Code Blues (31 page)

GHB. Grievous Bodily Harm. Street drug of
champions. Not. I licked my lips. "I thought they said
succinylcholine."

"That, too. But it turns out it's a lot more
complicated than they thought. I looked it up. You can test false
positive for succ just from background 'noise,' so it's hard to
prove one way or another. So they're sending it for more tests. I
think the GHB is more solid, though, and they nailed his insulin
and C-peptide levels, so it's definitely an insulin OD. Insulin and
GHB. Maybe succ."

I licked my lips. "So they still think it's
murder."

He shrugged his shoulders. "The whole thing
is hard to prove, right? I mean, they'll be searching for needle
marks for the succ, but the guy had type I Diabetes. He'd be
riddled with them. He could have taken GHB for fun, and then gotten
confused when he was hypoglycemic and OD'd on his insulin."

My head spun, but I fought back. "And
paralyzed himself with succ while he was at it?"

"The succ isn't a hundred percent, but let's
say it is. You know how people get when they're hypoglycemic. Their
brains aren't getting enough glucose. They're sweaty, they talk
funny, they're confused. Maybe he wandered up around the OR,
grabbed the wrong vial..."

I shook my head. "Everything's locked up. He
couldn't just 'wander in.' And what was he doing at St. Joe's in
the middle of the night, anyway? He didn't even do call, right?
Except for taking care of all of you guys who called him for their
personal problems. No. I bet someone called him in and asked him to
meet them. I bet that's why his pager was missing!"

"His pager was missing?" Stan blinked
twice.

"Yeah. You know how we can
track back to see who called on the pager? It stores the last few
numbers. I bet that's why the murderer took it! We should find the
pager!" I paused. "You know how they used to say
'
Cherchez la femme
'? We should
cherchez le
pager!"

"What are you talking about?"

I actually didn't know why
they used to say '
Cherchez la
femme,
' but I was on a roll here. My first
instincts had been bang on, just like on a multiple choice test. I
flapped my hand at him to make him hush up. "But the murderer took
it. So there has to be another way. Phone records? Is there some
way I can access phone records?"

Stan stood up. "Hope. I think you'd better
calm down."

I leapt to my feet. "Calm down? Not when I
could crack this case! C'mon, you were making fun of me, but I just
got a serious breakthrough!" I rushed for the door.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stan
reaching for me and saying, "Hope, wait a second," but I ripped
open the resident room door and nearly barreled into Jade
Watterson, the resident on ICU, who still had her hand outstretched
to punch the combination into the residents' room door.

"Are you okay?" she called after me. "Rounds
haven't started yet!"

What was she going on about? Oh, yes, Grand
Rounds, I thought, as I zipped down the stairs with my own breath
huffing in my ears. A middle-aged woman in a blue cardigan made a
great show of stepping aside for me and I waved my thanks.

Maybe I'd make it to rounds. Maybe not. Kurt
had done rounds on physician drug abuse, and people were still
talking about it, so it had to have rocked—

I punched open the door on the landing of
the bottom floor, but I had to wait for a family with a stroller.
The mother lumbered along, obviously pregnant under her long Muslim
shift, so I couldn't cut her off even though I really wanted
to.

While I waited, my brain ping-ponged. Kurt.
Drugs. Was it possible that he'd OD'd instead of being murdered?
Well, it was if you thought he'd take GHB, if he was enough of a
hypocrite to lecture against drugs and then snort 'em up, or
however you took GHB. I personally didn't get why anyone would take
a date rape drug for fun, but then, I didn't really even drink, and
I'd never tried marijuana, so no one would ever come knocking at my
door for a cheap high.

At last, I squeezed by the family of six,
more patients with walkers and wheelchairs, and hustled toward
locating. I stood in front of their desk while the two women in a
booth sat behind Plexiglas and ignored me, white coat
notwithstanding.

"
Allo
?" said the plump, middle-aged
one with brown curls and glasses, after glancing at her companion.
She looked like a librarian, basically.

