The morgue at a community hospital serves the anatomy lab at a nearby medical school. Each year, dozens of dying patient

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The morgue at a community hospital serves the anatomy lab at a
nearby medical school. Each year, dozens of dying patients at the
hospital -- often retired physicians and nurses -- agree to donate
their bodies for dissection by first-year medical students.
Loretta Scarpetta, MD, the chief pathologist, takes a leave of
absence. She leaves her assistant, Hans Minoret, MD, in charge of
the morgue while she is gone. When she returns, she reviews
Minoret's work and discovers that a terrible error has occurred:
the corpse of one patient ("Jed"), which was supposed to be sent to
the family for cremation, was actually sent to the anatomy lab for
dissection, while a corpse donated to the lab ("Bud") was instead
released to a funeral home.
The error occurred over 3 months earlier, and Jed's body has
already been embalmed in formaldehyde and dissected by medical
students. Bud's body has presumably been cremated. Scarpetta fears
that revealing the morgue's mistake, which is now irreversible,
will cause the surviving family members unnecessary and possibly
extreme distress. In contrast, if she conceals the mistake -- and
alters the records -- there is no way they will ever know.