Graveyard Shift Read online

  Young 'n' Chubby wrote it down unenthusiastically. Black, black, black clothes that the perp could have already trashed, and he'd only grabbed me instead of raping me, beating me, and/or killing me. Yawn.

  "Just one more thing," I said. "I was wearing Dr. Chia's lab coat, with her name on the front. It's really distinctive because of the rhythm strip on the back. You know, part of an electrocardiogram, moving from ventricular fibrillation to sinus rhythm—"

  They stared at me like I was speaking Martian.

  "Anyway, she's the only doctor with a coat like that. Everyone else has regular lab coats." Some emergency residents wore black zip-ups with that same rhythm strip, but you wouldn't mix up a white lab coat and a black jacket, so I left that out. "My point is, I don't know if they grabbed me because they were after me, or Dr. Chia, or a random woman. They didn't say anything besides 'Got her' and 'Grab her.'" I couldn't repress a shiver. Even though I was physically okay, no harm, no foul, it freaked me out to imagine what they might have planned for me.

  "Why would they want to hurt you in particular?" said Young.

  Salt tutted and said in French, "She's the famous one. The doctor who catches criminals. How many times?" he asked me, in English.

  "There were six different cases," I said, not bothering to explain that sometimes I'd uncovered multiple crimes within each case.

  Salt nodded. "Yes, but was there anything that made you think it might have been because of revenge, or..."

  "No. That's what I'm telling you. They could have mistaken me for the other doctor, or a random woman to torture. I don't know. But I wanted to tell you that they could have been trying to kidnap Dr. Chia when they saw the lab coat."

  They both stared at me in confusion.

  I sighed. "Never mind."

  "Okay," said Young. "It's too bad you couldn't get more description, but we'll talk to the couple. Let us know if you think of anything." They passed me their cards.

  "Thanks. Were you already here for the patient who choked me with my stethoscope and threatened me with a scalpel?"

  They nodded. Young 'n' Chubby's pen scratched across a new page.

  "The patient in room 14 wanted a refill on her narcotics. When I told her I couldn't refill her prescription prematurely, she choked me with my stethoscope." I opened the lab coat and my fleece to show them the bruises. I could feel the energy in the room pick up. Finally, physical evidence that I'd been assaulted. Yay. "I ran out of the room, and she chased me with a scalpel, you know, the knives we use for surgery."

  Salt perked up. "Did she cut you?"

  "No, I got away before she could. Those things are sharp, you know." I imagined her driving it between my ribs, incising my heart. I'd be dead within minutes. St. Joe's doesn't have a trauma surgeon, and I don't think the general surgeon is in house at night. The closest one might be half an hour away.

  An ER doctor would have to crack the chest to stopper up the hole, and probably no one but Dr. Dupuis would consider it. "But she did choke me with my stethoscope." I hadn't had a chance to check myself for bruises, so I felt along my throat and turned my head to the side to give them a better view. "See?"

  They exchanged glances again. "You'll have to come to the station to have photos taken, if you want to press charges against the patient."

  "I want to press charges," I said firmly. A nurse who'd been choked by a male patient, using her stethoscope, had said in a podcast interview, I was trying not to hurt him. I was trying to knock his arms away. Instead, I should have grabbed a pen and tried to stab his eyeballs.

  Sounds harsh, but we've been so trained not to hurt anyone that we're the ones who almost get killed. We have to put a stop to it. Hence my squishing of Lori Goody's eyeball.

  "Come to the station in the morning," they repeated.

  If it bleeds, it leads. But if you don't bleed, if you're only bruised and seized, they don't care as much. They were certainly more interested in me being carted away in the parking lot than in arresting the patient in room 14.

  "But she's right here"—if she hadn't been ported to the Glen—"and you're right here. You could lay charges on her right now. You could take her away with you."

  Young cop exchanged glances with Salt. "We'll talk to her. We'll see about escorting her to the Glen."

  I didn't like the sound of "we'll see." It wasn't a promise. But I tried honey instead of vinegar, firing up the "we're all in together" meme. "I appreciate that. I know you're on the night shift, and you're understaffed. Thank you."

  They both nodded. Cops and emerg try to help each other out, as evinced by the coffee cooling on the table in front of them.

