One Year Later
Jordan rounded the curve at 13th and Belleview and picked up the pace. Running had almost become an addiction to her lately. She teased everyone that she was going to do the marathon this year but either had to work or slept in for every qualifier. She was content pounding away a few miles every chance she could get. Running was what helped her to heal.
It took her the better part of two weeks to get out of the hospital. They put her on seizure meds as a precaution. The side effects made her weaned herself off of them after the first three weeks. She never had any trouble.
She didn't go back to work for four and it took another six to convince the review board that just because she couldn't remember if the Barbie she got on her sixth birthday had a blue dress or a purple one she could still do her job.
Jordan was left with some hazy spots in her memories. At times she had to stop and ask herself if she was remembering something right. As a doctor she knew the blood loss was to blame. Jordan had no doubts she would have been dead if she hadn't have been for the baby. The added blood volume of her pregnancy brought her some extra time which kept her from not having more lasting effects. Outside of the physical scars, and an occasional migraine, Jordan was fully recovered.
Six months after the attack, Howard recommended her to a plastic surgeon. She had the scar under her chin fixed. The ugly red line was smoothed out to a thin silver one. She joked that she went in for boobs and they screwed up. Which was a big step for her. It took six months to learn to laugh again.
Jordan stopped running and leaned against the railing on a nearby building's front stoop. Unconsciously, she ran her fingers over the twin scars on her abdomen. The plastic surgeon offered to take care of them too but Jordan wanted to keep them...like a talisman. She never wanted to forget what she lost in that alley way.
Her baby and her best friend.
It took her a few weeks before she could sleep with the lights off. She still wakes up every once in awhile hearing a baby cry...but those nights was beginning to come fewer and further apart. As were those times she'd see Woody's smile on a face in a crowd...
True to his word, Woody left that day he said goodbye.
Like most of those first few days her memory of her last conversation with him was mixed with narcotic-induced imaginings. Garret had to explain what happened more than once.
Less than 12 hours after she heard the goodbye, the man that stabbed her was behind bars being arraigned on a murder charge and Woody's taillights had seen the last of Boston.
A year later, her attacker was serving a life sentence and Woody was living somewhere in Georgia of all places... At least that was what she heard from the grape vine.
When she needed him...Really needed him most, Woody bailed again.
That was then and this is now. Jordan had rebuilt her life.
Just last month Garret announced he was retiring. He wanted to take some time and rebuild his relationship with his daughter, do a little traveling...maybe write that novel he's always wanted too.
Jordan was heartbroken at first but she realized that she of all people knew that nothing can ever stay the same. People's needs changed. For some, there was more to life than the hallways of the morgue. Jordan tried that once. It blew up in her face.
Garret told her he was recommending her for the CME's position. She felt she was ready. Only the Powers to Be didn't.
They said it was too soon after her attack. Jordan read between the lines. They thought she was an outstanding ME...but too much of a loose canon to be in charge. Slokum was set to take over at the end of the quarter.
With the news, Lily was the first to leave. She found a job with the state mental health commission. Bug was quick to follow. He took a teaching position in the entomology department at Boston College. Even Nigel had been talking about crime labs in warmer climates and big budgeted facilities.
Jordan planned on sticking it out. The morgue was her home...even if was starting to feel less and less like it each passing day.
Jordan picked up the pace of her jog. Before long she found herself at the back loading dock of the crypt. She was surprised to see Garret overseeing a mortuary pickup. He held his hand up in a wave.
"If we were that short staffed today I could have come in earlier..." she smiled.
"I just wanted a little fresh air and sunlight." Garret replied
Jordan stopped behind him and arched her back. The skies were over cast and the gas fuses from the running hearse were stifling in the narrow loading dock.
"Whatever..."
"Actually I wanted to clear my head. I got a consult request about an hour ago..." Garret said matter-of-factly.
"Since when do you take consults?" Jordan smirked. "It's not crazy enough here for you; you have to being in someone else's problems?"
Garret simply nodded. "This one was special."
"Sounds interesting,' Jordan hummed. "So what's the case?"
"Eighteen year old male from a local college found at the bottom of a ravine. It looks like he took a dive off the top of a railroad bridge. There was a suicide note at the scene."
"But it doesn't look like suicide." her voice spiked with curiosity. It was just the reaction Garret was looking for.
