Code Blues Read online

  Alex laughed. "Want one?"

  I sighed. "All of them. This is wonderful."

  He shrugged. "This is Montreal."

  I looked around at all the people, lined up for their daily bread and the occasional sweet. He was right. To them, it was perfectly normal to visit a bakery, a fruit market, and a fishmonger instead of a supermarket, even though they had to line up at each store. Food was worth the time and effort. Of course, there was a Metro supermarket right on the corner of Côte-des-Neiges and Queen Mary, but the average person still apparently respected and enjoyed small-scale cuisine. My ex-boyfriend, Ryan, had a roommate from Montreal who hypothesized that the reason French people were thin wasn't so much because of the wine they drank, the olive oil they used. It was because they ate good quality food instead of stuffing themselves on junk. There were no studies to back up his claim, but looking around this bakery, I half-believed it.

  I had my first inkling I could make a home here. The city had seemed malignant and alien at first encounter, but maybe Montreal could teach me something, too.

  Alex squeezed my hand. I inhaled the yeasty air and felt carefree, like I was falling into the jounce and easy rhythm of summer in the city.

  Instead of taking a ticket, Alex led me along the length of the store. In the back, they had a little boucherie. No sweets, but refrigerated cases of lunch meat, cheese, and olives. A piece of paper stuck to the brick wall advertised the midi-express: your choice of a sandwich, a drink, and the dessert of the day, all for about $6. Alex made a little bow. "Your lunch, Madame."

  I made a face. I'm still a mademoiselle. I chose the rosbif. A guy in a white apron and matching cap swiftly prepared both our paninis.

  "And now we have a picnic," said Alex. He insisted on carrying my paper bag lunch as well as his own, and he made a point of opening the door for me.

  Alex guided me up a little side street. Immediately, the traffic died down; I could hear our steps on the sidewalk. A few more blocks, and we were beside a little park. Kids screamed with glee as they slid down the slide. It was bright and beautiful but slightly ear-splitting, so on the other side of the fence, we found a grassy mound under the trees, facing the road.

  Alex squatted, unpacked his lunch, and smoothed his empty paper bag on the ground. "Your seat, Madame."

  I imagined the paper bag scrunching under my butt. Very unromantic. "What's with the madame business? I'm not married yet."

  He grinned up at me. "I don't know. They don't use mademoiselle anymore, except with little kids."

  "That's too bad." Madame reminded me of my many French Immersion teachers, none of them romantic.

  Alex squinted into the sun. "Are you going to sit down? Or at least sit on mine if I sit on yours?" He lowered his voice, like he'd said something dirty, and I had to laugh.

  Solemnly, I smoothed out my paper bag on the grass for him. Then he said, "One, two, three," and we sat down at the same time, laughing at the crunching noises.

  Alex picked up his panini. "Do you want to trade half and half?"

  I handed him half my rosbif in exchange for his ham.

  He popped his Coke and held it in the air for a toast. I raised my can of iced tea back. He tapped it with his own and said, "To truth."

  There were a lot sexier things to toast. But I drank to it. The iced tea was deliciously cold.

  Alex ground his can into the ground so it wouldn't tip over. "I can tell you're honest. Most people aren't."

  I made a face.

  He said, "No, really. It's refreshing. You wouldn't believe some of the other residents."

  My scalp started to prickle. What was he getting at?

  He gazed at the community hall across the street. "Not that they're bad or anything. Or maybe—" He blew out his breath. "I just don't know any more." He bit into his sandwich.

  So did I. The roast beef tasted dry and the bread seemed to clog up my throat.

  He swallowed and touched the back of my hand for a second. "I've been with them too long. Some of them seven years. I can't tell if they're lying to me or not. You know? That's the problem with McGill. It's too incestuous."

  True, a lot of people did premed, med school, residency, and even fellowships at McGill, as if there were no other schools to sample. Incestuous, huh? If it bothered Alex, he should have left Montreal and gone to another city for residency.

  As if he read my mind, he said, "I told you. It's something in the water."

  I raised my eyebrows.

