“I wish! But good guess. No, I’m not pregnant. Just a few moments ago I got a call from that young woman who’s graduating from UCLA medical school this coming June, Jennifer Hernandez. Do you remember her? She came to our wedding. She wore a luscious red dress. Can you picture it? She has one of the world’s best figures.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Jack mumbled. “It’s almost midnight, and you woke me up so you can quiz me about what someone wore to our wedding? Give me a break!”

“The dress doesn’t matter. I’m just trying to get you to remember this medical student. She’s the one who spent the week at OCME when she was twelve, and also the one my mother and I got a scholarship for the same year.”

“Okay, I remember her,” Jack said, making it apparent he was lying. He was clearly much more interested in going back to sleep.

“She called me an hour or so ago from India. She’s there because her grandmother died after having surgery in New Delhi. The hospital is pressing her to decide how she wants to deal with the body.”

Jack lifted up his head, and his eyes opened wider. “India?”

“India,” Laurie repeated. She then told the whole story to Jack as Jennifer had related it to her. When she got to the end she added, “I don’t know if you’ll remember, but Maria Hernandez was my nanny until I was thirteen, and the only reason she stopped was because my own mother became too jealous. I was crushed at the time. I preferred Maria’s opinion to my mother’s, like with clothes and things. I loved that woman. She was a mother to me for a lot of crucial years. I used to sneak over to Woodside, Queens, to visit her.”

“Why did she go to India for her surgery?”

“I don’t know for sure. Probably mostly financial.”

“Do you really think there is some conspiracy here?” Jack asked in a skeptical tone.

“Of course not. I was supporting Jennifer because she seems to think so. If there’s a problem at this hospital, it’s undoubtedly some systems error. As far as the hospital putting pressure on Jennifer, I’m certain they are. The body has been in the cooler since Monday night, but it’s not even a mortuary cooler. It sounds like mostly an overflow storage cooler for the cafeteria.”

“You mean there’s food in with the corpse?”

“That’s the story. And it is the other way around. It’s more accurate to say the corpse is in with the food and some medical supplies. But it’s sealed food, which sounds worse than it is. Anyway, Jennifer is thinking there might be some sort of conspiracy involved.”