The Night Swim by Megan Goldin

Author:Megan Goldin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

29

Rachel

The waiting room outside the ER was half-full with people slumped on plastic bucket seats, looking clammy and ill. Rachel, who’d been sitting in the back row typing up notes from her day in court, moved away from the waiting area to answer a call from Pete.

“Have I caught you at a bad time, Rach?”

“Nope. I’m still at Neapolis General, waiting to interview Tracey Rice about Kelly’s rape kit,” Rachel said, pressing the phone closer to her ear as a toddler started screaming.

After going through a few podcast issues, she asked Pete if he’d managed to get a copy of Jenny Stills’s autopsy report. Rachel wanted to see if the cause of death was listed as drowning, as Kitty insisted was the case.

“The state medical examiner’s office said there’s no record of an autopsy on their database. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t done. Just that it was a long time ago and they’ll need to do a manual search in their files to find records. If there are any records,” said Pete.

“How long will that take?” Rachel groaned.

“That’s the problem. They have a staffing crunch right now. Won’t be able to look for the report for a few days. But even if they find it, they won’t give you a copy without permission from Jenny’s next of kin.”

“That would be Hannah,” said Rachel. “That’s just terrific. Another reason to find her.”

“Does it really matter, Rach?” Pete asked. “You don’t have time to follow up right now, with the Blair trial in full swing. By the time the verdict comes in, the ME’s office will have found the autopsy report and you’ll have hopefully met Hannah and have her permission to get a copy.”

It all sounded very reasonable, but Rachel was consumed by curiosity. She didn’t want to wait that long. When Rachel returned to her seat, the waiting room was quiet. The screaming toddler had gone through the doors into the ER to have his suspected broken finger x-rayed. Most of the other people who’d been waiting either had gone home or were being treated. Nurse Rice stopped by to reassure Rachel that she was almost ready for the interview.

“Is it always this busy?” Rachel asked.

“Sometimes. We’re down a doctor and two nurses right now. Summer flu,” she sighed. “That’s why I’m doing the night shift. I won’t be much longer. It’s always quiet around dinnertime.”

Within half an hour, as she predicted, the waiting room was virtually empty. Rachel was taken by an orderly to a treatment room where Nurse Rice was finishing off her dinner of homemade lasagna in a Tupperware container. Rachel explained that she wanted to find out what Kelly Moore would have gone through when she came in to be examined after the rape.

“I can’t talk about her specific case,” said Nurse Rice, “but I can tell you about the rape kit process. I’m one of three nurses who’ve been trained to do them at this hospital.”

She took out a sample rape kit and removed its contents: evidence bags, swab collection kits, and piles of forms.

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