squeezing between speeding delivery vans and parked cars; he no longer
slalomed down Second Avenue; and for the most part he stayed out of
Central Park after dark.
Jack came to a stop at the corner to wait for the light, and as his foot
touched down on the pavement he surveyed the scene. Almost at once he
became aware of a bevy of TV vans with extended antennae parked on the
east side of First Avenue in front of his destination: the Office of the
Chief Medical Examiner for the City of New York, or what some people
called simply, the morgue.
Jack was an associate medical examiner, and he’d been in that position
for almost a year and a half so he’d seen such journalistic congestion
on numerous occasions. Generally it meant that there had been a death of
a celebrity, or at least someone made momentarily famous by the media.
If it wasn’t a single death, then it was a mass disaster like an
airplane crash or a train wreck. For reasons both personal and public
Jack hoped it was the former.
With a green light, Jack pedaled across First Avenue and entered the
morgue through the receiving dock on Thirtieth Street. He parked his
bike in his usual location near the Hart Island coffins used for the
unclaimed dead and took the elevator up to the first floor.
It was immediately apparent to Jack that the place was in a minor
uproar. Several of the day secretaries were busily manning the phones in
the communications room: they normally didn’t arrive until eight. Their
consoles were awash with blinking red lights. Even Sergeant Murphy’s
cubicle was open and the overhead light was on, and his usual modus
operandi was to arrive sometime after nine.
With curiosity mounting, Jack entered the ID room and headed directly
for the coffeepot. Vinnie Amendola, one of the mortuary techs, was
hiding behind his newspaper as per usual. But that was the only normal
circumstance for that time of the morning. Generally Jack was the first
pathologist to arrive, but on this particular day the deputy chief, Dr.
Calvin Washington, Dr. Laurie Montgomery, and Dr. Chet McGovern were
already there. The three were involved in a deep discussion along with
Sergeant Murphy and, to Jack’s surprise, Detective Lieutenant Lou
Soldano from homicide. Lou was a frequent visitor to the morgue, but
certainly not at seven-thirty in the morning. On top of that, he looked
like he’d never been to bed, or if he had, he’d slept in his clothes.
Jack helped himself to coffee. No one acknowledged his arrival. After
adding a dollop of half-and-half as well as a cube of sugar to his cup,
Jack wandered to the door to the lobby. He glanced out, and as he’d
expected the area was filled to overflowing with media people talking
among themselves and drinking take-out coffee. What he didn’t expect was
that many were also smoking cigarettes. Since smoking was strictly
taboo, Jack told Vinnie to go out there and inform them.
‘You’re closer,’ Vinnie said, without looking up from his newspaper.
Jack rolled his eyes at Vinnie’s lack of respect but had to admit Vinnie
was right. So Jack walked over to the locked glass door and opened it.
Before he could call out his no smoking pronouncement, he was literally
mobbed.
Jack had to push the microphones away that were thrust into his face.
The simultaneous questions precluded any real comprehension of what the
questions were other than about an anticipated autopsy.
Jack shouted at the top of his lungs that there was no smoking, then had
to literally peel hands off his arm before he was able to get the door
closed. On the other side the reporters surged forward, pressing
colleagues roughly against the glass like tomatoes in a jar of
preserves.
Disgusted, Jack returned to the ID room.
‘Will someone clue me in to what’s going on?’ he called out.
Everyone turned in Jack’s direction, but Laurie was the first to
respond. ‘You haven’t heard?’
‘Now, would I be asking if I’d heard?’ Jack said.
‘It’s been all over the TV for crissake,’ Calvin snapped.
‘Jack doesn’t own a TV,’ Laurie said. ‘His neighborhood won’t allow it.’