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Impulsively, she snatched the receiver and called down to the forensic investigator's office. Bart Arnold picked up on the second ring.

"I posted a Sean McGillin this morning," Laurie said. "He was an inpatient over at the Manhattan General. I'd like to get a copy of his hospital chart."

"I'm aware of the case. Did we not get what you need?"

"The forensic investigator's report is fine. To be honest, I'm on a fishing expedition.

The post was negative, and I'm a little desperate. There's kind of a time constraint."

"I'll put the request in immediately."

Laurie replaced the receiver while racking her brain in hopes of coming up with something else that would be useful if everything turned out to be negative.

"What's wrong?" Riva asked. She had swung around in her desk chair after overhearing Laurie's conversation with Bart. "Knowing how tired you are, I thought I'd given you straightforward cases. I'm sorry."

Laurie assured her officemate that she needn't apologize. Laurie admitted that she was creating a problem when there really wasn't one, probably to keep from obsessing about her social life.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"You mean my social life?"

"I mean Jack and what you did this morning."

"Not particularly," Laurie responded. She waved a hand as if swatting a nonexistent fly. "There's not much to say that you and I haven't hashed over before ad nauseam. The reality is that I don't want to be stuck in a never-never-land relationship, which is what I've been settling for over the last couple of years. I want a family. It's that simple. I guess what's really irking me is that Jack is being such an ass by acting so blasted cheerful."

"I've noticed," Riva agreed. "I think it is an act."

"Who's to know," Laurie responded. She laughed at herself. "I'm pathetic! Anyway, let me tell you about the McGillin case." Quickly, Laurie related the whole story, including the details of the conversations she'd had with the parents and then subsequently with Jack.

"It's not going to be a homicide," Riva said emphatically.

"I know!" Laurie agreed. "What's bothering me at this point is not being able to live up to the promise I made to the parents. I was so sure I'd be able to tell them today what killed their boy, and now I have to sit on my hands and wait for Maureen and Peter. My compulsiveness is driving me batty."

"If it's any consolation, my opinion is that Jack was right about the microscopic being the key. I think you'll find the pathology in the heart, especially with a strong family history of elevated LDH and heart disease."

Laurie started to concur, but her phone rang. Twisting around, she answered it, expecting some quick tidbit of information on one of her cases, which is what the vast majority of her calls were about.

Instead, her eyebrows arched in surprise. Covering the mouthpiece, she looked back at Riva and whispered. "You're not going to believe it! It's my father!"

Riva's face reflected equal disbelief. She hastily motioned for Laurie to find out the occasion for the call. Phone contact was restricted to Laurie's mother, and that was rarely at work.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," Dr. Sheldon Montgomery said. He spoke in a resonant voice with a hint of an English accent, despite his never having lived in Great Britain.

"You're not disturbing me," Laurie answered. "I'm sitting here at my desk." She was intensely curious why her father was calling, but resisted the temptation to ask directly, fearful such a question would sound too unfriendly. Their relationship had never been anything special. As a self-absorbed, workaholic cardiac surgeon who'd demanded perfection from everyone, including himself, he'd been emotionally distant and generally unavailable. Laurie had tried vainly to break through to him, constantly pushing herself to excel at school and in other activities, which is what she thought he wanted. Unfortunately, it never worked. Then came her brother's untimely death, which Sheldon blamed on her. What little relationship they'd had deteriorated even further.

"I'm at the hospital," he said. His tone was matter-of-fact, as if he was telling her the weather. "I'm here with your mother."

"What is Mother doing at the hospital?" Laurie asked. For Sheldon to be at the hospital was not out of the ordinary. Although he was retired from private practice now that he was in his early eighties, he still frequently went to the hospital. Laurie had no idea what he did. Her mother, Dorothy, never went to the hospital despite being active in various hospital fund-raising activities. The last time Laurie remembered her mother being in the hospital was for her second facelift fifteen years earlier, and even then, Laurie had learned of the admission after the fact.

