Code Blues

by Melissa Yi

  "I didn't." I didn't see any needles or drug baggies. I backed out slowly while he yanked back a beige shower curtain in the stall at the end of the room.

  "Dave!" The plump, blond nurse appeared in the doorway, looking tearful. "It's Kurt—"

  "I know," said Dr. Dupuis. "I know."

  Behind her, I heard a flurry of voices arguing in the main room. Dr. Dupuis pushed past me. I hurried on his heels.

  A freckled woman in glasses and a white coat barked orders, her brown flats parked inches away from Dr. Radshaw's hair.

  A man in greens tried to fit the mask of an ambu bag over Dr. Radshaw's open, rigid mouth.

  The black resident started CPR.

  A nurse knelt beside Dr. Radshaw's arm while two more nurses, plus the blond nurse, yelled at her to stop.

  Two men in black uniform gawked from Dr. Radshaw's feet.

  And then a very thin woman in purple scrubs, standing by the main door, fisted her hands and started to scream.

  Chapter 4

  "Vicki!" called the woman in glasses, the doctor who was running the belated code, but I could barely hear her above the scream. It rose and filled the tiny room, until I struggled not to cover my ears.

  Everyone else froze and fell silent, except Dr. Dupuis, who grabbed the screaming woman by the arm and jerked her toward the door. "Get her out of here," he snapped at the guards in black uniform, and then, to the blonde nurse, "Give her some Ativan. One milligram sublingual to start." The nurse rushed out of the room.

  The other resident stopped doing CPR. She stood, wincing as she straightened her legs after kneeling on the floor, and backed away from the body. The resp tech lifted his head from his ambu bag. And the two staff doctors started arguing, literally, over Dr. Radshaw's dead body.

  Dr. Dupuis said, "I already called the time of death. And this is a coroner's case. Any suspicious death in the hospital—"

  "Did you make any effort to resuscitate him at all?"

  "Courtney, he was dead."

  Her eyes slitted in contempt. "You didn't even try. Did you check his glucose?"

  "He. Was. Dead. You know that as well as I do." Dr. Dupuis turned to the rest of the group. "We're all upset. We all knew Kurt and want to give him our best effort. But it's too late. We can't bring him back."

  After a few seconds, the group backed away from the body, including the resp tech, who stood and let the ambu bag dangle in his hands.

  Dr. Dupuis released his breath. "The people who were first on scene need to stay here—" His eyes flicked at me, and passed on through the crowd. "—and we'll probably all need to make statements to the police and the coroner. Please don't move anything if you can help it."

  The other resident's low voice rang through the room. "You think he was murdered?"

  The crowd's murmur stopped. We all held our breath, waiting for Dr. Dupuis's answer.

  He ran a hand through his hair. His blond bangs were dark and spiky with sweat. It was sweltering in this locker room stuffed full of people. And was I imagining it, or behind the sweat and deodorant and hairspray, was there the faint, sickly stench of death?

  Sweat prickled in my armpits.

  At last, Dr. Dupuis said, "I don't know. It could have been an accident with his insulin. But we have to treat it like a worst case—"

  The door burst open. Two men in black, bulletproof vests, baby blue shirts, and dark navy pants shouldered their way into the room. They wore guns and walkie-talkies on their belts.

  The police.

  I never wanted to meet the Sûreté de Québec. The only time they make the national news is when they shoot young black men for no defensible reason. When I got my match results, that I'd be doing family medicine in Montreal, one unbidden thought was, I hope they don't shoot me. They didn't regularly mow down young Asian women, but I figured, once unbalanced, always unbalanced. And here they were.

  A stocky, sandy-haired officer pushed his way to Dr. Radshaw. The white badge on his arm said Police. I wasn't sure if that was the same thing as the Sûreté. "Who is in charge here?" His English was good, laced with a moderate French accent

  Dr. Dupuis said, "I am."

  "You were the one who found the body?"

  Everyone tensed. It was the first time someone had called Dr. Radshaw a body out loud.

  "No. That was Jade." Dr. Dupuis pointed to the other resident, who was standing by the bathroom doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. "Dr. Jade Watterson, one of our second-year residents."

