Code Blues (22 page)

Of course, no one seemed willing to admit to
past bed partners. She read my expression. "I'm not a liar,
Hope."

My gut believed her. Montreal felt kind of
like the riddle where there are three daughters. One only tells the
truth, one always lies, and the third only lies about family
matters. I'd finally found the one who told the truth.

The only problem was, she didn't speak a
whole lot. But I could live with that. Better an occasional prophet
than a non-stop fibber. Especially if she was going to dog on me
about Alex.

She laid a finger just below my elbow for a
second. I could already tell Tori didn't touch people much, so this
was a big deal. "I'm worried about you. You don't know people
here."

"I'm a big girl. I'll be okay."

She nodded once. Her face was
unconvinced.

Time to change the subject. I headed down
the stairs, throwing over my shoulder, "Interesting about Kurt,
huh? He must have liked weird women."

Silence from Tori. I peeked and got her
expressionless face. I was starting to translate it as her version
of disapproval.

I added, "Sorry, but you know what I mean.
Mireille was a student, and—" Should I tell her that Mireille had
come to my house to semi-threaten me? No. Maybe they were friends.
"—changed her career for him." That was means and motive right
there. All we needed was opportunity. I'd look into that later. I
took a deep breath and moved on to the next suspect. "You guys were
saying that Vicki—"

"Shh!" She glanced around the station
uneasily, even though there was only a handful of people on either
side of the tracks. The giant ads on the walls outnumbered the
humans.

I lowered my voice anyway. "I know Vicki's
your friend, but Alex said she had a questionable rep. Unstable,
right?"

She kept her face turned away, even craned
her neck like she was watching for the train's lights in the depths
of the tunnel's shadow.

I kept talking. Even if it was only for
myself, it helped to work out my thoughts. "That's two for two.
Plus he got engaged to Vicki within months. That was pretty
sudden."

At last, her lips barely moving, she said,
"He dated Vicki before Mireille."

"No shit." I don't swear that much, but I
was surprised. McGill's medical soap opera was like a complicated
bridge game. Every time I thought I'd figured out the hand I'd been
dealt, someone turned over a new card. "Were they serious?"

Tori gave a slight nod.

"Interesting." Now I had a lot more
combinations to play with. Vicki had Kurt, didn't have Kurt, won
him back, and now he's dead. Mireille, the student, maybe stealing
him away, only to lose him again. Alex, the jealous, spurned
lover.

Who had lost the most?

Kurt, obviously. But for second place, I'd
pick Mireille. Or Alex.

I really had to figure out what she'd been
up to that Friday night.

I licked my lips. I didn't relish
confronting her again. She was bigger, stronger, and angrier than
me. This was her city, not mine.

Maybe I should drop all of this. The police
had to be involved, now that they'd found succ in his blood. I
should concentrate on getting into the third-year emerg program and
leave Kurt's death to the pros.

But something kept pulling me back. For one,
I'd found his body. For another, it wasn't like we could all
comfort each other and say it was his time, or it was a blessing,
or at least his suffering was over. No. He hadn't been sick. He'd
been in the prime of his life, trying to revitalize St. Joe's and
marry his woman of choice. His death wasn't right. I wanted to fix
it.

Just as important, I am incurably nosy. Give
me a mystery and I'll try and unravel it.

If Mireille was the killer, I didn't want to
work with her. I wanted her safely behind bars.

And then there was Alex. But I refused to
think of him any more. It was too confusing.

I said, "I guess you and Mireille are pretty
close."

Tori lifted her shoulders slightly. "I've
known her for four years."

Answering without answering. The train
rumbled in the distance. I leaned forward to see its headlights
spiking the dark tunnel. As the tracks rattled, I leaned closer and
raised my volume. "Do you know where she was on Friday night?"

Tori pressed her lips together. The blue and
white train screeched to a halt, saving her from having to
answer.

I stepped on to the metro and sank in a
two-person bench, but instead of sitting beside me, Tori chose the
one-person chair next to the door and diagonally across from me.
Hmm. Tread carefully.