  "Thanks on behalf of all women in this neighbourhood," I said, and I remembered Alyssa. "Did you know there was a woman who looks like someone tried to pulp her face and choke her?"

  Salt 'n' Pepa stood up, not-so-subtly signalling an end to our conversation. "No. No one has reported it."

  Young glanced up at him, his pen hesitating over his notebook.

  I leaned forward, trying to make eye contact with Young. "Right. She wasn't willing to say anything. But the injuries are suspicious for assault."

  "Well, then, contact us when you have evidence or when she's ready to report it," said Salt, still standing.

  Young flipped his notebook closed.

  I wasn't satisfied with that, but they were probably already overwhelmed with crime in Montreal in general, and here I was, piling two more cases on them because I'd been attacked twice in about two hours.

  I couldn't ask them to take a third case when the woman wouldn't admit to any wrongdoing. I had to stick to what I knew, which was that I had one homicidal patient still in the same emergency bay as me, and two men trying to drag me away outside. Normally, I'd walk home after a shift, but this time, I didn't dare.

  How was I going to get home if Dr. Dupuis kicked me out? Tucker was searching for Ryan, and I didn't want to pay for a cab.

  I decided to ignore the problem. If I had to, I'd sleep upstairs in a call room until Tucker or Tori could escort me home.

  It meant that I was leaving Alyssa without any police support, but if I could convince her to tell them herself, or call the station, that would be even better.

  Maybe she'd found Patrick in the meantime. I should check on her, if Dr. Dupuis didn't lock me in the resident's room.

  12

  "Poor judgment and insight," Dr. Dupuis greeted me when I emerged from the conference room. He'd been waiting for me in the little hall so we could have a semi-private conversation, unless one of the nurses tried to squeeze past us into the kitchen for more coffee.

  "What?" I recognized his words as part of the psych evaluation, which was not only figuring out exactly how depressed or anxious patients were. My psychiatry rotation also taught me to check judgment, which was their ability to problem-solve in real life, and their insight, which meant how much they understood their own condition.

  "You mean me?" I added, a beat too late.

  Dr. Dupuis snorted. "Of course I mean you."

  He didn't even give me impaired judgment and insight. He said poor. Doesn't get any lower than that.

  Running into a busy road without looking was poor judgment; poor insight was proclaiming yourself Jesus 2.0 who could jump to the moon and heal minds with maple water and cayenne pepper.

  In my head, I started swearing in Farsi. Tucker taught me a few filthy ones. I had no idea how accurate they were, since he got them off his buddies, but I imagined pissing on someone's head until it foamed.

  Not that I would actually do that. I needed a reference letter from God in order to battle my way into the Chihuahua-eat-Newfoundlander emergency fellowship program.

  "Shape up," said Dr. Dupuis. "When I tell you to stay in and rest, it doesn't mean sneaking into the parking lot."

  "Understood." My throat ached as I struggled to sound commanding. I had to spin my tenacity into a better light. Right now, Dr. Dupuis saw me as a loser who'd been attacked by a pati
ent in the ER, then nearly carted off by two men in a parking lot because she’d been too foolish to stay inside, as instructed. Time for Spin City.

  "Except I need to speak to Dr. Chia first. Is she still here?"

  "Why?" His eyes sharpened and shoulders tensed.

  "I'm wearing her white coat. I need to tell her that the men might have been trying to kidnap her, not me. Maybe they saw this." I pointed to the embroidered pocket.

  His own lab coat flapped behind him as he strode past the nursing station toward the ambulatory side. "Val. Val!"

  She’d already donned her boots and Canada Goose parka, and was tying down the ear flaps on her hat, but when she spied Dr. Dupuis racing at her, she startled, bumping her hip into the ambulatory side counter. "What is it, Dave?"

  "You can't go out there by yourself."

  She blinked up at him. "What are you talking about? I'm going home. I finally finished my charts."

  "No." He advanced on her, almost backing her into the counter.

  I would never stand that close to any colleague except Tucker, and I wouldn’t do it in public.

  "What do you mean, no?" She ducked her head, cheeks flushed. Then she glanced over his shoulder and focused on me. "You okay, Hope?"