  The officer looked from Dr. Dupuis to Jade Watterson, and exchanged a look with his brown-haired colleague. "I have to talk to you. Both of you." He turned back to Dr. Dupuis. "I'll start with you." He raised his voice. "In the meantime, nobody touch nothing. You understand?" He repeated it in French.

  His colleague, the brown-haired guy, ushered us all out of the room. "Let's go. Into the hall. No one leave until I say so." He turned to the woman doctor who'd started running the code. "Who are you? What's your name? Did you go in the room? Did you move anything?"

  He scribbled things into his notebook. It seemed like anyone who hadn't entered the room or touched Kurt was free to go after he took down their name. The officer spoke on his radio, but too low for me to hear anything.

  I made my way over to Jade's side. I had so many questions, I wasn't sure where to start, but I had to strike before they took her out of the room. "You were the one who found him?" Now that I thought about it, it was kind of weird that she stumbled into a men's change room and happened to find Dr. Radshaw.

  She shook her head. "Maintenance did. I heard the code, same as you. But I got here before you and Dr. Dupuis, because I was on the second floor. ICU."

  No wonder the pockets of her white coat bulged with notes. "At least you were prepared for it, I guess. I mean, if you were doing ICU." What a stupid thing to say.

  She looked at me out of the corner of her eyes. "You're never prepared. Never."

  "Yeah. I guess." I shifted my weight from foot to foot. "Anyway, I'm Hope Sze."

  She shook my hand. "Jade Watterson."

  We smiled a little at each other. I rotated my shoulders, which I belatedly realized were stiff with tension. "Who was the woman in purple? You know. The screamer."

  She shuddered and bent toward my ear. "Dr. Radshaw's girlfriend."

  He had a girlfriend. Jesus. "But what was she doing here?"

  She glanced uneasily at the people milling around the room. The other staff doctor was talking to the resp tech. Jade said, "She's a nurse in obstetrics."

  Good Lord. She happened to be working when they found her boyfriend's body. And she came to see. I struggled to get my mind around that, while the brown-haired officer positioned himself beside Jade. "We have some questions for you."

  She gulped and left with him, sketching a goodbye in the air.

  I heard a sob from one of the nurses. I turned. She had her hands pressed to her face, and she was shaking her head. A second nurse wrapped her arms around her. The ICU doctor, Courtney, spoke softly. She, too, had tears in her eyes.

  I had liked Dr. Radshaw, from my brief contact with him yesterday. I was sorry he was dead. But my sorrow was nothing, nothing compared to what these people were feeling. They had lost a colleague, a friend, and a lover.

  In mystery books, it's usually someone unpleasant who gets offed. That way, there are maximum suspects. But today, we had lost one of the good guys.

  When I got matched to St. Joe's, I didn't think much about it. Like I said, I never even toured the place. But I was starting to realize that it wasn't just a hospital. For these people, it was a second family. And I was like a girlfriend who'd been invited to Thanksgiving, only to stumble upon tragedy. Theoretically, I belonged, but I didn't, really. Not yet. Not this way.

  More officers arrived. One of them stood in front of the door, guarding it. Two more started quizzing people and letting them go.

  The sandy-haired officer returned and asked me to come with him. Dr. Dupuis joi
ned the tight circle around Dr. Radshaw, and I followed the officer into a conference room at the T-junction of the hallway I'd first encountered.

  It felt unreal. Here I was, sitting at a blue plastic chair and a fake wood-grain desk, as if I were going to take notes on cervical dysplasia, but instead a police officer was interviewing me about a potential homicide. He pulled out a bunch of forms and a navy notebook. "What's your full name."

  "Hope Sze."

  He wrinkled his nose. Not a very québécois name, I guess. I had to spell both names out for him. And my address and home phone number, which was also surreal, since I'd only moved in yesterday. It was like a variation on a nursery rhyme. First comes parking ticket, then comes murder. Then comes—what? Not the baby in the baby carriage. I was on the pill, thanks.

  The officer's voice pulled me back. His eyelashes were dark blond, with darker roots. "What did you see, when you came in the room." He had a flat way of talking. His question ended with a downward flick. It sounded almost like a German command. You will speak. Now. Schnell.

