The second surprise was the coroner’s clerk, who was polite and even deferential. Mr. Horner greeted them in a deep, damaged voice and bowed to Sophie and Anna solemnly, without a trace of condescension or mockery. He was a tall, cadaverously thin man, dressed in an ancient black suit carefully pressed and brushed. The knotted wide linen tie at his neck didn’t quite cover a winding scar, as thick and pale as a slug, reaching almost from one ear to the other. A veteran of the war, as were most men of his age.
Anna was studying Mr. Horner too, and Sophie knew her cousin was trying to work out for herself what injury the clerk had suffered, what the surgeon had done, and whether she could have done a better job and left less of a scar. This small evidence that Anna was, as always, more interested in practicing medicine than talking about it gave Sophie a way to focus her thoughts.
The issue before them was medical in nature, and medicine was her field.
They were shown into a meeting room that smelled of stale tobacco and sweat: damp walls, peeling paint, windows grimy with soot, the floorboards warped. City Hall always seemed to be rotting from the inside out.
Conrad’s clerk was already in place, arranging papers and notepads, ink bottles and pens.
Mr. Horner withdrew, closing the door behind himself, and their small party took seats around the industrious Mr. York, Conrad’s law clerk, who had managed to gather a great deal of information in very little time.
“The autopsy report,” he said, pushing a closely written sheet of paper into the middle of the table. “It might be best if one of the physicians read it out loud, sir.”
Anna took it up, to Sophie’s great relief. She thought her own voice would waver, and she didn’t want to give away her fear, not even to her own people.
As soon as Anna began to read, Mr. York turned to the business of making notes, his head lowered over the paper before him.
“It’s dated seven this morning,” Anna said, and read on quickly, stopping to summarize. “He notes normal signs of multiple pregnancies and a recent birth. This is a very blunt, technical document, I should warn you.”
“Read on,” Conrad said. “You needn’t worry about offending anyone here.”
Anna cleared her throat and did as she was asked.
The abdomen shows a standard laparoscopic incision neatly closed which I reopen. I find a puncture wound that passed through the cervix to tear the uterine wall from horn to horn made by an instrument similar in shape to a curette or probe. After sectioning and removal of the reproductive organs, intestinal and mesenteric injuries corresponding to the uterine perforation are visible. A four-inch-long piece of the ileum is torn from the mesentery. Visceral and parietal peritoneum is filled with yellow exudate, fecal matter, serum, albumin, and approximately two quarts of pus. A displaced intestinal loop was covered by fibrino-purulent deposits.
The other abdominal organs showed no irregularities, and beyond these, none other were examined, sufficient injuries being found in the reproductive organs to reach a conclusion.
Cause of death: Shock, septic peritonitis, and blood loss due to an illegal, negligent, and incompetent operation carried out by person or persons unknown between twenty-four and forty-eight hours previous to death.
? ? ?
“IT’S SIGNED DR. Donald Manderston,” she finished. “I don’t know the man. Sophie?”
She shook her head. “The name sounds familiar, but no.”
“At least now we know why we’re here,” Conrad said. “The sticking point is person or persons unknown. Mrs. Campbell’s injuries were not of her own making, in other words. They’re looking for her abortionist.”
“Only if you accept Manderston’s premise,” Sophie said, irritation blooming in her voice in a way she couldn’t temper. “Will this Dr. Manderston be here to answer questions?”
“Oh, yes,” Conrad said. “Here they come now. But Sophie, my dear. Leave the asking of questions to me.”
? ? ?
OSCAR WAS THE last man through the door, winded and windblown, a welcome face for all its ill humor. Somehow or another he had managed to insert himself into this matter, which was a stroke of luck. Another detective might not be quite so forthcoming as Oscar would be when Jack hit him with some difficult questions.
First and foremost, he wanted to know why it was that an assistant district attorney had taken a seat right next to the coroner. A district attorney meant that this wasn’t a simple meeting to clear up a few questions. A district attorney meant blood in the water. In the company of police and prosecutors, the words person or persons unknown were as much as a red flag to a bull. The coroner’s mind-set would be pivotal, and the coroner was an unknown.