Terminally Ill Read online

  Chapter 25

  I conked out for four hours, which was really good for me. I have a handful of friends who’ll make up the entire night’s sleep, like eight hours or more, but after a few hours, I just wake up with a bit of a headache.

  I was still curious about Mrs. Tong, but not curious enough to call the hospital and risk people ask me for orders or lecture me about what I’d done wrong, so I lay in bed and tried to collect my thoughts about my two detective cases, such as they were.

  For Mr. Bérubé, I’d have to wait for his autopsy report. For Elvis, on the other hand…

  Elvis Serratore thought someone had sabotaged his stunt and tried to kill him. I’d agreed to prove or disprove that theory. He was recovering his memory, but I couldn’t rely on his testimony. I needed to verify a few details with Archer. But since Archer could be the culprit, I should interview everyone possible. Like the bikini girl. Lucia. I remembered her name. Now that I’d had a few hours’ sleep, my brain had reset itself somewhat.

  I wanted to know what had happened to Hugo, of course, but he was under police jurisdiction, and when I checked online, I didn’t find many updates. On the upside, Ryan had sent me a picture of his post-op grandmother smiling from her hospital bed, so I told him she looked awesome. Then I e-mailed my parents, to ask if they could visit and bring some flowers from me. I could’ve just ordered a bouquet, but I was as poor as a church cockroach, and my mother would enjoy a nice chat.

  It was possible that Hugo had been the saboteur and had met his comeuppance. It was also possible that Elvis had just messed up. If I found no evidence of wrongdoing, I’d let Elvis know the good news. He might not believe me, but that wasn’t my problem. All I could do was give it the old college try.

  And I could research anaphylaxis in the meantime. After twenty minutes online, I figured out that banana allergies were rare, but people were often anaphylactic with other, related fruit, like your garden variety grapes and pears; tropical fruit like pineapples, kiwis, and papayas; and even latex. Sounded like Elvis might have to be careful in the grocery store, on a trip to Hawaii, or to a local fetish convention. But surely he’d know if any of the above made his throat close off—I’d just have to ask him, preferably in person.

  I texted Archer. Hi. I’m post night shift, so I’ve got a few hours free. Is it possible to talk to you, Lucia, and anyone else who helped Elvis with his act?

  It took him a few minutes to respond. Sure. I’m at the hospital. Elvis is getting physiotherapy, but he’ll be done in half an hour. I’ll call Lucia.

  Tucker had texted me while I’d been asleep: Don’t leave home without me!

  That, I ignored.

  While I rode the bus, trying to avoid getting nailed by a back pack in the face during the rush hour crush, I realized that, in the middle of puzzling out Elvis’s case, I’d forgotten something even more important: he could kill himself, or at least damage his brain some more, on Friday. I strode up to his hospital room, ready to knock on the open door.

  Tucker grinned back at me from where he was already comfortably perched on Elvis’s bed, while Elvis strode the perimeter of the small, square room and Archer waved at me from the one pink, fake leather chair. I wasn’t surprised to see Tucker, even though I’d beat 6 p.m., but it did piss me off how sweetly they seemed to be chatting over Elvis’s empty dinner plates.

  “We’re just strategizing,” said Archer, pointing to the salt and sugar packets that Tucker had arranged in an H on the table.

  “I’ll fill Hope in later,” said Tucker in a snotty way that meant he would keep it all to himself.

  I ignored it. The problem wasn’t our feud, which I wanted to end, pronto. “We’re going about this all wrong,” I said. “You want us to solve the last case. But what we need to do is to keep you safe tomorrow. That’s the top priority.”

  Tucker’s forehead wrinkled and his eyes narrowed in an Oh, yeah kind of way.

  I smiled a little bit.

  Elvis said, “I’m already doing that. I’ve cut out all the outsiders. No one touches my equipment tomorrow except me and Archer.”

  Archer looked slightly pained at calling Lucia an outsider, but he nodded agreement.

