Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop (48 page)

Nick spoke in a low, rumbling tone: “DON’T-EVER-FALL-ASLEEP-IN-MY-CLASS.”

With a quick flip of his hand Nick placed the cold, blunt butt of the scalpel on the boy’s breastbone and drew it firmly down the center of his abdomen. The boy shrieked, clutched at his chest with both hands, and rolled off onto the floor. Nick looked up at the rest of the stunned students.

“Now then. Does anyone else have a question?”

Dr. Noah Ellison, chairman of the NC State Department of Entomology, tapped his spoon against the side of his coffee cup; the various members of the faculty committee took their seats and shuffled into silence.

“We have a number of items on our agenda this evening,” Dr. Ellison began. A man directly across the table raised his hand slightly and, without waiting for recognition, plunged ahead.

“Perhaps I might suggest an appropriate starting point,” he said with a dripping Southern lilt in his voice. “Let’s see now. We could begin with research reports from our various agricultural extension stations. Then again, we might consider the budget allocations for new equipment in the graduate laboratories. Now, what was that other item? It escapes my mind just now—oh yes, now I recall.” He shot a glance toward the end of the table, where Nick Polchak sat slumped in his chair with a copy of the
Journal of Medical Entomology
open on his chest. “We could discuss Dr. Polchak’s decision to dissect a student in his class this morning. Yes, let’s begin with that.”

Nick closed his journal. “I didn’t actually dissect him,” he said, “though the idea does open up some interesting research possibilities. Some of these undergraduates, I’m sure no one would miss.”

“Why, Dr. Polchak,” the man replied, “rumor has it that you have an entire woodland forest filled with decomposing undergraduate students. Whatever would you do with another?”

The man glaring at Nick was Dr. Sherman Pettigrew, tenured professor of Applied Insect Ecology and Pest Control. Dr. Pettigrew had several years of seniority on Nick, and he had strongly opposed the decision to hire Nick in the first place—but his “foresight went unheeded,” as he liked to put it, and now he took every available opportunity to remind Nick that he was not, and never would be, welcome. He despised Nick’s arrogant iconoclasm; he was horrified by the very idea of
forensic
entomology; and most of all—though he would never admit it—he resented Nick’s popularity with students.

For Nick’s part, Sherman Pettigrew represented everything he hated about academia, traditional entomology, and the South. Sherman Pettigrew was a large man, in his midfifties, but with the face of a child: round, soft, and still bulging in places that should have long ago turned to muscle and sinew. It gave his face a look that Nick found hard to take seriously, even in an argument. He had the old Southern habit of always wearing white: white shirts, extra starch, with the cuffs buttoned tightly about his wrists; white cuffed pants with knife-edge pleats; white socks; white shoes—that’s what irritated Nick the most—and an ever-present white linen handkerchief for mopping beads of sweat from his pudgy forehead. His choice of apparel did his physique no favors, and only added to his babylike appearance. “Light colors make a room look bigger,” Nick once said to him. “Don’t they have decorators in the South?” Nick had an entire collection of nicknames for Dr. Pettigrew—the Great White, the Bulgy Bear—but since their very first faculty meeting together, Nick had addressed him as “Sherm”—not Sherman, not Pettigrew, and never, ever Dr. Pettigrew.

“Perhaps you find this amusing,” Dr. Pettigrew replied. “I, for one, fail to see the humor in it. Even as we speak, there is an aggrieved family meeting with the university’s counsel, deciding whether or not to take legal recourse—legal recourse as in
lawsuit,
Dr. Polchak. While your colleagues are submitting papers to academic journals, you may find yourself submitting to a deposition.”

“I read
your
last paper,” Nick said. “
‘The European Corn Borer: Larval Parasitism in Selected North Carolina Hosts.’
What a snoozer.”

“Dr. Ellison, I really must protest—”

The aged chairman of the entomology department knew that it was time for a judicious intervention, but he hated to interrupt. For Dr. Ellison, the ongoing verbal volley between Dr. Polchak and Dr. Pettigrew was the highlight of these endless committee meetings, and he resented the role he was forced to play as peacekeeper and hand-slapper.

