Free Cure by Robin Cook Page B

she slipped from her stool and came out from behind the desk to give Laurie a forceful hug. Laurie was initially taken aback by Marlene’s enthusiasm, but she quickly relaxed and let herself enjoy the warm welcome. It was a good thing, because Marlene’s reaction to seeing Laurie was to be repeated by just about everyone Laurie would encounter throughout the day.

    Inside the ID room where relatives were confronted by photos of the dead or the body itself if they insisted, Laurie and Jack found Dr. Arnold Besserman, who’d been working at OCME for thirty-some-odd years. As it was his turn to be the on-call medical examiner, he was sitting at the old, dented metal ID desk, checking 43

    through the most recent arrivals. It was immediately obvious it had been a quiet night in the Big Apple, as there was only a short stack of case files for him to deal with.

    Like Marlene, although not quite so ardent, Arnold got up as soon as Laurie appeared and gave her a welcoming hug.

    Also in the room was Vinnie Amendola, one of the mortuary techs. He regularly came in a half-hour early to transition from the two night techs, but really what he did was make the communal coffee in an institution-size drip coffee machine.
    He had to wait for Arnold for his turn to greet Laurie, then retreated to one of the old leather club chairs and his copy of the Daily News. He and Jack were close, though it was sometimes hard to tell amid their verbal sparring. On most days Vinnie and Jack started autopsies as much as an hour before anyone else.

    “What do we have today?” Jack asked as he followed Arnold back to the desk.

    “Not much,” Arnold said vaguely. He knew full well what Jack was up to—namely, cherry-picking cases—which had always rubbed him the wrong way in contrast to all the other medical examiners, who forgave Jack this habit since he always did more cases than anyone else. Animosity had simmered between the two because Jack saw Arnold as a slacker who was merely putting in his time, doing as little as possible, certainly not carrying his weight, to reach retirement age, affording maximum pension.

    Despite a threatening look from Arnold, Jack started pawing through the case files, checking each one quickly for the circumstances of death, such as GSW
    (gunshot wound), hospital-based if unexpected, accident, suicide, murder, or somehow suspicious.

    With his hands on his hips and a frustrated, impatient expression on his face, Arnold let the whistling Jack continue with no attempt of assistance, which he could have given, since he’d already gone through the cases himself.

    Still absorbed in his rapid assessment of the day’s autopsy workload, Jack became aware of another occupant in the room. In one of the club chairs facing the radiator was another male figure scrunched down so that just the top of his hat could be seen over the back of the chair. The only other parts of his body that were visible were his scuffed shoes, which were balanced on top of the radiator cover.Thinking the hat and shoes could belong only to one person, Jack dropped the case files, rounded the desk, and walked over to where he could glance down at the sleeping figure. As he’d suspected, it was a long-time friend, the recently promoted Detective Captain Lou Soldano.

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    “Look who’s here!” Jack called out to Laurie, who was busy making herself a cup of coffee to her liking.

    Laurie immediately walked over and, standing next to Jack, joined him in gazing down at Lou. Not much of Lou’s face was visible, as he had his hat tipped down to cover most of it. His arms were crossed on his chest. Over them was an open newspaper. His coat was on but unbuttoned and trailing on the floor. He was breathing deeply but not snoring, and the open newspaper across his chest rose and fell rhythmically.

    “He must be exhausted,” Laurie remarked like the mother she now was.

    “He’s always exhausted,” Jack said. He reached down to tip Lou’s hat