Notorious D.O.C. (Hope Sze medical mystery) (6 page)

It is believed that Lee was heading
toward the Formula One track for her customary morning exercise, in-line
skating.

If anyone has information about Laura
Lee's death, they are encouraged to contact the police.

***

When I typed in a link she'd provided, I
discovered a YouTube video interview with Mrs. Lee. A man held a microphone in
her face and asked, "Do you really think the driver will turn himself
in?"

Mrs. Lee was dressed completely in black,
from shirt to shoes to purse. The camera zoomed in on her neatly made-up face.
Even though the picture quality was crappy, I could tell her eyes were red.
"Maybe. I can only ask. Maybe a friend will report them. Maybe the killer
will at least feel shame and will know I have not forgotten."

"Some people say you're going too
far."

She did not blink. "Some people's
children are alive and breathing."

"Yes, but it's been said your own
husband does not support your campaign."

She paused before answering, "I
don't answer to anyone else except Laura, myself, and God."

The interviewer raised his eyebrows.
"Does that mean you would consider vigilante action?"

She shook her head. "I want
justice."

The interviewer paused and pointed at her
black outfit. He asked, "It's been almost a year. Are you in mourning?"

She replied, "Always."

***

That got to me.
Always
. How do you survive that depth of sadness?

I tried to remember what Mrs. Lee had
been wearing when we met. Something dark for sure. So she was still in
mourning, if you hadn't already guessed.

I knew most people in the emerg probably
thought she should mourn Laura and let her go. But how could you do that?
 
How would you?

Which was why I had to help her. Even if
I turned out to be just the five-hundredth opinion saying, "They did
everything they could. I'm sorry."

I sifted through the police reports. It
seemed like they'd interviewed a myriad of people, but only one woman said
she'd been driving on Île Ste-Hélène on that Friday morning. She saw "a
big black truck," wasn't sure of the make, model, or year, only that it
was driving too fast, coming from Île Notre-Dame. She thought maybe there was a
driver and a passenger in it. It was dented and the right headlight was broken,
but it was raining and she hadn't gotten a good look at anything, including the
license plate. Then, when she saw Laura's body, she'd pulled over on the island
and called the police.

After the ambulance took Laura away, the
police came and gathered what evidence they could, focusing on the blood
spatter, a concrete rail imprinted with black paint imprints, headlight
fragments and skid marks.

They measured everything. They
interviewed that witness, Lucinda McLaughlin, repeatedly. They put the word out
through the media and through Crimestoppers.

I had copies of multiple reports, but mostly
it was people saying, "Yeah, I saw a car driving weirdly that day."
No one got a good view of the driver or the passenger. The main witness said it
had been a black truck, but three others said navy, and someone else said
beige.

Later that morning, at the corner of
Embro and Saguenay, they found a 2003 Toyota 4Runner. Black. A man had called
it in because of the blood and hair on the front left fender. Long, black hair.
I swallowed hard and ran my hand over my own locks. I'd never been so relieved
I'd cut them.

Of course, the vehicle had been reported
stolen by a Mr. Dwayne Richardson the night before.

The identifying officers scoured the SUV
and collected every hair, fingerprint, and cigarette butt from the ashtray. The
cigarettes turned out to be Dwayne's, but the officers were thorough.

They ran it through the backlogged DNA
sample system in 2006. One blond hair, not belonging to the Richardson family,
was found on the passenger seat. They documented the DNA results, but couldn't
determine who it belonged to. Whoever it was wasn't in the criminal system's
database.

It could have been anyone he'd given a
ride to, but of course they were hoping it was the hit-and-run driver. They
just didn't have any suspects to test.

The police also found red polyester
fibers on the passenger seat and black ones on the driver's seat. These fibers,
especially red ones, might have been from a wig, but it was hard to say.
Certainly there was no longer any trace of a wig or anything more
incriminating, like beer bottles that could have provided more DNA evidence.

The original owners were not under
suspicion. Cars got stolen pretty often in Montreal.

The case was archived, which meant it was
still open, but they had no leads at all. Only Mrs. Lee.

I put my head down on the library desk.
It probably wasn't sanitary, but the wood felt cool under my cheek.

Some 'detective doctor.' I had no idea
how to help her.

My pager went off. I leapt to my feet.
Anything, anyone, even Reena Schuster, was preferable to my helplessness.

The pager number was unfamiliar.

When I called, the voice wasn't. Ryan
wanted to take me out for lunch.

***

"Mmm,
pakoras
," said Ryan, reaching for something that looked like
deep-fried onions. "Want one?"

I stared at him. When he'd paged me and
asked me out, I named an Indian restaurant around the corner from St. Joe's as
a kind of test. Ryan and I ate mostly Chinese or Western food when we were
together. I'd tried Indian once or twice on my own since moving to Montreal, so
I figured I'd be testing Ryan's boundaries. But here he was, more familiar with
the menu than I was.

I gestured for Ryan to take a bite first.
"How is it?"

He smiled and nodded. "Good. There's
one in Ottawa that's better. I'll take you sometime, if you like."

I hesitated for a second, thinking of
Tucker. But he was in the bad books, and it wasn't like Ryan was proposing.
"Sure."

He cut the
pakora
with his fork and moved it to my plate. "Come on, Hope.
We used to share everything."

That was true. I loved food and I used to
insist we order different dishes so I could maximize my menu tasting.
"Thanks." The tamarind sauce was tangy without being too strong.
"Nice!"

"Thought you'd like it. Try the
mint, too. One of my buddies at work is Indian. His mom is an awesome
cook."