"Hi," I said in English, giving them my best
smile. My French is pretty good, but I figured their English was
better and I didn't want to waste time. "I'm Dr. Hope Sze, a first
year resident on emergency medicine."

They exchanged a look that said, So?

I concentrated on the librarian, focusing my
smile on her while I unclipped my pager from my waistband and
showed it to her. "I was wondering if you might have a record of
the phone numbers of people who paged me. You know, like I can go
through the memory on the pager and find the last three numbers,
but before then..."

"We do not keep any phone numbers," said the
other woman, with a moderate French accent. She looked 50-something
with short grey hair and a jowly mouth like a bulldog.

"Right." I met her eye and beamed at her
instead. The bulldog mouth tightened. I wouldn't get too far with
this one, but I had to try. "I realize you don't mark them down or
anything, but maybe your telephone keeps a log?"

"I don't know why you are asking," said
Bulldog.

"I'm just curious," I said. I looked at the
younger one, but her eyes slid away. I turned back to Bulldog and
made my final appeal. "You know, with everything that happened to
Dr. Kurt..."

Her penciled-in eyebrows jerked up in
surprise and then settled in grim satisfaction. "We do not know
anything. If you have any further questions, you need to speak to
the police."

The librarian nodded in agreement.

"Merci," I said as I swung
away. I should have realized that they wouldn't go to bat for me.
They were probably gossiping about me right now.
Did you know, this crazy resident,
la petite Chinoise
...

I couldn't worry about that right now.

I had 24 minutes until Grand Rounds and a
police officer to call.

Chapter 18

"Rivera."

My hand tightened on the receiver. This was
the guy who had interviewed me on the day Kurt died. I'd kept the
card in my wallet, but he might not remember me. I glanced around
the residents' room, waiting for someone to come in and bust me,
but they were probably at Grand Rounds already, snarfing up the
free food. I cleared my throat. "Hi, my name is Dr. Hope Sze. We
met, um, when you came to investigate Dr. Kurt Radshaw's suspicious
death at St. Joseph's Hospital—"

"I remember you. You are the Chinese
one."

Yes. That was exactly what I wanted
inscribed on my gravestone. I forged on. "You may remember me
talking about Dr. Radshaw's pager. I understand that your tests—"
Oops, maybe I shouldn't mention the GHB yet. Back to the pager.
"—ah, I mean, it seemed innocuous at the time, but I realized that
the reason someone may have taken the pager was because it would
show the last person who had called him. I bet that someone called
him to meet them at St. Joseph's, and if you found the pager, you
could see what the number was and who might have called him."

He stayed silent for a long moment. I
bounced out of the chair and on to my toes, trying to get rid of my
excess energy.

"Why are you calling me about this," he said
finally.

"Well, you said to call if I remembered
anything else. You gave me your card." I couldn't believe I had to
explain it to him. "I thought it would be easier for you to obtain
any phone records, since you're the police. If you just got Kurt's
pager number, Bell Canada, or whoever, would have to release them
to you, right?" I hated the way my voice rose at the end, like I
was a little girl asking my daddy for permission.

I wasn't a little girl anymore.

And, by the way, my daddy wouldn't need me
to spell it out for him. He would have jumped on it from the get
go.

Rivera sighed. "I also told you, no
conjecture. No...interpretation." He stumbled a little on the
English word.

"But aren't you looking for leads?
Especially since he tested positive for GHB, insulin, and
succinylcholine?"

His voice sharpened. "Who told you
this?"

"Is it true?" I countered.

"This is a matter for the police, Dr.
Sze."

So it was true. Score one for the gossip
boy, Stan Biedelman.

"If you recall any further facts or
circumstances about the day, then I welcome your call. Otherwise, I
would advise you to practice medicine and allow myself and my
colleagues to continue our investigation unimpeded. Good day."

***

I sighed and clattered my way through the
shadowed front hall of the Annex, past the closed orientation
conference room doors. It felt like I was behind enemy lines. I had
to follow a little hallway down the left to get to the classroom we
used for rounds.

