Code Blues

by Melissa Yi

  Bob said, "Excellent point, Dr. Tucker. Thank you." His bland face showed no recognition of any jibe on the talk vs. action score.

  Tori made noise in her throat, lower than a sigh.

  A secretary said that Dr. Radshaw always made her laugh, even on the most hectic days.

  Omar put up his hand. "He was a good teacher and very kind."

  "He always had his pager on," added Stan from his seat by the door. "Isn't that what most of us will remember? Whenever you were reviewing a case, his pager would go off, or the phone would ring for him, or one of his patients would have a crisis only he could answer."

  Some people laughed. A woman behind me said, "So true, so true."

  "And somehow he'd manage everything at once," Stan finished. "He didn't get flustered or impatient. He just dealt with everything. Actually, if it was quiet, he didn't like it. He'd jump up and point out an article he'd just read, or tell us about an interesting case he'd seen. He was always moving."

  Mireille was smiling and shaking her head. I saw the same look around the room, of affectionate recognition. Stan let them enjoy it before he added, "There's one other thing we'll never forget about Kurt."

  We all leaned toward him.

  Stan waited a beat. Then, with a twinkle in his eye, he said, "His moustache."

  We laughed, and a few people even applauded. I grinned at Stan. He knew how to liven up a party.

  He looked ready to go on, but Robin spoke up behind him. "I try to remember him as a human being."

  He looked paler than usual, if that were possible. His blue pop-eyes were trained on Bob. "He wasn't perfect. But he was a very good teacher. He always tried to be evidence-based. He was the only doctor who brought in recent articles for us to read, and who asked us to follow the guidelines. I respected that."

  We waited, but Robin settled back into his chair as if he'd said everything. Maybe for him, he had. Some booky classmates of mine from med school were like that. They lived for learning and thought everything else was beside the point. Usually, they went into internal medicine. I wondered why Robin had chosen family medicine and, more interestingly, what Kurt had to coach him through.

  "Ah, that's a good point, Robin," said Bob. "We often lionize people after their deaths. But no one is perfect. We're all imperfect 'human beans.'" He chuckled at his own joke. A few people chuckled, probably out of sympathy. "Also, we pride ourselves on our teaching at St. Joseph's. We do our best to be evidence-based, to train the next generation of physicians..."

  Man. I remembered what Tucker had said, about Bob Clarkson being jealous of Kurt. Certainly, Bob seemed to want to turn everything into "St. Joe's forever!" Still, it was a stretch to get from there to murdering his rival.

  To my surprise, Dr. Callendar said, "Kurt was a good friend and a good doctor. I'll miss him."

  Simple, but to the point. I found myself nodding. Maybe the guy was gruff because he was in mourning. Then I remembered, no, he was mean to me when I first met him, on Saturday morning.

  Dr. Callendar was sitting in the middle of the first row. I tilted in my chair until I had a good angle on him. He had black hair which, under the fluorescent lights, was studded with silver. A sharply defined nose, arched eyebrows, ears that curled under at the tops like they'd been overheated on a stove. He was the only staff doctor wearing a white coat. It couldn't have been because he needed to look older.

  Just then, Dr. Callendar's head swerved to glare straight at me.

  Affecting casual disinterest, I turned my eyes back to Bob. But my heart was pounding. The man was freakishly attuned to my moves.

  It was paranoid to suspect all the doctors and residents of murder. Tucker had pointed out it was just as likely to be a nurse or RT. Maybe I should talk to him, see if he'd found anything else out on that score.

  Bob concluded, "Thank you. We'll miss Dr. Kurt Radshaw and we will never forget him. If you need to talk about him some more, please make an appointment to come by my office. My door is always open." He clasped his hands and gave us a sorrowful look, like a bad funeral director. "We'll take a ten minute break before our talk on peripheral neuropathy. Ten minutes, folks. We want to start on time."

  People muttered and rose to pitch their plates in the already-overflowing garbage. Now that I had my kitchen boxes, I should unearth some Tupperware and use it instead of disposable plates.

  Tori said, "Do you want to go for a quick walk?"