“Nicholas, Dr. Pettigrew does have a point. We really cannot make a habit of attacking our students with surgical instruments.”

“He fell asleep in my class,” Nick said sullenly.

“Perhaps there is a reason for that,” Dr. Pettigrew offered.

Nick glared at him. “I’m sure the European Corn Borer has them bouncing off the walls in your classroom, Sherm.”

“Gentlemen,” Dr. Ellison said. “I think we’re all in agreement that Dr. Polchak’s disciplinary action this morning, while memorable, was a tad … extreme. We are now in the position of having to decide what to do about it.”

“There is only one thing to do about it,” Dr. Pettigrew said. “I move for the immediate dismissal of Dr. Polchak.”

A groan arose from the entire faculty committee.

“A failed coup attempt.” Nick whistled. “How embarrassing.”

“That also is a tad extreme.” Dr. Ellison frowned at Dr. Pettigrew. “However, some form of punitive action is necessary. I’m sure you understand, Nicholas, that to avoid legal action, the university must be able to demonstrate that you have been chastised in some appropriate way.”

“You could make me take one of Sherm’s classes,” Nick suggested.

“Nicholas, you’re not helping.”

Suddenly, Nick took on a look of deep remorse. “There’s only one alternative,” he said. “Official censure. I’ll have to give up my classes for the summer and go away somewhere.”

“This is patently unfair,” Dr. Pettigrew interrupted. “Everyone here knows that Dr. Polchak hates teaching. And every time he is ‘officially censured,’ he goes off to do whatever he pleases while the rest of us are forced to assume his class load.”

“What else can we do, Sherm?” Nick said solemnly. “After this kind of tragedy, can we all just go back to business as usual? What would it communicate to the grieving family if today I vivisect little Bobby, and tomorrow I’m back teaching as usual? No, something must be done. I say we send me away. I say we apologize to the boy’s family. And I say we send him to Sherm’s class and let him sleep as much as he wants to.”

Dr. Ellison wanted to smile, but his role required him to maintain a sober countenance. “I think there is something to what Dr. Polchak has suggested,” he said. “Very well, Nicholas, you will once again be officially censured by this department and by the university proper—”

“That
hurts,” Nick moaned.

“And you will forfeit your summer classes—and all remuneration associated with them.”

Nick winced. That did hurt.

“And if I may make one more suggestion,” Dr. Pettigrew smiled. “It seems to me that Dr. Polchak could put some of this free time to good use—perhaps in some constructive activity that will help him to reconsider his errant ways.”

“Such as?”

“We all know the priority our department places on community service activities—especially our K-12 educational seminars. So far, Dr. Polchak has avoided them like the proverbial plague. There’s almost a month before the public schools dismiss; perhaps his involvement in this area would have a redeeming effect—a
calming
effect on him.”

Under the table, Nick rolled his journal into a tight scroll and squeezed. Dr. Pettigrew smiled, taking special delight in this particular torture.

Dr. Ellison turned to Nick. “Nicholas?”

“Agreed,” Nick said through clenched teeth.

With the issue settled, the committee adjourned briefly for refreshments. As Nick passed Dr. Ellison, he bent over and whispered in the old man’s ear.

“So I have to go away,” he said. “Does anybody care where I go away?”

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 2003

Riley McKay’s heels clicked and echoed down the hollow corridor of Fairview Elementary School. The shoes hurt. She curled her toes and wriggled her feet from side to side in a vain attempt to stretch out the unbroken leather. She longed for the comfortable Nikes she wore at the Allegheny County Coroner’s Office each day, but there were strict rules about the appearance of pathologists participating in community educational programs. It was Health Day for the second-graders at Fairview Elementary School, and in the opinion of her supervisor, such an auspicious occasion was no time to be a slouch.

