Genesis

Chapter 34

May 11th

5:45 A.M.

Jack had been awake for almost an hour but hadn’t moved while he worried about the coming day. The moment it was apparent that the sun had risen, he slipped out of the bed, being careful to avoid allowing the mattress to spring back suddenly into position after being relieved of his muscular 168 pounds. He’d made that mistake before, almost causing Laurie to be catapulted out on her side. On this particular morning, Jack certainly did not want to wake her in hopes that she could sleep as long as possible. With the anticipation of general anesthesia sometime after noon, she wouldn’t be able to eat or drink anything but water.

For a few moments he merely looked at her. She was on her side, facing him with her head framed by her rich auburn hair. He knew she’d taken a zolpidem sleeping pill the night before, and on the rare occasions she did, she was able to sleep a surprisingly long time. He hoped the biopsy would prove to be negative and her operation would go smoothly. He still wished it was he who was having the surgery because worrying about Laurie was going to make it hard to get through the day. Knowing himself, he knew that the best way was to bury himself in work.

Going into the bathroom, he shaved quickly and then showered even more quickly. Because of the way they had designed the master suite, he could go from the bathroom into what they called the dressing room without going back into the bedroom.

Once he was dressed, he first looked in on Emma. She was fast asleep and appeared as adorable as ever. He wasn’t worried about her for today because for her it was going to be like any other day, with no comprehension her mother’s life would be in jeopardy. Unfortunately, the same could not be said about JJ, with whom he and Laurie had had a talk the night before. There was no doubt JJ understood the situation. It was also clear that the boy chose to put on a face that said that he wasn’t concerned and didn’t care. But Jack knew differently as he was sensitive enough about his son to recognize the discrepancy between his outward behavior and his inner persona.

Leaving Emma’s room, Jack went into JJ’s. He had to smile when he saw how twisted up JJ was in his bedsheets even though his face at the moment was the picture of total repose. Jack could clearly remember himself in the fourth grade and how rambunctious he’d been. It made him wonder if he were in JJ’s school and acted as he had in his grammar school, would they also be asking to have him psychologically evaluated. Of course, there was no answer to such a question, yet Jack couldn’t help but ponder it. He had acclimated to the idea of having JJ evaluated, going along with Laurie’s idea that the more they knew about him, the better parents they could be. At the same time, Jack felt as strongly as he did before about the current rampant overdiagnosis of ADHD and the folly of putting so many children, particularly young boys, on stimulants. From his perspective, if there was going to be such a recommendation for JJ, there would have to be one hell of a good argument, and it would have to come from multiple sources.

Although JJ’s alarm wasn’t due to wake him up for another fifteen minutes or so, Jack put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave it a gentle jostle. He had to do it again several times with increasing force before the boy’s eyes opened. When he saw Jack, he sat up.

“What time is it?” he asked nervously, apparently thinking he’d overslept.

“It’s still early,” Jack said, speaking quietly. “Everyone is still asleep. I just wanted to talk with you before I go off to work.”

“What about?”

“About Mom’s surgery today,” he said. “Have you thought about it since you, Mom, and I discussed it last night?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“What do you mean?” JJ said.

“Does it scare you? Are you worried that she will be in the hospital for a few days? Anything like that?”

“I don’t know, maybe a little. Can I stay home from school today?”

Jack regarded his son. He tried to tell from JJ’s expression his motivation for asking if he could stay home from school. Knowing his son’s penchant for computer games, it was natural for Jack to be suspicious that electronic gaming was more the driving force than emotional turmoil, but how could he be sure?

“Is that what you’d like to do?”

“Maybe,” JJ said.

Jack smiled inwardly, sensing he’d already got his answer from his son’s equivocation. To test his suspicions, he said, “If you stay home, there will be very limited computer gaming.”

“Aw, why?”

“We’d have to get your school to send us the work you would be doing in class so you could do it here,” Jack said. “But let me tell you something. If you’re worried about Mom going into the hospital, going to school might be better to keep your mind occupied. That’s why I’m going to work, and I’m going to work particularly hard. What do you think?”

“I think I should go to school,” JJ said.

“I’ll call you as soon as I know her surgery is over,” Jack said. “How’s that?”

“That’s good,” JJ said.

“And you can call me whenever you want for whatever reason.”

“Yeah, I know,” JJ said.

“Do you want to come downstairs and have some breakfast with me?” he asked.

“Okay,” JJ said, as he struggled to untangle himself from his sheets.