  I nodded and handed her the white coat, pointing at the embroidered name on the front pocket. "Only I was wearing your lab coat when I was attacked. They might have thought I was you. You should have someone escort you to the parking lot."

  She frowned, forming a V in her otherwise lineless face. Even now, I couldn’t help admiring her excellent genes in Asian solidarity. "Why would anyone want to attack me?"

  Dr. Dupuis raised his eyebrows and rubbed his thumb and forefingers together to symbolize cash.

  "Oh, because of the—well, it's Mark's, anyway. It has nothing to do with me."

  What did she mean? He was her partner. Unless they kept completely separate finances?

  Her cheeks coloured as Dr. Dupuis surveyed her, their noses barely six inches apart. She could probably feel his breath fluttering her bangs. She locked eyes with him, even though she was purportedly talking to me. "I mean, thanks, Hope. I'll see if someone will walk out with me."

  "I'll do it." Dr. Dupuis backed up, but she was still mostly sandwiched between him and the desk.

  "No! You're the night doctor. You stay here. I’ll check in the back, see if Dr. Callendar’s finishing up at the same time."

  No one answered her. I wouldn't trust Dr. Callendar to protect Henry, my wooden art doll currently arranged in sleeping position beside my apartment laptop.

  "I'll find you someone," said Dr. Dupuis.

  "Dave, I can do that."

  "Val." His eyes burned into hers. He seemed to have grown another foot in height and another in width, looming over her like a grizzly on its hind legs.

  Five minutes ago, he’d been intoning, Poor judgment and insight.

  Not exactly the vibe he was giving off right now.

  She glared back at him before she took a step to her right, skirting both him and the desk. "You have a point. Both of you. But it's not your job description to escort me to the parking lot. I can get the security guard, Charles. Or Patrick! Everyone loves Patrick. Julie was singing his praises the other day. Patrick is perfect." She folded the white coat over her arm, ready to go.

  The masseter muscle flexed in Dr. Dupuis's jaw.

  I piped up, "I can't find Patrick. I was looking for him earlier. He's actually dating the woman in room 13, who looks like she was beaten. I asked him to leave for the rectal exam and the one-on-one history, and he disappeared before he could give me more of a history. Hasn't even texted his girlfriend since 12:30."

  Dr. Chia raised her eyebrows. "That's strange. They seemed very close."

  "You saw them tonight?"

  "No, on Thursday. They were dressed up. He wore a suit and everything."

  Strange. "He wore a suit and tie to work, instead of his uniform?"

  "He said he’d been called in early for a shift and didn’t have time to change after a meeting downtown—"

  "That's the person you want to take you to the parking lot?" Dr. Dupuis exploded. "Someone who wasn’t even dressed for work two days ago? At least take Charles. He's the head of security. And I'll go out with you so you'll be covered on two sides."

  Her brow pleated again. "What about your patients?"

  He stared at her.

  Her cheeks deepened to carmine, but she didn’t blink. They watched each other for so long that I shifted my weight from foot to foot, wondering if I should clear my throat.

  Without stirring her eyeballs, Dr. Chia said, "I'll figure something out. Hope, start seeing patients."

  Dr. Dupuis opened his mouth. Probably the #2 task on his to-do list was to kick me out of the ER instead of letting me resume clinical duties on a night when every passer-by seemed to hanker for my head.

  However, since Dr. Chia ranked at #1, he maintained his staring contest with her and told her, "I'm coming with you."

  Those two wouldn’t notice if an earthquake buried the rest of us.

  I waved goodbye and skipped back to the acute side. Dr. Dupuis would blank out my fuck-ups as he immersed himself in Dr. Chia. Hooray!

  Strange that no one had told me about the two of them. Seriously. Not one word.

  Tucker’s a 24 hour news ticker, fountaining gossip about virtual strangers. I’d overheard references to Dr. Chia's boyfriend Mark, and even the fact that they were trying to have a baby (sorry, there are no secrets in the emerg), and 1.1 million dollars was boiling hot tea, but I was more intrigued by the whole Dr. Dupuis thing.

  Dr. Dupuis had never displayed so much emotion in the ER before. He behaved like a robot most of the time. A brilliant, unflappable robot that I liked more than most humans, but a robot nonetheless.