  I did my best to describe the man lying on his back, on the floor, Dr. Dupuis crouched over his head, the resident, Jade, checking his carotid pulse—

  His thin lips pressed together. "What does that mean."

  I stared at him. Didn't they do first aid as part of their training? "Well, when we want to check if someone's heart is beating, we have to check the pulse. So she was checking the pulse in his neck. The carotid artery."

  The corners of his mouth turned down. "Are you certain she was checking his pulse?"

  I raised my eyebrows. "It sure looked like it."

  "If you do not know for certain, I prefer..." He shifted in his chair. It creaked. "I prefer no...interpretation. You are to describe exactly what you see. If you see a woman with her hand on his neck, you say that. Do you understand me."

  "Of course." What a lame brain. For a second, I was worried they'd try to pin in on Jade. But no. That was just paranoia. Just because they shot black guys didn't mean they'd frame anyone black. Right?

  I went on to describe the scene as best I could, with "no interpretation." Sunlight fell in the conference room, across my legs. I was getting baked in my stiff, green, poly-cotton blend scrubs. I angled my legs out of the way of the sunshine.

  He frowned when I said Dr. Dupuis had shifted the bundle of clothes in the bathroom, but really lit up when I remembered I'd gone through Dr. Radshaw's pockets. "You must never touch anything! This is a suspicious death. You should leave everything alone. If you disturb a hair, make any marks, we could lose the case! You must never move anything! Just call the police!"

  I felt bad. I'd just been following Dr. Dupuis's, but I understood the police's point. "Sorry."

  He shook his head, mumbling, "Nev-er, ne-ver."

  "So, you think it's was murder, then?" My voice was too loud.

  He shook his head and stared at his navy spiral-bound notebook. "We have no evidence for that right now. It is only a suspicious death."

  "But you think—"

  His hazel eyes met mine. "I will contact the sergeant. If the homicide team gets involved, we will interview you. But right now, we have no evidence."

  But then it struck me, what had been bothering me about Dr. Radshaw's relatively empty pockets and belt. "Wait a minute. He wasn't wearing his pager."

  The officer pursed his lips. "Should he have been?"

  "I'm not sure if he was on call. We could check. But the thing is, Dr. Radshaw wore his pager, 24/7. Even to bed. He wanted to be available all the time. For him not to have his cell phone or pager on him—that's wrong. I think—" It sounded preposterous, but I pushed it through. "I think he was murdered."

  The officer heaved his shoulders. "You remember what I told you. No interpretation."

  "Yes, but you don't understand. It was like his trademark. Ask anyone!"

  The officer looked at his watch. "I must talk to my colleagues and the sergeant again. We will be in touch if homicide gets involved. But for a known diabetic, if his insulin was low, the other doctor told me, he might be confused and not know his own mind. He might forget his pager."

  But he'd wander around St. Joseph's in hypoglycemic shock? It didn't add up. The OR change room was a funny place, too. I heard you needed a numerical access code for the elevator, although the stairs were open if you knew how to cut through the halls, as Dr. Dupuis and I had done this morning. A confused hypoglycemic would have a hard time navigating the stairs or a coded elevator.

  Plus, a doctor should know how to regulate his insulin and recognize symptoms of hypoglycemia early on. He probably injected himself and checked his sugar four times a day. Why would he suddenly make a fatal error in the hospital, in the middle of the night?

  No. The more I thought about it, the more it rang true. Dr. Radshaw was murdered.

  The policeman studied me. "If you remember anything else..." He tapped the notebook with his pen. I noticed the pen cap had been chewed into a well-nibbled point. Gross. I folded my hands in my lap so I wouldn't accidentally brush the pen.

  He handed me his card. J. Rivera, Inspecteur. I tucked the card into the front pocket of my shirt, next to my own navy notebook.

  My throat was dry, and I felt a little light-headed. I'd seen a few dead people in medicine, but none of them had been murdered. As far as I knew, anyway. I turned blindly to the right, down a dim hallway, away from the men's change room.