Breakfast was a simple affair consisting of orange juice and cold cereal. Conversation involved the coming weekend with the promise of bike riding and using the lacrosse sticks in the park. When they were finished eating, JJ went back upstairs to dress for school while Jack wrote a note to Laurie. Although he had offered to stay home for the morning and drive her to the hospital, she had insisted otherwise. She’d said that she wanted him at the OCME to help George Fontworth if there was a need, which she doubted. She’d insisted that Jack not make a production of her having her minor procedure, as she called it, and that she preferred to get herself to the hospital. He hadn’t argued.

The last thing that Jack did was have a brief chat with Caitlin for final instructions and to make sure she had his mobile number front and center in case there was any need to get hold of him even though neither she nor Jack could see that happening. Then after a final goodbye to JJ, he got on his Trek, and headed south.

For the next thirty-one minutes Jack was able to enjoy himself. A combination of the weather and the required physical exertion cleared his mind. Even the traffic seemed slightly lighter than usual, and Jack had more tolerance than he often did for the yellow cabbies and the new bane of rideshare drivers. It was exactly 7:15 when he walked into the ID room to swat Vinnie’s newspaper and ask Jennifer if any interesting cases had come in overnight.

“It was kind of a slow night,” Jennifer said as he helped himself to a mug of the communal coffee. “But there is one here that might catch your interest. It’s a death by hanging that has the police confused as to whether it’s a homicide or a suicide.”

“Was there a suicide note?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t read the MLI report. Especially with the police expressing that kind of confusion, I knew it was a case that needed to be autopsied, so I just put it in the to-do stack.”

“Let me see it,” Jack said. He took the folder from her, leafed through the contents until he came across the MLI sheet, and pulled it free. He enjoyed doing cases that involved any type of controversy. The first thing he noticed was that the assigned MLI was Janice Jaeger, someone with whom he had worked on innumerable cases over the years and whose experience and acumen he truly admired. Often, she would anticipate the need for additional information or records and went ahead and ordered them before Jack even made a request.

Speed-reading through the investigative report, Jack learned that the victim was a twenty-eight-year-old Caucasian male who had been found hanged from a five-foot-high garden gate. He had been out drinking with friends but had gotten into a bar fight with someone who had been heard threatening that he was going to kill him. Later the victim had been escorted home by friends who’d described him as depressed and intoxicated. They said they had left him at the gate to the garden fronting his apartment. Hours later he’d been found by a passerby who’d called the police. At the very end of the report there was a final sentence that Janice had added as a postscript. It read, “See diagram and photos.”

Surprised by this suggestion, he went back to the case folder, which was more like a paper pocket for all the autopsy forms and labels it had to contain, and quickly found the diagram that Janice had hastily sketched with a stick figure. Stapled to the diagram were several pictures taken with a digital camera. They showed the victim in a sitting position with his back to the gate, his legs splayed out in front of him, and with his collar caught on the gate latch.

Jack slipped the investigative report back into the case folder. “I’ll take it,” he said to Jennifer. “And, just so you know, I want to stay busy today. Translated, that means I want you to keep me in mind for more cases.”

“I always do,” Jennifer said. She was telling the truth. Whenever she was the on-call ME and was presented with a case that she didn’t quite know what to do with, she knew she could call Jack, and usually did.

“One other thing,” he said. “When Dr. Nichols deigns to show up, send her down.”

“Don’t tell me we have to work with her again,” Vinnie whined from behind his newspaper.

“I’m afraid so,” Jack called over to him. “I promised both my wife and Dr. McGovern.”

When Vinnie didn’t bother to respond, Jack walked over and snatched away his newspaper. Instead of causing Vinnie to flinch, which was what he hoped and expected, Vinnie merely rolled his eyes. “You don’t need me if you have that miserable bitch’s capable hands.”

“Let’s not be nasty, and watch your language,” Jack said, feeling mildly frustrated by Vinnie’s total lack of response to having his paper taken. “Come on, big guy!” With his free hand he offered to pull Vinnie to his feet. “Let’s get a move on. I’m hoping for a big day ahead of us.” How big, Jack had no idea.

