‘How are we doing?’ I asked.
‘She’s got a STAT alcohol of .23,’ he replied, examining a section of aorta. ‘So that didn’t get her. I think she’s going to be an exposure death.’
‘What are the circumstances?’ I could not help but think of Jane.
‘Apparently, she was out drinking with friends and by the time they took her home around eleven p.m. it was snowing pretty hard. They let her out and didn’t wait to see her in. The police think her keys fell in the snow and she was too drunk to find them.’
He dropped the section of aorta into a jar of formalin. ‘So she tried to get in a window by breaking it with her cast.’
He lifted the brain out of the scale. ‘But that didn’t work. The window was too high up, and with one arm she couldn’t have climbed in it anyway. Eventually she passed out.’
‘Nice friends,’ I said, walking off.
Dr. Anderson, who was new, was photographing a ninety-one-year-old woman with a hip fracture. I collected paperwork from a nearby desk and quickly reviewed the case.
‘Is this an autopsy?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Dr. Anderson said.
‘Why?’
She stopped what she was doing and looked at me through her face shield. I could see intimidation in her eyes. ‘The fracture was two weeks ago. The medical examiner in Albemarle was concerned her death could be due to complications of that accident.’
‘What are the circumstances of her death?’
‘She presented with pleural effusion and shortness of breath.’
‘I don’t see any direct relationship between that and a hip fracture,’ I said.
Dr. Anderson rested her gloved hands on the edge of the steel table.
‘An act of God can take you at any time,’ I said. ‘You can release her. She’s not a medical examiner’s case.’
‘Dr. Scarpetta,’ Fielding spoke above the whining of the Stryker saw. ‘Did you know that the Transplant Council meeting is Thursday?’
‘I’ve got jury duty.’ I turned to Dr. Anderson. ‘Do you have court on Thursday?’
‘Well, it’s been continued. They keep sending me subpoenas even though they’ve stipulated my testimony.’
‘Ask Rose to take care of it. If you’re free and we don’t have a full house on Thursday, you can go with Fielding to the council meeting.’
I checked carts and cupboards, wondering if any other boxes of gloves were gone. But it seemed Gault had taken only those that were in the van. I wondered what else he might find in my office, and my thoughts darkened.
I went directly to my office without speaking to anyone I passed and opened a cabinet door beneath my microscope. In back I had tucked a very fine set of dissecting knives Lucy had given to me for Christmas. German made, they were stainless steel with smooth light handles. They were expensive and incredibly sharp. I moved aside cardboard files of slides, journals, microscope lightbulbs and batteries and reams of printer paper. The knives were gone.
Rose was on the phone in her office adjoining mine, and I walked in and stood by her desk.
‘But you’ve already stipulated her testimony,’ she was saying. ‘If you’ve stipulated her testimony, then you obviously don’t need to subpoena her to appear so she can give you her testimony . . .’
She looked at me and rolled her eyes. Rose was getting on in years, but she was ever vigilant and forceful. Snow or shine she was always here, the headmistress of Les Miserables.
‘Yes, yes. Now we’re getting somewhere.’ She scribbled something on a message pad. ‘I can promise you Dr. Anderson will be very grateful. Of course. Good day.’
My secretary hung up and looked at me. ‘You’re gone entirely too much.’
‘Tell me about it,’ I said.
‘You’d better watch out. One of these days you may find me with someone else.’
I was too worn out to joke. ‘I wouldn’t blame you,’ I said.
She regarded me like a shrewd mother who knew I had been drinking or making out or sneaking cigarettes. ‘What is it, Dr. Scarpetta?’ she said.
‘Have you seen my dissecting knives?’
She did not know what I was talking about.