  I found a water fountain embedded into the wall. The white porcelain felt cool against my palms. The water was a thin stream, barely arching above the metal drink spout, but I wet my lips a little.

  "Hi."

  It was a low female voice. I spun around, pain streaking into my neck. "Ow!"

  Jade Watterson took a step back. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

  I rubbed my neck. After a long drive and a tense morning, my muscles had relatively seized. "It's been a lousy day."

  She smiled wryly. "Tell me about it. I'm post-call."

  "Ouch." I checked my watch. Getting on 10 a.m. She'd probably been going for 26 hours straight.

  "At least I get to go home." She smiled. It made a huge difference on her. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face wide at the cheeks, her eyes a little close-set for classic beauty, but when she smiled, she jumped up a few points on the Richter scale. Her teeth shone toothpaste-commercial white against her brown skin. She asked, "Are you an R1? What a way to start!"

  "Yeah."

  She flipped her hand at me. "Gotta go. See ya."

  She was already halfway down the hall when I mustered my voice. "Wait! Did you notice he didn't have his pager?"

  She stopped, but didn't turn around. She jammed her hands in the front pocket of her lab coat.

  I said, too loud, "Do you think someone killed him?"

  She started to turn. Opened her mouth to speak. But up ahead, the door to the change room drew inward. She tucked her head down and strode past the change room, away from me, without another word.

  Chapter 5

  My backpack cut off my circulation from the shoulders down. Maybe I shouldn't have bought four liters of milk and Sherpa-ed them home. I snaked my arm around my own back, fumbling for the keys I'd left in the front pocket of the bulging pack, and managed to unlock the building door. After a strenuous emerg shift, plus shopping, my eyes ached, my feet were tired, and I was ready for an untaxing supper. Say, a bowl of Cheerios.

  The concièrge must have been by, because the hallway floors glistened and a few shallow puddles were still drying along the wall. Good. At least they kept the apartment halls clean, even if Alex had dissed my neighborhood.

  My pack was so heavy that I had to bend forward to counterbalance it as I mounted the relatively minor stairs to my apartment. I felt like an unlucky donkey.

  I was two steps away from the landing when I heard the phone ring inside the apartment. I rolled my eyes. What a time for Alex to call, when I was in danger of toppling like the Titanic. Still, I sped up.

/>   Mistake. My foot slipped off the last step.

  I grabbed the wooden banister. It wobbled.

  Dear God, I was going to die. I had a fleeting vision of falling backward and cracking my head on the fake granite floor, pinned in place by the weight of my backpack. The firefighters would have to cut me free with the Jaws of Life.

  The banister held, but my keys dropped with a clang and slithered down a few steps.

  The phone rang on.

  I slipped the straps from my shoulders and heaved my backpack around to my front stoop. Newly freed, I fetched the keys, unlocked the door, and bumped the backpack inside.

  As I locked the door behind me and kicked off my shoes, the phone stopped in mid-ring.

  The air seemed to vibrate with sudden silence.

  I wanted to curl into my sleeping bag until tomorrow's evening shift. But I was hungry. One of my classmates once said, about our work life, "You have to decide if you're too tired to eat or too hungry to sleep." This time, hunger won.

  I wouldn't bother with my voice mail. If Alex was now feeling contrite, he could stew, simmer, and even boil in his own juices until tomorrow morning.

  I unzipped my backpack and started toting groceries down the hall to my little galley kitchen. What had possessed me to buy two economy-sized cans of spaghetti sauce? I could do weights with these things.

  The phone rang again.

  Maybe something was wrong with my family. Or maybe Alex was extremely intent on kissing my ass. Either way, I thunked the cans of zesty Italian on my kitchen's black and white tile counter. Then I ran to my bedroom and caught it on the third ring. "Hello?" I brushed the hair out of my eyes. I needed a bang trim.

  "Hello. Is this Hope? Hope Sze?"

  It was a woman with a French accent. A telemarketer? How had they gotten my number so fast? And why wasn't it Alex?

  "Yes," I said, wary.

  "This is Mireille Laroque. From St. Joseph's."

  It took me a minute to place the butchy French resident. "Ah, yes. How are you?"