"I'll do my best," Jack said. "What else?"

"The next one's a sad story. A detective sergeant in Special Fraud, and a good guy, has a daughter who has been arrested for killing her good-for-nothing boyfriend with a baseball bat last night. His name is Satan Thomas, if you can believe it. She's been a disaster for the detective since she was a preteen, always hooking up with the dregs for boyfriends and into drugs and you name it. Anyhow, she denies killing the guy and says the boyfriend was using the baseball bat to trash the apartment. She even claims he came after her, which he'd done in the past. By the way, Satan's delightful family is camped out in the waiting room."

"You mean he'd been physically abusive to her."

"Apparently. She claims that when she fled, he was still busting up the place."

"Did it look like he died of blunt trauma?"

"Oh, yeah! I'm afraid it looks like he got bashed in the forehead with the bat."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Sounds bad for your detective friend, and even more so for the daughter." Jack felt depressed. Two out of three autopsies were going to be straightforward. Reluctantly, he asked for the details on the third case.

"This one is similar to the last, but it's the girl who got whacked. She, too, was in an abusive relationship, according to her parents, the Barlows, who are also still in the waiting room. Apparently, Sara Barlow and her boyfriend got into a row over the fact she didn't clean the apartment to his liking. He admits he slapped her around but claims that when he left to calm down, she was fine, just bawling and saying she'd do better. When he gets back, he claimed she was lying across the bed with her face and hands purple."

"Purple blotches or her whole face?"

"One of the patrolmen who responded to the scene insisted the boyfriend said the whole face, but when the patrolman viewed the body, all he saw was what he described as purple bruises."

"What about the hands?"

"He didn't say."

"Did you see the body?"

"I did. I happened to be in the area because of the detective's daughter's case, so I went over."

"And?" Jack questioned.

"Just looked like bruises to me, too. I was convinced he beat her up good."

"What about the hands?"

"I guess they could have been somewhat blue. What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking this case might be interesting," Jack said, as he reached for his crutches and got to his feet. "How about we do it first."

"I'm more interested in the floater," Lou called after him. "I might not be able to stay awake for all three, so I'd appreciate the floater first."

Jack approached the desk. Riva was still going through the cases, suggesting it was going to be a busy day. Laurie had a couple of envelopes on her lap. She was sitting in the club chair next to Vinnie, who was still behind his paper.

Remembering the reporters in reception, Jack called back to Lou, asking which of the three cases had brought the reporters to the OCME so bright and early. Short of possibly the floater, Jack had a hard time imagining any of the three being particularly newsworthy. In a city the size of New York, sad, violent events were all too common.

"None of the ones I've talked about," Lou called back. "The media is salivating about a death in police custody in the Bronx of a man called Concepcion Lopez. It's going to be one of those excessive-force brouhahas, I'm afraid. What I was told was that the guy went ballistic with an overdose of cocaine."

Jack merely nodded, thankful Lou wasn't encouraging Jack to do it. Police custody cases invariably were political disasters, which Jack found trying. No one was ever satisfied with the report, always claiming a cover-up.

"I'll see you downstairs," Lou said, getting up out of his chair with some effort. "I want to stop in Sergeant Murphy's cubbyhole and see if a missing-person complaint has been filed for John Doe."

"Have you come across Lou's John Doe floater?" Jack asked Riva.

Riva was immediately able to put her finger on the case file, since it was on top of the pile of apparent homicides. She handed it to him.

"How about two blunt-injury cases?" Jack asked. "The names are Thomas and Barlow."

Riva had to hunt for these cases in the stack, which was uncharacteristically high.

"Ugly night in the Big Apple," Jack commented. "You'd think people could solve their differences more amicably."

Riva smiled politely at Jack's weak attempt at humor. It was too early in the morning to respond verbally. She found the folders, and handed them over as well.

"Mind if I do these cases?" Jack asked.

"Not at all," Riva said in her soft, silky voice. She was a petite, gentle Indian American with dark skin and even darker eyes.

"Who is going to do the police custody case?" Jack asked.

"The chief called and said he wanted to do it," Riva said. "Since I was on call, I guess I'll have to be the one to assist him."

"My condolences," Jack said. Although Dr. Harold Bingham had an encyclopedic knowledge of forensics, helping him on a case was always an exercise in frustration control. No matter what you did as the assistant, it was never right, and the case invariably dragged on interminably.

Jack was about to wake Vinnie up from his sports statistics-induced trance when Laurie looked up from her reading. In contrast to Jack, who was content to skim-read the case material prior to the autopsy, she liked to go over it in exquisite detail. Jack felt that too much attention to detail initially prejudiced his ability to keep an open mind, while Laurie felt that not going over the history increased the chances she'd miss something. They'd argued over the issue but had finally agreed to disagree.

"I think you should read this," Laurie said in a serious tone, extending a case toward Jack. "I think you will find it personally disturbing."

"Oh?" Jack questioned. He read the victim's name, David Jeffries, which he did not recognize. His brows knitted in confusion over Laurie's comment and tone as he slid out the contents of the envelope. "What do you mean, 'personally disturbing'?"

"Just read the PA's investigator's note," Laurie suggested. PAs were physician assistants who worked as forensic investigators. It was the OCME's policy that PAs visited the scenes when indicated rather than forensic pathologists. The Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Harold Bingham, felt strongly that it wasn't an efficient use of the M.D.'s time, despite his recognition that in some cases a site visit was crucial to determine the mechanism and manner of death.

It took only a few sentences for Jack to understand. David Jeffries had died of a fulminant postoperative staphylococcus infection following an anterior cruciate ligament repair, due to a particularly nasty type of staph called methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Considering the argument he and Laurie were having over Jack's upcoming surgery, it seemed coincidentally relevant, even if it involved another hospital. "I know what is going through your mind," Jack said, "but it ain't going to change my mind. I've already taken into consideration the risk of postoperative infection. Fearmongering is not going to work."

"But this coincidence has to give you pause," Laurie said. She knew it would certainly give her more than pause if the situation were reversed and she was slated to have the surgery.

"Frankly, it doesn't," Jack said. "First, I'm not superstitious, and second, I specifically asked Dr. Anderson what his postsurgical infection rate was. He told me that the only postoperative infections he'd had over his entire career involved compound-fracture repairs, which are a totally different situation. Besides, this case you're showing me involved University Hospital." Jack tried to return the file to Laurie, but she wouldn't take it.