  "Sure." I glanced at the doorway. Alex had already disappeared. He was good at that.

  We brushed past the people waiting for the bathroom and the huggers in the front hall. No one wanted to leave yet. A good third of the women were crying. Bob Clarkson's break was unlikely to fit into ten minutes. I wondered if Tori wanted to escape from all the emotion.

  After we descended the front steps, I let Tori take the lead. If we turned right, there was a parking lot, a church, and the metro station; if we turned left, there was another parking lot and the hospital. Straight ahead was an empty picnic table.

  Tori aimed toward the church. "That was heavy," she said.

  "Yeah." People spilled on to the front porch behind us. I had to lengthen my stride to keep up with Tori. I glanced around and lowered my voice. "Was Dr. Callendar always, ah, so hard to get along with?'

  Tori glanced up at me. "Yes."

  "Oh." Yet another dead end.

  Her eyebrows quirked. It seemed to be her substitute for a small smile. "Why do you ask?"

  "I wondered if his personality had changed since Kurt died."

  She shook her head. "He's notorious. The med students try to avoid him. If you get along with him, he's okay."

  I knew that. I just had no idea how to get along with him. I kicked a stray piece of gravel. We watched it skitter across the parking lot and roll to a stoop under a Jeep.

  "Don't worry about Dr. Callendar." Before I could ask why, she glanced at her watch. "We'd better head back."

  It seemed like we'd only just escaped. I lagged behind, noticing for the first time the rusted, deformed bike rack beside the disabled ramp at the front of the Annex. The covered front porch was jammed with residents. I could see Mireille's brown curls at the centre of the crowd. A few stragglers squeezed by the residents, but they were too intent on their own conversation to notice.

  As we mounted the stone steps, Mireille abruptly switched from French to English and faced us. Her cheeks were cherry red, like I'd imagine in carbon monoxide poisoning. Her eyes glittered. She said, "My sister just called. The police have called Vicki in for questioning again. They think she killed Kurt."

  Chapter 19

  One of the second year residents, Sébastien, whom I didn't know well, shook his head. "Impossible."

  "Why not?" Mireille returned, in English. "I've read that it is often the spouse. A crime of passion. Of course, in this case, she was not the spouse yet and would never be."

  A soft snort escaped my lips. Everyone else had said Vicki was the fiancée. Tori shot me a warning frown, but it was too late.

  Mireille whirled on me. Her mouth twisted. "Oh, you don't believe me? Too bad. Really, a shame." She threw her arms in the air. "They found the killer. Thank God."

  She was more volatile than ever. Some people have said this of me, that I hum with energy, that I seem angry or anxious when I'm really just at my baseline. Observing Mireille, I could see why. She was off the charts. A volcano. She made me look like a Zen monk.

  A white guy with dreadlocks, whom I hadn't met yet, said to one of the second years, "Did Vicki have access to insulin and succ?"

  Mireille stamped her foot on the wooden slats. "Of course she did."

  The guy held up his hands. "Look, Mireille, I'm just asking. She's an OB nurse, right?"

  "Yes, but we all know how easy it is to get drugs," Anu, of all people, piped up. Her face shone like an eager student's. "They always draw up extra morphine and throw it out. Plus on OB, they do spinal blocks and epidurals. A narcotic would be no problem and they don
't even count insulin."

  The dreads guy nodded slowly. "Or she could just take Kurt's extra insulin and swipe succ off the crash cart. Okay. But I still don't get the motive."

  Mireille said triumphantly, "Simple. He was going to dump her and come back to me."

  We all stared at her.

  "That's what he told me. Friday night. The night before he—" Her voice shook for the first time. She took a deep breath. "Before she killed him."

  The main door creaked open. We all jumped. Stan called, "Time's up, folks. Dr. Lieberman is ready."

  Mireille said under her breath, "She was at the top of my list. I hope she rots in hell."

  My eyes widened at the venom in her voice. Do not cross this woman. She turned and smiled at me, then cut in front of Robin, so she could be the first one through the door. Even in her grief, she was as bossy as ever.

