“Wait, Cheryl,” Laurie called out. “I’m expecting Dr. McGovern any minute. Would you send him right in when he appears?”
“Will do,” Cheryl said. “And I’ll have the coffee back here in a flash.”
As it turned out, Chet arrived just as Cheryl was delivering Laurie’s coffee. Graciously she asked him if he would like some, but he brandished his cup, saying he’d already been to the communal pot.
Laurie gestured toward the couch and then followed Chet, bringing her coffee. She often preferred sitting there instead of remaining behind the imposing desk. She felt the latter was more appropriate for confrontations than for discussions.
“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” Chet began. “And I’m sorry I’m a little late.”
“That’s okay,” Laurie said reassuringly. “But we might have to cut our discussion short, as I have a morning meeting down at City Hall. I’ll need to leave here in about twenty minutes.”
“That should be plenty of time,” he said. He had been with the OCME just a tad longer than Jack. They were hired the same year and ended up sharing an office. Consequently, they’d become such good friends that Laurie knew more about Chet than she knew about the other medical examiners. He was about Jack’s size, with a similar skin tone and athletic build, to the point that they appeared almost like brothers. In Laurie’s estimation, which she admitted was biased, both were seriously attractive men. The main difference was that Chet was experiencing a receding hairline, and to compensate he’d grown a mustache and a goatee. Laurie wasn’t a fan of facial hair but appreciated that Chet kept his well-trimmed.
“Before we start, I’d like to pay you a compliment,” she said. “You have been doing a bang-up job as director of education. Everything on the education front at the OCME has improved since you took over, even the conferences and lectures. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Chet said, obviously pleased with the recognition. “I do think education here at the OCME is important and deserves equal attention at all levels. The Forensic Fellowship Program has always been given a lot of emphasis and has been consistently top-notch. It’s the pathology resident rotation that’s been relatively ignored from an educational standpoint, and for good reason. First off, the residents are only here for a month out of a four-year NYU pathology residency, and second, the idea is just to give them a sense of forensic pathology without any real responsibility.”
“This is all true. Are you suggesting we change the program somehow?”
“No,” he said without hesitation. “Just more supervision. Generally, the program works as is. What’s really brought this issue to my attention is an isolated situation with a particular resident named Dr. Aria Nichols.”
“I remember you mentioning her name when you asked to speak with me,” Laurie said. “I had Cheryl check. Miss Nichols has been with us since the beginning of the month.”
“That’s right,” he said. “She and a Dr. Tad Muller rotated over here May first as part of their fourth-year anatomical pathology program, and there can’t be two more different residents. It’s like they’re from different planets. The program is clearly not working for Dr. Nichols.”
“Can you be more specific?” Laurie asked. She put her cup down on the side table and turned to look more directly at him. “What do you mean by ‘not working’?”
“After she’d been here almost a week, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen much of her whereas I’d run into Dr. Muller all the time. When I checked, I realized she’s often been skipping the cases she’s been assigned. Following my predecessor, here’s how the system is supposed to work: every morning I check all the scheduled cases, figure out which ones might be good for the residents, and then ask the assigned medical examiner if it would be okay if the resident observed and participated to whatever degree the ME was comfortable with. Invariably the MEs say yes, so I assign the residents two cases a day, usually. In the past, that was generally the end of it, meaning there wasn’t any follow-up to make sure the resident actually participated in the autopsy, mainly because they were not responsible for filling out and signing the death certificate.”
“They’re not allowed to sign death certificates,” Laurie interjected.
“Yes, I know,” Chet said. “But the problem is they have no real responsibility. When I realized I hadn’t been bumping into Aria Nichols, I talked to the MEs on the cases I’d assigned her and found out that she’d go into the pit in the morning, hang out for a time, maybe even ask a few questions, apparently good questions, since she’s no dummy, but then leave. Other cases that I had assigned her later in the day, for the most part, she just ignored.”
“That’s rather brazen,” she said.
“That’s only half of it,” he said. “When I approached her to call her on it, she just out-and-out lied to me, saying she’d stayed for all the cases she had been assigned. Several days ago, when she left the first case after about a half hour, I followed her out of the OCME without her knowing.”
“Where did she go?” Laurie asked. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more — a resident assigned to the OCME leaving in the middle of the morning or the director of education following her. The thought went through her mind that perhaps Jack could have been right about Chet’s motivation.
“Next door,” Chet said. “She went into one of the Pathology labs and started reviewing the day’s frozen sections. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Did you say anything to her?”
“Of course,” he said. “How could I not? I was appalled. I went up to her and asked her what the hell she thought she was doing.”
“And what was her response?”
“She said that if I didn’t know what she was doing that I was dumber than I looked.”
A slight laugh escaped from Laurie’s lips, although she regretted it the moment it happened. Chet had clearly been offended by the resident’s cheeky response. Quickly she said: “So, she made no attempt at explanation or any type of apology?”
“Hardly,” Chet said. “She then told me to fuck off and leave her the hell alone.”
“You’re kidding,” Laurie exclaimed. It was obvious to her that this woman was a far cry from being a typical pathology resident. In her role as the chief medical examiner, Laurie couldn’t help but see dealing with this behavior pattern as a potential problem in relation to the NYU Department of Pathology unless it was decided to kick the can down the road and let NYU worry about her. Good relations between OCME and the NYU Department of Pathology was a high priority for a multitude of reasons, including the Forensic Pathology Fellowship Program. The fellows trained at the OCME but got their certification from the NYU Medical School. At the same time there was an ethical issue involved.
“I don’t know how she got into medical school, wherever she went,” Chet added, “or how she got selected for a residency at such a high-powered institution. I couldn’t believe her audacity. So, I came back here to the OCME and sought out Tad Muller, who’s been behaving just the opposite. I was hoping for some perspective. I didn’t tell him exactly what had happened, but I did say that she seemed to be a unique individual and mentioned she was shirking responsibilities. His response was to laugh and admit she was one of a kind. Without any further provocation he said she was not very well liked by her fellow residents, although she was respected for her intelligence and encyclopedic knowledge of pathology. He said that some people thought she was so bookish that she comes across as somewhat of a sociopath.”
“Being a sociopath seems like an extreme diagnosis for a pathology resident,” Laurie said.
“I agree,” Chet added. “I said pretty much the same thing. I thought it had to be an exaggeration. But then Dr. Muller elaborated. He said she’s pretty damn manipulative and not all that empathetic when it comes to the on-call schedule. He even said that one time while having a conversation with her about dogs, she confided that she didn’t like them and that there was a yappy dog that lived in her building that she’d thought about doing in because it barked all the time.”