"Well, I've got to get downstairs and do my next case," Riva said.

Laurie waved over her shoulder, preoccupied by printing out the documents.

"Don't you have another case as well?" Riva asked.

"Oh! Shit!" Laurie said. With her burgeoning interest in the MRSA cases, she'd forgotten. It was embarrassing to think that Marvin was patiently waiting.

"You're preoccupied," Riva said. "I'm sure I can get someone else to do it."

"I'll do it," Laurie said. While she didn't want to take time away from her current project, she felt guilty about not doing her share. "If you see Marvin down there, tell him I'll be calling him shortly."

With a final nod, Riva disappeared, leaving the door ajar.

Laurie went back to her computer and made the final click to load the second document into the printer queue. Knowing she'd have to wait five or ten minutes for the two documents, she went back to her matrix, adding Riva's cases. When she was finished, she leaned back. It was a sizable list, certainly bigger than the two matrixes she'd made in the past. Now she had to decide how to label the columns. Some of the information she thought appropriate was intuitive, such as: age, sex, race, doctor, date, hospital, diagnosis, type of surgery, predisposing factors, anesthesia, and staph type. Laurie then drew more vertical lines next to the ones she'd already drawn. She knew she needed little space for things like age and sex, and more for predisposing factors and diagnosis. When she was finished, she made sure there was room for more columns. And it was for that reason she was pleased to have the hospital records. She knew that by going over them, she'd come up with more categories.

Satisfied with her progress, Laurie leaped up from her desk with the intention of dashing to the computer room, only to collide into Jack as he appeared in the doorway. Both were surprised, but more so for Laurie, who let out an involuntary yelp. In the process of grabbing Laurie's upper arms, Jacked dropped the case files he was carrying, as well as his crutches.

"My God!" Jack joked. "What is there, a fire in here?"

Laurie pressed a hand to her chest. It took a few breaths before she could talk. "I'm sorry," she managed. "I guess I'm preoccupied and in a hurry."

"I heard as much about the preoccupied part," Jack said. "I ran into Riva getting off the elevator. She said you'd come across something that you found particularly interesting but didn't elaborate. What's up?"

"Have you had any MRSA cases in the last three months or so with pulmonary involvement?"

"You have to give me more of a clue what you are asking. You know I'm not good with acronyms."

"Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus," Laurie said.

"Uh-oh. Is this a setup? Isn't MRSA what your ACL case had this morning?"

"It is," Laurie admitted. She started to bend down to retrieve Jack's case files and crutches.

Jack, who was still holding onto Laurie's upper arms, restrained her and then bent down to gather his belongings. "I can't recall having any MRSA ever," he said, while straightening up.

"How about Chet?"

"Now, he might have. It seems to me I heard him talking on the phone about staph with Miss Smiles, Agnes Finn. Whether it was MRSA or not, I have no idea."

"Thanks for the tip. I'll have to ask him."

"So it's obviously MRSA that has you so preoccupied and in a hurry."

"It's certainly the preoccupied part, but the reason I'm in a hurry is because I forgot I've got another case to post. Poor Marvin's been waiting for several hours."

"Riva mentioned the case as well. She said she offered to have someone else do it. She said you didn't take her up on the offer, although she sensed that you wanted to."

Laurie let out a small laugh. "That's sensitive enough on her part to be almost scary."

"Then let me do it," Jack said. "I'm done with all my cases, and from what Riva said, the post itself should be straightforward. I mean, it's going to be plain blunt trauma with the poor guy falling ten stories onto concrete."

"You don't mind?" Laurie questioned. "Maybe you should give it another thought. Riva mentioned to me earlier that there are three stakeholders who are very interested in the case. All three want a different manner of death. No matter what you come up with, two other people are going to be disappointed. That's not your favorite kind of case."

"I think I can handle it."

"Well, then I'll take you up on the offer. But there's one important fact that didn't get in the PA's report, which I got from Cheryl, and which might be important. It was the distance from the building that the body landed. It was twenty-one feet."

"Sounds like I might have to dust off my high-school physics," Jack said. "Now that we have that settled, why are you preoccupied about MRSA? It's not that it is new; it's been a big problem in hospitals for some time. Or shouldn't I ask?"

"You shouldn't ask!" Laurie agreed. "Not until I get more information. Then I'll sit you down for a convincing PowerPoint presentation."

"Why do I have a bad feeling about the goal of this supposed presentation?"

"Because you are worried I'm going to change your mind."

"Fat chance, Laurie, I'm having my knee fixed come Thursday."

"We'll see," Laurie said confidently. "Come on! I'll ride down in the elevator with you. I need to pick up some material I just had printed."

As they walked down the hall toward the elevator, Laurie asked Jack about his previous case, the last of the three homicides Lou was interested in. She'd heard Lou's description that morning about the detective sergeant's daughter and the baseball bat.

"It's a good one," Jack said, manipulating the crutches like a pro. "It was another opportunity for our PAs to shine. Steve Mariott noticed there were no footprints in the copious amount of blood on the floor. I mean, in and of itself, it doesn't mean a whole lot, but it made him look at the scene a little closer than he might have otherwise, which turned out to be key. The victim's forehead was bashed in, with even a bit of brain tissue extruding, but the overall shape of the wound wasn't concave like you'd expect a bat to cause. I made a mold of the injury, and its tramline."

"You mean it's more like having been caused by a sharp edge?" Laurie questioned as they boarded the elevator.

"Exactly," Jack said, grabbing both crutches in one hand so he could press the button for the basement. Laurie leaned over and hit the button for the first floor. The OCME printer was in the computer room, which was part of the administration area.

"Steve had noticed a bit of blood on the cast-iron edge of a granite coffee table. He'd even taken a picture of it, as well as the bat. I think Satan Thomas, in a drunken, drug-addled stupor, fell while trashing the apartment and hit his forehead on the edge of the coffee table. To prove it, I've sent one of the daytime PAs back to the scene to get a mold of the table's edge."

"That's terrific," Laurie said. "Lou is going to be pleased."

"I think the girlfriend is going to be the most pleased."

The door to the elevator opened. Laurie gave Jack a quick hug and thanked him for volunteering to do her case.

"I'll think of a way you can pay me back," Jack said with a wink and a smile.

After the elevator door closed, Laurie hustled down the main corridor toward the office printer in the computer room. She was determined to take advantage of this unexpected free time. With the hospital records of Riva's two cases, she planned on working more on her matrix by creating more categories and filling in the boxes she could. What Laurie was interested in was finding some hidden commonality among the cases, which could explain the sudden cluster.

Laurie also wanted to get in touch with Cheryl Myers, if Cheryl hadn't called her already, and get the phone contacts Laurie had asked for. She wanted to call the CDC and the joint commission, but mostly she wanted to call Loraine Newman. In the back of her mind, Laurie had begun to believe that a visit to the Angels Orthopedic Hospital and perhaps even Angels Healthcare was in order, even though such excursions were discouraged by the chief. Ten years earlier, Laurie had been called into the chief's office and chastised for making a similar site visit; Bingham felt strongly that visiting scenes was the province of the PAs, not the MEs. But under the circumstances she felt justified, even impelled, and not just to bolster her argument against Jack's surgery. Her intuition was telling her that there was something vaguely unsettling about this series of MRSA cases that went beyond the Typhoid Mary theory.