Page 3 of Fever: Love In Scrubs

I chuckled. “She probably would.”

I pulled her into my chest, embracing her in a tight hug as I kissed her temple. I would give anything to go back to the days when hugs and kisses fixed everything. When she took my word as bond and didn’t second guess what I told her. But alas, she was growing up and into her own person.

“I love you,” I said once again.

“I love you too, Daddy.”

“Go on in there with your head up and chin out. Have a good day.”

“Yes, sir.”

I kissed her cheek and released her to leave. Once she was safely inside, I pulled off and headed for Saint Ambrose Hospital. While I braved the morning traffic, I made a call to Amandela.

“What?” she answered.

“That’s how you answer the phone?”

“I already know what you’re calling about, Jaxson.”

“Then explain to me why the hell you bought our twelve-year-old a damn padded bra, Dela.”

“She’s a growing girl. I wore padded bras at her age. She just wanted a confidence boost?—”

“Then give her some fucking words of affirmation!” I yelled. “You’re over there feeding into the insecurities those little boys put into her head with that stupid ass list.”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to be a mother. I was mother and father?—”

“Don’t hand me that bullshit. I was completing my internship and my residency, and I was still a father to my child, Amandela.

You didn’t have to raise her alone during any part of her life.

Cut the crap. Don’t buy my daughter no bullshit like that again and don’t be encouraging her to wear makeup either.

She’s twelve years old. I’ll be damned if her self worth is wrapped up in her looks and the opinion of people, especially men. God forbid she inherit that from you.”

“Fuck you, Jaxson!”

“Not with a ten foot pole. You heard what I said. Try that shit again and we’re gonna have a problem.”

I hung up the phone with her going off in my ear. I didn’t hate my ex-wife, but if I knew she’d turn out to be the woman she became, I would have left her ass in that bar. I was young and dumb, missing all the red flags back then.

There were the sly things her own mother said about marrying a future doctor and what kind of life we were gonna live.

There was the constant pressure to produce a child right after we got married.

When she learned I was divorcing her daughter, she basically told me it didn’t matter because I had Amandela for life.

I guess that meant she thought I had her too.

I was sure my ex-wife had been giving her mother money. All of that stopped when she realized she wasn’t getting any alimony from me. Once the funds were cut off, so was her daughter. It had been years since Dela spoke to her mother because she had nothing to offer her anymore.

Our divorce hurt me because I thought she was the one at one point. I thought I’d met and married the woman that would give me the type of love my parents had. My father modeled the type of man I was, and I knew he’d loved my mother to his very last breath.

Maybe one of these days I would experience that for real.

The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as I adjusted my protective glasses and pulled the sheet back from the body. The morgue’s air conditioning was on full blast, circulating the antiseptic-scented air that had become as familiar to me as the cologne I spritzed on this morning.

“Male, approximately forty-five years old,” I murmured into my voice recorder. “Well-nourished, no obvious signs of trauma.”

I moved methodically around the examination table, my trained eyes cataloging every detail.

The man’s hands drew my attention first. His calloused palms and paint-stained fingernails told me he worked with his hands.

There was a small scar on the left index finger that looked to be old and healed. I snapped a picture of each finding.

I paused when my eyes landed on an unusual discoloration on his neck.

To the untrained eye, it was barely visible.

Leaning closer, I adjusted the overhead lamp to cast better light on the area.

The subtle bruising pattern didn’t match the preliminary report’s assumption that he died of natural causes.

“Interesting,” I whispered, reaching for my magnifying glass.

My years of experience had taught me that bodies told stories. Even if you didn’t know the story, you had to know what to look for. Most people who knew what I did for a living couldn’t fathom working with dead bodies all day. I simply told them what my grandmother had told me my entire life.

“It’s not the dead you have to worry about. It’s the living.”

As I continued my external exam, I made notes of other inconsistencies or things that stuck out to me and combatted the findings of the initial reports. A faint mark on the inner part of his left arm caught my attention. I swabbed it carefully, the cotton coming away with a barely visible residue.

There were clear signs this man had recently been injected with something, even though the preliminary toxicology screen had come back negative for common drugs. I made a mental note to request an expanded panel.

The man’s clothing, bagged and tagged on the nearby counter, told a story apart from his corpse.

He’d come in wearing expensive jeans, a designer polo shirt, and leather shoes that cost more than most people’s monthly rent.

