Night Shift

Chapter 1

Tuesday, December 7, 6:45 a.m.

Without making it obvious, Dr. Jack Stapleton put muscle into the mild hill climb on West Drive in Central Park where it bordered the reservoir. It had given him a bit of satisfaction to overtake and pass a small, tight covey of younger, serious cyclists on their imported road bikes, all of them clad in skintight, fancy duds emblazoned with all sorts of European product endorsements and wearing clip-in, expensive bike shoes. He, of course, was on his relatively new US-made Trek bike that was every bit as fancy as the others, but his dress was far different. He was wearing his usual brown, wide-wale corduroy jacket, blue jeans, and an indigo chambray shirt with a dark green knit tie. Instead of bike shoes he had on Nike kicks. His only concession to the forty-five-degree weather were gloves and a scarf.

As he had done practically every morning since he had arrived in New York City to begin his new life and second medical career as a New York City medical examiner at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, or OCME, Jack was using his bike to commute from his home on the Upper West Side down to the east side of the city. It was a far different mode of transportation than when he’d been a conservative, midwestern ophthalmologist. Back then he drove a Mercedes to his office every day, attired in a glen plaid suit with carefully polished shoes.

The current pacesetter of the group of well-heeled cyclists responded just as Jack envisioned. It would have been demoralizing to have a middle-aged, possibly blue-collar individual pass them, so he stood up and began a chase. There was no way for the cyclist to know that Jack probably rode his bike more often than they did. Nor did they have any idea that Jack also played demanding pickup basketball on a near-daily basis, weather permitting, and was accordingly in tip-top physical shape. The rest of the cyclists followed the lead of the pacesetter, standing up and pumping furiously.

Meanwhile, without making it obvious by remaining sitting, Jack increased his own effort such that his lead slightly increased despite the more obvious efforts of the pursuing bicyclists. Several minutes later, as Jack crested the hill and began his descent, he stopped pedaling and allowed himself to coast, which permitted the clot of pursuers to finally catch and overtake him to regain their sportive dignity.

Under more normal circumstances Jack would have continued the impromptu race all the way to the south end of the park, where he’d exit on his way to work. But on this particular morning, his attention switched from aggravating the “serious” cyclists to musing about the Brooks School that he was passing to his right on Central Park West. It was where his son, JJ, was enrolled in the fifth grade. As if it were yesterday and with understandable chagrin, Jack could remember his disastrous visit there two years earlier, when Laurie, his wife, asked him to go to talk to the school authorities in her stead about their concern that JJ needed to take Adderall for ADHD after JJ had gotten into a few tussles on the playground.

What made Jack an inappropriate substitute for Laurie was that he was absolutely convinced there was nothing atypical with JJ. Combining that reality with his belief in some kind of conspiracy between the pharmaceutical and education industries, both of which seemed in his mind to be overly eager to start kids on what was essentially speed and turning them into nascent druggies. Unfortunately, Jack had made sure that the Brooks School knew exactly how strongly he felt. As a result, he had succeeded in alienating the school authorities, who threated to expel JJ. Ultimately, Jack had agreed — along with Laurie’s insistence — to have JJ at least evaluated by a psychiatrist, who agreed with the diagnosis, but luckily by that time it no longer mattered. The evaluation process had taken long enough that it was apparent to all that JJ was not exhibiting any more playground shenanigans. As a result, the school’s insistence on medication fell by the wayside — that was, until last week, when JJ had had another fight during recess. Suddenly the whole issue had resurfaced, and it was the reason Jack was now on his way to the OCME so early in the morning. The night before, he had been harangued by both Laurie and her mother, Dorothy, who were both championing the use of ADHD medication. Awakening way before the alarm and not wishing to be again subjected to more pressure before rethinking all the pros and the cons of the situation, Jack had decided to leave the apartment before anyone else was awake.