  He shrugged. "I know. Not funny. But I liked it here. A lot. And I wanted to work with Kurt. There was no reason for me to leave. But now..." He clenched his fists. "He's dead, goddammit. I think someone killed him. And I want to know who."

  I frowned. I understood where he was coming from, but I didn't know where he was going. "You think it's someone in our program?"

  He turned away and chewed off the end of his panini. "It's like this," he said, finally. "I think it might be."

  I waited, but he didn't speak. I nibbled at the ham sandwich. It was better than the roast beef because the ham contrasted with a sharp cheese.

  Alex stared at his sandals. I was the one who broke our silence. "That's why we're drinking to truth? You're going to investigate?"

  He didn't answer right away. Then he looked at me. "Where were you this morning?"

  "At the gym." He kept watching me, so I admitted, "I walked up to obstetrics."

  He almost smiled. "You talked to Vicki?"

  I shook my head. "She's off for the week. I left my number."

  "But you tried? And the nurses talked to you?" His eyes were intent, the planes of his face sharper than usual.

  "Sort of. One did, the other didn't. I didn't find out much. Why?"

  He shook his head. "Why did you do it?"

  "I don't know. I guess because I was one of the first people to find him. When I met him, he seemed like a nice guy. And everyone loved him so much. I just wanted to make it up to him somehow. I know that's dumb—"

  "That's it! That's it exactly." His gray eyes were vivid, almost feverish. I could smell the Dijon mustard on his breath. "I want to make it up to him."

  I drew back a little. "Make what up?"

  He grabbed my wrist harder than necessary. "Hope. I know I have no right to ask you this. But could you keep asking around? If you ask, and I ask, maybe we'll find out who did it."

  Every time I thought I understood Alex, he mutated before my eyes. I pulled my wrist away, or tried to. With an effort, he relaxed his grip on my wrist.

  I relaxed a little. "We don't know for sure that someone did it. And why would anyone talk to me? They don't know me from Adam."

  "That's the whole point! You're outside all the politics. You're neutral. So they will talk to you, more than me. I know you don't believe me, but it's true."

  My wrist didn't ache exactly, but I could feel where each finger had been. As if sensing this, he rubbed my skin with his other hand. "I'm sorry. I'm fucked up."

  That was true. I didn't answer, but I let him massage my skin. He covered my wrist with his palm and said, "I think Mireille had something to do with it."

  I shook my head as if to clear my ears. "What?"

  He checked up and down the street, even glanced behind us to make sure that the mommies and kiddies weren't spying on us from the sandbox. Then he leaned close to murmur, "They were having an affair."

  I choked. Mireille was so up-front and bossy, I couldn't imagine her shagging a staff physician. Mind you, if she did, I doubt she'd hide it. She'd probably make a PowerPoint presentation on it.

  Then I remembered that heavily made-up woman from the fitness centre. How many women had Dr. Radshaw slept with? Either he was a modern-day Lothario, or his lovers were unmasking themselves after his death.

  Of course, I had only Alex's word that Mireille had been involved. I asked, "When?"

  Alex sipped his Coke, watching me. He relaxed slightly. "I'm not sure. They were hiding it at first. One of my friends w
as after Mireille. Finally, she told him to bugger off, she already had a serious boyfriend."

  It's not like girls haven't used that line before. "When was that?"

  He studied a row of shrubs across the street. "Before Match Day, but after Christmas. I'd say February."

  February. And now it was July. Not much time for Kurt to run from one woman to another. "What about Vicki?"

  He shrugged. "I guess he and Mireille broke up."

  I frowned, remembering Mireille hosting a semi-wake for Dr. Kurt. That didn't suggest a heartbroken murderess to me. "Are you sure she was dating, uh, Kurt?" It was weird to call him by his first name. "It could have been anyone." Or no one.

  "Pretty sure. I called his house once, and she answered."

  "What were you doing, calling his house?"

  "For the group project, he said that if we had any questions, we should call him on his pager. But he didn't answer the page, so the operator called him at home. A woman picked up the phone. It sounded just like Mireille."

