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She hadn't even spoken with the man in weeks, even though she'd promised to get back to him. As she put the folder down with the other, she made a mental note to call him.

She wondered what the man would say if she told him she was entertaining the idea of a serial killer.

Feeling confident in Janice's assessment, Laurie went ahead and added Lewis and Sobczyk to the matrix, even though she had yet to do the posts. Since Janice anticipated Laurie's interest, she had done a very complete job on both cases. Even without the hospital charts, Laurie could fill in the boxes for the patients' ages, the times they had been pronounced dead, their MDs, the surgical procedures they'd undergone, and where in the hospital they'd had their rooms. While Laurie was busy doing this, Riva arrived.

"Adding to that matrix of yours?" Riva questioned, glancing over Laurie's shoulder.

"There are two more presumed cases. That's going to make six. Obviously, I haven't done the posts yet, but they sound exactly the same. Want to change your idea about the manner of death? I mean, this is going to be a fifty percent increase."

Riva laughed. "I don't think so, especially since the toxicology has been negative, and I for one happen to know how hard Peter has tried. By the way, how's your mother? I keep forgetting to ask."

"She's doing surprisingly well," Laurie said. "Of course, I don't hear much, since she's acting like the whole thing never happened."

"I'm glad she's doing well," Riva said. "Give her my best! Hey, how is that new beau of yours? You've been uncharacteristically silent about him."

"It's going well," Laurie said vaguely. Riva was right; Laurie had not shared much about Roger. Picking up her phone before Riva could ask any more questions, she called down to the mortuary office. She was pleased when Marvin answered. She told the tech about the two cases and said she wanted to do Sobczyk first. With his usual alacrity, he told Laurie he'd be waiting for her.

"See you in the pit," Laurie said to Riva as she scooped up Sobczyk and Lewis's folders. As she descended in the elevator she prepared herself mentally for the cases, which was easy, since she half assumed and half hoped she wasn't going to find much.

By the time she had changed into scrubs, donned her moon suit, and pushed into the autopsy room, Marvin was almost ready. On the way to her table, she had to pass Jack's.

Recognizing Laurie, Jack glanced at the wall clock before straightening up from the opened body of a sizable elderly lady. A portion of her gray, stringy hair had been shaved to reveal a punched-out, depressed fracture of the skull on the top of her head.

"Dr. Montgomery, it appears as if you are adopting banker's hours these days. Let me guess! I bet the explanation is that you were out painting the town red with your French boyfriend."

"Very funny," Laurie said. She fought against her irritation and the urge to walk on.

"Actually, you are wrong on both counts. I was home last night, and Roger is as American as you or I."

"That's strange," Jack said. "Rousseau sounds so French to me. Wouldn't you agree, Vinnie?"

"Yeah, but my name's Italian, and it doesn't mean I'm not American."

"My gosh, you're right!" Jack said with false contrition. "I guess I'm jumping to conclusions here. Sorry!"

Laurie was embarrassed at Jack's behavior and the jealous anger he was doing a bad job of repressing. But under the circumstance of being in the autopsy room with Vinnie, she chose to change the subject. She pointed to the elderly woman's depressed skull fracture. "I see you have a rather obvious cause of death here."

"The cause maybe, but not the manner," Jack said. "Such cases are becoming my specialty."

"Would you care to explain?" Laurie questioned.

"Are you really interested?"

"I wouldn't be asking if I weren't."

"Well, the victim was hastily off-loaded from a cruise ship in the middle of the night.

The cruise company claimed an inebriated elderly lady had a fatal fall in the bathroom of her stateroom. They reported there was no suspicious behavior and no violence involved. But I don't buy it, although she might have been drunk."

"Tell me why you don't buy it."

"First, the punched-out, depressed fracture is on the top of the head," Jack said, warming to the conversation. "That's hard to do if you're falling in a bathroom, unless you're a contortionist. Second of all, look at these patterns of bruises on the inside of her upper arms!" Jack pointed to linear groupings of petechiae, which Laurie could see when she looked closer.