"She had surgery this morning," Sheldon said. "She is doing fine. In fact, she is rather chipper."

Laurie sat up a bit straighter. "Surgery? What happened? Was it an emergency?"

"No. It was a scheduled procedure. Unfortunately, your mother had a mastectomy for breast cancer."

"My word!" Laurie managed. "I had no idea. I just spoke with her on Saturday. She didn't mention anything about surgery or cancer."

"You know your mother, and how she likes to ignore unpleasant issues. She was particularly insistent on shielding you from unnecessary concern until this was behind her."

Laurie looked at Riva with disbelief. As close as their desks were in the small office, Riva could hear both sides. Riva rolled her dark eyes and shook her head.

"What stage was the cancer?" Laurie asked solicitously.

"A very early stage with no apparent nodal involvement," Sheldon said. "Things are going to be fine. The prognosis is excellent, although she'll have to undergo further treatment."

"And you say she is doing well?"

"Very well indeed. She's already taken some nourishment orally, and she's back to her old self by being genuinely demanding."

"Can I speak with her?"

"Unfortunately, that would be rather difficult. You see, I'm not in the room at the moment. I'm at the nurses' station. I was hoping you'd be able to come over here to see her this afternoon. There is an associated aspect to all this that I would like to discuss with you."

"I will be right over," Laurie said. She hung up the phone before turning back to Riva.

"Is it true you had no idea about any of this?" Riva asked.

"Not a clue. There wasn't even the slightest hint. I don't know whether to be angry, hurt, or sad. Actually, it's pathetic.

What a dysfunctional family! I can't believe it. I'm almost forty-three and a doctor, and my mother still treats me like a child about illness. Can you imagine, she wanted to shield me from unnecessary concern?"

"Our family is just the opposite. Everybody knows everything about everybody. It's the opposite extreme, but I don't advocate it, either. I think the best is somewhere in between."

Laurie got up and stretched. She waited for a moment of dizziness to pass. Her fatigue had come back with a vengeance after sitting at her desk. She then got her coat from behind the door. When she considered the differences between her family and Riva's, she thought she would pick Riva's, although she certainly wouldn't choose to live at home like Riva did. She and Riva were the same age.

"Want me to answer your phone?" Riva asked.

"If you won't mind, especially if it's either Maureen or Peter. Leave any messages on my corkboard." Laurie got out a package of Post-its and plopped them on her blotter.

"I've got to come back here. I'm not going to take my suitcase with me."

Laurie stepped into the hall and briefly considered going down to Jack's office to tell him about her mother, then decided to skip it. Even though she was certain he'd ultimately be sympathetic, she had had quite enough of his levity and didn't want to risk having to deal with anymore.

On the first floor, Laurie took a quick detour into the administration office. Calvin's door was ajar. Unchallenged by the two busy secretaries, Laurie glanced in to see the deputy chief hunched over his desk. A standard-sized pen looked like a miniature in his huge hand. She knocked on the open door, and Calvin raised his intimidating face and drilled Laurie with his coal-black eyes. There had been times when Laurie had clashed with the deputy chief, since he was both a stickler for rules and a politically savvy individual willing to bend those rules on occasion. From Laurie's perspective, it was an untenable combination. The occasional political demands of being a medical examiner were the only part of the job Laurie didn't like.

Laurie mentioned that she was leaving early to visit her mom in the hospital. Calvin waved her away without a question. Laurie didn't have to clear such a thing with him, but she had been trying of late to be a little more politically sensitive herself, at least on a personal level.

Outside, the rain had finally stopped, making it easier to hail a taxi. The ride uptown went quickly, and in less than a half hour she was deposited at the front steps of the University Hospital. During the drive, she had tried to imagine what her father had meant by "an associated aspect" of her mother's illness that he wished to discuss. She truly had no idea. It was such an oblique statement, but she assumed he meant some limitations of her mother's activity.

