Relieved that the sensation had vanished, Laurie quickly dressed. She was on call for the weekend, which meant that of all the medical examiners at the OCME, it was her turn to go in and see what kind of cases had arrived during the night. She knew that she would probably be doing a few autopsies, unless they all could be put off until Monday, which in her experience had never happened. There was a person on second call in case of a flood of urgent cases, but in Laurie's experience that never happened, either.
The weather was typical for New York in March-drizzling and cold. Laurie huddled under her umbrella as she trudged north on First Avenue. She had briefly searched for a taxi, but whenever the weather turned sour, they were hard to find.
As she walked, Laurie thought more about her conversation with Jack. In hindsight, she realized how her emotions had understandably been careening from one extreme to another. Although she now felt self-conscious about her reaction to Jack asking who the father was, since it was, in the final analysis, a reasonable question, she gave herself credit in general for having admirably maintained her composure. Considering the stakes involved, it might have been one of the most important conversations in her life. All she could do now was pray Jack would respond as she hoped. Given Jack's track record, she imagined the chances were only about fifty-fifty.
On the street outside the OCME were several TV media trucks, suggesting that something newsworthy had happened overnight, and Laurie's guard went up. Dealing with the media was not her favorite part of being a medical examiner. She'd had some unfortunate experiences with journalists in the past, to the extent of putting her job in jeopardy.
For a moment, Laurie hesitated and debated if she should head around to the 30th Street morgue entrance. She glanced back at the TV trucks. There were only three, and their antennae were not extended, suggesting that they were not anticipating breaking news. Guessing that whatever had drawn them to the OCME was not front-page news, Laurie climbed the steps and entered. A dozen or so journalists and three cameramen were making themselves at home in the lobby.
Waving a greeting to Marlene, who came in for a few hours every Saturday morning, Laurie tried to walk across the lobby to be buzzed in. Almost immediately, a journalist who recognized her blocked her way by thrusting a microphone in her face. Several bright lights switched on, bathing the lobby in stark illumination as cameramen hoisted their equipment to their shoulders.
"Doctor, do you care to comment on the accident?" the journalist questioned. Others crowded around, extending their own microphones. "In your opinion, was it a double suicide, or were the two boys pushed?"
Laurie shoved the microphone out of the way. "I have no idea what you are talking about, and any information coming from this office has to be cleared by the chief, the deputy chief, or the public relations office. You people know that."
Laurie pushed her way toward the ID room while ignoring a welter of further questions. To her relief, Robert was visible through the central glass pane. With his help, she got inside and closed the door behind her with the journalists stranded out in the lobby.
"Thanks, Robert," Laurie said, peeling off her coat.
"They're like a bunch of wolves," Robert responded.
"What's this is all about?" Laurie asked.
"A couple of thirteen-year-old boys were run over by a subway train."
Laurie winced. Such a scenario was going to be emotionally taxing for her, and she was surprised she'd not been called during the night. Luckily, the current batch of tour doctors was particularly competent, and they had significant experience under their belts to handle all but the most critical cases. The tour doctors were mostly senior pathology residents earning a bit of money by moonlighting.
"Have the IDs been done?"
"Yup! That was all taken care of during the night."
Laurie was glad that was out of the way. For her, the ID process was especially trying with children, as it invariably meant dealing with the bereaved parents.
Laurie continued into the ID office, delighted to see Marvin's weekend call coincided with hers. He'd already made the coffee and had laid out the folders of the cases that had come in, with one of them in front of him.
Laurie and Marvin exchanged greetings as she helped herself to a mug of coffee. "Looks like we're going to be busy," she said, eyeing the folders.
"I'm afraid so," Marvin agreed. He tapped the folder in front of him with his knuckle. "We got another of these confusing postoperative cases from the General."
"No kidding!"
"There's a note from Janice on the front."
Laurie read the note quickly. It outlined the details on Patricia Pruit, answering all the usual pertinent questions. Laurie sucked in a deep breath. Providing she found no significant cardiac pathology, her series was now up to fourteen, with eight at the Manhattan General alone. It couldn't go on.
"Let's do Pruit first," Laurie said.
"Before the two boys?" Marvin questioned. "Did you see all the newspeople waiting out in the lobby?"
"I did, and they can wait some more," Laurie said. She wanted to confirm as soon as possible that Pruit was part of her series and let Roger know. Something had to be done. They couldn't stand on the sidelines any longer.
"Okay, I'll go down and get set up."
"Anything else of note?"
"Most seem routine to me. I think you'll want to pass on the majority of them. My guess is that we are looking at doing four cases, but you may have other ideas."
While Marvin went down to the autopsy room, Laurie went through all the folders. As she had anticipated, Marvin was right. They'd do the four cases and call it a day, unless anything of note came in while they were working. With that decided, Laurie went up to her office to stash her coat. She was glad she had, because sitting on her desk was a stack of hospital charts. To her amazement, the PAs had somehow managed the impressive feat of getting Lewis and Sobczyk's charts from the Manhattan General and the six charts from St. Francis, all in record time.
The chart on the top of the pile was Rowena Sobczyk's. Laurie flipped it open and shuffled through some of the pages, glancing at the OR notes and the anesthesia record. As with McGillin and Morgan, there was nothing out of the ordinary. She was about to put the chart down when a short strip of abnormal EKG flopped out. It was about two feet long, having been folded, accordion-style, into the chart with just the first six inches glued to the page.
Laurie opened the chart to the location. It was a note written by the resident in charge of the resuscitation attempt. Laurie quickly read it and found it unenlightening. She then extended the EKG tracing and studied it. The complexes were stretched out, suggesting that they represented ineffectual heartbeats, if they had been heartbeats at all. They could have been merely poorly coordinated cardiac electrical activity that didn't cause any muscular contraction. As the sequence continued, the complexes became progressively more distorted, then rapidly flattened out to a straight line. On the border, scribbled in pencil, was the message: "Short EKG segment from the outset of the resuscitation attempt, after which no further electrical activity was obtained."
She'd never had a strong background in reading EKGs, and this short segment didn't suggest anything to her. Yet she couldn't help but think it might be significant, since there had been no similar tracings on either McGillin or Morgan, who'd had no electrical activity on EKG whatsoever, and she thought she might show it to someone more knowledgeable than she. She marked the spot in the chart with her ruler, and even scribbled on a Post-it note to remind herself to show the tracing to a cardiologist.