Code Blues (12 page)

Seeing Alex like this,
assured and sexy, I could totally see him as a doctor, not to
mention as a boyfriend. It made me forget the previous, less
desirable incarnations. He was a one-man Jeopardy game.
I'll take the Foot-Kissing for $100,
Alex.

I felt like a kid playing hooky when we
burst out of the automatic black doors. I'd even been holding my
breath. I burst out giggling.

Alex hooked his arm around my shoulders. Our
hips were touching. His fingers grazed my bare arm. I took a deep
breath and smiled at him.

It was a fine, bright July day. A few people
ate, chatted, and smoked at the picnic tables across from us, next
to the human resources building. We wound our way up the paved road
and curved past the brick Annex building. No orientation today.
Then we ambled through the parking lot between the old, steepled
church and the metro station tagged by spray paint. Our feet fell
out of step a few times, but for the most part, we walked well
together.

I cast a longing look at the fruit market,
but Alex steered me to the right, along Côte-des-Neiges. A storm of
people exited a blue-and-white STCUM bus and cut around us.

He pointed to the store
displaying various baguettes and round loaves of bread. The gold
leaf sign read "
Au Pain
Doré
." When he pushed open the door, a
bell jingled, and a woman squeezed by us with a baguette held
protectively against her chest.

The store smelled like
flour and jam. It was so crowded that people grabbed tickets from a
red dispenser. A girl in a forest green apron called,
"
Quarante-huit! Quarante-huit, s'il te
plait
!" while one of her comrades grabbed
bread out of the window and another used silver tongs to pluck a
fruit tart out of the display case. I slowed to admire the
pains au chocolat
, the
éclairs, the
crèmes
brulées
, the little round cheesecakes, the
tiny chocolate cakes, the palm-sized blueberry tarts...

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 was 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."