The hospital's lobby was in its usual afternoon uproar with visiting hours in full swing. Laurie had to wait in line at the information booth to find out her mother's room number, castigating herself for failing to get it earlier. Armed with the information, she took the proper elevators up to the proper floor and walked past the nurses' station, where a number of people were busy at work. No one looked up at her. It was the VIP

wing, which meant the corridor was carpeted and the walls were hung with original, donated oil paintings. Laurie found herself glancing into the rooms as she passed like a voyeur, reminding her of her first year of clinical residency.

Her mother's door was ajar like most of the others, and Laurie walked right in. Her mother was in a typical hospital bed with the guardrails up, an intravenous running slowly into her left arm. Instead of the usual hospital garb, she was wearing a pink silk robe.

She was sitting up with a number of pillows behind her. Her medium-length, silver-gray hair, which normally billowed on top of her head, was pressed down like an old-fashioned bathing cap. Her color was gray without her makeup, and her skin seemed to be pulled tighter than usual over her facial bones, and her eyes had retracted as if she was slightly dehydrated. She appeared fragile and vulnerable, and although Laurie knew she was petite, she looked particularly tiny in the large bed. She also looked older than she did less than a week before, when Laurie had seen her for lunch.

There had been no conversation about cancer or imminent hospitalization.

"Come in, my dear," Dorothy said, waving with her free hand. "Pull a chair over.

Sheldon told me he had called you. I wasn't going to bother you until I was home. This is all very silly. It's just not worth getting all upset over."

Laurie glanced over at her father, who was reading
The Wall Street Journal
in a club chair by the window. He glanced up, gave a little wave and a wan smile, and then went back to his paper.

Advancing to the side of the bed, Laurie took her mother's free hand and gave it a squeeze. The bones felt delicate and the skin cool. "How are you, Mother?"

"I'm just fine. Give me a kiss and then sit down."

Laurie touched her cheek to her mother's. Then she pulled a chair over to the side of the bed. With the hospital bed raised, she had to look up at her mother. "I'm so sorry this has happened to you."

"It's nothing. The doctor has already been in, and he said things are just fine, which is more than I can say about your hair."

Laurie had to suppress a smile. Her mother's ploy was transparent. Whenever she didn't want to talk about herself, she went on the offensive. Laurie used both hands to sweep her highlighted auburn hair back away from her face. It was shoulder-length, and although she usually wore it up with a clip or a comb, she'd taken it down to brush it out after her morning's stint in the "moon suit" and hadn't put it back up. Unfortunately, her hair had been a frequent target for her mother ever since Laurie's teenage years.

After the conversation about her hair and a short pause in which Laurie tried to ask a question about her mother's surgery, Dorothy switched to another convenient target by saying that Laurie's outfit was much too feminine for working in a morgue. With some difficulty, Laurie restrained herself in response to this new criticism. She made it a point to wear such clothing. It was part of her identity, and she saw no conflict with her place of employment. Laurie also knew that part of her mother's response was derived from her distaste for Laurie's career choice. Although both her parents had mellowed to a degree and had even grudgingly come to recognize the merits of forensics subsequent to Laurie's work, they had been disappointed from the moment she had announced her decision to become a medical examiner. At one point, Dorothy had actually told Laurie that she had no idea what to say when her friends asked what kind of a doctor Laurie was.

"And how is Jack?" Dorothy inquired.

"He's just fine," Laurie said, not wishing to open that can of worms.

Dorothy then went on to describe some upcoming social events that she hoped Laurie and Jack would attend.

Laurie listened with half an ear while glancing over at her father, who'd finished with
The Wall Street Journal.
He had a large stack of newspapers and magazines. He stood up and stretched. Although he was in his eighties, he was still a commanding figure, well over six feet tall with an acquired aristocratic air. His silver hair knew its place. As usual, he had on a carefully pressed, conservatively cut, glen plaid suit with matching tie and pocket square. He walked over to the opposite side of the bed from Laurie and waited for Dorothy to pause.

"Laurie, would you mind if we stepped out in the hall for a moment?"

"Not at all," Laurie said. She stood and gave her mother's hand a squeeze through the bed's guardrail. "I'll be right back."