So that's how he'd gotten into it, not
through Lisa. It was strange, seeing Ryan, so familiar, but different. Older,
confident, more experimental. And still so freaking handsome. I'd met him at
the table and hesitated because my first instinct had been to kiss him hello.

Now I tried the mint sauce to distract
myself. Cool, creamy, but not as good as the tamarind. "So what's new and
exciting with you?"

He laughed and leaned back in his chair.
"Aw, same old. Work, playing squash, running. You know the drill."

Yes,
but are you still drilling Lisa?
 
"Yeah. How's Lisa?" I sipped my
mango
lassi
. It's like a milkshake
but with yoghurt and fresh fruit, and sinfully good.

"She seems to be doing all
right." He grinned at me. "You gonna try the cilantro or not?"

I made a face. It's supposed to be the
Chinese parsley, but I've never been crazy about it. Still, I could never
resist a dare. I speared a tiny piece of
pakora
and swirled it around the cilantro sauce before popping it in my mouth.
"Hey, not bad."

He smiled. Ryan had the best smile out of
anyone I knew, boyish and charming but with a smoldering undertone when he
wanted it. He could have been in a toothpaste ad. Or an underwear ad. I crossed
my ankles and pressed my knees together. What was wrong with me?
Remember Alex. Remember Tucker. Y chromosomes
are bad.

Ryan gestured with his fork. "See,
you've got to try new things."

Mr. Conservative, now preaching novelty.
"You're one to talk." Lisa flashed into my mind again. Miniature but
spirited. Probably very athletic in bed.

He shrugged and sipped his water.
"Yeah, I know. It's not like I'm a 'detective doctor' or anything."

I dropped my fork on the table and wiped
my mouth. "I am getting so sick of that."

"I bet." He gave me a funny
smile, quizzical and wondering at the same time. "Enough that you'll never
do it again?"

My heart thumped in my chest. Oh, no.
Don't let Ryan get down on me too. "Depends on the circumstances, I
guess."

"I mean, I could kind of understand
when you're working and you come across one of your own doctors, dead."

I flinched. That was what had happened in
July.

Ryan squeezed my hand and dropped it
before I could savour his warm skin on mine. "That would be harsh. But
still, turning it into a whodunnit?
 
You
should have heard my grandmother."

"I'm glad I didn't." I wiped my
mouth with my napkin.

He held up his hands. "Hey, it's
your life."

Thank goodness he understood better than
Tucker. I smiled at him with real affection.

"Anyway, I've got no complaints. I'm
on summer vacation, eating good food with a beautiful woman."

I wasn't sure what to make of the
compliment. The Ryan I remembered wasn't so smooth. He liked the way I looked,
but he was usually too shy to say so unless I was all dressed up or we were
naked in bed. I parried, "You're lucky you get a vacation. Must be nice."

He raised his eyebrow but didn't
immediately leap to the bait the way he used to.
I warned you. Look at me, I'm an engineer. I only did four years of
university and companies still headhunt me while you scrabble for quarters for
the laundry.
Maybe him changing wasn't all bad.

Maybe I was moving into dangerous
territory. Y chromosomes off limits. "How's work, anyway?"

He talked, I zoned out. Ryan's a mech eng
who ended up working for Norco, same as most of his classmates. I had seriously
considered becoming an engineer, but physics caused me physical pain.

"I'm still working at Norco, but I
may go back to grad school. I haven't decided." He shrugged. "That's
it. Time flies, huh?"

"Yeah." I cleared my throat.

"So what about you? Life's not too
beige?"

I burst out laughing. I once wrote Ryan a
letter in a red felt-tip pen and he said, "Why don't you write in blue or
black, like everybody else?" Over lunch, I'd tried to explain that I
wasn't like everybody else. "Most people just want to join the herd of cattle.
They wear the same clothes and say the same things and watch the same TV
programs. If they were a colour, they'd be beige. I am
not
beige."

He'd given me a big smack on the lips,
not caring if anyone else saw. "True. Your parents shouldn't have named
you Hope. They should have named you Truth. Or Not-Beige."

We'd giggled in the sun and it was good.

But later—and this was the curse of
a good memory—he'd said, "Do you really think you don't want to be
like everyone else? You don't even like being Chinese."

I couldn't deny it. Nowadays, people
might say "Yellow Power," with pride, but when I was growing up, I
was the only non-white kid at my homogenized school. Kids called me squaw. An
adult might yell, "
Konichiwa!
"
as I walked down the street. A job interviewer once asked me when I'd moved
from Vancouver and told me he liked to make stir-fries at home. All of them
were ignorant, some of them were assholes, most of them were painfully
well-meaning when they assumed they knew everything about me because of my skin
colour.
Oh, look, another annoyingly
skinny girl who'll throw off the bell curve by day and cook bok choy for her
Chinese grandmother by night
.

Sure, there were advantages to my
culture. As a "banana," born yellow on the outside and bred white on
the inside, I was just starting to figure out how my academic achievement and
family bond(age) had been shaped by my roots. But when I was growing up, all I
wanted was to fit in. To be beige.

Anyway. So much had happened to me, but
Ryan hadn't heard anything past my second year of medical school. I'd had
patients die on me. I'd helped save other people's lives. I'd moved to another
province. I'd solved a murder and almost gotten killed myself.
"Uh...finished med school. Clerkship was really the best of times and the
worst of times. Now I'm here."

He didn't look at me. "Are you
seeing anyone?"

I shook my head. It was technically true.

"Did you?" He glanced at me,
then away.

"Yeah. A guy in my class. It didn't
work out."

Right away, he guessed, "My
grandmother mentioned some guy. John. John Tucker?"

I half-laughed. "No. We're just
friends." So far, anyway. "It was another guy, Alex. But that's
over."