Juliana Santos and her younger brother Luiz had managed to immigrate to the US from Belém, Brazil, six years ago. Initially it had been a struggle to get by in Miami, where they first arrived. But thanks to some help from a couple of distant relatives as well as the Miami Brazilian community in general, they’d succeeded. Following an economic opportunity offered by an uncle, they moved on to New York, where they’d started a domestic house-cleaning service called Very Clean. Known by word of mouth as being thorough and reliable, they had relatively prospered, hiring five young women and buying a used Subaru station wagon and three vacuum cleaners. Luiz would drive the women to their respective sites, where they would work in groups of two. The entire day would find Luiz keeping in touch by phone and ferrying each team from one apartment to another.

The first stop on May 11 was 45 West 70th Street, where Juliana and her current partner, Antônia, climbed out from the Subaru bursting with women, cleaning products, and vacuums. “Adeus, vejo você mais tarde,” Juliana said with a wave. She was carrying a vacuum cleaner with the hose over one shoulder, a plastic bag of rags, and a roll of paper towels. Antônia had the buckets, mops, and cleaning products. With some difficulty and a lot of clanking sounds they climbed the granite steps.

Pausing at the building’s front door, Juliana put down everything she was carrying to get out her sizable key ring. After finding the appropriate key, she opened the front door only to discover it hadn’t been completely closed and latched and she would have been able to use her hip to push right in. “Merda!” she mumbled as she gathered up her belongings and stumbled into the building. It was the struggle with the vacuum cleaner that made it difficult. Once inside, she held open the door for Antônia. After walking down a short, narrow hallway by bypassing the contrasting rather grand staircase that swooped up and curved out of sight to her right, Juliana again put down everything to repeat the key process. With the door for the first-floor apartment, she knew she needed the key. In contrast with the door to the street, which was frequently not shut all the way, the apartment door was always latched.

Juliana had met this client on only one occasion several years earlier. She knew the woman was a doctor and hadn’t been all that friendly. On the positive side, she paid on time and never complained. Juliana marveled at the differences in the way various clients treated her and whomever she happened to be working with. Some people were openly condescending, others remarkably friendly, and others indifferent. Luckily the nature of the clientele was such that she didn’t have to interact all that often.

Once she got the door unlocked, she opened it and then gave it a shove out of the way. Picking up the vacuum cleaner once again, she stepped into the room. The moment she did, she noticed a stale odor that she couldn’t place. As Antônia followed her into the room, Juliana put her head back and sniffed the air. As someone perceptive to the ins and outs of cleaning, she sensed that there had to be something that needed attention but had no idea what it was. She was about to ask Antônia if she smelled an odd odor, when she realized that the client was home, seated in the chair directly in front of her but facing away so that she couldn’t see the woman’s face.

“Hello!” Juliana called out. She immediately regretted she’d not rung the bell or even knocked on the apartment door. Never before had this client been home. “Hello!” she called out again, only slightly louder. When there still was no response, she put down the vacuum cleaner and stepped around the chair. The second she caught sight of the woman’s face, she screamed, causing Antônia to do the same by reflex. A moment later Juliana had recovered enough to get out her phone and call 911.

Okay,” Jack said to Vinnie. “Armed with all the information we have from this masterfully done autopsy and the superb MLI investigative report, what do you think the OCME can tell the police about this case?”

It was now well after nine and the autopsy room was full, meaning all eight tables were in operation. Chet had appeared a little after eight and had come over to Jack’s table to ask if Aria Nichols had shown up as she was scheduled. When Jack had said no, he’d merely rolled his eyes before moving off to do his own case.

“I assume you’re asking about the manner of death,” Vinnie said in response to Jack’s question. He straightened up to stretch his back. He and Jack had been involved in a rather lengthy and tedious dissection of the victim’s neck, which was only done on cases like the present one, where neck trauma was expected. The main part of the autopsy, including the contents of the chest and the abdomen, had shown the victim to be free of disease, congenital malformations, or signs of trauma. The only abnormal finding had been some partially dissolved capsules in the stomach, suggesting the victim had taken some kind of medication or drugs along with his reputed alcohol. What the capsules were would have to wait for Toxicology, same with the ethanol content in his bloodstream.

“Well, it’s definitely not homicide,” Vinnie said.

“How can you be so sure?”

“With all the hemorrhage in the neck muscles, he wasn’t dead before he was suspended by his shirt collar,” Vinnie said. Vinnie enjoyed these sessions he had with Jack and felt that he’d learned an enormous amount about forensics over the years. “And I’ve never heard of a homicide done with a shirt collar.”