  I wrinkled my nose. "That's not much, Alex."

  "Then I called her house, and she didn't answer. I called her on her cell phone, and she'd turned it off. She never does that."

  It wasn't adding up. "Why did you care so much if Mireille was there or not?"

  He picked up the ham sandwich and started chewing, avoiding my eyes. "I told you. I had a buddy who was interested. I wanted him to know."

  "A buddy—or you?" I balled up the empty sandwich wrapper.

  He barked a laugh. "Mireille's not my type at all. Why? Are you jealous?"

  "'Course not." I tried to change the subject. "Anyway, if Kurt was that gung-ho, maybe she went over to his house for the group project."

  He raised his eyebrows. "It would have been quite the project. She was on general surgery at the time."

  I didn't have a comeback for that one. But the whole thing smelled rotten. Who calls a consultant at home about a research project? If Alex was telling the truth, why would Mireille reveal their relationship by answering the phone? How did Vicki fit in? I shook my head. "What aren't you telling me, Alex?"

  His eyes widened. "What would I get out of lying? I just want to pay Kurt back somehow, you know?"

  It felt like shadowboxing. I folded up my ham sandwich in its waxed paper. I didn't have an appetite anymore. "Why don't you wait until after the autopsy? We don't even know he was murdered. Maybe he made a mistake with the insulin. Or maybe it was something else, like drugs."

  "No way," Alex snapped. He crushed his Coke can against the ground. "He was very against physicians with addictions. He did an amazing Grand Rounds about it last year." He paused. "He was supposed to do our next Grand Rounds on partner abuse."

  "Alex, lots of doctors who do presentations used to be addicts. It's part of their turnaround process. Did he ever say anything about that?"

  Alex shook his head stubbornly. "No one thought he was a user. No one. Not for a single second. He was all about St. Joe's, especially the FMC." He shot me a look. "Addicts only care about their next fix. Kurt cared about all the patients, all the students and residents, and the whole FMC." He gestured back toward the hospital. "Just look at the place. It's falling apart. Most of the teachers are just limping along. But Kurt was trying to change all that. He wanted to recruit the best residents, renovate the building or build a new one, really jump-start the place."

  It was a mammoth undertaking. I wondered what made Dr. Radshaw care so much.

  Alex was still talking. "He was always around. He even came in on weekends. He didn't have time to be a junkie. I'm telling you."

  Even dead, Dr. Kurt inspired a lot of emotion. I tried to bring Alex full circle. "Okay. Say I believe you. What does this have to do with Mireille?"

  His shoulders sagged. "I don't know. But she's part of it. I'm sure of it." He smiled a little. "Man's intuition."

  I smiled back, but Dr. Radshaw could still have been a user. Some buzz from speed or crystal meth, and he could do the FMC and Mireille and Vicki and the treadmill woman and still have energy to burn.

  During med school, at a doctors and addiction presentation, they told us about an anaesthetist at Western. He was shooting up in a closet between OR cases. He meant to inject Fentanyl, a narcotic, but by accident, he'd grabbed succinylcholine. He ended up paralyzing himself. He couldn't scream for help. He couldn't even breathe. No one knew where he was. The last thing he remembered was falling like a cut tree and knowing he had inadvertently committed suicide.

  His colleagues heard the crash. They secured his airway, saving his life. After that, his addiction was literally out of the closet. He got help.

  Before I could tell Alex, he brushed the hair out of his eyes and said, "I know for sure about him and Mireille. We followed her the next day, okay? Me and my friend. On the metro. She went right from her hospital to Kurt's house and spent the night."

  I imagined Alex skulking outside Dr. Radshaw's place until dawn. It wasn't pretty.

  Alex shrugged. "I know. It was lame. Anyway, my friend got over her after that. The point is, Kurt and Mireille were serious. When he broke up with her and went out with Vicki, Mireille was upset. Had to take some time off." He lowered his voice. "I heard she was maybe even suicidal."

  I felt a pang for her. She acted so tough at the orientation.