  While Dr. Lieberman tried to educate me on peripheral neuropathy. I pondered life and death. If Mireille was telling the truth, and Friday night was a joyful reunion with Dr. Kurt, how had he ended up doing a face plant in the men's locker room by 2 a.m.?

  If Kurt was the person from St. Joseph's she'd spent most of Friday with, that wasn't an alibi. He was dead. Unless they'd been in public, with witnesses.

  I tried to ignore the little voice that whispered, If Kurt was her "one person from St. Joseph's in particular," then she didn't spend Friday night on a sleepover with Alex.

  And Alex wasn't a complete liar. Maybe he was getting over her. The thought warmed my cold, cold heart.

  I glanced at the door. Alex hadn't returned for the small group lectures, but neither had at least half the group. It seemed like everyone showed up for Grand Rounds and ate. Then the attending staff and nurses left. Only the residents remained for the next speakers, and I bet attrition took its toll over course of the afternoon.

  I doodled on the handout, which was filled with differential diagnoses and clinical tests I'd never heard of.

  I was no detective. I'd never really suspected Vicki.

  Chairs scraped around me. Everyone was filing toward Dr. Lieberman. I cast a glance at Tori.

  She whispered, "He's showing us how to test for motor weakness in carpal tunnel."

  Belatedly, I stood to join them. Naturally, Mireille was the first to push on Dr. Lieberman's thumbs. "Did I do it right? Let me try again!"

  He shook his hand and grinned. "Very good. But try not to be so, uh, vigorous with your patients."

  She giggled. I'd never seen her so giddy. She was loving it. Her face was flushed, her shoulders down, a new ease in her movements as she moved back to her chair.

  Maybe I could turn her happiness to my advantage. It was the best time to ask her questions. But not alone, after the last time we talked one-on-one. I'd try to keep Tori close and, if possible, Tucker.

  But at the end of teaching, Tucker zoomed out of the room à la Alex, with a quick, embarrassed wave at me. I didn't have time to thank him for the éclair, let alone ask if he'd help interrogate Mireille. But he was probably embarrassed enough after Kung Fu fighting with Alex.

  Too bad.

  Most other people had regrouped around Mireille. She tapped her cell phone. "We can call my sister if you don't believe me. In a few hours, it's going to be on the Web and in the newspapers. I bet they'll hold a press conference. The police want to find the killer ASAP. It makes them look bad, too, because they didn't think it was murder. But I knew. I always knew."

  Tori and I hung at the sidelines after I had whispered my plans to her. I wanted Tori to be the one to invite Mireille for coffee, but she just nodded along with the rest of the group like Mireille was the new Moses.

  Finally, I took a deep breath. "Anyone want to go to a térrasse and talk there? It's a beautiful day." I was taking a chance. If the whole gang came along, Mireille would keep singing the same song. On the upside, it was less likely she'd brain me in front of all our colleagues.

  The tone of the room faltered. "Ah—no—sorry." One by one, they checked their watches and scattered. In residency, it's all-too-rare to get home before sundown. They had banks to go to, people to do. I waved off their apologies. "Next time, okay?"

  Robin was the last to leave. He said solemnly to Mireille, "I'm sorry about Kurt. He was a smart man. He had a lot of good advice. Not all the time—no one bats 100 percent—but most of the time."

  I waited for him to go into evidence-based medicine mode, but thankfully, he restrained himself for once.

  Mireille glared at me for breaking up her flock. Tori stepped in quietly. "It's too bad we never go out after teaching. Everyone is so busy."

  Robin flapped his shoulder bag closed and fled. We could hear his dress shoes hastening down the hall. The three of us were the only ones left in the room. Tori continued, "Would you like to be alone, or would you like some company? Hope and I were going to have coffee."

  Mireille's shoulders tensed. She didn't look at me, but it wasn't because of Tori. She said, "Well..."

  She wanted me to beg off, but I'd hold my breath and turn blue first.

  Tori simply waited. She had such a calm energy, like a pond with water lilies. In comparison, I was a raging river and Mireille was Niagara Falls.

  Mireille pressed a hand against her eye and stared at the floor. "We could go to the Brûlerie St-Denis."