What he and Jack had found with their careful neck dissection was that the hyoid bone and the thyroid cartilage were both intact, both of which were often damaged in hanging situations. Besides the hemorrhage in the neck muscles, the only other pathology they found was the occlusion of the left carotid artery and left jugular vein, which coincided with a deep furrow or groove on the left exterior aspect of the victim’s neck that angled upward toward his right ear.

“I agree with you that the chances of this being a homicide are negligible,” Jack said. “So, what are we going to tell the police?”

“I don’t know,” Vinnie said. “The investigative report mentioned that his friend thought he was depressed. I suppose it could be suicide.”

“With no note?” he asked.

“That doesn’t influence me,” Vinnie said.

“I’m glad to hear that, because you’re right,” Jack said. “It’s estimated that two thirds of those who commit suicide don’t leave a note. If this guy was drunk and depressed, he certainly wouldn’t have searched around for pen and paper. But after doing this autopsy and rereading Janice’s investigative report, do you want to hear what I think happened here?”

“Lay it on me,” Vinnie said.

“I think this poor guy was so inebriated that when he tried to open the garden gate, he just sank relatively straight down, not falling over backward, but just collapsing like his legs became rubbery, and in the process the collar of his shirt caught on the gate latch. It didn’t completely suspend him, but it provided enough pressure to occlude the left carotid and the left jugular. End of story.”

“That means the manner of death was accidental,” Vinnie said.

“That’s going to be my interpretation,” Jack said.

“Dr. Stapleton,” a voice called.

Jack turned to face Sal D’Ambrosio, another mortuary tech.

“Excuse me, Dr. Stapleton,” Sal said. “Sorry to bother you, but I’ve been asked to let you know that Bart Arnold is here and needs to speak with you right away.” He pointed back toward the doors to the hallway. Through the wire-mesh-embedded windows, Jack could just make out Bart’s face, and that he was waving at Jack to come out.

“Why the hell doesn’t he throw on an apron and come in?” Jack questioned. As head of the MLI Department, Bart was a long-term employee who’d been in the autopsy room on multiple occasions.

“I wouldn’t know, Doctor,” Sal said. “But he’s pretty upset about something.”

“Oh, for Chrissake,” Jack muttered. One of his pet peeves was to be disturbed in the middle of an autopsy. At the same time, he knew he’d taken longer doing the current case than usual, trying to draw it out in case there wasn’t going to be another assigned to him. In many ways the autopsy room was Jack’s sanctuary.

He put down the blunt-nosed scissors he’d been using for the neck dissection, told Vinnie to go ahead and remove the skull cap, and headed for the exit door.

“What’s up?” Jack asked when he confronted Bart. Bart was a heavyset man with a mostly bald pate and just a tad of grayish straggly hair that ran around the back of his head from temple to temple. Although normally remarkably calm since he’d seen just about everything in his career as a death investigator for the OCME, he was noticeably agitated.

“Something unexpected and distressing has happened,” Bart said. “One of the NYU residents assigned this month to the OCME is either in the cooler already or on the way in.”

“My God!” Jack murmured. “Which one?”

“The woman,” Bart said in a forced whisper, even though no one else was in earshot.

“Are you talking about Dr. Nichols?” he said with disbelief.

“That’s exactly who I’m talking about,” Bart said with a nod of his head. “The call came in about an hour ago that the victim had overdosed. I mean, talk about this fentanyl-opioid epidemic getting close to home; I’m blown away. This is like one of our own. Anyway, knowing the potential repercussions and all, I handled it myself rather than assigning it to one of my team. I visited the scene and found it a typical overdose with drug paraphernalia out on the coffee table, including the syringe she’d used. My estimate is that she’d been dead eight to ten hours with her algor mortis and her full rigor mortis.”

Jack’s mind switched into overdrive, trying to think of the best way to handle the situation.

“I’ve already called Dr. Montgomery,” Bart added, stumbling over his words.

“That’s unfortunate,” Jack said, immediately thinking that Laurie didn’t need this kind of stress hours before she was scheduled to be admitted for her surgery.

“I didn’t quite know what to do,” Bart confessed. “I know your wife is scheduled for surgery this afternoon but...”

“You could have called George Fontworth,” he said. “He’s the acting chief at the moment.”

“I tried,” Bart said. “He wasn’t immediately available, so I left my name and number. When he didn’t call right back, I thought I should let Laurie know. It seemed like an emergency.”

“Okay, what’s done is done,” Jack said. “What did she say? Should I call her?”

