“What happened?” Flash asked.

“They sent the body to a local funeral home,” Jack said.

“How come?” Warren asked. “They knew you were coming.”

“It has something to do with how competitive doctors are with each other,” Jack said. “It’s hard to explain and you probably wouldn’t believe it.”

“I’ll take your word,” Warren said. “So what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I’m thinking.”

“I know what I’m going to do,” Flash said. “I’m going to Brighton Beach.”

“Shut up, man,” Warren said. “This is just a wrinkle here.”

“Some wrinkle,” Flash said. “If she’d been white, none of this would have happened.”

“Flash, that’s not the problem,” Jack said. “There’s a lot of racism around this city, that I’ll grant you, but it’s not the problem here, believe me.”

“Why can’t you just have the funeral home send the body back?” Warren suggested.

“I wish it were that easy,” Jack said. “The problem is it’s a Brooklyn case, and I’m from the Manhattan office, which means there’s a lot of politics involved. I’d have to get the super chief to do it, which would get the Brooklyn chief defensive, since he’d assume the affair was a reflection of how he’s running the office. It would become a bureaucratic turf war of sorts. Plus it would take eons. By the time all the paperwork was done, the phone calls made, and the battles waged, the funeral home might have embalmed the body, or worse yet, cremated it.”

“Shit,” Warren said.

“That settles it,” Flash said. “I’m going to Brighton Beach.”

“No, let’s all go to the funeral home,” Jack said. “It might create some waves, but I don’t see we have much choice to keep Flash from self-destructing. Maybe we’ll be lucky. It’s on Caton Avenue near the Greenwood Cemetery. You got a map?”

Warren nodded. He had Flash dig it out of the glove box. While the two of them bent over it, Jack tried to anticipate what they’d be up against in the funeral home. He imagined the funeral director would not be particularly cooperative.

“When we go into the funeral home we’re going to have to kinda barge in and overwhelm them,” Jack said.

Warren looked up. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve got to try to do what we have to do before they have much of a chance to think about it.”

“But you’re a medical examiner,” Warren said. “You’re a city official.”