  “Let me put this nicely, even though it’s not my forte,” I said, trying not to notice Tucker’s smirk. “The thing is, Elvis, you have no proof that anyone tampered with your equipment at all. So far, we have zero leads on any one person sabotaging you. Zero leads on any documented medical injuries you had, aside from the brain injury from you being underwater. And I don’t want to leave the equipment inspection to just the two of you because we haven’t eliminated any suspects, including your brother.”

  “Hey!” said Elvis.

  I saw Archer’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat and his fists clench before he forced them to relax. “I suppose that’s true. But if you’re going to get hard-headed about it, anyone could have done something. Even Elvis himself.”

  “Why the fuck would I do that?” In two seconds, Elvis had cut across the room, in front of his brother’s chair.

  “I don’t think you would. But I didn’t do anything,” said Archer, spreading his hands.

  “Neither would I! If I wanted to off myself, you think I’d do it in front of thousands of people, at a stunt that I was doing as an homage to Harry Houdini?” Elvis practically spit, he was so mad.

  Archer stayed calm. I got the feeling that it wasn’t the first time he’d had to calm down his temperamental younger brother. “No. I don’t think that. But I think it’s about as likely as me doing it. I’m your manager. Why would I want you to fail?”

  “Look. I’m sorry I opened this can of worms. Arguing is not the point,” I said, although I couldn’t resist shooting Tucker a significant look. “We’ve got to work together here. We’ve got about twenty-four hours until your next stunt, and only a few hours until I crash into oblivion.”

  Elvis raised his eyebrow at me until I explained, “I’m post-call. I need sleep. But we need to keep you safe tomorrow. And that means checking your equipment meticulously before you go live. Several times, including just before the show.”

  “No way,” said Elvis. “I don’t show anyone all my tricks. Not even Archer. I’m definitely not going to give it all up for a civilian.” The way he said the last word, it was clear that he could have substituted a few choice swear words.

  “I don’t care about your tricks. I’m a doctor. I want to keep you safe,” I said.

  Elvis crossed his arms. “How do I know you’re not going to just write a book about all my secrets?”

  “Why did you hire me if you didn’t trust me?” I snapped.

  “Hey.” Tucker pushed the wheeled dinner table to the side. His voice was so calm, we all turned toward it. “Hope’s right. I want to crack this case, but our first priority is keeping you alive and well tomorrow.”

  Elvis snorted. “I keep me alive and well.”

  “I’m pretty sure you had some help with that the last time,” I said.

  Elvis glared at me for a full second before he cracked a smile. “Yeah. I guess so.”

  I released my breath. The tension in the room ebbed ten degrees. I said, “I know you’re a pro. I’m not saying you have to give up all your secrets. But do you have a checklist for your equipment before the show? I could look at that. Or you could even split it up so I check part of the list and Tucker checks another part, so neither of us have all the secrets.”

  The brothers exchanged a quizzical look before Archer turned back to me. “We don’t do lists.”

  Tucker brightened. “She means like a checklist before you go into the operating room. We do that to make sure that you’ve got the correct patient, doing the correct operation on the correct leg, and all that.”

  Elvis shook his head. “We don’t need that. I mastermind my tricks, and I don’t write them down. People will just steal them.”

  “You don’t have to write down your tricks, just your equipment check-off,” I said. “We
didn’t used to use them in medicine, either. The surgeons were kind of insulted, like, ‘You don’t think I know what I’m doing, after operating for twenty years?’ But we took a cue from the airline industry. Having checklists reduces errors. It just does.”

  Elvis’s lip curled. “I’m not the airline industry.”

  Yes, but the airline industry has survived more than twenty years. I was trying to channel charm and patience, so I bit back that comment, but I was fresh out of understanding.

  “Maybe we should make one,” said Archer. “It’s a good thought. We’ll work on it. We’ve got a packing list that we brought from Winnipeg. I could just add on to it, put it in order, and have us go through it before the show. We do it in our heads right now anyway. Like, the first thing we did was check the coffin.”

  Elvis smirked. Before he could speak, I said, “Where are you keeping the coffin?”

  “In our hotel room,” said Archer. “I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

  “Don’t you want to practice with it?” I asked Elvis. “And if we’re going to do multiple checks, wouldn’t you be better off bringing it here?”