“She told me to speak directly with you, which is why I’m here,” Bart said. “She said you should be the point person and do the autopsy. She also asked me to ask you to call Dr. Henderson, to make sure he knows what’s happened. And she wants you to give Mrs. Donnatello a heads-up so Public Relations can deal with the press.”

“Did she say anything about me getting in touch with her?” Jack asked. For him, that was the key question. If Laurie was distressed or worried about the situation, he needed to call her. If not, he didn’t want to bother her. She surely had enough on her mind.

“I don’t think she expects a call about this,” Bart said. “That was my sense.”

“All right, good,” Jack said. “Is your investigative report already done?”

“I’ll make sure it’s in the case file,” Bart said. “But I can assure you that there will be no surprises. As I said, it was a very typical overdose scene.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” Jack said. “I appreciate you coming all the way up here to 520.” Ensconced in relative luxury in the new high-rise digs, the MLIs rarely ventured back to their old haunt.

“You’re welcome,” Bart said. “Apparently the mother is coming in from Greenwich, Connecticut. If I learn anything pertinent, I’ll let you know.”

“On your way upstairs, would you do me a favor?” he asked. “Let Dr. Hernandez know I’ll be doing the Nichols autopsy.”

“I certainly will,” Bart said. “And let me know if you find anything unusual.”

With a sudden burst of energy, Jack pushed back into the autopsy room. What he’d just heard from Bart was certainly terrible news as Jack didn’t wish death on anyone, even someone he found personally trying, yet the awfulness of the news provided a modicum of secondary gain. He was in desperate need of something to take his mind off Laurie’s surgery, and the shocking death of Aria Nichols was certainly going to qualify as a major distraction. As unliked as she was by the mortuary techs, he vaguely wondered if anyone at the OCME was going to miss her.

“Okay, let’s get this case done,” he said when he returned to table #1. In his usual efficient manner, Vinnie had already made a saw cut around the victim’s skull, allowing Jack to lift off the top of the cranium, exposing the brain.

As he was freeing up the brain in anticipation of lifting it out of the skull, Vinnie waved his hand in front of Jack’s face to get his attention. Having worked together on so many cases, they knew each other intimately. “What’s up, boss? You seem mighty stressed.”

Jack straightened up. “You’ll never guess what Bart Arnold wanted to see me about.”

“Sensing your reaction, I wouldn’t even want to try,” Vinnie said.

“I’m afraid the reason Dr. Nichols hadn’t shown up to help us on this case is because she is going to be our next case.”

“Come again?” Vinnie said. He froze. He was holding a pan in anticipation of Jack putting in the brain he’d just removed.

“Dr. Nichols is our next patient,” Jack said. He went back to the business at hand.

“Holy shit,” Vinnie murmured. It was his turn to stare off into the distance.

“Could you hold the pan a little closer?” By this time Jack was juggling the brain in his hands, and because of its texture and consistency, it couldn’t have been more slippery. The last thing he wanted to do was drop it on the floor.

“Sorry,” Vinnie said as he extended the pan for Jack to slosh in the brain. “How the hell did she die?”

“Another apparent overdose,” Jack said. “Can you believe it?”

“God, no!” Vinnie said. “It doesn’t seem possible. We just did two cases with her yesterday. I had no idea she was a drug user. Good riddance.”

“Let’s not be nasty,” he said. “Besides, I’m supposed to be the sarcastic one, not you, and let’s not forget that Aria had her good points. Personally, I think she was going to be one hell of a good pathologist.”

“I can tell you that none of us techs are going to miss her.”

“As expected, the brain looks a little edematous and congested,” Jack said, trying to return his and Vinnie’s attention to the case at hand. He’d put the brain on the cutting board and had made a few slices with a butcher knife. He then put it all into a jar of fixative. Vinnie meanwhile started sewing up the body to close the main Y incision, the incision made in the neck, and the skull cap.

A few minutes later the autopsy was complete. Wordlessly the two men organized the specimen jars and did basic cleaning. Finally, Jack helped Vinnie move the body from the table to a gurney.

“Thank you for helping make this case go so smoothly as usual,” Jack said. “While you take the body into the cooler and finish preparations for the next case, meaning Dr. Nichols, I have to make a call. It won’t take me long, so go ahead and set up. It’s going to be one hell of a strange situation. Are you up for it?”

“I suppose,” Vinnie said. “And you?”

“I guess,” Jack said, although he wasn’t completely certain. It was emotionally uncharted territory.