“I still might have to, after what happened last night,” George said.
“I certainly hope not,” she said, although she knew there was a slight chance. That morning when Laurie got to the OCME, intending to call the surgeon immediately, she had to deal with another mild calamity first by having a lengthy and unpleasant meeting with the director of the Mortuary/Transportation Department. Even though at the City Council Health Committee meeting the day before she’d testified that the problem of bodies being misdirected had been solved with the changes that she’d instigated to the case management system, it had happened again, just last night. Similar to the previous episode, the deceased shared the same family name. This time it was Cooper. However, they did not share the first name as had been the case with the two Nortons, so the incident highlighted pure, unadulterated mismanagement on the part of the responsible mortuary technician. On this occasion it was an Arlene Cooper and an Alan Cooper, meaning they didn’t even share the same gender. Luckily the mix-up was immediately discovered by the first funeral home, so the involved families remained in the dark about their loved ones taking one extra final ride before their funerals.
George pushed back from the desk and stood; Laurie did the same.
“I want to thank you in advance for what you’ll be doing,” Laurie said. She was genuinely grateful, and it was going to be one thing less to worry about with George at the helm while she was in the hospital and convalescing at home if that was necessary.
“I’m here to help you, Laurie. We will all want you to be back as soon as you can. I hope all goes smoothly.”
“I appreciate your thoughts and well-wishes,” she said as she accompanied George to the door. “I’ll keep you up to speed as things develop. Until I make an announcement, I would prefer that you keep what I’ve said to yourself.”
“It goes without saying,” George said. “Will you be at this afternoon’s conference?”
“I certainly plan to,” Laurie said.
After George walked across the outer office and into his own, Laurie called out to Cheryl that she was expecting Dr. Nichols and to send her right in. In anticipation, she left her door ajar.
Returning behind her desk, she sat down. She needed a little breathing time as it had been nonstop activity since she’d arrived. But it wasn’t to be. Almost the moment she sank into her desk chair Aria walked through the open door. Curious whether their time together the day before doing the autopsy would influence Aria’s haughty, almost aggressively hostile attitude, Laurie watched her from the moment she appeared. Most people were mildly intimidated by the size of the office in conjunction with Laurie’s lofty title. But not Aria. She didn’t so much as glance at her, nor did she seem to survey the scene. Instead she just marched in and plopped herself down into the seat that George had just vacated as if it were her office, not Laurie’s. Only then did she look across the desk at Laurie with an expression of contemptuous boredom. With some effort Laurie controlled her irritation.
The two women eyed each other for a moment, each expecting the other to break the silence. Laurie was the first to respond. “After working together yesterday, don’t I deserve at least a ‘Hello, Dr. Montgomery’?”
“You’re the one who asked me to come here, not the other way around.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Laurie said, inwardly smiling at her own behavior. It wasn’t like her to have such petty thoughts. She reminded herself she was dealing with an individual with obvious psychological problems, which was one of the reasons she had requested to see her. That morning, like almost every morning, Laurie made what she called autopsy chief rounds. Just after nine she’d gone down to the pit despite how busy she was and went from table to table to hear extemporaneous presentations by each medical examiner of the case they were doing. The overt justification for the exercise was the idea of her possibly adding some bit of knowledge or experience to the case. For the newer MEs and the Forensic Pathology fellows, this often was helpful and educational, less so for the more experienced. But for Laurie, it was a pleasure as well as an acknowledgment of how much she missed participating in the nitty-gritty of forensic pathology these days. Around 9:15 as she was nearing table #1, the table that Jack invariably used, she became aware of Aria’s presence. Although it sounded as if things were going okay with Jack lecturing and Aria seemingly listening, which surprised her, she didn’t want to be the spark that might set off a major conflagration between two potentially flammable personalities. So she deliberately avoided table #1 or even advertising her presence by saying hello. Yet her curiosity had been aroused. When she got back to her office a few minutes later, she sent Aria a text that she wanted to see her. Finding out why she and Jack had not been at each other’s throats was just one of the reasons why.
“How is your day going?” Laurie asked.
“That’s what you needed to talk to me about?” Aria asked with obvious disbelief. Small talk to her was clearly a total waste of time.
“I understand you were assigned a gunshot case this morning,” Laurie said. “Did you find it interesting?”
“No! It was a bore,” Aria said. “Dr. Stapleton likes to lecture too much, overly explaining even super-simple stuff.”
“Most people don’t find working with Dr. Stapleton boring,” Laurie said. She couldn’t help but feel a little defensive. She wondered who had been acting out of character. When she had first realized they were together, she’d regretted not telling Chet to avoid pairing them. Yet her concern obviously had been without basis. Her curiosity ratcheted upward.
“Most people are probably reluctant to tell the truth about Jack Stapleton because he is married to the chief,” Aria said.
“Maybe so,” Laurie said to humor her but also thinking there might be some truth to what she had just said. It was an issue she’d not given too much thought. Nonetheless, she couldn’t wait to hear Jack’s side of this strange episode, recognizing that he had to have been on remarkably good behavior for some unknown reason. With that decided, she moved on to the real reason she wanted to see Aria. “Have you made any progress with the Kera Jacobsen case?”
“Some, but not a lot,” Aria said. “Enough to realize I’ve hit somewhat of a brick wall.” Although brick wall was a common term, Aria had found in her reading about genetic genealogy that the field had commandeered the term for problems some people faced while filling out their family trees. Curiously enough, it applied already to Kera’s case even though the genealogy part hadn’t begun.
“You’ll have to explain,” Laurie said.
“I spoke with the MLI on the case as you insisted,” Aria said. “He was helpful in that he put me onto the only two people who might have been able to help me locate Lover Boy: Kera’s close friend and coworker, Madison Bryant, and a nosy, paranoid, misfit neighbor, Evelyn Mabry. I already spoke at length with both of them. By far Madison Bryant was the most helpful. Evelyn Mabry was a dud. She saw Lover Boy on multiple occasions by looking through her peephole but claims she never saw his face. All in all, Lover Boy managed to keep his identity unknown from either one, which has just magnified my suspicions about the guy.”
“So ‘Lover Boy’ is what you’ve decided to call the missing father?” Laurie said.
“Yeah,” Aria said. “Seems appropriate. My sense is that they didn’t do a lot of socializing. I think they just met at her place for sex, which was most likely his decision, not hers, which makes me guess he is married.”