I yawned as I began to thinly slice body tissues to make slides. The laboratory assistants normally did this tedious, boring job, but tonight, I wanted answers to come sooner than later. I was willing to work doggedly on what was Christmas Eve; it wasn't like I had any plans. I didn't even have anyone to make plans with; my antics last spring had single handedly isolated me from most of the relationships that I used to have. I rarely talked to Lily, Big, Garret, or Nigel. I hadn't heard from my father since the morning after James died. Woody . . . my relationship with him ceased to exist. I hadn't heard from a detective yet, so I assumed that Woody had been assigned to this case.
The thin tissue slices were adhered to slides and dyed in a myriad of different stains. I set them in a rack to dry; I began to focus my attention on tubes of blood I took from Baby Doe. I began to load the samples into a variety of machines. It felt good to momentarily get lost in my work; it felt good to momentarily forget that this was the body of an infant that never got a chance.
I didn't want to begin to confront the feelings that were beginning to resurface. I thought I had buried these feelings years ago; I should have known that burying feelings didn't make them go away. I hadn't dare let these feelings resurface; I couldn't. I battled to regain my professionalism; professionalism was the only way that I made it through the day. I could trudge through my personal problems later.
I rested in my office while I was waiting for my blood samples to finish running and my tissue samples to dry. I had grown accustom to closing my door; it provided a little peace. It wasn't like people were actively seeking me out anymore. I had trampled on way too many feelings for that to happen. I wasn't even sure how to begin to mend all that I had broken.
I pulled my hair out of the rubberband and let it fall down my back. I ran my fingers through the tangled, wavy mess. I pulled off my scrub top to reveal a tight t-shirt. I grabbed my blanket and laid down on my couch. I wasn't as mentally tired as I was physically tired. I tried to drift into sleep, but there was knocking on my office door. I didn't make a sound. I didn't really want to talk to anyone right now. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. Better yet, I wanted to spend my time in a dreamless slumber. I slammed my eyelids closed as the door creaked open. I immediately began to fall into a light sleep; I had been working for well over twenty-four hours. I knew my body was ready to take advantage of any chance to sleep; my mind wasn't quite as ready, but body won over mind this time.
"Jordan, wake up," Woody said loudly causing me to jolt into a sitting position. That's about as good as our relationship had been over the last few months; he either avoided me or treated me with something falling very short of professional courtesy. I ran my fingers over my forehead; the sudden jolt caused my head to throb a little more than it already had been when I laid down.
Woody stared at me; he didn't speak another word. He was waiting for me to tell him all the facts he needed so he could get as far away from me as possible. I normally just had my dictation forwarded to him; I hadn't done the dictation tonight. I was too emotionally charged to verbalize the story of a Baby Doe.
"Baby boy . . . probably 2 to 12 hours old . . . ligature marks . . . fully inflated lungs," I stated. Just looking at the child was enough to make a case for murder; that's all I could do. Trace would be responsible for working up the evidence on the blankets and laundry basket Baby Doe was found in. Garrett warned me that I was to take a hands-off approach to Woody's cases; I had successfully managed to do just that. Woody made it very easy to take a hands-off approach.
"Anything else?" Woody asked as he leaned up against my desk. I returned to my supine position on the couch. The conversation was already over; I knew it would end with him asking me to forward my dictation to his office. I would agree, and he would leave without another word.
My relationship with Woody wasn't nearly as important as the baby in the crypt. The life of every baby should be celebrated. I learned that the hard way so many years ago; it was so long ago that sometimes I felt like it just might have been another lifetime. I found out I was pregnant exactly five days after I ran from Boston. It was five days after I ran from the frantic voice of Tom Crane's desperate wife; all she wanted was for his mistress, me, to leave her and her husband the hell alone. I did just that; I ran across the country. I figured that was far enough away to give them the room to rebuild their relationship and give me enough room to figure out how to fall out of love. I miscarried three months later in a dirty apartment in Seattle. They say you can't miss what you don't know; that was a line of crap if I've ever heard one.
"Jordan, can you pay attention please?" Woody asked a little more loudly this time.
"Sorry . . . no . . . nothing else. I'll forward the preliminary report to you as soon as I finish it up," I replied. There was a distinct hitch in my voice; my normally articulate speech was sloppy at best. I rolled on my stomach and buried my head into a small pillow. I hoped he would go away; this was the first time during my long period of isolation that I actually wanted to be alone. There were so many times that I longed for someone to talk to; I had taken to talking to one of my houseplants out of sheer desperation. The plant died about two weeks ago. I took it as a sign that what I had to say probably wasn't what anything, including plants, wanted to hear.
"You okay?" I heard Woody ask.
"I'll get that report to you before noon," I replied as I lifted my head out of the pillow.
"I didn't ask about the report," Woody clarified.
"Sorry, I'm just tired," I replied lamely. I knew I didn't sound anywhere near believable, but right now, I hoped that he really didn't care. I was convinced that he didn't. I was convinced that no one did.
The door to my office opened and closed. He was gone as quickly as he came. I buried my head into the tiny pillow and cried. The tears quickly gave way to sleep. My sleep was burdened by images of home pregnancy tests proclaiming that I was pregnant. Back then I hadn't known what to make of my pregnancy. I didn't feel different; I was under the assumption that the minute you get pregnant something is supposed to change. I didn't feel changed; I felt a little lonelier, but I didn't physically feel different. I didn't vomit in the morning. My breasts didn't feel different; my stomach was just as flat as it was in the days preceding. There was no visible change. In the following weeks, my stomach developed a little pouch and my breasts became fuller, but I didn't look pregnant. My pregnancy would end far before I would ever know what it was really like to feel pregnant. That was years ago, but time hadn't seemed to heal all wounds.
I awoke to sun screaming through my window. I made my way to the lab to look at my slides. I hid at the workbench in the far corner of the lab. I silently processed all the tissue samples; I documented in triplicate all the absolutely normal tissue. Everything was normal; everything about the baby was normal except for the fact that the baby boy was dead.
I poured over laboratory work. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The baby was a little anemic, but that could be a reflection of pour nutrition on the part of the mother. Despite a slightly low birth weight, someone out there gave birth to a perfect little baby boy that was now in the care of the morgue.
By the time that I got back to my office, the daylight I had awoken to was giving way to darkness. I quickly dictated my report; I put a rush on its processing. I asked the recording to forward the contents to Detective Woodrow Hoyt and Dr. Garrett Macy.
My annual poinsettia from the governor's office was sitting on the corner of my desk. The morgue was empty; everyone else had families to go home to. I picked up the poinsettia and walked out to my car. I drove to the scene of the crime. I walked across the snow covered field to a clearing right in front of the statue of St. Ines. She was the saint of bodily purity. That baby was nothing less than pure. I placed my poinsettia in the exact place where Baby Doe was found. I stood in the deep, white snow for a few minutes before turning around and heading back to my car. The tears streamed down my face; they threatened to freeze due to the frigid wind that whipped around my head.
I drove to the Pogue. It was manned by a single college student that wasn't going home this year. I told John to leave; I gave him fifty-dollars and told him to get his butt over to his girlfriend's parent's house. He smiled and told me to not work too hard. I wouldn't have to work hard; I was the only one in the bar.
I poured myself a pint of Guinness and wondered exactly how I could ever let things get this bad.
"Merry Christmas, Baby Doe," I whispered to no one in particular.