"No," Garret's lips thinned out. "Everything points to a suicide..."
"So what do they need you for?" Jordan smirked.
Garret turned and walked back into the building. Jordan followed closely on his heals. "There was a second case reported less then twelve hours later."
"You've been in this business long enough to know that suicides breed suicides."
"You're probably right, but the detective in charge of the case doesn't feel right about where the facts are pointing and I trust his instincts."
"So what are you going to do?" Jordan said leaning against the freight elevator wall.
"I don't know. I was hoping you'd take a look at some of the pictures and give me your take."
"Are you trying to pass this one off on me Garret?" she teased.
"No," Garret replied honestly. "It's just that you and this detective think a lot alike. I thought maybe you'd see what he saw."
Jordan's curiosity was peeked as Garret handed her the email printouts from his desk. She thumbed through them. There was the young man that was lying, broken, at the bottom of a railroad trestle. From the photos he had obviously fallen to his death. Just because there was a note doesn't mean he couldn't have been pushed.
Second, was a young woman, maybe in her late teens, early twenties. Even in the photos, it was obvious she was in the early to mid stages of pregnancy. She was lying on a bed. Her arms slashed from elbow to wrist. Jordan blinked and turned the last set of photos over. It was still hard for her to stay objective when it came to death and pregnancy.
"Lover's pact?"
"Could be...but there is no evidence they even knew each other."
"Did she leave a note too?"
"Yes," he said handing her grainy scanned copies of the notes.
Jordan read through them. They all basically said the same thing all suicide notes do. Life's too much. I can't go on...yadda yadda. What struck her funny was the female's note. It was short and to the point. Her baby's father wasn't going to support her and she killed herself because of it. Normally when a young woman contemplates the act of suicide she'll wax poetic on and on spelling out details of everything that drove her to that point.
Jordan studied both notes again, noting the verbiage, the tone...the sheer lack of detail. The fine hairs on the back of her neck rose.
"I have to admit I'm curious. Whose case is this? Is it someone local or cross state?"
"Actually it's out of state."
"We don't take out of state consults. We're not budgeted. You know that."
"He called as a personal favor."
Garret handed Jordan a copy of the original email. The header read Harrison County Sheriff's Office. Derry, Georgia.
"Georgia?" Even as the question escaped her mouth, Jordan had a feeling just who the detective in question was. She looked down the page to the automatically generated signature: Sgt. Woodrow Hoyt.
She rolled her mouth as she read the rest of the email. The tone was conversational. Like some one who had been gone a week instead of a year. It was down right chummy...
Woody detailed the cases and then, almost as an after thought, it went on to ask about Abby's last adventure and the latest staff fall-out from Garret's pending retirement.
The woman inside Jordan felt a little tug that it looked like Garret and Woody kept in contact but she hasn't heard a word from him in a year. She flipped the email over onto the copies of the dead female's photos.
"What do you think?" Garret asked.
"I don't know," she replied honestly. "It's hard to tell from a handful of crime scene photos."
"The local ME is more used to cutting up insurance mandates and the occasional traffic fatality. Derry Georgia is not known for its murder rate. Woody asked his captain to hold off until he talked to me. "
"I'm sure there is some kind of State task force or local city Medical Examiner's Office he could have called first. Boston is a little out of the beaten path for...where?" Jordan flipped the page over to check out the name of the city. "...Derry, Georgia."
"Probably...but he called us."
"So what are you planning on doing?"
"I thought I'd ask you if you'd like to go down there and take a look."
"WHAT?"
"Just a day or two. Go down there. Take a quick look. I'm asking you as my friend Jordan. As a favor for a friend."
Jordan rolled her eyes. He knew she'd say no if it was for Woody. But he asked her to go for himself.
"I suppose you want me to take vacation time too."
"Let's call it professional development time. We'll say you are going down there to do a little career development."
"In Georgia...?" Jordan said with more than a touch of sarcasm.
"Jordan, Woody must think he has something and he has his reasons for asking our help. I think we owe him that much."
Jordan didn't say anything. She didn't have to. She picked up the photos and looked at them again.
"If you leave now you can be there just after midnight..."Garret said picking up the phone.
Jordan looked at Garret like he'd lost his mind. If he thought she was going to drive...
"I'm sending down some equipment with you...Woody says their lab has a little to be desired."
"Great. This just gets better and better.."
