Making himself comfortable, Jack carefully reread Janice Jaeger’s medicolegal investigation report. As he had noted earlier when he’d skimmed the record, the woman had been brought into the emergency room by her drinking buddies with the sudden onset of confusion and spasticity, leading to unconsciousness. From Janice’s choice of syntax, Jack could tell that she had not spoken with the friends directly but rather had gotten her information from a combination of the Saint Luke’s ER record, one of the ER nurses, and one of the ER docs. Typical of Janice, the report was complete, with no mention of an auto accident.

Switching to the ID sheet, Jack saw that it had been Keara’s mother who’d made the identification. The woman lived in Engle wood, New Jersey, and Jack glanced at her phone number with its 201 area code.

Impulsively, Jack got to his feet. It was clear he needed more information than what he had. With the OCME record in hand, he used the back stairs to get up to the first floor, and, passing though the SIDS investigation area, he walked into the expanded medicolegal space. He found Bart Arnold, the chief of forensic investigation, at his desk in cubbyhole number one. He and Jack had an excellent working relationship, as Jack was one of the few medical examiners willing to give the investigators the credit they deserved by letting them know he couldn’t do his job without their help.

“Morning, Dr. Stapleton. Is there a problem?” Bart asked, seeing the case file under Jack’s arm.

“Hey, Bart, I was wondering if during your shift-change report session this morning Janice happened to mention anything memorable about Keara Abelard?”

Bart looked at his list of the night’s cases. “Nope, not that I can remember. It seemed routine to her, but definitely a case that fell under OCME jurisdiction.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Jack said. “But there’s so little history.”

“She mentioned that the ER docs felt the same, which is why they left word with Janice to get a callback. They want to know what’s found.”

“I didn’t see a note to that effect in the record.”

“I believe Janice knows the doc in question and was going to do it herself rather than obligating you.”

“Do you know if she spoke to the mother when the mother came in to make the identification?”

“That I don’t know. If I had to guess, I’d say no, because Janice is so thorough—if she’d spoken with the mother, she would have written it down. But why don’t you call her and ask? What’s the problem, not enough info?”

Jack nodded. “It’s a curious case. The woman died from occlusion of both her vertebral arteries. Unless she had had some connective-tissue disease like Marfan syndrome, which I seriously doubt, she had to have suffered serious trauma. Her vessels dissected, meaning the lining came off, blocking them up. Vinnie suggested whiplash injury from an auto accident, and he might be right. I think her friends or her mom might have some information. It could be extremely important. If someone ran into the back of her, he or she would now be looking at possible manslaughter, even murder, if the parties knew each other and there was some kind of conflict or controversy between them. I’d give the mother a call myself, but I’d hate to bother her if Janice has already spoken with her.”