  "I've been in school with her for the past four years. She was a competitive swimmer. She doesn't give up. When she gets mad, she gets even."

  Okay. I could see that. There was something hard about her. A lot of women cover it up with smiles and honey, but Mireille let it ride closer to the surface. Still, that was true of a lot of doctors. Med school trenches strip off sweetness really fast. I used to think I could save the world. I lost that sometime during clerkship.

  Overall, I didn't trust Alex, but I was willing to play ball. "All right, let's say Kurt was murdered, and that Mireille had something to do with it."

  He nodded and ripped up a handful of grass. "Yeah."

  "How would she have killed him? Alex, I saw him. There weren't any signs of struggle. Do you really think he would have just let her stick him with a needle? He would have kept his distance, and he would have been stronger than her."

  He tossed the grass away and rubbed his forehead. "I know. I've been thinking about it, too." His grey eyes met mine again. "But I do know he was murdered, Hope. And I want to find whoever did it. We can't let them get away with it." He held out his hand, palm up. "Will you help me?

  I looked from his hand to his face. "Where did you go on Friday night?"

  He sighed. His hand curled, but he didn't withdraw it. "I told you. I'm sorry."

  "Yeah, but what happened?"

  He dropped his hand to the grass and curled his fist around another tuft. "You know already. Family emergency. I called you."

  Not until I got home. Although, to be fair, he probably didn't know I hadn't been wearing my pager. "What kind of emergency?"

  "I can't say," he said to the grass. "I just can't. It's not my story to tell." He brought his gray eyes up to meet mine, steady now.

  It wasn't like I needed details. If he'd just say, My dad had an MI (heart attack), I wouldn't press for more. The one-liner told me enough info. But a total information blackout, after ditching me? I wanted more.

  I tried to make a joke out of it. "You can't even say if it was a Code Red, or a Code Blue, or Black?" Red is fire. Blue is a cardiorespiratory arrest. Black means bomb threat.

  His lips twitched. "I guess kind of Black. Seriously, Hope, I can't say any more. Do you trust me?"

  Kind of. Black could mean mourning. Maybe someone died in his family. "I guess."

  He smiled. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. Are you in?"

  If there was a murderer among us, I wanted to know it. There wasn't much risk in asking questions. And I liked Alex. So I nodded. "I'm in."

  He wrapped his arm around me and kissed the top of my head. "Good. I don't know how we got onto something so heavy.
"

  I looked up at him. The wind blew my bangs into my eyes. I pushed them out of the way and he smiled. "So. Let's talk about you."

  "What about me?" He smelled good. Warm. Masculine.

  "What do you like to do?"

  You, I thought, and quelled it. "Uh. I like to rollerblade. In London, I used to go up and down these great footpaths by the Thames River."

  "Yeah?" He rested his cheek against my head. "I heard about those paths. Don't they get flooded sometimes?"

  "Yeah. In the spring. Once, I was trying to bike, but it was so deep, a family of ducks came swimming along." I pulled back to look at him. "How did you know about that?"

  He shrugged. "A friend."

  He had a lot of friends. But he was from Kitchener, only about an hour away from London. It wasn't so surprising. "Do you like to blade?"

  He shook his head. "I'm a klutz on wheels. You can teach me."

  I smiled at the thought. He pulled me close again. "I like soccer. You?"

  I made a face. "Lots of running. And why would I want to hit a ball with my head?"

  He rolled his eyes. "Boy. Have I got a lot to teach you. Did you want your dessert?"

  I groped beside me for my millefeuille. "Just try and stop me."

  He snatched it away and held it up above my head.

  I stood up to grab it. He stood, too, and held it out of range. His half-foot on me made all the difference.

  I twisted and dove for his rum ball. He bellowed with rage, but I was too fast. I snatched it up and held it behind my back. Then I stuck my tongue out at him.

  He sidled closer. I moved away just enough to keep the same distance between us.

  "You don't even like rum balls," he said.

  "Well, you promised to be sober for the rest of your life. It would be my moral duty to keep the demon rum away from you." I held it up in front of my nose. "Smells pretty good, actually."