The blue glow from the windows at the far end of the corridor created a tunnel-of-light effect. It reminded Riley of the hallway that led to the autopsy room back at the coroner’s office: worn linoleum endlessly buffed to a dull shine; cinder-block walls layered with so many years of thick, glossy paint that the texture of each block had almost disappeared; and heavy oak doorposts and lintels that bore the scars of hundreds of daily collisions. The walls were dotted with odd-sized bits of paper too—but at Fairview Elementary the papers were chalk and crayon drawings, not headshots of trauma victims and reminders from the histology lab.

Riley shook her head. She expected her pathology fellowship program to include some extracurricular duties—evening hours, extra weekend rotations, additional paperwork, and administrative chores—that just came with the territory. But why ask an MD with five years of pathology residency to conduct a seminar that any of the deputy coroners could do? Why ask her to—

Just then a classroom door burst open, and a young boy ran directly into her, straddling her with his arms like a blind man walking into a pole. He instinctively wrapped his arms around her waist, then recovered and looked up at her sheepishly. Riley looked down into his beautiful eyes and brushed the sandy hair back from his face.

“I got to go to the bathroom,” he said.

Riley smiled. “When you got to go, you got to go.”

He grinned back. Riley hoped for one more hug before he left, but he slid past her and raced off down the hall.

“Where’s room 121?” she called after him.

“Next one down!” he shouted back. “Ms. Weleski!”

Riley rapped on the thick glass panel embedded with a crosshatch of black safety wire. A pleasant-looking woman sprung up from a seat in the back of the room and pushed open the door.

“Ms. Weleski? I’m Dr. Riley McKay from the Allegheny County Coroner’s Office. You asked for someone to speak about our ‘Cribs for Kids’ program?”

“Yes! Yes!” She took Riley by the arm and pulled her inside, effervescing with an enthusiasm perfected by twenty years of daily exposure to seven-year-olds. “Thank you ever so much for coming! But I’m afraid we’re running a bit behind. Our first presenter showed up a bit late,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “He’s just getting under way now.”

“No problem. I can wait,” Riley said with a smile and a wink. She wedged herself into a chrome-and-plastic desk beside the teacher, squeezed off her shoes, and reached down to massage her aching arches.

“My name is Nick Polchak,” said a voice from the front of the classroom. “I am a forensic entomologist. Can anybody tell me what that means?”

Silence.

“OK,” Nick said, “how about just the entomologist part? Does anybody know what an entomologist does? I’ll give you a hint: it comes from the Greek word
entomos,
meaning ‘one whose body is cut into segments … ’”

Still nothing.

Riley looked up to see a tall man with angular limbs and large
hands. His appearance was casual, as if he had just stopped off on the way to a Pirates game. To Riley it looked as if he dressed quickly, and once dressed forgot what he had put on.
No one’s setting a dress code for him,
she thought. He wore a faded plaid oxford, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, over a gray Penn State T-shirt. His shorts were weathered and worn, the ragged edge more the result of wear than style. Everything about him seemed to say, “It’s not about how I look; it’s about what I do.” Riley smiled in agreement.

Then she noticed his eyes.

Nick Polchak wore the thickest eyeglasses Riley had ever seen. Behind them his brown eyes floated like two buckeyes, flashing off and then on again as if they might be communicating some mysterious code.

“Dr. Polchak,” Ms. Weleski said in a pleasantly pleading tone. “Perhaps you could make it more—” She held both hands palmdown and made a patting gesture in the air. Nick looked at her blankly, then slowly turned back to the class.

“When you finish with a soda can, what do you do with it?”

“You throw it away,” came a voice from the second row.

“Wrong,” Nick said. “That’s what your parents did with it. What do
you
do with a soda can when you finish with it?”

“You recycle it,” said another voice.

“Why do you do that? Why do you recycle it?”

“So you don’t waste stuff.” The pace was quickening now.

“Exactly. Now—who can tell me what happens to you when you die?”

There was a long pause here. The class was suspicious, wondering if the man with the buckeyes might be trying to trick them.