Blindsight by Robin Cook Page B

want to talk about it."
"Fine," Lou said. "I don't mean to pry." Laurie turned back to Duncan's body. For a second she was immobilized by the thought it was her brother's body before her on that cold table. She was relieved to be interrupted by Vinnie returning with gloves, specimen bottles, preservatives, labels, and a series of instruments. She was eager to get started and put these reveries behind her.
"Let's do it," Vinnie said. He began applying the labels to the specimen jars. Laurie opened the gloves and put them on. She put on her goggles and began a careful exterior examination of Duncan Andrews. After looking at Duncan's head, she motioned for Lou to step around to the other side of the table. Parting Duncan's hair with her gloved hand, she showed Lou multiple bruises.
"I'll bet he had at least one convulsion," Laurie said. "Let's look at the tongue." Laurie opened Duncan's mouth. The tongue was lacerated in several locations. "Just what I expected," she said. "Now let's see how much cocaine this fellow has been using." With a small flashlight and a nasal speculum, she looked up Duncan's nose. "No perforations. Looks normal. Guess he hadn't been sniffing much."

Laurie straightened up. She noticed Lou's attention had been directed at a neighboring table where they
were busy sawing off the top of a skull. Their eyes met. "You okay?" Laurie questioned.
"I'm not sure," Lou said. "You actually do this every day?" "On average, three or four days a week," Laurie said. "You want to go outside for a while? I can let you know when we do DePasquale."
"No, I'll be all right. Let's get on with it. What's next?" "I usually check the eyes," Laurie said. She studied Lou. The last thing she wanted was for him to pass out and hit his head on the concrete floor. That had happened to a visitor once before. "Continue," Lou urged. "I'm fine."
Laurie shrugged. Then she put her thumb and index finger on Duncan's eyelids and drew them up. Lou gasped and turned away.
For a moment even Laurie was taken aback. The eyes were gone! The pulpy red sockets were filled with pink-stained wads of gauze. It gave the corpse a ghastly appearance. "Okay!" Lou said. "You got me. You set me up and you got me. I'll have to give you that." He turned back to Laurie. The bit of facial skin visible between his mask and his hood was blanched. "Let me guess: this was some sort of initiation ordeal for the rookie." Laurie let out a short, nervous laugh. "I'm sorry, Lou," she said. "I'd forgotten the eyes had been taken. Truly. This was the case where the family was insistent that the deceased's wishes to be an organ donor be honored. If the eyes can be harvested within twelve hours, they often can be used if there are no other contraindications. Occasionally it can even be longer than twelve hours if the body is chilled." "I don't mind being the butt of a joke," Lou said. "But it wasn't a joke," Laurie insisted. "I'm sorry. Honest. I'd been called on this case yesterday. With everything else that's happened, I'd forgotten. I just remembered this was a case where the victim took the cocaine IV. Let's see if we can find the injection site." Laurie rotated Duncan's right arm palm up so she could examine its volar surface. Vinnie did the same with the left arm.
"Here it is," Laurie exclaimed, pointing to a minute puncture wound over one of the veins in front of the elbow area.
"I didn't know cocaine could be mainlined," Lou said. "It's taken into the body just about every way you can imagine and some you can't," Laurie said. "IV is not common, but it's done." As she spoke, her mind took her back to the night before she found Shelly dead in his bedroom. He'd just come home from Yale, and Laurie was in his room, eager to hear about

college. His open Dopp kit was on his bed.
"What's this?" Laurie questioned. She held up a pack of condoms. "Give me that," Shelly shouted, clearly peeved to have his baby sister find such a thing in his shaving kit. Laurie giggled