Notorious D.O.C. (Hope Sze medical mystery) (23 page)

I exhaled. "Tucker."

"I'm impossible. I know." He
saluted me and started walking away, bento box between two fingers, his head
held in a jaunty way. Faintly, on a breeze, I heard him whistle but couldn't
quite make out the tune.

Before I could decide what to do, my
pager went off for a consult in emerg.

Chapter
22

The next time I saw Tucker, we were
riding the rails to Île Ste-Hélène on a gorgeous Saturday morning in August.
I'd been trying not to think about what he'd said about me being the one, but
it was kind of like the elephant in the room, or in this case, on the subway. I
admit I was wearing the same board shorts he'd admired at the resident
orientation meeting, dark red with red and white hibiscus inset along the waist
and outer thighs. They showed a lot of leg. He'd smiled when he saw them. I
blushed.

"I like the notebook," he said
as the metro clattered against its tracks.

I rested said spiral-bound notebook on my
lap. "Well, as a 'detective doctor,' it behooves me to take notes." I
tried not to notice his thigh, which he kept a careful two inches away from
mine. It felt sort of like a date with Tucker, but we were on our way to see
where Laura Lee had died and perhaps been murdered.

"What's wrong with your smart
phone?"

I exhaled and looked at him. He knew my
current cell was a crappy pay-as-you-go phone. It works, but it takes ages to
text on the number pad, let alone take notes.

"You should get a new one."

"Look who's talking." Tucker
had gone swimming and drenched his pretty little Blackberry while he was
horsing around with his friends.

"Hey, I took the battery out and put
it in rice. It should be okay after five days."

I rolled my eyes. "My old-school
phone is better than no phone. But even if I could afford a tablet, I like pen
and ink. I might do some drawing today." I'd tucked my camera in my purse,
but sketching the scene seemed like something a detective might do. I worked my
pen into the spiral of the notebook.

"Can you draw?" he asked.

I laughed and shook my head. "Nah. I
even tried lessons."

"Maybe that could be my department,
then. I'm not bad."

I raised my left eyebrow.

"Seriously. Can I have your
book?"

I handed it over. He pulled the pen out
of the spiral ring, narrowed his eyes at my face, and started sketching on the
first page.

"Wait a minute!"

"Shh. The
artiste
is at work."

I subsided, trying to catch glimpses of
the work-in-progress.

"Quit moving around. Can't you just
read the metro ads or something?"

"Sure, I'm dying to know about hair
loss."

"Good."

I never realized how excruciating it
could be to pose for a drawing. He wasn't even making me sit still, but I was
curious and impatient, and couldn't figure out how to hold my face, let alone
my body. Why was I wearing shorts again? What if, with his artist's eye, he
dappled in cellulite on my thighs or sketched the stretch marks on my
knees?
 

But I was flattered, too. No one had ever
drawn me before. How did he see me?

Maybe it all was a big joke and he was
putting the finishing touches on a smiley face.

Basically, I was torturing myself. In a
nifty writing book,
Writing Down the
Bones
, Natalie Goldberg talked about "fighting the tofu," this
sort of useless struggle against yourself. Hello, tofu. So I crossed my arms,
tapped my foot, and stared at everyone else on the metro. Much better than the
ads.

It was relatively empty on a Saturday
morning, but there was a mom with an infant. The kid was babbling to himself,
"Ar ar ar ar ar, ayaaaaaa," and trying to stand up in her lap and
leave greasy fingerprints on the window, all at the same time. The mom smiled,
but she looked tired.

The electronic sign flashed and the
recorded woman's voice said,
"PROCHAÎNE
ARRÊT, BERRI-UQAM."

Tucker shut the notebook. "That's
us."

"Yeah." I knew that we had to
switch over to the yellow line and hit the island, but there was a question in
my voice. I reached for the notebook.

He gave me a slash of a smile. "I'll
show you later."

"When you're done?"

"Kind of."

What kind of answer was that?
 
But he was already gesturing me to the door
and grabbing my hand to lead me to the Longueil line. He rubbed his thumb along
the back of my hand as if he'd done it before, many times.

When we stepped out of the station, my
hand tightened on Tucker's. He squeezed back, but he didn't say anything as he
pushed open the Plexiglas door for us.

Sunlight met my eyes. I squinted and
shielded them. I hadn't understood why she'd come all the way here for a
morning constitutional, but now I had an inkling. Since the metro stopped on
Île Ste-Hélène, one of two islands in the channel of the St. Lawrence river, we
were just across from the old port. We could see mighty old ships as long as a
city block or two, rusted, but still awe-inspiring for landlubbers like me.
That was a whole world in itself.

Beyond the port, I saw the brick and
concrete-and-glass buildings of downtown Montreal. A hop on the subway and you
could admire the hustle from a distance, while surrounded by grass, trees, and
some cool structures unto themselves.

My favourite was the Biosphere. I like
round things, and here was a giant sphere built out of metal struts, for no
purpose I could tell; but if I rollerbladed past it every day, it would make me
smile.

Then my gaze fell on the benches just
outside the station. Laura probably donned her blades here, tightening the
straps, testing them out on the grey paving stones. I imagined her tucking her
shoes into a backpack and tightening the elastic on her pony tail before
setting off for her usual a.m. exercise, on an August morning, just like any
other.

Except it had been raining. So there were
probably even fewer people about at 5:30 a.m. And the paving stones would have
been a little more slippery, so maybe she bent her head against the rain, or
her vision was slightly obscured by her hood.

Just as we stepped off Île Ste-Hélène, I
saw a beige, rectangular contemporary art statue with indentations that made me
think of grinning teeth.

Tucker snorted. "It looks like a
dentist's model."

"I think so, too." Then I fell
silent. It seemed sacrilegious to joke around and today that statue felt more
creepy than funny.

