Code Blues

by Melissa Yi

  He exhaled and crouched on a bare patch of floor. He rested his back against the door and extended his legs, still wearing his Tevas for a quick getaway. "Shoot."

  "Tell me why you left Kitchener."

  His eyes widened briefly. "Who told you about that?" He ran his hands down his thighs. "Mireille? Shit."

  I stayed standing. "No shit. That's the whole point, Alex. Drop the guessing games and tell me yourself."

  He sighed and closed his eyes, resting his eyes against the door. "Ah, man. You know how to go for the jugular, don't you."

  I waited. Silence worked on Alex. He was too fidgety to hold back for long. I crossed my arms. I could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen, and two kids pounding down the hall, giggling while their mother called after them.

  Alex cracked an eyelid at me. "Are you going to sit down, at least?"

  I leaned against the door of my hall closet. It bounced but didn't close—one of the feet from my ironing table in the way, propping it open.

  Alex snorted. "It's a sign. Come on. Sit. It's not something I like to talk about, okay?"

  Finally. No petit-fours and no B.S. Just us.

  I dropped to the floor, leaning against the bouncy closet door and sitting cross-legged.

  He closed his eyes and exhaled, exposing his pale throat. "I can't believe I'm telling you this. I never told anyone here except Kurt. But what the fuck. It's therapeutic, right?"

  I tried to quiet my breathing, keep as silent as possible. It was stuffy in the front hall with the bedroom door closed.

  He laughed bitterly. "It's like this. I'm not even from Kitchener. I'm from a little town outside it you've probably never heard of." He ran his hands down his thighs again. "A real shit-kicker of a place." He stopped there, his Adam's apple bobbing.

  My heart dropped into my lap. I remembered another news story, buried deep in my subconscious. I hadn't thought much about Mennonites or Amish communities beyond their charming buggies and pioneer clothes, until one such prairie town was recently busted for child abuse. Some elders of the community took turns beating children, often girls under the age of twelve. Sometimes it was their own daughters or granddaughters. This abuse went on for years, for generations, before the RCMP busted it up.

  I hoped to God Alex hadn't gone through the same thing. If he'd been abused, I could try, but I probably couldn't help him. If he was an abuser, I could not forgive him.

  Alex said abruptly, "Did you ever hear about the smuggling?"

  "What kind of smuggling?" My voice was Ginsu-sharp. Child smuggling?

  "You know. Across the U.S. border. With the cheese."

  "No." It sounded like a strange game of Clue. Instead of Mrs. Peacock, in the library, with the candle stick, it was smuggling, across the border, with the cheese. It did not sound like abuse. I relaxed a little.

  He crossed one of his outstretched legs, bringing his left foot closer to mine. I didn't move away. He spoke to his sandals. "You probably did. It was on 60 Minutes and everything. The Mennonites used to be able to ship things across the border without being searched. Furniture, tools, whatever. But then the border guard cut open a wheel of cheese and found cocaine. The RCMP came. They investigated a few of towns, but they hung around ours a lot. Charged a few people but dropped the charges. The case is still open."

  Alex started talking faster. His eyes darted from side to side. "So no one was convicted officially, but unofficially, everyone thought it was my family. We had to leave. We sold the farm at a loss, and moved to Kitchener. But there were still rumors." He made fists out of the material in his pants. "It was almost worse that way. We had no trial, no way of defending ourselves. It was hell. People wouldn't talk to us, wouldn't sell us things in the store, and at school—" He swallowed hard. "I left."

  His words hung in the air. His pain felt like a living presence in the room, a cloud of purple and black invading my nostrils and choking down my throat.

  I had to break the silence. "I'm sorry."

  He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Yeah."

  We sat there, my toes nearly touching his. I wanted to draw him into my arms and tell him everything was going to be all right. I wanted to stroke the hair out of his eyes and kiss his temple. And I wanted to ask more questions.

  Like, did his family really smuggle the cocaine? Did he do it? He was vague on the time, but it must have happened before he'd come to university at McGill.

  Or was someone just duped by a wiser dealer? Hey, I like how you churn your own butter and sew ruffles on your dresses. Could you do me a favor? Wait, that was probably the Amish again.