"Next, notice the tan lines on her wrist and ring finger. She'd spent some serious time in the sun on the cruise, with what looks like quite a rock on her finger and a wristwatch.

And guess what? No ring and no watch in the stateroom. I have to hand it to the tour doctor. Despite the hour, he was thinking in high gear. They had cleaned up the stateroom and the bathroom, but he still asked the right questions."

"So you think it was homicide."

"No question, despite the cruise company's comments to the contrary. Of course, I'll just be reporting the findings, but if anybody asked my opinion, I'd tell them that this woman was viciously knocked on the head with some kind of hammer, rudely dragged by her arms into her stateroom while still alive, robbed, and left to die."

"Sounds like a good case to emphasize that deaths among the elderly are in some respects similar to deaths involving child abuse."

"That's exactly right," Jack said. "Since the elderly are expected to die, there is less suspicion of foul play than with a younger person."

"It's a good teaching case," Laurie said, trying to put on a good face before moving on to her table. Although she was leaving the exchange on a reasonable note, its overall character was more evidence of how difficult it was going to be to have any kind of serious discussion with Jack about their relationship even if he was so inclined. But she put the thought out of her mind as she looked down on the body of Rowena Sobczyk.

"Do you suspect anything out of the ordinary on this case?" Marvin asked.

"Nope. I believe it is going to be straightforward," Laurie said as her trained eye began the external exam. Her first impression was that the woman looked considerably younger than the reputed twenty-six years. She was tiny with delicate, almost preadolescent features as well as thick, youthful-appearing curly black hair. Her skin was almost blemish-free and ivory-white, except for areas of dependent lividity. Both feet were bandaged, consistent with her surgery. The bandages were clean and dry.

Like with McGillin and Morgan, the remnants of the resuscitation attempt were still in place, including the endotracheal tube and the IV line. Laurie checked them carefully before removing them. She looked for signs of drug abuse and found none. She took off the bandages. The surgical incisions showed no signs of inflammation, and only minimal drainage.

The internal portion of the autopsy was the same as the external: negative for any obvious pathology. In particular, the heart and the lungs were entirely normal. The only finding was several cracked ribs from the resuscitation attempt. As with the other cases, Laurie made certain that she got more than adequate samples from all the usual places for toxicology screening. She was not about to give up hope that Peter would succeed with his magic on one of the cases.

"Do you want to do the second case right away?" Marvin asked when they had finished sewing the body back together.

"Absolutely," Laurie said. To expedite the transition, Laurie helped. As they passed Jack's table on the way out and again on the way in, Laurie made sure she didn't hesitate. She didn't want to be embarrassed again by any of his comments. If he saw her, he did not let on. By that time, the room was in full operation with lots of people coming and going, and in their moon suits, everyone looked rather similar. Thanks to the glare of the overhead lights, it was difficult to see through the plastic face masks.

As soon as they moved Stephen Lewis onto the table and into position, Laurie began her external exam. Meanwhile, Marvin went to get the specimen bottles and other materials for the case. Laurie forced herself to follow her usual protocol to avoid missing anything. Although her expectations were high that Stephen Lewis would be like the others in the sense of having no significant pathology, she wanted to be thorough, and her methodical approach paid off almost immediately. Barely discernable but definitely present was a small amount of crusted blood under the nails of his right index and ring finger. If she hadn't specifically looked, she would have missed it. It was something she'd not seen with Sobczyk, Morgan, or McGillin, and George and Kevin had not described it in the autopsy notes on the other two cases.

Putting Lewis's hand back down on the table, Laurie began a careful search for any scratches on the man's body that might account for the dried blood. There were none.

Nor was there any bleeding at the IV site. Next, she removed the bandages covering the right shoulder. The surgical incision was closed and showed no signs of inflammation, although there was some evidence of postoperative bleeding, with a bit of crusted blood along the suture line. Laurie thought there was a chance this blood could have been the source of the blood under the nails although it seemed strange, since it was his right hand.

