No Cure for Murder Read Free

stand the thought of her being cut open like that.”
    Jacob placed his hand on Pete’s shoulder. “It’s not that way. It’s more like surgery.”
    Asking a grieving family for permission to perform an autopsy felt like hitting a person when they were down, but Jacob tried to get one on his patients when the cause of death was unclear.
    In many ways, the postmortem examination is a character test for physicians and sometimes a Pandora’s Box. Through the autopsy, physicians expose themselves to the revelation of a mistake, a missed critical diagnosis, or the chance that they injured the patient with their treatments.
    “Can I see her?”
    “Of course, but let me see if she’s ready.”
    He stared at Jacob oddly. “Ready?”
    “The nurses like to straighten up and make her presentable.”
    “Presentable?”
    With Pete standing before them, Jacob slowly pushed the swinging door open and they followed him into his wife’s now dim and silent room.
    Ginny Harrison had remade the bed and just pulled the sheet over Shannon’s face.
    The white-sheeted body is iconic of death. The image draws immediate attention, the respectful pause, the turned head, and the questioning glance.
    Pete stood by her bedside, looking down in silence. After a moment, he stared at Jacob and nodded.
    Jacob grasped the top of the sheet. With solemnity, he slid it down to expose Shannon’s face.
    Pete stared at the bloodless, lifeless wax figure of what was once his wife, his life. His eyes widened and his legs weakened. He grasped the bed for support.
    Jacob held Pete’s shoulders for a moment until he regained control.
    Pete placed his hand on Shannon’s cheek. When he touched her cold lifeless skin, he reflexively retracted his hand with the reality of death. He stared at the woman who’d shared his life, then bent over and placed a kiss on her lips.
    “Get me the papers to sign, Jacob. I need to know what happened.”

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    Jacob Weizman slipped out of Brier Hospital at 8:00 a.m. and walked, head down, toward the parking garage. A few deep breaths and the salty scent of the San Francisco Bay, just three miles to the west, cleared his sleep-deprived head.
    When he reached the bright fluorescent entranceway, Angel Hernandez, the night attendant, waved. “Don’t tell me you worked all night, Doc.”
    “No, Ángel,” said Jacob, using the Spanish pronunciation, “just a sad beginning to another day.”
    “Sorry, Doc. Hope the rest of your day is better, and say hello to Mrs. Weizman for me. Ella esta La Pistola.”
    “Lola, a pistol...fair enough.”
    Jacob stared at his 1970 black Volvo 122. He brushed away the light coating of dust blurring his wrinkled image in the mirror-like hood finish and recalled the day he and Lola purchased the car new from the Berkeley showroom floor. Growing old together, he and the Volvo remained sturdy, a bit outdated, but far from useless, he prayed.
    Jacob climbed in. He sank in the well-worn driver’s seat, and drove through the ground fog up the steep wet streets to their modest home nestled in the Arlington section of the Berkeley hills.
    When he cracked open the front door, the smell of freshly ground coffee and baking blueberry scones set his mouth watering.
    Lola bent before the oven, holding the door ajar and checking on her creations. The kitchen table held a stack of newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune, and the New York Times. They shared these papers each morning and fought over the crossword puzzles, especially the Times. Jacob was faster, but Lola was better, and she delighted in looking over his shoulder and kibitzing—more like tormenting him over missed clues. More than once, he fended off her pencil-poised-hand that loomed over his empty squares.
    Lola was three years his junior. She stood at five feet two inches and weighed 98 pounds. She looked and sounded like a skinny Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Her pruned face reflected