Jack’s first case had been a teenager shot in Central Park. There was a question of whether it was a suicide or a homicide. Unfortunately, there had been a mistake made by the OCME medicolegal investigator, George Sullivan, who had been bullied by the detective in charge to rush his investigation. The result was that he’d forgotten to bag the victim’s hands, possibly causing a loss of critical evidence. Since the victim was the son of a politically connected lawyer, Calvin had been called in, ordering Jack on the case.

Jack’s other two cases were a bit more straightforward, but just. The second case was a drug overdose of a college freshman. But the third case, the one he was on, presented a surprise challenge. Jack was confident the cause of death was a pulmonary embolism, but the manner of death was not necessarily natural.

“Vinnie, my friend, do you know—” Jack began as he sliced open the rest of the heart, looking for more blood clots, particularly at the tricuspid and pulmonary valves.

“No!” Vinnie interrupted, without even letting Jack finish his sentence. “When you start a question by being nice to me, I know you have something on your mind that I want no part of.”

“Am I that bad?” Jack asked, as he moved up to the bifurcation of the pulmonary artery looking for more clots.

“You’re wicked bad!” Vinnie declared.

“Sorry you feel that way,” Jack said. “But let me finish my sentence. Do you know what is particularly special about this case?”

Vinnie looked down at the large, dark clot and then over at the flayed-open corpse, trying to come up with something humorous. When he couldn’t, he fell back on the truth: “No!” he said.

“This case is a perfect example of just how important the medicolegal investigators are in forensic pathology. Because Janice asked all the right questions, this case will be viewed in a different light. I would have been certain it was a natural death, but because she asked the wife if he’d been taking any medication, she learned something the ER docs didn’t know: that he’d been taking an herbal remedy on his own, PC-SPES, made of Chinese herbs, which was supposed to be taken off the market but which is still available. Janice Googled the drug and learned that it was an FDA-unapproved medication that had often been contaminated with female hormones and was therefore associated with clotting problems and fatal pulmonary emboli.”

“So, the herbal remedy killed the man.”

“Possibly,” Jack said.

“Will you be able to prove it?”

“Perhaps. Let toxicology have a go at the samples we’ve taken and see if we can get some of the medication he’s been taking from the wife.”

“Hey, keep working!” Vinnie complained. Jack had stopped while he was talking.

“Do you take any herbal medicine, Vinnie?” Jack asked, going back to work.