“You’re forgiven. To pay me back, you can promise me we won’t start autopsies until everyone else does.”

“Dreamer,” Jack said, snapping off his gloves and heading for the washroom.

Jack cleaned up and returned upstairs to his desk. Still feeling uncomfortable about his mini-blowup in the autopsy room, he closed his office door. For a while, at least, he didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. Forcing himself to work, he dictated all three autopsies he’d just completed so he was sure not to forget any of the details, using his scribbled notes to remind him of specific important points.

With the dictation out of the way, Jack looked at his crowded inbox, but, like many days of late, he couldn’t find the motivation to start. Instead, he opened up his center drawer and pulled out a large envelope where he’d been storing all his alternative-medicine data. As of that moment, he had a total of twelve cases from his colleagues. Keara Abelard made thirteen, and his herbal case that morning made a grand total of fourteen.

Jack should have been pleased with his progress, but he wasn’t. He’d come to the conclusion that the number of cases he was going to find, no matter what he did, was going to be seriously lower than the true number, for a complex of reasons. One problem was the lack of digitalization of the OCME records, meaning a search was not possible.

Even if the records were digitalized, there would be no coding for alternative medicine in general, nor for specific types of alternative medicine in particular. On top of that, even if he was able to find VAD cases, there was no guarantee that the records would say anything about chiropractic, even if chiropractic therapy was involved in the cause of death.

In situations involving herbal medicine, the cases would be signed out as accidental poisoning, with the cause of death attributed to the specific poison involved. It would be the exception, not the rule, if herbal medicine was mentioned at all.

Although Jack thought his crusade of exposing the risks of chiropractic and other forms of alternative medicine was still a great idea and more than worth pursuing, his enthusiasm was being dampened by these tactical obstacles. Fourteen cases over some indeterminate period of time was not enough to attract the public’s attention. When he had started, he’d envisioned a grand expose involving hundreds of cases capable of dominating the media for days. Jack could already assume that was not going to happen.

As Jack’s zeal for his crusade sagged, his problems at home only loomed larger. His out-of-control emotions, as the recent minor episode with Vinnie exemplified, were a clear sign he still lacked focus. For a few moments Jack debated whether he should stick with the alternative-medicine idea in hopes of solving the problems of researching it or whether he should switch and try to find something more engrossing.

The ring of the telephone startled him out of his reverie. He glared at the phone with a sudden flash of anger, suppressing an urge to rip the blasted cord out of the wall. He didn’t want to talk to anyone.

But what if it was Laurie? Perhaps there’d been a sudden change for the worse with JJ’s condition. Perhaps she was calling from Memorial’s emergency room. Jack snatched up the handset and barked, “Yes?”

“Hey, big guy,” Lou Soldano rumbled. “Am I catching you at a bad time? You sound harried.”

It took Jack a moment to reboot his brain. He’d been so certain it would be Laurie calling about some kind of disaster. “It’s okay,” he said, struggling to calm himself.

“What’s up?”

Next to Laurie, Lieutenant Detective Lou Soldano was one of his favorite people. In many ways, Lou and Jack’s friendship had a curious twist. Before Jack had come on the scene, Lou and Laurie had dated for a time. Luckily for Jack, their relationship had changed from rocky romantic to pleasant platonic, and when Jack and Laurie began dating, Lou championed Jack on multiple occasions. At one particularly difficult juncture, it was Lou’s belief that Jack and Laurie were made for each other that probably saved the day.

“I wanted to give you some follow-up,” Lou said, “on that suicide gunshot case you called me about Tuesday. You know which case I’m talking about?”

“Of course. The woman’s name was Rebecca Parkman. That was the case that the husband was dead set— excuse my pun—against his wife having an autopsy, supposedly for religious reasons.”

“It appears he had other reasons, too,” Lou said.

“I’m not surprised. Although the entrance wound was somewhat stellate, it wasn’t stellate enough, which suggested it was not a contact wound. How far away did I guess the gun was when it was fired?”

“Two inches!”

“In my entire forensic career, I’ve never seen a suicide with a gunshot wound to the head that wasn’t a contact wound.”

“Well, with your suspicions we got a warrant and burst in on the guy. And guess what, he was entertaining this young chick. Can you imagine? Two days after his wife is supposed to have killed herself, he’s boffing this cheerleader type.”

“Did you find anything incriminating?”

“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.

“What if I told you alternative medicine really doesn’t deliver the kind of health benefits it claims? That beyond providing a placebo effect, it doesn’t do much at all. You know what the placebo effect is, don’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s when you take some kind of medicine, like a sugar pill, that actually has no medicine in it, but you feel better.”

“Exactly. So, to reword what I’m saying, what if I told you alternative medicine doesn’t do anything other than provide a placebo effect, but in the process puts you at risk?” Lou laughed. “Maybe I’ll just go out and buy me

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