Although Vinnie always complained about having to start autopsies earlier than the chief medical examiner decreed, he and Jack were a great team despite their merciless teasing of each other. Together they could frequently do one and a half or even two cases while others did just one.

“I’m afraid so, sport,” Jack said. “Vacation is over. You and I are going to get back down to work. It’s my New Year’s resolution.”

“But it’s not New Year’s for another month,” Vinnie complained.

“Tough,” Jack responded. He reached out and pushed the chart of the twenty-seven-year-old woman in Vinnie’s direction. “Let’s start with Keara Abelard.”

“Not so fast, supersleuth,” Vinnie protested, using his old nickname for Jack. He made a production of inspecting his watch as if he were about to refuse Jack’s order. “I might be able to accommodate you in, say, ten minutes, after I make the house coffee.” He smiled. Feigning the opposite, he’d actually missed his special relationship with Jack based on their early starts.

“It’s a deal,” Jack said. After a quick high-five with Vinnie, he went back to the stack of charts.

“Since you stopped coming in early when your son was born, I thought it was a permanent schedule change,” Vinnie said as he loaded the pot with fresh coffee, whose aroma quickly permeated the room.

“It was just a temporary slowdown,” Jack said. Although most everyone at the OCME knew about his child’s birth, no one, as far as Jack knew, was aware of the infant’s illness. Jack and Laurie were both intensely private people.

“How do you know Dr. Besserman won’t want this Keara Abelard for himself?”

“Is that the ME who’s on this week and supposed to be here already?”

“None other,” Vinnie said.

“I don’t think he’ll be too upset,” Jack said, with his usual sarcasm. He knew full well that Besserman, one of the most senior MEs, would just as soon pass on all autopsies at this stage of his career. Nonetheless, Jack scribbled a quick note to Arnold, telling him he’d taken the Abelard case but would be happy to do another couple of cases if need be. He put the Post-it on top of the pile of records and scraped his chair back.

In less than twenty minutes Jack and Vinnie were down in the autopsy room, which had been renovated to a degree during the previous year. Gone were the old soapstone sinks. In their place were modern composite ones. Gone also were the giant glass-fronted cabinets with the collections of medieval-appearing autopsy tools. In their place were nondescript Formica ensembles with solid doors and significantly more space.

“Let’s do it!” Jack said. While he’d filled out the initial paperwork, not only had Vinnie gotten the body on the table and the X-rays on the view box, he’d also gotten all the supplies laid out, including the instruments he thought Jack was likely to want: specimen bottles, preservatives, labels, syringes, and evidence custody tags, in case Jack happened to detect an element of criminality.