  I remembered seeing their sign on Côte-des-Neiges: black lettering surrounded by drawings of coffee beans. "Sounds good to me," I said, even though I don't drink coffee.

  We cut through the mostly-deserted parking lot to the metro station. Mireille took a deep breath, her face tilting up to the blue sky. "I really like the coffee at the Brûlerie. Kurt and I used to come here—" She stopped.

  Tori said, "It's all right. You can talk about him. We knew him, too."

  I nodded vigorously.

  After a long minute, Mireille said, "Yes. I would like to talk about him." But she bit her lip and took a deep breath and stayed mum until we reached the Brûlerie.

  The térrasse tables were taken. Everyone from a bald guy with a terrier to a bunch of laughing university students had already staked their claim. Not unexpected on a sunny summer day, but a bummer nonetheless. Tori said, "I'm sure there are tables inside."

  Mireille frowned.

  Please don't make a scene, I thought. Just then, two girls jumped up from a little round table next to the building. They'd left their trayful of empty coffee cups and lipsticked napkins, but Mireille rushed to plop her notebook on the nearest seat.

  "It's like circling the block five times, and then a parking space opens up right in front of you," I said.

  Mireille gave me a genuine smile. "Exactly."

  Tori offered me the one other chair, but I borrowed one from another table. The terrier wasn't using it.

  The building's shade felt pleasantly cool. A server, a young woman in a visor, cleared away the old tray and handed us menus.

  Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, I mentally urged Mireille, but they scouted the menus before settling on coffee for Mireille and a mochachino for Tori. I asked for a banana-raspberry smoothie.

  When the server left, Tori said simply, "I thought Kurt might change his mind."

  Mireille's face transformed. Her eyes glowed and her expression softened. "You did? Why?"

  Tori's eyebrows quirked. "I knew what the relationship meant to you."

  Mireille touched Tori's hand. "Ohhh, Tori. It makes me so happy to hear this. Yes, I loved him more than—anyone. He said I was his little star."

  I shifted in my plastic patio chair. Little star?

  "That's beautiful," said Tori. They looked at each other intently.

  Their connection completely bypassed me. I could've been the terrier at the next table. I tried to tell myself it was a good thing. Mireille was more likely to confess if she forgot all about me.

  "Yes." Mireille smiled. "He was proud of me, both personally and professionally. He encouraged me to present at my first surgical conference. He couldn't come
with me, but we talked the whole time." She patted her white bag, indicating her cell phone. "He was right. I was glad I went. Everything was perfect. We were true equals. Soul mates."

  So why did he dump her?

  Tori laid her hand on Mireille's. Mireille smiled, but her eyes were glistening.

  The server appeared with a red plastic tray. She clicked our drinks on the table and swished off.

  My smoothie was a little thin, but otherwise quite tasty. I played with the straw to give me something to do. I felt uncomfortable with Mireille's emotion. It was easier to think of her as a charging rhino than a wounded woman.

  Mireille ripped open a pack of sugar and stirred it into her coffee. Her metal spoon clinked against her ceramic cup more than was strictly necessary. She said, matter-of-factly, "That woman preyed on his weakness."

  I set my smoothie back on the table. Tori pressed her knee against mine for a second. I got the code: shut it.

  Mireille gave a hard laugh and released her spoon, letting it clatter on the edge of the cup. "It's quite simple. Kurt loved to help people. He couldn't resist it. That was why he loved family medicine, why he worked in a teaching centre, why he chose St. Joseph's. The more trouble people were in, the more irresistible he found them." She glanced at me for the first time. "His cell phone and pager rang at all hours. I told him, 'Look, Kurt, I'm only a medical student, but I know this. You have to set limits. This is what all our professors are telling us.'"

  I couldn't speak. I heard a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I knew she was telling the truth right here, right now.

  "But no. He wanted to be the hero. He wanted to be available. Even to his patients who quit smoking, he told them to call if they were thinking of smoking!" She flapped her hand, and not just because at least five people had lit up around us. "This was quite apart from all the residents and medical students. Bob Clarkson continually asked for meetings. It was too much." She shook her head and repeated, more softly, "Too much."

  "Did he cut back?" Tori asked softly.