We crossed a road with a 30 km/h sign. We
could have followed it toward
La Ronde
,
an amusement park, or probably a dozen other attractions, but we were headed to
Île Notre-Dame, a kind of sister island connected by a bridge. The bridge where
Laura was killed.

We had to pause for a car. I let go of
Tucker's hand. From here, I could see where she had died. My teeth clenched. I
took a deep breath and inhaled exhaust fumes. Then I marched toward the bridge.

Tucker kept stride with me. "She was
heading to Île Notre-Dame, right? So she could blade on the Formula One
track?" Montreal hosts the international race car circuit in July, but for
the rest of the year, bladers and walkers and whoever else take over the track.

I shook my head. "That's what some
of the media said, but she was hit from behind. The police thought she was
coming back across the bridge between the islands after she'd already bladed..
Whoever hit her was coming from Notre-Dame. She didn't see them coming."

I paused at our end of the bridge, the
north side. There was a little booth where a guard could sit, as well as a
wrought-iron gate rolled back to let cars through. My heart lifted. "Hey.
Look. Was a guard here?"

Tucker shook his head. "I think they
only have guards when there's an event, so they can charge fifty bucks for
parking."

"Right." So that was why police
report hadn't mentioned a guard. Not too much call for parking in the early
morning hours. "I wonder why she took the metro instead of driving?"

Tucker shrugged. "She may not even
have had a car. A lot of residents don't."

Another thing I found odd, although
endearing, about Montreal is that many people don't own the ubiquitous
four-wheeled machines the rest of us are addicted to. So many people talk the
talk about the environment. Not many do anything about it.

And then I did what I'd been dreading. I
set foot on the bridge.

There wasn't much to see. Two lanes, one
each way for cars, with a pedestrian lane on the west side. No proper barrier
between cars and people, just black posts circled with reflective tape. I shook
the first post. It was a rolled plastic tube barely bolted down. Any adult
could rip this off, let alone a car. I bit my lip and raised my eyes to the
bridge itself.

The sides were made out of concrete
Jersey barriers, the same as on construction sites, but lined up with no gap
between them. They were topped by some sort of vertical-barred metal railing.
Altogether, the bridge was at least as high as my shoulder, with no easy way to
climb up and escape.

If I'd been on blades, with a car coming
at me, I'd have to see it, reach up, try and drag myself above car height by
the strength of my arms alone while my wheels slipped on the concrete—no
deal.

I could try and blade away from the car,
but again, not likely.

"Back then, they didn't have these
barriers," said Tucker, pointing at the plastic poles. They only put these
in since Laura died and Mrs. Lee, uh, insisted."

It wasn't much of a barrier, but it was
certainly better than nothing.

The bridge wasn't long, maybe 40 feet
across. At just about the midpoint, someone had drawn a small black cross on
the concrete. I raised my finger to it, but dropped my hand before I made
contact.

Instead, I peered over the edge into the
St. Lawrence River. It was muddy brown today, even though the current was
flowing swiftly. I'd say it was a thirty-foot drop, although I'm not good at
estimating distances. Jumping into the river was probably better than being hit
by a car, but I wasn't sure how deep or cold it was in August, and it would be
damn hard to swim in rollerblades.

I heard a couple arguing in French behind
us. We moved aside for them and their little dog. I pretended to read the
plaque describing river vegetation adapting to changing water levels, but I
couldn't concentrate.

A pack of cyclists passed us, so we
stepped up our pace to the other side of the bridge, onto Île Notre-Dame. There
was an empty guard house here, too, as well as a matching gate. Some mounted
signs described the many events scheduled over the summer, from concerts to cross-country
races.

Tucker gestured at the smoothly paved
track which stretched far in the distance. We fell into step, breathing the
fresh air. He took my hand again and I let him. I felt a little better
experiencing where she had lived instead of where she had died.

Still, I said, "I wonder why they
didn't put up a plaque for her."

"Couldn't tell you."

"I wonder if it was because Mrs. Lee
was such a pain in the ass. Did you know she held a one-woman vigil here,
holding a sign saying, 'Who killed my daughter?' in both official
languages?"

Tucker smiled and shook his head.

We kept walking. The sun beat down on our
heads. Uh oh. Black hair absorbs a lot of heat, and I don't need face wrinkles.
I tugged Tucker off to the side and pulled a navy Tilley hat out of my bag
while some cyclists passed us. Tucker burst out laughing.

"Why, you like skin cancer?" I
asked.

"Yeah, love it. By the way, most of
the damage is done before you're 18."

"Actually, that's a myth. Only about
a quarter of your sun exposure is done as a minor. I'll send you the reference.
And by the way, I need my book back to make notes." I held out my hand.

He tucked it under his arm. "You'll
cheat."

"Trrrrust me, I'm a doctor," I
drawled, channeling the creepy doc from the Simpsons.

"Well, as long as you're a
doc
tor, I'll count on your ethics to
stay away from the first section for now."

"What, you're going to claim a third
of my book?"

"Uh huh. You can take notes and I'll
sketch here and there. Not just you. I can draw the bridge, the track, the Olympic
basin. Whatever you want."

I gazed at him with new respect.
"Thanks." As a non-artist, it hadn't occurred to me.

"You're welcome."

"I brought a camera, but you can do
the diagrams. Do you mind sketching the bridge?"

While he did that, I took some pictures,
including one of him. The sun turned his hair into a near-white halo. He'd left
out the gel this morning, for once. He was wearing a blue dress shirt with the
sleeves rolled up, and light khaki pants, despite the heat. He looked how I'd
imagine JFK Jr. (alive, natch)—a preppy, well-tailored young man,
handsome enough to break your heart and make you think it was worth it.