  “I don’t need to practice,” said Elvis.

  Tucker stepped in. “Even if you don’t need it, it couldn’t hurt, right? You’d probably get a lot of curious people wanting to look at the coffin. And more people will come to the show if there’s a giant coffin in your room.”

  Elvis shook his head. “First you said we shouldn’t let any strangers around our equipment, and now you’re saying we should give tours?”

  Tucker’s charm flickered. “It was just a thought.”

  “It’s a good one,” I said, smiling at him. Such a relief that we were on the same team again. “You have to bring it here for the show anyway, right? And you usually rehearse before the show? All you have to do is a checklist before. At least one time, between you and Archer. You need to know if any of the equipment’s missing or broken or sabotaged, right?”

  “We did rehearse a few times,” said Elvis. “I got some day passes. The equipment’s fine.”

  He’d said he didn’t need to rehearse. I let that go by.

  Archer said, “I like the checklist idea. It’s more professional.” He lowered his voice to speak directly to his brother. “You know how I told you Lucia brought out the wrong chains for the stunt?”

  I froze. “The wrong chains?”

  Archer didn’t look at me. “I don’t want to say too much, but we have special chains for the show. Lucia got the wrong ones from Hugo, but we didn’t have a backup set, so we used the ones we had for the stunt.”

  Tucker and I exchanged a look. Someone had screwed up the stunt big time. Hugo, Lucia, or Archer. Maybe all three of them. I tucked that idea away for further reflection and said, “Right. So if you had a checklist for the right chains, you would’ve caught that on Saturday.”

  Elvis grunted.

  I changed the subject. “I’ll be working until at least 5 p.m., and your show’s at 7. I won’t be able to help you with the checklist unless we do it tonight.” I checked my watch. It was almost 7 p.m.

  “Yeah, it worked out real good the last time you guys went out there without me,” said Elvis, wandering by the window to stare at the streetlamps. For the first time, I realized how awful it must feel for him, a guy who liked danger and risk, to be cooped up in a hospital room.

  “I’m sorry about Hugo,” I said awkwardly. “Does anyone have any news?”

  “The police came by here twice,” said Archer, “but we couldn’t tell them much, and we’ve been here the whole time, so they gave us their card and said they’d be in touch.”

  Tucker said, “One of the reporters—you remember the guy who wanted to interview you?—gave an update. He said that police would not confirm or deny reports of drugs found in the apartment.”

  Drugs. Hm. They seemed to be rampant in Montreal, but maybe that was true of any big city nowadays. The police still hadn’t come by to interview me. Yet. I expected a call or two in my future. “How’s Lucia doing?” I asked.

  Archer shifted in his chair. “She was pretty freaked out that night. I texted her, asking her to come by tonight, but she didn’t answer. I hope she’s okay.”

  “When was the last time you heard from her?” I asked.

  “On Tuesday night, when we found Hugo. I don’t know if her phone is just down or what. I stopped by her place yesterday, but she wasn’t home.”

  “Hang on a minute. She’s been missing for the past two days?”

  “Naw. She sent me a text yesterday, just telling me that she needed to crash. She works nights, right, so I guess I just missed her. By the time I get out of here, you know…” He shrugged and splayed out his big hands. For some reason, I’d never noticed the size of his hands before. He’d be size 8 in surgical gloves.

  “Sorry to cramp your sex life,” said Elvis, who’d started to pace the room again. “I’d like to get out of here for more than a few hours, too.”

  I changed the subject. “Where did you and Lucia go on Tuesday night, anyway?”

  “We just went for a walk and a smoke and stuff. By the time I got her turned around, they’d…found Hugo and you guys were gone. She was pretty upset.”

  So they hadn’t just taken off on the police that night. Good. I’d been starting to think the worst of Archer and Lucia. I couldn’t think of a tactful way to put it, so I just asked Archer, “If the media’s talking about it, I have to wonder. Did Hugo use drugs?”

  He shrugged before he shook his head. “I never saw him do it.”