I studied the crescents of dirt under my
nails while the subway dinged its warning and shoved off. Maybe I
should give up the detective beat. I was too forthright. I'd
alienated Tori by treating her as a witness instead of a new
friend. I sent her an apologetic smile.

Tori leaned toward me and whispered, "If
you're asking me, do I think she would have killed Kurt, the answer
is no. I don't believe she would risk her medical career to kill
him. None of us would. If there was any crime, it's the police's
job to figure it out." Her lips pressed into a thin line. Then she
arranged her knees to face forward and looked straight ahead.

Yep. I was in the dog house. "Sorry," I
said, but she pretended not to hear me.

She had a point. It probably didn't matter
what Alex or I did. The police were on it. It was their job. I
didn't ask them to handle anaphylaxis or child immunizations. They
didn't ask me to butt in on their investigations. Well, except the
cop had given me his card. But it was more like if I heard
anything, pass it along to them.

Still, I'd ask someone else what Mireille
had been up to on Friday night.

In the meantime, I had to rethink my
hypothesis. I'd been concentrating on doctors, but anyone could
have killed Kurt. Anyone with medical knowledge and access to a
paralytic agent. That would include nurses, respiratory
technicians, and even a patient with light fingers.

I knew that the narcotics in the emergency
room were locked up—the nurses were forever asking each other for
the keys—but I wasn't sure if they bothered locking up the
paralytics. Even if they did, the killer could make a duplicate of
the keys, pick the lock, or happen upon an unlocked cabinet. The OR
was also a good source. They were always intubating and
anaesthetizing people. On obstetrics, the patients were usually
awake for C-sections, but if they needed to move to general
anaesthetic, the anaesthetist would have the succ on hand. Vicki
was still a possibility.

I sighed. No wonder we needed the cops. The
net was just too huge.

Still, it wouldn't hurt for me to ask
around. I had a brief fantasy: YOUNG DOCTOR SOLVES MD MURDER CASE.
My picture in the papers, broadcast on TV, lighting up the Net.
Alex would have to kiss more than my feet.

No. This had nothing to do with Alex.
Really.

Tori said abruptly, "I worry about you."

I turned to her. "Why?"

"You're too innocent."

I laughed. I haven't felt innocent since I
was, oh, a preteen. "I'm fine."

She shook her head and went back to staring
across the aisle. "Really," I insisted. "I know the facts of
life."

She shook her head again without meeting my
gaze.

The train pulled up to a stop and a crew of
guys spilled on, talking in French and punching each other on the
shoulder, followed by a silent couple that brushed by us. They
looked like they were in their 20's, but the guy was wearing khakis
with a knife-like crease down the front.

He jerked his chin downward at me in
greeting.

I blinked. Did I know him?

His blue, pop-eyes met mine and clued me in.
It was the tie guy. Robin Huxley. You know how some people, you
feel like saying their whole name instead of just their first name,
like Charlie Brown?

That was Robin Huxley.

I don't know why he bothered me so much—I'd
met other geeks and keeners before; medicine was littered with
their bodies clutching journal articles and flashing the latest
studies on their iPhones—but he did.

The pale woman now sitting beside him
glanced at me, a quick, startled glance before her gaze returned to
the subway floor.

I checked out her way her shoulders seemed
to huddle against him. She was wearing a non-descript, black shirt
and white, knee-length shorts that made her look hippy. He glanced
down at her, a swift frown before he put his arm around her. He
glanced at Tori, who'd plugged earphones in her ears and closed her
eyes, and pulled out his iPhone and started clicking with his
thumb.

I nudged Tori with my foot. "It's like a
McGill reunion in here."

She glanced up at me and turned down her
music. "Sorry?"

"Check it out. Robin Huxley."

She turned to look at them. She waved at him
and nodded at the woman.

"I didn't know he had a girlfriend." I'd
never really pondered Robin, but I would have pegged him as
asexual, or maybe gay. I realized I was always dissing the guy, and
tried to think nice-girl thoughts instead. He was pale. That meant
he avoided the sun. That was a wise thing to do. In general, he was
probably two hundred times as smart as me. He could probably power
cities with his cerebellum alone.

