“Such recall!” Jack commented. “I’m impressed.” During the plague case Jack had told Vinnie that arthropods, particularly insects and arachnids, played an important role as a vector in the spread of many infectious diseases. Searching for evidence of their involvement was an important part of the autopsy on such cases. “Soon you’ll be taking over my job.”

“What I’d like to do is take over your salary,” Vinnie said. “The job you can have.”

Jack did his own external exam. Vinnie was right: there were no signs of bites. There was also no purpura, or bleeding into the skin, although the skin did seem to have a slightly dusky tint.

The internal exam was another story. As soon as Jack removed the front wall of the chest the pathology was apparent. There was frank blood on the surface of the lungs, a finding called hemorrhagic pleural effusion. There was also a lot of bleeding and signs of inflammation in the structures located between the lungs, which included the esophagus, the trachea, the main bronchi, the great vessels, and a conglomeration of lymph nodes. This finding was called hemorrhagic mediastinitis, and it explained the wide shadow Jack had seen earlier on the X-ray.

“Whoa!” Jack commented. “With all this bleeding I don’t think this could be the flu. Whatever it was, it was spreading like wildfire.”

Vinnie nervously glanced up at Jack. He had difficulty seeing Jack’s face because of the reflection from the overhead fluorescent lights glinting off Jack’s plastic face screen. Vinnie didn’t like the sound of Jack’s voice. Jack was rarely impressed by what he saw in the autopsy room, but he seemed to be now.

“What do you think it is?” Vinnie asked.

“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “But the combination of hemorrhagic mediastinitis and pleural effusion rings a bell in the back of my mind. I’ve read about it someplace; I just can’t remember where. Whatever this bug is, it’s got to be something mighty aggressive.”

Vinnie instinctively took a step back from the body.

“Now don’t go freaking out on me,” Jack said. “Get back over here and help me get out the abdominal organs.”

“Yeah, well, promise me you’ll be careful,” Vinnie said. “Sometimes you work too fast with the knife.” He reluctantly stepped back to the table.

“I’m always careful,” Jack said.

“Sure!” Vinnie said sarcastically. “That’s why you ride that bike of yours around the city.”

As the two men concentrated on the case, other bodies began arriving. They were placed on their respective tables by the mortuary techs to await their autopsies. Eventually, the other medical examiners began to drift in. It was promising to be a busy day in the pit.

“Whatcha got?” a voice asked over Jack’s shoulder.

Jack straightened up and turned to look at Dr. Chet McGovern, his officemate. Jack and Chet had joined the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner within a month of each other. They got along superbly, mainly because they shared a true love and appreciation for their work. Both had tried other areas of medicine before switching to forensic pathology. Personality-wise they were quite different. Chet wasn’t nearly as sarcastic as Jack, and he didn’t share Jack’s problem with authority.