"Now, what have we here?" Maureen questioned with her heavy brogue. She looked from Laurie to the bag Laurie was carrying. "Let me guess: tissue samples whose slides you desperately need yesterday."

Laurie smiled guiltily. "Am I really that predictable?"

"With you and Dr. Stapleton, it's always the same story. Whenever you two come in here, you've got to have the slides immediately. But let me remind you of something, sister: Your patients are already dead." Maureen laughed heartily, and a few of the other histology techs who'd overheard joined in.

Laurie found herself chuckling as well. Maureen's ebullience was infectious, and it never varied, despite the lab being chronically understaffed due to OCME budgetary restraints. Laurie opened the bag, took out the tissue samples, and lined them up on the counter next to Maureen's microscope. "Maybe if I told you why I'd like these sooner rather than later, it might help."

"As busy as we are around here, a few extra hands would be more helpful than talk, but fire away."

Laurie pulled out all the stops, knowing there was no professional reason for what she was asking. She started by describing how sympathetic Dr. and Mrs. McGillin were, and how their deceased son seemed to have been their whole life. She even mentioned the son's imminent marriage and the parents' hope for grandchildren. She then admitted that she had promised to provide the couple the cause of their son's death that morning to help their grieving. The problem was that the autopsy had failed to confirm her clinical impression. Thus, she needed the slides in hopes the answers would be forthcoming. What she didn't explain were her personal reasons for taking on this mini-crusade.

"Well, that's quite a touching story," Maureen said softly. She took a deep breath and then gathered up the samples. "We'll see what we can do. I promise you we'll give it a go."

Laurie thanked her and hurried out of histology. She glanced at her watch. It was already after eleven, and she wanted to call Dr. McGillin before noon. Taking the stairs, she descended a floor and walked into the toxicology lab. Here, the atmosphere was different than in the histology lab. Instead of a babble of voices, there was the continual hum of the sophisticated and mostly automated equipment. It took Laurie a few moments to locate anyone. To her relief, she saw Peter Letterman, the assistant director. If it had been the lab director, John DeVries, Laurie would have walked out. She and John had gotten off on the wrong foot back when Laurie desperately needed quicker results on a series of cocaine overdose cases and had badgered the man. That was thirteen years earlier, when Laurie had first started at the OCME, and John had held on to his animosity like a dog with a bone. Laurie had long ago given up trying to make amends.

"My favorite ME," Peter said happily, catching sight of Laurie. He was a thin, blond man with androgynous features and almost no beard. He wore his long hair in a ponytail, and although he was pushing forty, he could still pass as a teenager. In contrast to John, he and Laurie got along famously. "You have something for me?"

"Indeed I do," Laurie said. She handed over the bag while warily looking around for John.

"The Führer is down in the general lab, so you can relax."

"It's my lucky day," Laurie commented.

Peter glanced in at the sample bottles. "What's the scoop? What am I looking for and why?"

Laurie told a shorter version of the same story she'd related to Maureen. At the end, she added: "I don't really expect you to find anything, but I've got to be complete, especially if the microscopic doesn't show anything."

"I'll see what I can do," Peter said.

"I appreciate it," Laurie responded.

After climbing back up the single flight of stairs, Laurie walked down the corridor toward her office. She passed Jack's office, with its door ajar, but neither Jack nor his officemate, Chet McGovern, were inside. Laurie assumed that they were both still down in the pit. Coming into her own office, she immediately caught sight of her suitcase that she'd brought from Jack's. Although she hadn't forgotten the morning's confrontation, seeing the suitcase brought it back with unpleasant clarity. It also didn't help that she felt let down by not finding a smoking gun during Sean McGillin's autopsy. The more she thought about it, the more surprising it was.

How could an ostensibly healthy twenty-eight-year-old man die and the cause not be apparent from a combination of a detailed history and the autopsy? In some respects, the case was mildly shaking her belief in forensic pathology.

"That microscopic better come through!" Laurie voiced out loud as she sat down at her desk. She was emphatic but didn't quite know how she would act on the threat if the microscopic failed to live up to her expectations. Leaning over, she added the folders from the morning's cases to her sizable unfinished pile. It was Laurie's job on each case to collate all the material from the autopsy, from the forensic investigators, from the laboratories, and from any other source she needed to come up with a cause and manner of death. The meaning of "cause" was obvious, whereas "manner" referred to whether the death was natural, accidental, suicidal, or homicidal, each with specific legal ramifications. Sometimes it took weeks for all the material to be available. When it was, Laurie had to make her decision about the cause and manner on a preponderance of evidence, meaning she had to be at least fifty-one percent certain. Of course, in the vast majority of cases, she was close to or at one hundred percent certain.

Laurie took the sheet of paper containing Dr. McGillin's phone number from her pocket and smoothed it out on the blotter in front of her. Although she was reluctant to call him, she knew she had to make good on her promise. The problem was, Laurie was not good at any type of confrontation. It was a given that he was going to be even more let down, as there was, as of yet, no ostensible cause for his son's untimely death.

With her elbows on her desk, she leaned forward to massage her forehead while staring at the Westchester number. She tried to think of what to say in hopes of mitigating the impact. For a fleeting moment, she considered handing the situation over to the public relations department as she was supposed to do, but she quickly ruled that out, since she had specifically offered to make the call herself. While her mind was struggling over her prospective wording, she found herself thinking about the victim's first name, Sean, since it was the name of a college boyfriend.

Sean Mackenzie had been a colorful fellow Wesleyan University student who'd appealed to Laurie's rebellious side. Although he wasn't exactly a hoodlum, he'd been a bit over the edge with his motorcycle, artistic craziness, and outlaw behavior, including mild drug use. At the time the whole package had excited Laurie and driven her parents to distraction, which was part of the attraction. But the on-again, off-again relationship had been unhealthily mercurial from the start, and Laurie had finally put an end to it just before joining the OCME. Now, with her relationship with Jack in question, she vaguely thought about calling Sean, since she knew he was living in the city and had become a rather successful artist. But she quickly nixed the idea. There was no way she wanted to reopen that Pandora's box.

"A penny for your thoughts?" a voice asked.

Laurie's head popped up. Filling her doorway was Jack's athletic, six-foot frame. He was the picture of relaxed informality in his lived-in chambray shirt, knitted tie, and faded jeans.

"Let's up that to a quarter," he added. "There's been significant inflation since I learned that phrase, and I know how valuable your thoughts are." An impish smirk dimpled his cheeks. His lips were pressed together into a thin line.