within a year of finishing his residency. Aria was almost embarrassed to be on the rotation with him.

“Well, let me tell you something, young lady,” Chet said. “I went out of my way to talk Dr. Stapleton into allowing you to work with him on an interesting gunshot case this morning. The problem is that Dr. Stapleton is a dynamo and has been down in the pit since seven thirty. For all I know he could be nearly finished. My advice is to get your butt down there ASAP. When you’re done, find me, and I’ll assign you another case. We’ve got a full schedule today.”

Irritated anew by the patronizing “young lady” appellation and without bothering to respond, Aria broke off staring at Chet and walked out of the ID area. She was carrying her coffee mug even though on her first day McGovern had told her to avoid doing it. She considered it was one of those pointless hazing rules that only residents were supposed to honor. Once at the rear elevator, she had to wait for it to arrive. She could have used the stairs as it would have been quicker, but she felt a passive-aggressive urge not to make any effort. Once downstairs, she passed the mortuary office and went into the women’s locker room to get into scrubs. Five minutes later she was pushing into the autopsy room. The odor immediately reminded her of yesterday’s autopsy of Kera Jacobsen, making her wish she could just skip the autopsy room altogether and work on the case she was actually interested in.

As she expected, Dr. Jack Stapleton and his favorite technician, Vinnie Amendola, were using table #1 at the far end. She had learned that since he started before everyone else, he got to choose which table he wanted. With her apron, gloves, and face shield already in place, she was prepared to participate. How much she did depended on the whim of the individual medical examiner, and it ranged from her essentially doing the case as with Dr. Montgomery the previous afternoon, to doing next to nothing as had happened with the deputy chief, Dr. George Fontworth, two days before that. Since she had yet to be slotted to work with Dr. Stapleton, she had no idea of what to expect. Word had it that he was fast as Dr. McGovern had just suggested, which under the circumstances Aria appreciated. What she really wanted to do was get back to Kera’s case. Before she left the locker room, she’d checked her messages in hopes of having some response from Madison, but there wasn’t any.

All the tables were in operation, making it necessary for Aria to walk the length of the room. The corpses on each table were in varying stages of dissection, with some intact and others gutted. Dr. Stapleton’s was one of the ones that appeared to be near the end of the autopsy. The corpse was that of a mildly overweight Caucasian male, who Aria guessed was in his twenties or early thirties. The right side of his scalp had been shaved to expose a grazing bullet wound. A second entrance wound was on the right thigh. She couldn’t tell if there were any wounds to the chest or abdomen because the body was flayed open with the margins folded back.

“Speak of the devil,” Dr. Stapleton said loud enough for Aria to hear, when he caught sight of her approaching. “Vinnie, check this out! Our prayers have been answered. It seems that Dr. Nichols has deigned to join us after all.” He was holding a wooden dowel about three feet long. One of the OCME photographers was standing nearby, obviously taking pictures as Dr. Stapleton would position the dowel. It was Aria’s immediate impression they were most likely documenting the tracks of bullets.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Nichols,” Dr. Stapleton added when she reached the table. “Did you have a nice lunch?”

Tad Muller had already warned Aria several days earlier that Dr. Stapleton thought of himself as being sarcastically humorous and clever at double entendre. She wondered if anyone had warned Stapleton that she was immune to such barbs.

“Traffic was heavier than usual,” Aria said simply.

For a minute Jack stared at this resident as he recalled most everything that Laurie had said about her, including her having an unappealing, possibly sociopathic personality and a negative appreciation of the male gender. Although blaming traffic for being that late seemed almost comical to him, he held back from calling her on what he imagined was a passive-aggressive stunt. What was the point, especially since Laurie was making a considerable effort on her behalf? It was Laurie who he was worried about, not this apparently damaged individual. Besides, she was supposedly smart, particularly with surgical pathology, and could contribute without having to deal directly with patients. Uncharacteristically, Jack forwent the grand opportunity to do verbal battle with someone he guessed might be a reasonably worthy opponent. With those thoughts in mind, he cleared his throat and said: “Sorry about the traffic, and now that you are here, let us fill you in on this rather interesting case.”

Vinnie’s head popped up and he stared at Jack with disbelief. Although he personally had not had any interaction with Aria, he’d heard the rumors about her uppity and privileged attitude from the mortuary techs who’d had to deal with her. When Jack had told him that morning that she would be joining them on the gunshot case, Vinnie had been secretly pleased. He’d fully expected to witness the woman’s deserved comeuppance, which Jack would surely supply.

“How many forensic gunshot cases have you observed?” Jack asked in a normal tone of voice.

“This is my first,” Aria admitted, almost afraid of what might be coming. She didn’t want a lecture. All she wanted was to get an idea of the forensic approach to a victim of gun violence and then get the hell out of the autopsy room. She had far better things to do that were going to be far more intellectually stimulating and emotionally rewarding. With her reading speed and retention ability, she could read an entire forensic textbook chapter on gunshot wounds in thirty minutes without having to put up with the autopsy room odor or the need to stand around on a concrete floor for several hours with people she couldn’t have cared less about.