Jack’s normal route would have taken him to the southeastern corner of Central Park, but because of the dramatic uptick in bicycle use in Manhattan due to a combination of frustratingly heavy vehicular traffic, the Covid-19 pandemic, and E-bikes, bike lanes had majorly proliferated. The result was that his commute was significantly faster and safer, although Laurie doubted the latter. Now Jack exited the park in the southwest corner into Columbus Circle. From there, he used the dedicated bike lane to head south on a combination of Broadway and Seventh Avenue all the way to 30th Street. Conveniently, 30th Street also had a bike lane, although it wasn’t as safe since it was merely painted on the pavement alongside the parked cars. Jack’s destination was at the corner of 30th Street and First Avenue, where the old OCME building stood, which still housed the autopsy suite.

As Jack rode east on 30th, his thoughts went back to Dorothy’s role. He recognized she evoked serious ambivalence in his thinking. In relation to his daughter, Emma, who had been diagnosed several years earlier with autism, Dorothy had played a positive role. She had taken it upon herself to organize and then manage the complicated interviewing, choosing, and scheduling of the behavior therapists, speech therapists, and physical therapists who were responsible for Emma’s impressive progress. But even Emma’s improvement was not without some controversy. Jack was inclined to enroll Emma in a specialized school for children on the autism spectrum that was close to the Brooks School. But Dorothy disagreed and so far had convinced Laurie to her point of view.

Worse than the mild disagreement over Emma’s situation was Dorothy’s continued anti-vaccine stance, since she still insisted that it had been Emma’s MMR vaccine that had caused her autism, even though the possibility had been scientifically proven false. Worse still, her anti-vaccine feelings had extended to the Covid-19 vaccine, and no matter what Jack or Laurie said, Dorothy refused the jab. Making her intransigence that much worse was that Dorothy had all but moved in with them to take over the second guest room right after her husband, Laurie’s stern cardiac surgeon father, had passed away three months ago, in September.

On several occasions Jack had tried to broach the issue of establishing some appropriate time frame for Dorothy to move back to her spacious Park Avenue co-op, but Laurie wouldn’t hear of it. It was her belief that Emma was benefitting greatly from having her grandmother constantly around and that Dorothy was still much too fragile to move back to an empty apartment.

All in all, Jack was feeling a bit like the odd man out, especially with Laurie acting more and more like the chief both at work and at home. Not wanting to force the issue and possibly cause a disruption in the fragile home environment, Jack looked to work to occupy his mind and emotions. He needed to scare up some kind of difficult case to monopolize his thoughts. It had worked in the past; investigating a chiropractic death had helped him deal with JJ’s diagnosis of neuroblastoma when the boy was an infant. One of the definite benefits of being a medical examiner was that every day was different and there was always the possibility of confronting a perplexing circumstance. He and Laurie certainly had proven that over the years without an ounce of doubt.

After waiting for a green light to cross First Avenue at the corner of 30th Street, Jack rode down along the old OCME building that had long ago overstayed its usefulness. When it had been built more than a half century ago it had been state of the art. Now it was hardly that. A new autopsy building with offices for the medical examiners and the Toxicology Department was sorely needed. It was supposed to be built near the new high-rise OCME building four blocks to the south but had been held up by budgetary problems. It was one of his wife’s main objectives in her role as the chief medical examiner of the City of New York, and she was counting on the new mayor soon to be sworn in to give it the green light.

Turning in at the receiving bay where bodies arrived and departed, Jack rode between the parked ME Sprinter vans, hoisting his bike up onto his shoulder as he climbed the side stairs up onto the platform. Then, walking the bike, he passed the security office and waved to the guards, who were busy in the process of changing shifts. Jack did the same passing the mortuary techs’ office. Off to the left, where the Hart Island coffins for unclaimed bodies were stored, Jack secured his bike and helmet with a cable lock to a standpipe. He was the only one who used his bike to commute to work, and there was no official bike stand. Nearby was the darkened, isolated autopsy room for decomposing bodies.

Eager to see what the night had brought in terms of new cases, Jack mounted the stairs one floor, passed through the sudden infant death syndrome room, and entered the part of the ID area where the day began for the OCME. It was a little after seven in the morning.