Pool_1

"Unfortunately, yes. Had she soured at school the folks we taught would have handled it properly. We gave them supplies, just in case, and reviewed the Good Samaritan Act with them. But being home schooled - with her mother and father both holding full time low paying jobs - she was in the company of a neighbor who panicked when she went comatose. That poor soul spent twenty agonizing minutes doing untrianed CPR and mouth to mouth rather than calling the police or EMTs." Doctor Mulvaney's account was lost in the ocean sounds of verbalized disbelief of the gathered wall of knowing listeners. "Her second admission here on the tail end of this fiasco was two days ago- DOA." The pathologist sprung up and projected slides of brain sections and heart slices to show dense white fatty oil that had filled the child's arteries as she was dying. As most looked away in disgust, two spectators, Macaluso and Ivory, as if assigned to be the eyes for this wall of vial disapproval, stood transfixed on the flashing findings being presented. The pathologist's litany went on, "Here we see the kidneys, plugged. Look at this region," projecting photos of organs, each with a metal ruler carefully positioned in the image. "The spleen grossly and as seen.. here.. in cross section, is nearly white and the.. let's see.. the capsule of the liver is peeled up by fatty ooze. In cross section... a section of spinal column, seen here head is left tail is right, shows the ravage of what poor treatment can do. Ok. Let's see.. these broken ribs are the aftermath of panic CPR. Her face was all.. mmm ... I'll spare you that one. We'll just say that it calls for a closed coffin." Ivory's face was now lost, in his hands. Macaluso, alone, sat transfixed. Or was it Macaluso at all? His countenance was pulled and very dangerous looking. Only Milton