“Oh, yeah!” Lou said with a confident chuckle. “In the dryer we found a recently washed shirt of his. Of course it looked clean, but the lab guys found some blood, which turned out to be the wife’s. I think that’s pretty damn incriminating. I have to give it to you guys at the OCME. Chalk up another victory for justice.” One of the things that had propelled Jack and Lou’s friendship was Lou’s high regard for forensic pathology and what it could do for law enforcement. Lou was a frequent visitor to the OCME, and a frequent observer of autopsies on criminal cases.

“Hey, how’s that new kid of yours?” Lou asked.

“It’s a struggle,” Jack said, without supplying any details. He hadn’t told Lou about JJ’s illness, nor did he want to. At the same time, he didn’t want to lie. Wasn’t life with an infant a struggle for everyone?

“Isn’t it, though?” Lou laughed. “Talk about changing one’s lifestyle. I remember with my two I didn’t sleep for months.”

“How are your children?” Jack asked.

“They aren’t kids anymore,” Lou said. “My baby girl’s twenty-eight, and my baby boy is twenty-six. I tell you, it goes by fast. But they’re fine. How’s Laur?” Laur was Lou’s nickname for Laurie.

“She’s fine,” Jack said, and before Lou could follow up, Jack added, “Lou, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“Hell, no! What’s on your mind?”

“Do you use alternative medicine?”

“You mean like chiropractors and acupuncture and all that kind of shit?”

“Exactly! Or homeopathy or herbal medicine or even some of the more esoteric therapies involving buzzwords like energy fields, waves, magnetism, and resonance.”

“I have a chiropractor I go to once in a while to get adjusted, especially when I don’t get a lot of sleep. And I tried acupuncture to stop smoking. Somebody here at headquarters recommended it.”

“Did the acupuncture work?”

“Yeah, for a couple of weeks.”

“What if I told you alternative medicine isn’t risk-free? In fact, what if I told you cervical manipulation by chiropractors kills people every year? Would that influence you?”

“Really?” Lou questioned. “People die?”

“I just did a case Monday,” Jack said. “A twenty-seven-year-old female who died from having arteries torn in her neck. It was the first such case I’d seen, but I’ve looked into it over the last few days. I’m surprised at the number of cases I’ve found. It’s influenced my opinion of alternative medicine.”

“I never knew people died from chiropractic treatment,” Lou admitted. “How about acupuncture? Anyone die from that?”

“Yes. Laurie had such a case.”

“Jeez!” Lou remarked.