  Alex hadn't been exactly trustworthy, but he'd never acted like a criminal. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Like Kurt did. That's what we often do in medicine. Patients say, yes, I'm going to quit smoking, or hey, I really need you to fill out my disability form, and for the most part, we take a chance and say okay. I took a deep breath and said it now. "Okay."

  His gray eyes swept up to meet mine, wary and angry but with a spark of wistfulness. "Okay?"

  I had to hide a smile. "Okay."

  He grabbed my left knee and shook it.. "God, I've missed you, Hope."

  I laughed as my leg jiggled under the force of his enthusiasm. "We just met."

  He grinned. "Yeah, imagine how bad it'll be after we've known each other a whole month." He got up on his hands and knees and crawled toward me, pressing a tender kiss on my lips.

  His lips were smooth, but the unshaved stubble around his mouth marked my face as pressed more deeply, more hungrily. His hands grabbed my shoulders. He spread his lips, straddling my hips.

  I tried to break the kiss. He reached up to cup the back of my head. I had to wrench my lips away. "Alex."

  He pressed kisses along my jaw line, down to my chin. "I've never told anyone before. Anyone except Kurt. You're the best, Hope. You fuckin' rock."

  I had to laugh. "Alex."

  "Sorry. I mean, you're amazing, you're superb—" He ran his tongue along my ear.

  "I liked fantastic," I offered, a little breathless.

  "That too." I could hear the smile in his voice.

  "But, uh, I don't want to fall into bed again."

  He went very still. Then he said, "Okay. You seem to like this hallway. I'm game." He slipped his hand under my shirt, running up my back.

  "Alex!" I pulled away so we were face-to-face, even though he wouldn't let me out of his arms. "We were talking."

  "Right. I talked. You listened. Now you know all about me. We're square, right?"

  Right. I wanted to say it. I wanted to inaugurate my front hall and let him sweep me away. But I shook my head.

  He closed his eyes. "What the hell do you want from me, Hope."

  I laid a finger on his chin. "I know it was hard for you to tell me."

  "Damn straight."

  "But it's hard for me, too." Hesitantly, I curled forward and laid my head against his chest. His hands rose to circle my waist, so he wasn't irretrievably angry. "Yes, I'm happy you told me. But it's like there's a skeleton in your closet, and you gave me a glimpse of the ankle bone and said, 'See? Now you should understand everything. Let's do it.' But I don't understand, Alex. Not even half of it."

  He withdrew, dropping his arms. "So what you're saying is, not good enough."

  I grabbed at his hands, tried to catch his eye, but he was already rising to his feet. I said, "No, Alex, I'm saying, thanks for the ankle bone, it's really good, I just need—"

  "What?" he spat at me. "You need to study the skull, the pelvis, the clavicle and humerus? You'd like to probe my internal organs? You'd like to drip fluorescein on my eyeballs or do a rectal exam? I've already given you everything, and it just isn't good enough for you?"

  I drew myself to my feet. "Alex—"

  He threw open the bolt on the door. "Hope, I'm sick of playing by your rules. 'Earn me.' 'Tell me.'" His eyes glittered. His cheekbones were sharp under his skin. "I'm never good enough. Well, fuck this noise
. If you want me, you'd better come earn me." With that, he slammed the door shut behind him.

  Chapter 22

  When I woke up, grey light filtered through my white blinds. It was morning. I threw off my fuzzy yellow blanket, grabbed my phone receiver and listened to the dial tone hum steadily in my ears. No messages.

  I'd slept fitfully the whole night. I'd called a med school friend, Ginger, to ask what she thought of the whole mess. She was doing peds at Western. I caught her post-call and explained, "It's just, I don't trust him. I'm glad he told me his secret, but I still remember how he kicked me out and lied about Mireille." I sighed. "Maybe I should give him another chance. I always blow up at people too quickly and then carry grudges. I should have been more sensitive about his story, I guess. I should have been happy he'd told me part of it. I should have been satisfied with the ankle bone."

  She yawned. "That was the strangest thing. I expected you to say 'Medial or lateral malleolus?'"

  "Yeah, well. What do you think about me and Alex?"

  She sighed. "I'm too fried to think. Look. If it'd been me, I would have dumped him after he took off in the café. But you didn't. You hung in there, even slept with him. It's not like you."

