Genesis

Chapter 24

May 9th

4:30 P.M.

Knock, knock,” Jack said as he rapped on the jamb of Laurie’s open office door. She looked up from the architectural plans for the new Forensic Pathology building that would be housing the autopsy room and offices for all the medical examiners. She’d worked on them in the middle of the night and thought they were nearly done, but now had different ideas in the light of day. Although the Toxicology Department had stayed in the old building by moving up to floors five and six, the Histology Department had been moved down to the new OCME high-rise. The problem was that there was a particularly strong connection with both departments and the autopsy work that the medical examiners did. Laurie could remember the many times she’d visited both departments while trying to complete her investigations to sign out the death certificates. Having them at different locations logistically didn’t make a lot of sense, so she’d gone back to the plans to see what she could do.

“Is this a good time to chat?” Jack asked. He looked and sounded intense.

“It is,” Laurie said. “Whenever the door is open, I’m available. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you all day. Come on in!” In contrast to Jack she tried to sound casual, almost carefree.

He came in, closed the door behind him, and went directly to the couch, which was his usual destination on visits to her office. He was still dressed in scrubs, as he’d been in the pit most of the day. “So, what did you learn about your projected surgery?” he asked. He was sitting but leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He didn’t blink. He was obviously stressed.

“Where is my quick-witted, wisecracking, double-entendre Jack?” Laurie asked, trying to make light of the situation. She stayed seated behind her desk.

“He’s on vacation until all this is put to bed,” Jack said, not minding he was mixing his metaphors. “Stop torturing me! What’s the story?”

“I spoke twice today with Dr. Claudine Cartier,” Laurie told him. “The last time was just a few minutes ago. She’s being wonderfully accommodating. She understands perfectly my interest in getting this handled as soon as possible. If my questionable one-centimeter lump is cancer, I can’t help but feel that I’m taking a risk with every minute that goes by. All that’s needed to change my prognosis is one cell out of billions to detach itself and set up shop in a distant location.”

“I understand,” he said. “I’d feel the same way. So, what did she say?”

“She’s had several cancellations of her scheduled surgeries due to the patients coming down with influenza, and she’s willing to fit me in on a semi-emergency basis. She wants me to be in the Kimmel Pavilion because of the accommodations. Now it’s up to the OR and their scheduling. I guess I’m essentially on call, which is fine by me. Now that I have decided to go through with it, I want it done.”

“So that means it could happen at any time?” Jack asked.

“No, not at any time,” she said. “I’ll have at least eight to twelve hours’ notice. I’ll be having general anesthesia, so I’ll have to be prepared.”

“Does our deputy chief know he’s about to be the captain of the ship for a period of time?”

“He does,” Laurie said. “I had a meeting with him this morning to tell him, and he’s fine with it. I did tell him not to spread it around until it was actually scheduled.”

“I wish I was the one having the surgery and not you,” Jack said. “I could handle that a hell of a lot easier.”

“It’s all going to be fine,” Laurie said as much to bolster her own courage as his. “Let’s talk about something else. I’ve been dying to ask you about our favorite NYU pathology resident. When I was making my autopsy rounds this morning, I saw she was at your table. How did that go? From afar, it seemed to be going fine. I was actually afraid to make my presence known for fear of upsetting the apple cart and causing trouble.”

“It wasn’t a problem,” Jack said.

“I’m shocked, knowing what I do about her,” she said. “And what I know about you, too, for that matter.” She laughed as a way of lightening the mood.

“To be completely honest, for your benefit I was on good behavior.”

“What do you mean, ‘for my benefit’?”

“You’re making a big effort on her behalf,” Jack said. “You did a case with her, and that’s the first one you’ve done since I don’t know when. And I agree with your motivation: It’s not worth getting into a slugfest with NYU Department of Pathology over a possibly sociopathic resident. She obviously is not enamored of forensic pathology. She didn’t even appear in the pit until eight thirty or thereabouts.”

“Did she use any profanity? She did with me, and I know that’s one of your buttons.”

“No vulgar language at all. My only complaint, if I had to come up with one, is that at the end of the case she just disappeared. One minute she was there and the next minute gone. Not a word of thank-you or goodbye or can I help finish up. She’s clearly not a team player.”

“That’s exactly how Dr. Henderson described her,” Laurie added. “He also said she wasn’t popular with the other residents. She doesn’t seem to have any social sense. Whether it’s ingrained or learned, I haven’t the foggiest.”

“On the plus side, she is smart,” he said.

“I agree,” Laurie said. “And so does Dr. Henderson. And to her credit, she has really immersed herself in the case I did with her yesterday. So much so, it reminds me of you and I when we were new hires.”

“In what way is she immersed?” Jack asked.

“She’s convinced that it’s imperative to find the father of the unexpected fetus we found. She thinks the father might well have had something to do with the drugs the patient used to overdose. And as a millennial, she has come up with a novel way of possibly tracking him down that I don’t think you or I would have thought of, namely using genetic genealogy.” Laurie briefly filled him in on the logistics of Aria’s plan.

“Really?” Jack questioned. “Now, that is a uniquely cool idea. You’re right, I wouldn’t have thought of it.”

“I wouldn’t have, either,” she said. “I’m afraid it just shows how quickly we can fall behind the times, given how fast technology is changing. Anyway, I find it all fascinating, and I’ve encouraged her to look into it. At the same time, I made it absolutely clear that our Molecular Genetics Department can have nothing to do with it or we would lose our accreditation.”