  “But did you ask him when you hired him?”

  Archer pressed his lips together. “I didn’t make him pee in a cup or anything.”

  “Did you ask him? Did you check for a criminal record?”

  Archer’s eyes slid toward Elvis, who was staring out the window, seemingly blank.

  Archer said, “I don’t know. In Winnipeg, we just kind of know everyone. We’ve never had to hire someone from outside. And, like, Lucia knew him, so he seemed okay.”

  Obviously, the answer was that he hadn’t researched Hugo at all. “What about Lucia? Did you ask for references when you interviewed her?”

  Archer glanced at Elvis again. “I talked to her before we came out. I, um, interviewed her. She even sent me her résumé.”

  “Do you still have it?”

  He brought out his phone, punched a few buttons, and handed it to me. I was left to admire a giant picture of Lucia wearing a gold bikini and a come-hither expression. At least it had her phone numbers along with her measurements, as well as a few dates of “performences” (yes, spelled just like that) at such illustrious locations as Déjeuner Sexxxy and Bleu Nuit.

  “Yes, she said she was a stripper,” I said.

  Archer flushed. “An exotic dancer.”

  “Is she a prostitute?”

  “No. Never.” Righteousness infused Archer’s voice. “She said a lot of people make that mistake, they think all exotic dancers are hookers, but it’s a totally different line of work. She’s on Twitter and everything!”

  “I see,” I said. Not really. This was beyond my ken. The closest I’d come to exotic dancing was that some of the guys in my med school class used to go to strip bars (gross) while some of the women signed up for pole dancing lessons, citing it as “great for upper body strength and core work.” I avoided both performing and viewing either kind of dancing.

  At least this explained Lucia’s most prominent assets. “Is she working now?”

  Archer shrugged. I sighed and used his phone to find Déjeuner Sexxxy and call its number. To my amazement, a guy answered. “What,” he said.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Lucia. Blondi,” I said, quoting the name on the Déjeuner Sexxxy website.

  “Yeah? Well, I don’t have her. I’ve got other ones, though. You like blondes, I got Vanilla Sky, I got Snow White, I got—”

  Creepily fascinating, but I cut in. “I need Blondi. She hasn’t shown up?”
/>   “Not since Friday night. You see her, you tell her she owes Randy.” He hung up.

  I handed the phone back to Archer. He frowned at it. “She hasn’t gone to work?”

  “Not since Friday. Since before Elvis’s show.” That bothered me, too. Saturday night was probably her biggest night. Why hadn’t she shown up?

  True, Elvis had almost died that day, but we’d already stabilized him by the time he got in the ambulance. So he survived. No need for her to lose pay over it.

  Unless something happened to prevent her from getting there?

  Hugo had texted Archer on Saturday afternoon to tell him he had “information you want to hear.” But he’d never followed up on it, and Lucia disappeared and then Hugo showed up dead.

  “So we need to make sure Elvis is safe tomorrow, then we need to find Lucia.” I stifled a yawn. My body suddenly, severely, required to crash.

  “I’m on it,” said Tucker.

  That shook me out of my torpor. I jerked into perfect ballerina posture, for once in my life. “No.”

  Tucker said, “It’s my turn. You and Ryan turned up Hugo.” His lip curled slightly when he brought up my ex, which made me grit my teeth. It’s not like we could get any hanky panky going, between Ryan’s religion and the cops playing babysitter. But I felt guilty anyway. Tucker turned to talk to the Serratore brothers. “Now I’m going to search for Lucia. I’ll do it tonight, while Hope’s recovering post-call. Tomorrow, I’ll take a personal day and give Elvis’s equipment a once-over with a checklist from Archer. Hope can do a recheck when she’s done at the hospital and back for the show.”

  “I’m doing this case,” I said, even though my eyelids dragged down and the terrazzo floor seemed to shift slightly under my feet.

  “Hope, you’d be a liability right now. I’m sending you home in a cab,” said Tucker.

  “I’m fine,” I said, but through my fog, I spotted Archer’s eyes widening and Elvis taking a step back like I might be contagious.