  "Yeah, I know. He brings out the worst in me."

  She laughed. "I don't know about that. You were past due."

  "Ginger!"

  "It's true. I'm sorry. No great insight from me. I'll call you tomorrow, okay? Are you off tomorrow?"

  I was so disappointed, my chest hurt. "Yeah. I'm on evenings."

  "I'm doing the ward days. Crap. But I'll call you." She digested my silence. "Hope, I'm no relationship guru. But you know what I think? It's like what we tell women in threatened abortions. In a few days, it will declare itself."

  Great. Just great. When pregnant women come in bleeding during their first trimester, we examine them and do a blood test and an ultrasound, but basically, within a few days, either they'll lose the fetus or they'll keep carrying it. It will declare itself. "Thanks a lot. Do you really say that to your patients?"

  "Of course not." She sighed. "I'm terrible company right now. But I don't think it's so bad, Hope. Really. I've dated worse. Remember Rick?"

  I sighed. We all remembered Akido Rick. It was small comfort not to have a pregnancy scare and have my martial arts boyfriend dump me. I let Ginger go to sleep and tried to follow her example.

  When I couldn't, I turned on the radio. Vicki had been questioned and released. The homicide squad had no comment at this time.

  I started an Excel sheet on my laptop, listing all the residents and staff at St. Joe's, and their alibis and motives. It was a pretty thin list. I was a terrible detective.

  Something was bugging me, though. About Kurt's office. It was all sealed up now, as per homicide procedure, but I'd gotten a peek inside. I had the feeling I'd missed a clue.

  My clock blinked 11:20 p.m. I wanted to go online and look up all the details of Kurt's murder, but my Net access wasn't up for another week. I'd have to go to the hospital.

  The temperature dropped at least ten degrees at night, so I slid on a pair of jeans and a light pink T-shirt. One good thing about not having a functional kitchen for ten days, I'd lost weight.

  St. Joe's felt much quieter at night. I found a parking spot right on Péloquin. No one was on the street, but I could peep into people's lighted rooms in their duplexes. The hospital's brick face was clothed in darkness except for spotlights highlighting its name. The wind rustled through the trees and crickets whirred. I ran across the street and cut through the flowerbed hill in front of the hospital. My feet sank into the dirt.

  The main doors were supposed to be locked at night. Everyone had to go through emerg and pass the guard, but as I neared the main doors, a woman in pink scrubs pushed a door open and held it out for a colleague, so I stepped inside.

  The murderer could have slipped into St. Joe's undetected. Sure, a guard hung out behind the counter, but tonight he was chatting with a friend and didn't look particularly alert or watchful. There might not even have had a guard by the door on June 30th, before Kurt died and the newspaper editorials questioned St. Joe's security. The murder might have been an outside job.

  I was able to walk down the main hall, past the elevators and up the stairs, without running into anyone else. Most visitors and staff were in the next wing, for the ER, or ensconced upstairs, on one of the wards.

  This must have been how the murderer came in.

  The second floor looked and felt deserted. The white tile floors, the cavernous white halls, and the white ceilings gleamed under cold fluorescent lights. I couldn't hear or see another breathing organism. The office bureaucrats had long since departed for the day, the cafeteria was closed, and the library never had traffic at the best of times. I suppressed a shiver and clicked open the combination of the residents' room.

  The room smelled of day-old chop suey. As usual, someone had left the remains on the table behind the computer. A medical student was watching the news, his feet propped up on the coffee table. "How's it goin'," he said, barely turning from the TV.

  "Good." My premonition of danger fled in the face of such mundanity. "What are you on?"

  "Medicine," he said. His pager went off. He groaned and walked across the room to the phone. "Hi, are you paging—? Yeah. She fell? An incident report? Uh, okay?" He hung up and cast me a quizzical look. "They're calling me from the eighth floor. Mrs. Bruyère fell."

  "You just have to check if she's okay," I assured him, even though I hadn't fielded many of these calls myself.

  He grabbed his stethoscope from the coffee table. "Okay. See ya."

  For me, the timing was Hollywood-perfect. Before the door clicked closed behind him, I sat down at the computer. Someone had changed the background to a sunset with palm trees. I brought up Yahoo again and tried to crack Dr. Radshaw's password.