  Tonight he and Dr. Chia acted more like me and my men.

  Now I understood why the other residents seemed fascinated—and repelled—by me and Tucker and Ryan. Whether or not you approved of a love triangle, when most of the world marched along in ye olde Noah's Ark model, a threesome caught your eye.

  I twisted around to check on them. Dr. Dupuis leaned close to her, whispering something I couldn’t hear or even lip read.

  Her cheeks remained flushed, but she didn't draw away.

  She didn't want to get away.

  And she claimed that Mark’s 1.1 million dollars had nothing to do with her.

  Only one thing made sense to me. A million dollars wasn't enough to keep Dr. Chia with Mark. She and Dr. Dupuis were either on the cusp or had already hooked up underground.

  I picked up the first chart, COUGH, still smiling. I shouldn't pick sides in this. I'd never met Mark. Cheating is wrong. But I liked Dr. Dupuis, and Dr. Chia seemed cool. Maybe they'd be happy together.

  "Fuck you! Fuck your twat until it rips up your ass!"

  Lori Goody’s voice rang down the hall, describing the equivalent of a fourth degree vaginal tear to the boys in blue as they dragged her out of room 14 in handcuffs and ankle cuffs.

  I angled my head away from her, trying not to attract her ire en route.

  "You can’t do this! I know people! Powerful people! People who know things!"

  She dragged her feet on the ground. Whatever they'd given her had worn off and left her spitting mad.

  I glanced around the ER for someone to take charge. Andrea, Amber, and the préposée, Julie, had gathered around the police in a loose, sober-faced circle. Who’d prescribe the benzos?

  Wait a minute. Dr. Callendar had probably taken off as soon as he’d browbeaten the Glen into accepting Lori Goody. Dr. Chia and Dr. Dupuis had disappeared into the parking lot, probably flanked by the chief of security.

  That meant I was in charge of Lori Goody now.

  Actually, I was in charge of the entire emergency department.

  Wow.

  The white walls and white floors and fluorescent lights spun for a second while I absorbed that responsibility.


  Forget great power. I carried Way. Too. Much. Responsibility.

  Roxanne appeared at my left elbow, unimpressed with my morphing into Superwoman. "What do you want to give her?"

  "What did she already get?" Lori Goody needed all the drugs.

  "Haldol 12, Ativan 5, Benadryl 50. She was asleep before they started walking her out. You can’t knock her out completely, or she's not safe in a cell, but she can't be like this, either."

  Uh oh. I've never had to give multiple doses of Haldol and Ativan. At the most, two doses should do it. My usual dose is 5 mg of Haldol and 2 mg of Ativan, so she'd already more than doubled it, plus the Benadryl, which I found a bit puzzling. Were they using it as an antihistamine?

  I brought up my notes for "The Art of the Chemical Takedown," the EM:RAP podcast's two episodes on the best way to sedate a patient.

  Ketamine. No, she can't be so knocked out that she stops breathing in a police car.

  Midazolam. Okay, well, it's in the same family as Ativan, and can be given IM, plus there's a reversal agent if we need it. There was still a risk that she might get too sedated, but I’d take the risk with Lori Goody. Elephant tranquilizers seemed more her speed.

  One expert did suggest Benadryl in a "B-52," but I'd never seen anyone using it. And anyway, it had worn off in less than four hours.

  "Midazolam, 2 mg IV," I said. It was a slightly conservative dose that shouldn't do her any harm and would keep her calm. For cocaine patients, and many others, we keep pushing benzos, benzos, benzos.

  "We took out her IV because she was calm before the police started walking her out," said Roxanne.

  Right. Lori Goody couldn't keep an IV on the outside in case she ran away from the police and started shooting up on the street with a handy-dandy sterile site.

  I double-checked my notes. "Okay, draw up 5 mg of Midaz IM and give 2.5 and 2.5. That should do it without overdoing it."

  "Can you write it while I'm getting it?" Roxanne called over her shoulder as she rushed to the med cart in resus.

  "Sure," I said, even though I had no idea how to titrate a dose on the computer. So much for making sure a human understood it; you had to make SARKET obey.