Wedding Date with the Army Doc by Lynne Marshall Page A

endorphins, or was it light-headedness from low blood oxygen? Who cared? She felt good right now, and she could talk again, so she decided to go for it. “Hey, you want to have dinner with me later?”
    After all they’d been through together for the last few minutes—his surprise test, her passing it, his forcing her to excel at a sport she could honestly live without, her probably setting a new “slowest five-kilometer” world record, him acting proud of her anyway, and probably for many reasons—he hesitated.
    Every part of his facial expression put on the brakes, and it took her aback. So she thought fast and covered. “I’ve got an autopsy to do later this afternoon, and I thought if you weren’t doing anything around five, you might join me in the cafeteria for a quick and easy dinner? Nothing special or anything. No big deal.” Had that sounded professional enough? It was nothing like a dat e date, just dinner with a running buddy who’d shown her his BKA for the first time today.
    Jackson’s mind wandered in a half-dozen different directions. Why was a great and attractive girl like Charlotte spending Saturday afternoons doing autopsies and offering last-minute dinner invitations? Hell, yeah, he wanted to spend time with her, but tonight was a rescheduling of his usual Friday night dinner and a movie with his son. He couldn’t back out from that, they still had too much to work through, and things continued to be strained. But they were making progress. His son attending Pepperdine had been his main motive for moving to California in the first place. What was left of his family had to come first.
    Reality clicked in. Tonight wasn’t the night. His fascination with the lovely pathologist, who now knew about his leg, would have to wait.
    â€œCan I take a rain check on that invitation?”
    * * *
    James, the near-to-retirement morgue attendant, was ready and waiting after Charlotte had showered and changed into scrubs. By the time she’d donned the gown, shoe covers, face mask and clear plastic face shield, plus two pairs of gloves, he’d already weighed the body and placed it on the stainless-steel gurney-style table, complete with irrigation sink and drainage trough. A large surgical table was nearby with the tools of her trade—bone saw, rib cutter, hammer with hook, scalpel, toothed forceps, scissors, Stryker saw and more.
    A family had requested an autopsy on their loved one, a twenty-five-year-old man, who’d arrived in the hospital three days earlier with signs of a bacterial infection. The hospital had agreed to the postmortem examination to identify any previously undiagnosed condition that may have contributed to his death, and to pin down what bacterium had suddenly run rampant throughout his system.
    As a clinical pathologist, not to be confused with forensics like people saw on TV dramas just about every night of the week, her job was to see for herself what may or may not have caused his death. Knowing that up to a quarter of performed autopsies revealed a major surprise other than the notated cause of death, over the next two to four hours she’d systematically examine the outside and inside of this young man’s body to get to the best and most logical diagnosis.
    James, her diener, stood by ready to assist with each aspect of the autopsy. Turning on her Dictaphone, Charlotte described what she saw externally. Then she used a scalpel to make a Y-shaped incision. Before her afternoon was done she’d weigh and measure every major organ, take systematic biopsies and place them in preservation solution. She’d also collect blood and fluid for laboratory specimens, snap pictures and preserve the brain in fixative for future dissection. She wondered what the zombies would think of her now.
    James labeled as they went along and would, after the autopsy, submit all specimens to the histology lab for Monday, when they