  I had an idea. After a few permutations, "stjoes" made the login screen blank out. I held my breath.

  I was in. "Inbox (66), Bulk (191)..."

  I clicked on his Inbox first. It was mostly junk. Spam, solicitations to attend conferences, Aeroplan. Bob Clarkson had sent a few nondescript memos. Robin had replied to a forwarded article on partner abuse with "Can we talk about this?" More comments from Robin on stalking articles: "I don't believe the methodology was valid." "Observational study." "Does not generalize to the Canadian population." "Is abuse in gay populations statistically significant enough to warrant mention?" What a brown-noser. He'd even sent back some articles on drug abuse. I started ignoring the Robin e-mails. They were legion.

  Dr. Callendar, whose first name appeared to be Morris, wrote on June 29th, "Need to talk to you." Vicki had written on the afternoon of the 30th, "Thinking about you. I love you." And Mireille had written on July 1st, "I can't wait. xo xo xo Mireille."

  I kept glancing over my shoulder to see if someone was coming in, but I should hear their footsteps and the lock click first. I marked each message as unread after I read it, but I knew if they were checking, the police would soon discover someone had logged into Kurt's account.

  He had an entire folder called "abuse." I clicked on it. Articles and references on partner abuse. Nothing personal.

  I went to "saved mail." A bunch of names I didn't recognize. I clicked on one with no subject. "Dr. Radshaw, can't stop smoking. Can you help me????? You're secretary won't give me an appointment. R." Obviously a patient with a smoking addiction and an imperfect grasp of grammar.

  I went to the folder marked "Personal." Most of the messages were from Vicki, all along the lines of "Tell me if you can't make it to the restaurant tonight. I love you. Bye." Not great love letters. I wondered why he saved them. Paging back, I found one from Mireille. No salutation, just

  "I can't talk to you. It hurts too much. Don't call me. Don't email me. I can't be friends with you right now."

  It was dated May 13th.

  I heard steps in the hall, signed out, and shut the window jus
t as the combination lock clicked and the knob turned. I turned, trying to appear casual. Mireille's large figure stood framed in the doorway. Her eyes bulged at me. "What are you doing here?"

  "Nothing." I stood up, knocking the chair back with my knees. I felt like a thief. I'd read her private e-mail. "Just leaving, actually."

  She advanced on me. "Checking your e-mail?"

  I nodded. "Nothing good, though. I guess everyone's busy." With any luck, she didn't pick up the slight tremor in my voice.

  Her hands settled on the chrome back of the chair. Her hands were meaty. "Well, if you're done, I'd like to get on there."

  "Sure thing." I ducked around her with a tight smile and strode toward the door. "See you!"

  My hand was already on the cool metal of the doorknob when she called me back. "Hope."

  I spun on my heel, my hand still resting on the knob. "Yes?"

  She recovered her own smile. Her cheeks were plump with satisfaction, her slitted eyes were unreadable. Only her hands, gripping the edge of the desk, revealed a trace of uneasiness. "I heard you're investigating Kurt's death."

  I searched for my vocal cords. "Well. Who told you that?"

  She blew her breath out through her nostrils. "It does not matter. I have only two words for you: don't bother."

  Technically, it was three words, including a contraction, but I was in no mood to quibble. "Yeah? Why's that."

  Her smile widened. Her teeth gleamed. "Because I am going to solve it."

  I struggled to keep my jaw from dropping. She laughed outright. "You like that? After Alex had accused me? Well, it's true. I loved Kurt. He was mine. No one else will bring his murderer to justice. Not the police. Certainly not you."

  Contempt and anger warred in her voice. I fought back my own retort. Let her talk.

  She tilted her head in amusement. "I already know who did it."

  "Yeah? You thought it was Vicki. The police don't seem to agree."

  She rolled her eyes. "Of course it was not Vicki. Still, I enjoy them questioning her."

  She was the one siccing them on Vicki? My head whirled.

  She shook her head. "You poor lamb." Her voice oozed with false sympathy. "You have no idea. The murderer is much more intelligent. Cunning, I would say. However, he may have been lulled into a false sense of security."