Tile floor, a dusty blackboard, a screen
with a tattered white cord attached on its bottom hook, and rows of
mismatched blue, orange, and lime green chairs. More importantly,
two women I didn't recognize were sitting in the front left hand
corner, intent on their plastic plates of food.

Where was my free lunch?

I backtracked into a side room with the same
felted grey carpet as upstairs. A wooden coffee table supported
giant plastic serving dishes of sandwiches on iceberg lettuce. My
choices ranged from triangles of egg to tuna to mystery meat.

I shuddered. For the "gourmet capital of
North America," as a real estate agent had described it, the rounds
food was frighteningly similar to London. I chose tuna with a side
dollop of pasta salad.

At least the desserts were fancier. As I
reached for a strawberry cream, I heard footsteps behind me, and a
baritone voice said, "Have a chocolate éclair. They're the
best."

I whirled around. Tucker's brown eyes met
mine. He stepped around the table and pointed out a mini éclair. He
was wearing a mustard-colored shirt with the sleeves rolled up past
his elbows. "Here. I swear by them. You'll be able to get through
Bob's speech, snooze-free, if you have one."

It was the first time we'd spoken since our
sausage lunch. I don't know what I'd been expecting, but it wasn't
an éclair. His decency made me feel so guilty, I could hardly look
at him. I blinked hard.

Tucker seized a pair of tongs and dropped
the éclair on my plate, opposite the pasta salad, where it wouldn't
get greasy.

"Thanks," I whispered. The plate trembled in
my hands.

"Forget it." He grabbed a plate of his own
and bent over the sandwiches. "You'll be okay."

My mouth opened. I croaked, "I'm sorry—"

He grabbed my wrist. "I said you'll be
okay." His touch was firm but not unkind.

I studied the scratches on the table until
I'd gotten my self-control back. My gaze moved to his walnut dress
pants and leather sneakers. They were like old Adidas, with the
stripes and little lace-ups, except instead of red and white
canvas, they were made of medium-brown leather. "Thanks." I cleared
my throat. "I like your shoes."

"Good," he said, slowly releasing my wrist.
We stared at each other for a long moment.

I wanted to say so many things to him. Like,
sorry I misjudged you. Or, what language would you speak to the
server if you went to a restaurant and got mystery meat? Or even,
hey, did you hear that Kurt's test came back positive for GHB and I
just made a fool of myself telling the police to look into his
phone records?

Instead, I just stared into his brown eyes
and wished I could rewind the clock to June 30th, orientation
day.

Footsteps at the doorway clattered to a
halt.

I started. My éclair rattled on my plate. I
grabbed it to keep it safe before I turned and glanced at the
door.

My automatic smile withered as soon as I saw
Alex.

His eyes were bloodshot and swollen. He'd
shaved, but there was still a dark shadow on his cheeks and a fleck
of blood along his chin where he'd probably cut himself shaving.
His hair was flat on the left side, as if he'd slept on it.

At least his clothes looked clean: a grey
shirt with solid red sleeves, '80s style, dark olive cargo pants,
and sandals.

I'd wanted him to suffer, but not look like
a total mess. I didn't know if I should yell at him or pity
him.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to break up the party."
Alex bared his teeth, but his eyes stayed slitted, as if it was too
much effort to open them.

Tucker stiffened.

I was already walking toward the door with
my food held protectively at my side. When I was three feet away,
close enough to get his attention but luckily not too close to
smell him, I said, low but clear, "Get lost, Alex." I would have
sworn at him, except I didn't want any stray staff to overhear
it.

Alex's eyes flickered behind his puffy
eyelids. "Hope."

I held my back ballerina-taut. I looked him
straight in the eye. "I don't know what's wrong with you, but
you're a mess. Go take a shower."

I brushed past him, half-wanting to knock
him with my shoulder, but he stepped aside.

Even in the midst of my
contempt, I thought,
he doesn't want to
touch me
.

"Hope," he repeated, but I lifted my chin
and marched back to the classroom, chanting in my head, He's not
worthy. You snooze, you lose. So long, sucker.