She wouldn’t change a thing.
Chapter 2
On Monday morning, Claire arrived at the medical examiner’s office—her office—at ten before eight.
As she walked through the reception room, she was still transitioning from her home to her work mindset. Her thoughts hopscotched from the pressure of back-to-school week with her youngest kiddo, her grumpy husband, who was looking toward early retirement, and the transmission fluid she needed for her car. Not to mention the strong coffee and donut she needed to help her shift her own gears.
She had just hung her coat behind her door when Dr. Harrison, the on-call ME handling the night shift, knocked on the door frame to her office.
“Morning, Bernard. What’s the latest?” she asked her number two.
“First, we had a bad accident on the freeway at around midnight last night,” he told her. “A car jumped the median and T-boned a family that was coming home from grandma’s house. There were three fatalities. One of the children is in the emergency room.”
“Oh, damn.”
“Fifteen minutes after we’d admitted the car crash victims, two more fatalities came in. It’s all in here,” he said, waggling a folder containing a sheaf of notes. “I was able to get through two of the freeway postmortems and left the rest for you.”
“So you’ve left three patients for me, you’re saying?”
“You don’t get paid the big bucks for the easy jobs.”
She smiled at their inside joke. There were no big bucks to be found in civil service, but Claire loved what she did. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
Dr. H. kept filling her in. “Bunny’s here, and so is Mallory. Greg is running late, and I have a headache the size of a beach ball.”
“Go home,” she told him. “Take an aspirin and get some sleep.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice, Doc,” he said. “Watch out for my vapor trail.”
He handed his notes to Claire. She took them with her to the kitchenette, where she poured coffee, snagged the one chocolate donut in the box, and ate her second breakfast at the small square table. Her two assistants, Bunny Ellis and Mallory Keane, came in and took turns filling her in on the horrible car crash.
Bunny’s eyes were welling up as she said, “One’s just a little kid, Doctor. He’s only eight.”
Claire said, “I know, I know, Bunny. We never get used to the kids.”
Then Claire gowned up and went into the cool room with Bunny at her elbow. Mallory trailed close behind them. Claire opened the refrigerator drawer that contained the remains of the young boy. He should have been getting on a school bus next week.
“I’m so sorry, Sean Morrison,” Claire said to the dead child. “I know a lot of people are going to miss you terribly.”
She turned to Bunny and asked, “Are his parents here?”
“Dr. H. did the posts on his mom and dad. His sister is at Metro in serious condition.”
“And the driver?” Claire asked.
“Drunk, and texting while driving. He just walked away. From what I heard, there was hardly a scratch on him.”
Bunny wheeled a stretcher over to young Sean’s drawer. As she helped Claire lift the child’s body, they heard a sound that was part moan, part shriek.
“Bunny? What the hell was that?”
“It wasn’t me. Could it have been the wheels squeaking, maybe?”
Claire turned around and asked, “Mallory? Was that you?”
“What? No. I didn’t hear nothing, and I didn’t say nothing either.”
The three women stood very still. When they were sure they heard only the sounds of their own breathing, they resumed moving the little boy’s body to the gurney.