"It's his wife," said Tori.

I blinked. "Really? He doesn't wear a ring."
I glanced at them, double-checking his naked left hand to be sure.
Then I remembered Mireille mentioning he was married. I guess I'd
forgotten because it didn't fit my "Ee er I am robot" stereotype of
him.

Tori shrugged. I noticed the wife—I didn't
even know her name—was wearing a teeny diamond. That reminded me of
my mother, who always complained that she and my dad got married
too young and all she got was a microscopic diamond. Of course he
worked his ass off and bought her a full carat later, but ohhhhh,
we always hear about the sacrifices she made.

The train speaker blathered the next stop
name almost incomprehensibly. Robin stood up, allowing his wife to
go first. Normally, I liked the courtliness of the gesture, but he
held himself so rigidly, like it was his duty and he had to carry
it out despite the stick rammed up his bum.

I shook myself. Give the guy a break.

He put his hand on her shoulder and nodded
coolly at Tori.

She waved and murmured, "See you tomorrow."
They must rotate at the Children's together.

His blue bug eyes rested on me next. I tried
to smile at him, but it felt fake, so I looked at his wife. She
ducked her head and nodded back, but had to grab the pole to
balance as the subway screeched a halt. Then the door opened and
she kind of had to bob and weave as the people on the platform
tried to get on without letting the train people off first.

For the second time, I remembered Toronto's
subway, where the people on the platform wait for the train people
to disembark.

But, like Alex said, I wasn't in Kansas
anymore. Or London, for that matter.

Alex.

The doors whooshed closed behind the odd
couple and I thought, Maybe I'm just jealous. Of Mireille. Even of
Robin because, antisocial nerd that he is, he found someone to love
him, or at least love his future income.

Tori pulled the earphones out of her ears
and wound the cord neatly around her MP3 player, so I tried to
chat, but not about alibis. "How do you like the Children's?"

"It's good. I'm doing the outpatient
clinics, the PCC. Stan calls it the Pediatric Constipation Clinic."
She smiled.

I didn't. I don't like poo. "Is it the
constipation clinic?"

"Kind of. But the kids are cute. Like I
said, the only downside is that you have to do a lot of emerg call
where you work all weekend. Next weekend, I do all day Saturday,
all day Sunday, and then back again for Monday to Friday."

"What a drag." If you work seven days in a
row, and then work another five days in a row, plus evening call,
the days turn into a blur.

"Yeah. But I like kids." Her face lit up
just thinking about them.

I'm not crazy about peds. The kids are
sometimes cute, but often they're screaming or have snot smeared
over their faces. And I like the kids better than the parents, who
are all like, "Little Aidan has a cough, and I'm sooooo worried
about him!" and won't believe you when you tell them he has a cold.
Still, after the geriatric clinic at St. Joseph's, I missed the
kids more than I thought I would.

At Snowdon, we jumped on to the platform.
The train pulled away, stirring our hair and echoing throughout the
station. Tori waited until the noise died down before she spoke.
"This is my stop. Do you feel safe walking home from your
stop?"

"Yeah." I frowned. "Shouldn't I?" I didn't
want another lecture about how unsafe my neighbourhood was. I made
it the last time.

Tori nodded. "I feel safe walking almost
anywhere in Montreal. But there's always a taxi at the metro, if
you're worried."

I shook my head. She accompanied me partway
to the St-Michel platform. "Thanks for coming out with me."

She looked at me, unsmiling. "Yeah." Then
she turned away. No farewell Montreal kiss.

I sighed. I felt like I was doing everything
wrong here. Mireille seemed ready to squish me. Alex couldn't make
up his mind if he wanted to seduce me or set me up as his fellow
detective. And Tori said very little but seemed to see
everything.

There's a joke in medicine, something like,
"Internists know everything but do nothing. Surgeons know nothing
but do everything. Pathologists know everything and do something,
but it's always too late." Tori was an internist. Alex, sad to say,
was probably a surgeon. I was...NYD.

But who cared. A blue train lurked at the
station. I dashed into the end car. It was practically empty,
except for a rotund black woman who leaned her head against the
glass.