Bingham began the conference, as usual, by summarizing the statistics for the previous week. Then he gave a short report on the status of the Central Park murder case since it had been so much in the news. He again rebutted the media’s charges of mismanagement of the case on the part of the medical examiner’s office. He concluded by advising everyone not to offer any personal opinions.

Laurie was certain that last remark was directed at her. Who else had been offering opinions from within the medical examiner’s ranks?

Following Bingham’s talk, Calvin spoke about administrative issues, particularly concerning how reduced city funding was affecting operations. Every other week one service or supply was being curtailed or eliminated.

Following Calvin’s talk, each of the deputy medical examiners from the other borough offices gave summaries. Some of the people present yawned, others nodded off.

When the borough chiefs were finished, the floor was opened up for general discussion. Dick Katzenburg described a few cases, including the rather grisly one at the Queens funeral home.

Once he was through, Laurie cleared her throat and began to address the group. She presented her six overdose cases as succinctly as possible, careful to delineate the demographic differences that set them apart from usual overdoses. Laurie described the deceased as single yuppies whose drug use came as a surprise to friends and family. She explained the cocaine was mainlined although not mixed with heroin.

“My concern,” Laurie said, avoiding looking at Bingham, “is that we are seeing the beginning of a series of unusual overdose deaths. I suspect a contaminant in the drug is to blame, but so far none has been found. What I’d like to request is that if anybody sees any cases similar to the ones I’ve described, please send them to me.”

“I’ve seen four myself over the last several weeks,” Dick said once Laurie was through. “Since we see so many overdose/toxicity cases I didn’t give the demographics much thought. But now that you mention it, all four seemed like overachievers. In fact, two were professionals. And three of the four took the cocaine intravenously, the fourth orally.”

“Orally?” someone echoed with surprise. “An oral cocaine overdose? That’s pretty uncommon. You usually only see that in drug-smuggling “mules’ coming from South America whose condoms break.”

“I’m never surprised what druggies do,” Dick said. “One of the cases that I had was found wedged in the refrigerator. Apparently he got so hot, he had to crawl into the ice box for relief.”

“One of mine climbed into a refrigerator, too,” Laurie said.

“I had one also,” Jim Bennett said. He was the chief at the Brooklyn office. “And now that I think about it, I had another who ran out into the street stark naked before he had a terminal seizure. He’d taken the drug orally but only after attempting to take it IV.”

“Did these two cases have the same unlikely demographics for a drug overdose?” Laurie asked Jim.

“Sure did,” Jim said. “The man who ran out in the street was a successful lawyer. And the families in both cases swore up and down that the deceased didn’t do drugs.”

Laurie looked to Margaret Hauptman, who headed the Staten Island office. “Have you seen any similar cases?” she asked.

Margaret shook her head.

Laurie asked Dick and Jim if they would mind faxing over the records on the cases they’d described. They immediately said that they would.

“One thing I have to mention,” Dick said. “In three out of four I’ve had a lot of pressure from the involved families to sign the case out as natural.”

“That’s a point I want to underline,” Bingham said, speaking for the first time since the beginning of the discussion. “With upscale overdose deaths like these the families will certainly want to keep the whole episode low profile. I think we should cooperate in this regard. Politically we cannot afford to alienate this constituency.”

“I don’t know what to make of this refrigerator aspect,” Laurie said. “Although it brings me back to the contaminant idea. Perhaps there is some chemical that has a synergistic effect with cocaine vis-á-vis causing hyperpyrexia. At any rate I’m concerned that all these deaths are coming from the same source of the drug. Now that we have this many cases we ought to be able to prove it by comparing the percentages of its natural hydrolysates. Of course we will need the lab to cooperate.”

Laurie looked nervously at Bingham to see if his expression changed with her reference to the lab. It didn’t.

“I don’t think a contaminant is a given,” Dick said. “Cocaine is fully capable of causing these deaths all by itself. On the four cases I’ve seen, the serum level was high. Very high. These people took big doses. Maybe the cocaine wasn’t cut with anything; maybe it was one-hundred-percent pure. We’ve all seen that kind of death with heroin.”

“I still think a contaminant is involved,” Laurie said. “With the general intelligence of this group of victims, it’s hard for me to believe that so many would mess up if it were purely dose related.”

Dick shrugged. “You may be right,” he admitted. “All I’m saying is let’s not jump to hasty conclusions.”

Leaving the conference, Laurie felt a strange and disturbing mixture of excitement, yet a renewed frustration and anxiety. Within a couple of hours her “series” had doubled from six cases to twelve. That was ominous. Her intuition about the number of cases increasing was already coming to pass, and at an alarming rate.

Now, even more than before, Laurie felt that the public had to be warned, especially this group of yuppie types. The problem was how to do it. Certainly she dared not go back to Bingham. But she had to do something.

Suddenly she thought of Lou. The police had a whole division devoted to drugs and vice. Perhaps that division had a way of putting out the word that a certain drug was particularly dangerous. With growing resolve, she went to her office and dialed Lou immediately. When he answered, she felt relieved.

“I’m so glad you’re still there,” she said with a sigh.

“You are?” Lou asked.

“I want to come right down and talk to you,” Laurie said.

“You do?”

“Will you wait for me?” Laurie demanded.

“Sure,” Lou said. He was puzzled and elated at the same time. “Come on down.”

Laurie hung up the phone, grabbed her briefcase, opened it, threw in some half-finished records, snapped it shut, snatched her coat, and literally ran down to the elevator.

A slight rain was falling as she stepped out onto First Avenue. She despaired of catching a cab, but as luck would have it, one pulled up to the curb and let off a passenger right in front of her. Laurie got in before the passenger had a chance to close the door.

Never having been to New York City police headquarters, Laurie was surprised to find it a relatively modern brick structure. Entering the front entrance, she had to sign in while a security person called up to Lou to make sure she was expected. Then they went through her briefcase. Armed with a visitor’s pass and directions, she found his office. Like the entire building, it reeked of cigarette smoke.

“Can I take your coat?” Lou asked as she stepped inside. Lou took the coat and hung it on a coatrack. While he was doing so he caught Harvey Lawson giving him a dirty look from across the hall. Lou closed his office door.

“You sounded excited on the phone,” Lou commented as he went around behind his desk. Laurie had taken one of the two straight-backed chairs. Her briefcase was on the floor next to her.

“I need your help,” Laurie said. She was intense and obviously nervous, clutching her hands in her lap.

“Oh, really?” Lou commented. “I was hoping this excitement had something to do with dinner tonight, like you had changed your mind.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice. He was obviously disappointed.