The disconnect between his working man’s hands and his affluent appearance was another piece of the puzzle.

Walking over to my desk, I pulled up the case file to read over it.

“James Porter, found dead in his downtown apartment by a concerned neighbor. No signs of forced entry, no apparent struggle. The responding officers had assumed natural causes, and the family had been notified to expect a routine autopsy.”

“Good morning!” a familiar cheerful voice said, causing me to look up from the files.

Raq came waltzing into the room with a smile on her face and two cups of coffee in her hands, along with a bag from her favorite breakfast spot.

“You know me,” I said as she handed me a cup of coffee. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Because I know you, I bought you something to eat because I guarantee you haven’t eaten breakfast.”

“You’d be correct.”

“Go wash your hands and take a break, sir.”

I chuckled and shook my head as I stood. “You really think you can boss me around.”

“Yet you’re standing. Shoo shoo.”

With a roll of my eyes, I went to wash my hands. When I returned to the desk, she had everything in the bag distributed. Most people asked how we could eat down here. It was simple. A nigga was hungry.

“I appreciate this,” I said, taking a seat.

“No problem. What are you working on?”

“A James Porter. I suspect foul play.”

“Really? Why?”

I gave her the rundown as we made haste in eating our breakfast. Once we were done, we both washed up so I could complete the rest of the external exam.

Returning to the body, I began photographing the neck discoloration from multiple angles.

Under the bright examination light, I could make out what appeared to be finger-shaped impressions.

While they were faint, they were unmistakable to someone who had seen them before, and I’d seen a little of everything in this field. Raq noticed them too.

The pattern suggested someone with large hands, possibly another male, though I wouldn’t make any assumptions.

Assuming too early could lead to a number of mistakes and I couldn’t afford that in this line of work.

I had testified in enough murder trials to know that every detail mattered.

Every photograph could be scrutinized by defense attorneys looking for reasonable doubt.

Pulling out the recorder, I made a note.

“Upon closer examination, the decedent exhibits possible signs of manual strangulation. Faint bruising consistent with finger impressions is visible on the anterior neck, measuring approximately...”

I paused to take measurements with my ruler, documenting everything with precision.

I knew this was about to be a long morning, but one thing I learned about working with the dead was patience. This morgue was a place to discover hidden truths. Every corpse that passed through here was once a living, breathing human being. They deserved truth, and some even deserved justice.

Raq and I worked tirelessly to get this assignment complete so I could turn in my report. Just as we finished up, the doors opened, and another body was rolled in by an all too familiar face.

“What do we have?” Raq asked Vinnie, the transport specialist.

He looked at the paperwork before answering. “Frost Driscoll. Found unresponsive at his home. This is a sad one, man. When we pulled him out of that house, it was clear he was a hoarder. We could barely get inside.”

I shook my head. “Hoarding is a mental thing, Vinnie. It’s a trauma response or rooted in grief or something.”

“I overheard a neighbor say it started after his wife died in childbirth.”

“He has a kid? Were they there?”

Vinnie shook his head. “Nah. He’s fifty-six so I’m assuming the kid is grown, but don’t quote me on that. Anyway, that family has been contacted so expect someone to come claim the body in a few days. Just sign the usual paperwork and tell me where to put him.”

I nodded to Raq, who busied herself with showing the other man with Vinnie where to put Mr. Driscoll while I signed the paperwork. We chopped it up for a second before they left and I went to view the body.

Looking down into the face of Mr. Driscoll, I sighed.

Vinnie mentioned him being a hoarder, and it showed in the tattered clothing with holes in the shirt and pants.

His socks had holes as well. There were signs of insect bites on the exposed skin.

While he had been in his home dead for days, it was also clear that he hadn’t bathed in a while either.

I felt a tinge of sadness. He wasn’t much younger than my father, only by a couple of years.

My heart went out to his child, knowing they would have to bury him soon.

I wanted to get him cleaned up and made presentable before the viewing.

If he had to be seen this way, let there be some tinge of dignity in it.

“Poor man,” Raq said, shaking her head. “I wonder where his family was to let him live like that?”

“I can only imagine his lifestyle put a strain on relationships. They probably felt torn between love and frustration. Sometimes it’s easier to love people from a distance when you want more for them than they want for themselves.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” She sighed. “Shall we get started?”

I nodded as I began preparing for the assessment. This was going to be a long day.