Free The Lightning Rule by Brett Ellen Block

Fourth Precinct.”
    “Ain’t that something. I live on Charlton Street. We’re practically neighbors.” Her inflection telegraphed the message that she was aware of what went on at the precinct, but this was business. Any differences would be left at the door.
    “I usually try to get home by five. If I’m late, you don’t have to stay.”
    “If you’re late, you’re late, Mr. Emmett. It’s okay. Life isn’t always predictable.”
    Life wasn’t predictable. All he could be certain of was that the victim from the subway tunnel was lying in the morgue with his throat slit. Nothing and no one could change that, including Emmett. He hadn’t settled on what he was going to do about the case. It was a decision even he couldn’t predict.

EIGHT
    The entrance to Newark City Hospital was as inviting as a vise grip. The stoic, redbrick building had been designed in a horseshoe shape, creating a cul-du-sac with the main door at the center. Throughout different eras, the original structure had been expanded upon, so additions protruded from the roofline like growths gone unchecked. The hospital seemed less like a refuge than a last resort.
    Established to serve the city’s indigent and needy, City Hospital was as poorly funded as its patients. Its equipment was outmoded, its staff a skeleton crew, and its security nonexistent. Bedside curtains and toilet seats were considered luxuries, and mice could be seen scampering along the corridors’ baseboards. A diarrhea epidemic had broken out two years earlier, resulting in the death of eighteen infants and branding the hospital with a reputation as a place where people had a higher chance of dying than getting better. It was appropriate then that the Essex County coroner’s office was situated in the hospital’s basement. Knowing the elevators carried cadavers, lice-infested linens, and infectious patients as well as the visitors, Emmett took the stairs down.
    In order to reach the morgue, he had to navigate an intricate network of hallways, each virtually identical in their blandness, all of the doors closed save for the occasional supply closet. Emmett had gottenlost on his first trip there to see the body of Vernon Young. No signage marked the path. The morgue was the sort of place that seemed intentionally difficult to find.
    When Emmett finally did find it, he almost wished he hadn’t. Heavy double doors opened into the examination area, which bore an uncanny resemblance to a mechanic’s shop. Spray nozzles dangled from the ceiling, and metal tables split the basement into bays. Because of the coolers, the air was chilly, congealing the oily odor of innards with the tartness of chemicals and cleaning fluid. Tiled floors and walls created the faint echo of an empty pool. A bald man in a rubber apron was standing at the sink, the water running high. His back was to the door and to the corpse of an elderly black man lying on a slab, the chest cavity exposed, the skin peeled open.
    Emmett wasn’t squeamish. Life at the abbey had prepared him to be dispassionately passionate. Denied worldly possessions and frequent contact with family, he had mastered the art of detachment. Beliefs were to be intense, fervent. Emotions were not.
    “Didn’t hear you come in,” the man in the apron said amiably, cranking off the faucet as soon as he noticed Emmett. He was so trim that he had to loop the apron strings around his waist repeatedly to keep it tied on.
    “Is this a bad time?”
    “I’m sure this gentleman won’t mind. He’s not in a rush.”
    “Is Doctor Aberbrook around?” Emmett shifted his jacket to show his badge.
    “Nope. He retired. Moved to Florida.”
    That was news to Emmett. Working in the Records Room had the same effect on him as living at the seminary, where television, books, papers, and all links to the outside were prohibited. Emmett was utterly ignorant of change. Again, the world hadn’t waited for him and he was sprinting to catch up.
    “Retired?