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find out how
    she lived.”
    “Anything I can do to-?”
    “Would you please step out for a few minutes? I'd like to be
    alone here for a while. To think about Amber, if you don't
    mind.”
    I closed the door behind me and walked to Kestenbaum's office.
    The doctor was standing at his desk, organizing autopsy
    photographs- a male victim of a gunshot wound-probably for a court
    appearance. Mike had his feet up on the side of the desk, surfing
    channels on the small TV.
    “Janet ready to go?” he asked.
    “Wants a few minutes to collect herself.”
    “I'm itching to get my hands on Amber's client files.”
    “You'll have a laundry list of some of her johns, a married
    lover, the disgruntled landlord, an ex-employer, and maybe a random
    stranger who carries the tools of torture with him,” I said,
    counting on my fingers the directions Mike's investigation might
    now take. “Where to begin?”
    Mike raised the volume and Alex Trebek announced the Final
    Jeopardy category. “ 'Famous Americans,' folks. Let's see what
    you're willing to wager.”
    “I'm in, Coop. Twenty bucks.”
    Not a gruesome crime scene nor the solemnity of a morgue could
    keep Mike from watching the last minutes of Jeopardy. He
    had majored in history at Fordham and he loved to show off his
    extensive knowledge of a variety of trivia subjects.
    “I know, you're about to tell me it's inappropriate,” he said.
    “You're about to tell me even hookers got sisters with feelings.
    I'll have your money before Janet powders her nose.”
    “Twenty for me.”
    “Doc?”
    “Got to concentrate, Mike. I'm working on an exit wound,” he
    said, making notes as he held one of the enlarged photos. "
    'Taceant colloquia. Effugiat risus.' Mike's Latin was
    better than mine, from years of parochial school. He, too,
    recognized the translation of the words posted over the entrance to
    the medical examiner's office.
    "Let conversation cease. Laughter, take flight. This place is
    where death delights to aid the living.
    "You're just taking a pass 'cause the question isn't some
    brainiac scientific thing, Doc. You blew us out of here with that
    one about injuries to the fifth metatarsal. A Monto fracture or
    whatever it was.
    Trebek was back on cue. "He was only the sixth foreign-born
    individual to be declared an honorary citizen of the United States
    by the president, pursuant to an act of Congress. Two of the three
    studio guests eagerly scrawled questions on their screens. One
    cocked his head and stared blankly at the camera.
    “I'm sorry, sir,” Trebek told the kayak instructor from
    Indianapolis. “Winston Churchill was the first to receive the
    honor. In his lifetime, actually, in 1963. We're looking for the
    sixth person. No guesses?”
    The bank teller from Long Island had also guessed incorrectly,
    and the beekeeper from Dallas didn't bother to take a stab at the
    answer. Neither did Kestenbaum or I.
    “Who is the Marquis de Lafayette?” Mike said. “Major General
    Marie Joseph de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution. Valley
    Forge. The Yorktown campaign.”
    Trebek nodded at the camera as the board behind him revealed the
    answer. “Yes, indeed. George Washington's great friend, only the
    sixth foreigner so honored. Churchill, Mother Teresa, Raoul
    Wallenberg, William Penn-and his wife, Hannah-and then the young
    French nobleman who came to America's aid. Not chronological,
    obviously, folks.”
    Mike shut off the television to continue our history lesson.
    “Yeah, if Cornwallis hadn't surrendered at Yorktown-”
    “Excuse me,” Janet Bristol said, pushing open the door to
    Kestenbaum's small office. “Would you mind telling me exactly-well,
    exactly how my sister died?”
    Mike took his feet down from the desk and held back a chair for
    Janet.
    “Not at all,” Dr. Kestenbaum said, stacking the photos he'd been
    working on into a pile.
    “Did you reach your parents?” I asked. She was pale white and
    still sniffling, and even more