Sara Linton managed, trying to feign interest as she picked at her salad.“And I say, ‘Lookit, bud, I’m a doctor. I’m not here to judge. You can be honest about …’ ”Sara watched Dale Dugan’s mouth move, his voice mercifully blending in with the lunchtime noise of the pizza parlor. Soft music playing. People laughing. Plates sliding around the kitchen. His story was not particularly riveting, or even new. Sara was a pediatric attending doctor in the emergency department at Atlanta’s Grady Hospital. She’d had her own practice for twelve years before that, all the while working part-time as the county coroner for a small but active college town. There was not an implement, tool, household product, or glass figurine she had not at some point or another seen lodged inside a human body.Still, Dale continued, “Then the nurse comes in with the X-ray.”“Uh-oh,” she said, trying to inject some curiosity into her tone.Dale smiled at her. There was some cheese lodged between his central and lateral incisors.
