Lou shrugged.

Laurie told the mortuary tech who answered the phone to X-ray Frank DePasquale as soon as possible. The tech said he’d do his best. As she was hanging up, the doorway to her office was filled by Calvin Washington.

“Laurie,” Calvin said, “we’ve got a problem that you should know about.”

Laurie stood up when Calvin entered. “What is it?” she asked. She noticed that Calvin was eyeing Lou questioningly. “Dr. Washington, I believe you met Lieutenant Soldano.”

“Ah, yes,” Calvin said. “Don’t mind me. It’s just Alzheimer’s setting in. We met just this morning.” He shook hands with Lou, who’d stood when Laurie introduced him.

“Sit down, both of you,” Calvin boomed. “Laurie, I have to warn you that we’ve already been getting some heat from the Mayor’s office about this Duncan Andrews case. It seems that the deceased has some powerful political connections. So we’re going to have to cooperate. I want you to look hard for some natural cause of death so that you can downplay the drugs. The family would prefer it that way.”

Laurie looked up at Calvin’s face, half expecting it to break out in a broad smile, saying that he was only joking. But Calvin’s expression didn’t change.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Laurie said.

“I can’t be much clearer,” Calvin said. His infamous impatience began to show.

“What do you want me to do, lie?” Laurie asked.

“Hell, no, Dr. Montgomery!” Calvin snapped. “What do I have to do, draw you a map? I’m just asking you to lean as far as you can, okay? Find something like a coronary plaque, an aneurysm, anything, and then write it up. And don’t act so surprised or self-righteous. Politics play a role here and the sooner you learn that the better off we’ll all be. Just do it.”

Calvin turned and left as quickly as he’d come.

Lou whistled and sat down. “Tough guy,” he said.

Laurie shook her head in disbelief. She turned to Riva, who hadn’t paused in her work. “Did you hear that?” Laurie asked her.

“It happened to me once, too,” Riva said without looking up. “Only my case was a suicide.”

With a sigh, Laurie sat down in her desk chair and looked across at Lou. “I don’t know if I’m prepared to sacrifice integrity and ethics for the sake of politics.”

“I don’t think that was what Dr. Washington was asking you to do,” Lou said.

Laurie felt her face flush. “It wasn’t? I’m sorry, but I think it was.”

“I don’t mean to tell you your business,” Lou said, “but my take was that Dr. Washington wants you to emphasize any potential natural cause of death you find. The rest can be left to interpretation. For some reason it makes a difference in this case. It’s the real world versus the world of make-believe.”

“Well, you seem pretty blasé about fudging the details,” Laurie said. “In Pathology we’re supposed to be dealing with the truth.”

“Come on,” Lou said. “What is the truth? There are shades of gray in most everything in life, so why not in death? My line of work happens to be justice. It’s an ideal. I pursue it. But if you don’t think politics sometimes plays a lead role in how justice is applied, you’re kidding yourself. There’s always a gap between law and justice. Welcome to the real world.”

“Well, I don’t like it one bit,” Laurie said. All this was reminding her of the concerns about compromise she’d had when she’d arrived a half hour earlier.

“You don’t have to like it,” Lou said. “Not many do.”

Laurie flipped open the file on Duncan Andrews. She leafed through the papers until she came to the investigator’s report. After reading for a few moments, she looked up at Lou. “I’m beginning to get the big picture,” she said. “The deceased was some kind of financial whiz kid, a senior vice president of an investment banking firm at only thirty-five. And on top of that there is a note here that says his father is running for the U.S. Senate.”

“Can’t get much more political than that,” Lou said.

Laurie nodded, then read more of the investigator’s report. When she got to the section noting who had identified the deceased at the scene, she found a name, Sara Wetherbee. In the space left to describe the witness’s relationship to the deceased, the investigator had scrawled: “girlfriend.”

Laurie shook her head. Discovering a loved one dead from drugs carried an ugly resonance for her. In a flash her thoughts drifted back seventeen years to when she was fifteen, a freshman at Langley School. She could remember the bright sunny day as if it had been yesterday. It was midfall, crisp and clear, and the trees in Central Park had been a blaze of color. She’d walked past the Metropolitan with its banners snapping in the gusty wind. She’d turned left on Eighty-fourth Street and entered her parents’ massive apartment building on the west side of Park Avenue.

“I’m home!” Laurie called as she tossed her bookbag onto the foyer table. There was no answer. All she could hear was the traffic on Park peppered by the inevitable bleat of taxi horns.

“Anybody home?” Laurie called and heard her voice echo through the halls. Surprised to find the apartment empty, Laurie pushed through the door from the butler’s pantry into the kitchen. Even Holly, their maid, was nowhere to be seen. But then Laurie remembered that it was Friday, Holly’s day off.

“Shelly!” Laurie yelled. Her older brother was home from his freshman year at college for the long Columbus Day weekend. Laurie expected to find him either in the kitchen or the den. She looked in the den; no one was there, but the TV was on with the sound turned off.

For a moment Laurie looked at the silent antics of a daytime game show. She thought it odd that the TV had been left on. Thinking that someone might still be home, she resumed her tour of the apartment. For some reason the silent rooms filled her with apprehension. She began to move faster, sensing a secret urgency.

Pausing in front of Shelly’s bedroom door, Laurie hesitated. Then she knocked. When there was no answer, she knocked again. When there was still no answer, she tried the door. It was unlocked. She pushed open the door and stepped into the room.

In front of her on the floor was her brother, Shelly. His face was as white as the ivory-colored china in the dining room breakfront. Bloody froth oozed from his nose. Around his upper arm was a rubber tourniquet. On the floor, six inches from his half-opened hand, was a syringe Laurie had seen the night before. On the edge of his desk was a glassine envelope. Laurie guessed what was inside because of what Shelly had told her the night before. It had to be the “speedball” he’d boasted of, a mixture of cocaine and heroin.

Hours later the same day, Laurie endured the worst confrontation of her life. Inches from her nose was her father’s angry face with his bulging eyes and purpled skin. He was beside himself with rage. His thumbs were digging into her skin where he held her upper arms. A few feet away her mother was sobbing into a tissue.

“Did you know your brother was using drugs?” her father demanded. “Did you? Answer me.” His grip tightened.

“Yes,” Laurie blurted. “Yes, yes!”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” her father shouted. “If you’d told us, he’d be alive.”

“I couldn’t,” Laurie sobbed.

“Why?” her father shouted. “Tell me why!”

“Because…” Laurie cried. She paused, then said: “Because he told me not to. He made me promise.”

“Well, that promise killed him,” her father hissed. “It killed him just as much as the damn drug.”

Laurie felt a hand grip her arm and she jumped. The shock brought her back to the present. She blinked a few times as if waking from a trance.

“Are you all right?” Lou asked. He’d gotten up and was holding Laurie’s arm.

“I’m fine,” Laurie said, slightly embarrassed. She extracted herself from Lou’s grip. “Let’s see, where were we?” Her breathing had quickened. Perspiration dotted her forehead. She looked over the paperwork in front of her, trying to remember what had dredged up such old, painful memories. As if it had been yesterday, she could recall the anguish of the conflict of responsibility, sibling or filial, and the terrible guilt and burden of having chosen the former.