“That’s for sure,” Jack said.

“I’ve encouraged her to keep doing what she’s doing, provided she stays away from our DNA lab, keeps me informed of what kind of progress, if any, she is making, and respects HIPAA rules. For someone who’s obviously not going to go into forensics, and whether or not she’s ultimately successful in finding the father, she’s probably learning more about forensic pathology’s capabilities than by observing a disjointed bunch of autopsies.”

“Could be,” he said.

The intercom light on her desk phone illuminated. She picked up the receiver. It was Cheryl, saying that Dr. McGovern was there to see her.

“Send him in.” Laurie said, after getting a nod from Jack that he was okay with Chet’s joining them.

A minute later, an aggravated Chet McGovern swept into her office. “I give up! I cannot handle this woman, and she’s driving me crazy,” he barked as he strode in, heading for her desk. Halfway there he caught sight of Jack sitting on the couch and stopped. “Oh, sorry,” he added, redirecting his attention to Laurie. “Am I interrupting something? I didn’t know you were busy.”

“No problem. She’s all yours,” Jack said. He got to his feet. “I’m on my way out.”

“No, stay!” Chet said. To reorganize his thoughts, he smoothed back his receding hair and stroked his goatee. “Where was I? Oh, yeah! You have to hear this. I just had another crazy run-in with my bête noire resident, Aria Nichols. I’d been more or less looking for her since she disappeared after Jack’s gunshot case, and then bingo, I ran into her in the elevator. When I tried to ask her where she’d been, she accused me of being patronizing. Can you believe it?”

“Were you?” Laurie asked. She remembered what Aria had said about Chet asking her to have a drink soon after their initial meeting and how she felt about his following her over to the Langone Medical Center. She was tempted to bring both issues up but decided against it.

“Hell, no,” Chet said. “Unless calling her ‘young lady’ could be considered patronizing. I actually wanted to call her something else entirely but resisted.”

“Calling a senior pathology resident ‘young lady’ certainly qualifies as being out-and-out patronizing,” Laurie said. Then she turned to Jack. “Do you agree?”

Jack raised his hands as if surrendering. “This is an issue for the chief medical examiner to adjudicate. I’ll take the Fifth.”

“Coward,” she said with a smile.

“Hey!” Chet said. “Whose side are you guys on? I’m the aggrieved party here, not this sassy pathology resident.” Then he smiled himself, realizing how he was sounding. “All right, I get the message. Maybe I’m taking this a bit too personally.”

“I can actually commiserate with you to a degree,” Laurie admitted. “I find her provocative also. It’s as if she has no empathy.”

“I’d call her outright hostile,” Chet said. “As we were getting off the elevator, I asked her if she was coming to the afternoon conference. And you want to know how she responded?”

“I can’t imagine, knowing how she’s responded to you on previous occasions,” Laurie added with her smile returning.

“She flipped me off,” Chet said with great indignation. “She didn’t even answer. She just gave me the finger.”

“In a way she did the same to me,” Laurie said. “When we finished the case yesterday, I asked her to help Marvin clean up. She told me she didn’t have the time and walked out. She might as well have given me the finger.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you guys,” Jack interjected. “I got along with her fine this morning. She couldn’t have been nicer.”

“Really?” Chet questioned, but then he saw Jack’s smile and knew Jack was merely teasing.

“Don’t let Jack get your goat,” Laurie said. “He was on artificially good behavior with Dr. Nichols for my benefit. Ironically enough, we had been talking about her just before you arrived.”

“That reminds me,” Chet said. “She justified her absence by saying she was still working on the case that you let her do yesterday, trying to investigate the manner of death. Is all that true?”

“Yes and yes,” Laurie said. “I did let her act as the prosector, which is a point I think we should discuss at some time in the near future. Perhaps we should routinely let the NYU pathology residents do the cases rather than just observe them even though the medical examiner is responsible for the death certificate. From a teaching standpoint it makes a lot of sense, considering where they are in their training. And yes, she is still following up on the case, under my supervision.”

“Fine by me,” Chet said. “But it is an issue that we should discuss with all the medical examiners to see if they are comfortable with it. I can bring it up at our next meeting.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said. “I’ll also bring it up with Carl Henderson and get his take.”

“Meanwhile, what can I do in the short run?” he asked with an audible exhale. “I’ve got to face her again in the morning and try to control my irritation.”

“Assign her to me for my first case,” Jack suggested. “Laurie says she’s a good prosector, and she is smart. I don’t mind letting her do a case as long as she doesn’t drag it out. Strangely enough, she and I might get along. One way or the other, I’ll see if I can straighten her out a bit.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Laurie asked. She didn’t want to make a bad situation worse if Jack and Aria Nichols got into a real tiff.

“It will be fine,” Jack said. “I promise to continue to be on good behavior with this woman. Hearing you two talk has raised my curiosity.”

“She’s taxing,” she warned. “Maybe even exasperating.”

“I’ll take it as a challenge to try to help the situation,” Jack said. “I won’t take anything she says personally, I’ll avoid being patronizing, and I’ll gird myself against possible profanity. Trust me.”

“I’ll trust you,” Chet said with alacrity. “You’re on!”