When Marvin came back, Laurie asked for a sterile swab and two specimen containers. She wanted to do a DNA fingerprint on both samples just to make sure they matched the victim. When she took the samples, she sensed that there was a small amount of tissue as well. In the back of her mind was the titillating thought that if her serial-killer idea had any merit and if Lewis had had a hint of the killer's intentions and if he could have gotten hold of him, maybe he could have scratched him. That was a lot of ifs, but Laurie prided herself on being meticulous.

The rest of the case went quickly. Laurie and Marvin had become accustomed to each other such that they functioned as a well-orchestrated team that required minimum conversation. Each anticipated the other's motions like tango dancers. Once again, there was almost no pathology. The only findings were minimal atheroma formation in the abdominal aorta and a benign-appearing polyp in the large intestine. There was no explanation for the man's sudden death.

"Is this your last case?" Marvin asked after taking the needle holder from Laurie when she had finished sewing up the body.

"It seems that way," Laurie said. She looked around the room to see if she could make out Chet, but she couldn't. "I guess we're done. Someone would have said something to me by now."

"Both these cases this morning remind me of those two we did a month or so ago,"

Marvin said as he began cleaning up the instruments and collecting the specimen bottles. "Remember those two when we found nothing significant? I can't remember their names."

"McGillin and Morgan," Laurie said. "Certainly I remember, and I'm impressed you do as well, considering the number of cases you're involved with."

"I remembered them because of how much they bugged you not finding anything.

Hey, do you want to take these specimen samples with you, or do you want them to go up with all the rest?"

"I'll take the toxicology and DNA samples," Laurie said. "The microscopic can go with the others. And thanks for reminding me. I must say, I'm appreciating you more and more."

"That's cool," Marvin responded. "Likewise from my end. I wish all the docs were like you."

"Now that would be boring," Laurie said with a laugh as she gathered up the samples. She walked past Jack's table once again without stopping. She could hear him and Vinnie laughing over what had probably been some black humor. Laurie disinfected herself and the sample bottles before emerging into the hallway.

Not wasting any time, she got out of her protective gear and plugged her battery into the charger. Without even changing out of her scrubs, she headed for the back elevator.

She carried the clutch of sample bottles against her chest to keep from dropping them.

The two folders were under her arm. As she rode up to the fourth floor, she could feel her pulse in her temples. She was excited. The posts had confirmed Janice's assessment.

Laurie was now confident that her series now stood at six.

Getting off on the fourth floor, Laurie cautiously peered into the toxicology lab. In her attempt to avoid the temperamental lab director, Laurie was reduced to sneaking around. Luckily, he stayed mostly in the general lab on the floor below. Feeling like a cat with its ears down, Laurie scurried diagonally across the lab and into Peter's tiny office. She was glad when she didn't hear someone call out her name. She was even more glad that Peter was at his desk, meaning she didn't have to seek him out.

"Oh, no!" Peter moaned teasingly when he looked up from his work and spotted the samples in Laurie's arms.

"I know you're not happy to see me," Laurie said. "But you are the man! I need you more than ever. I've just posted two more patients that are the mirror image of the others. There are now six."

"I don't know how you can say I'm the man, because so far, I've come up with a big blank."

"I haven't given up hope, so you can't, either." Laurie dumped the samples onto Peter's desk. Some of them threatened to roll off. Peter grabbed several and righted them. "Now that there are six cases, the idea of skulduggery goes up. Peter, you've got to find something. It has to be there."

"Laurie, I did everything I could think of with the other four cases. I looked for every known agent that affects cardiac rhythm."

"There has to be something you haven't thought of," Laurie insisted.

"Well, there are a couple of other things."

"Okay, like what?"

Peter made a face and scratched his head. "I mean, this is way out in left field."

"That's okay. We need some creativity here. What are you thinking about?"

"In the back of my mind, I remember reading something when I was in graduate school about a poison frog from Colombia called
Phyllobates terribilis."