Chapter 31

By the time we got things sorted out with the police, it was almost 9 p.m. Tucker and I had made an official statement at the closest police station, but since no one had officially committed a crime except Lucia, they’d let us go relatively early.

“That might’ve been our strangest, messiest, case ever. Kudos on figuring it out,” said Tucker, as we stood outside Poste de Quartier 20, on St. Catherine’s Street. The wind whipped our faces. It wasn’t raining yet, but the air felt heavy and humid. “You want to celebrate?”

I had to laugh. I’d run into Tucker on this very street, not far from here, on my first summer night out in Montreal. Ste-Catherine is usually a party street, and a bunch of girls stumbled by in ultra-miniskirts, already drunk and ready to party. Still, maybe it was the string of police cars lined up around us, or the street lamps shining in our faces, or just the weight of detective work and doctordom, but I wasn’t in much of a celebratory mood. Or maybe it was just Elvis. When we’d left him at the hospital, because he was too sick to make a statement at the station, he’d kept saying, “I don’t remember.” I had to wonder if there was a voluntary component to his amnesia. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife. Well, what about your brother’s girlfriend?

Archer had already forgiven him, but I couldn’t, quite. Whether he remembered it or not, he’d cheated his brother. He might be an ace escape artist, but not a shining example of humanity.

Also, Ryan had just texted, I should be at your place in an hour. I’ve got a birthday surprise for you.

“Not tonight,” I said to Tucker, but I reached for his hand and squeezed it.

He squeezed back, harder than I expected.

I didn’t want to let go of his warm, firm grip. I wanted to lean against his body and let him support me. I wanted to go somewhere close and private, where we could talk about the case, and he could stroke my hair and tell me I’d done everything right. And then we could do it. Finally, gloriously, explodingly. Again and again. And then we’d talk some more, maybe by candlelight, eating pizza, making fun of each other, before we crawled back to bed again.

Before I could do anything stupid, one of the female cops opened the glass door and said, in English, “Do you kids need a ride?”

Tucker shook his head. “I’ll take the métro.” She looked at me, so I finally tugged my hand away from Tucker and told her, “If you wouldn’t mind dropping me off at UC Hospital, I’ll pick up my car.”

He let my hand go, but he kissed me on both cheeks and pulled me in for a final hug. He smelled clean, like soap and himself, which was so exactly what I wanted and needed. Not to mention that the way I fit against his solid body felt completely right. I breathed him in, while tears pricked my eyelids.

He drew away first this time, and offered me a crooked smile. “Stay safe, Hope.”

I watched him go. He didn’t have a jacket, but the cool air didn’t seem to bother him. He even held his arms out, enjoying the breeze, while other pedestrians had to step around him. A couple gave him a dirty look, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“That’s your boyfriend?” the cop asked, after a pause.

“Not exactly,” I said.

Normally, I’d enjoy riding in a police cruiser. This was only the second time in my life. But I barely noticed the details this time, like her talking on her radio in the front while I sat in the back with no wire cage between us. I guess maybe they save that kind of car for felons. I don’t know. I just checked my phone’s many messages, one from Ryan and several from Mrs. Bérubé.

I had to call her and cross my fingers that she wasn’t sleeping at 9:04 p.m. Or maybe that she was sleeping, so I could just leave a message and get off the hook.

Instead, she picked up the phone. She was crying. “Hope. Oh, Hope. Thank God I finally got a hold of you.”

“What is it?” I said. The hairs on my neck had already perked up, despite my fatigue. I thought the officer sat up a little straighter in the front seat, too, altered by my tone.

Mrs. Bérubé said, “I know I shouldn’t care about this. My children think I’m so foolish. But I can’t find George’s silver dollar. You know, his lucky silver dollar, the one he keeps beside his bed. I had to leave the hospital, and they won’t let me in because it’s not visiting hours, but I can’t sleep. He should be buried with his silver dollar. The funeral’s tomorrow morning. Ten a.m.”

I rubbed my eyes and suppressed a yawn. “I’m really sorry to hear that, Mrs. Bérubé. What did you think I might be able to do for you tonight?”

“Do you think you could check the room one more time? Just one last time, a second set of eyes? I’m sure they’d let you in. You’re a doctor.”

It was my birthday tomorrow. I had Ryan waiting for me. I’d just gone above and beyond, solving Elvis’s case.

On the other hand, I hadn’t really helped her yet, except for my botched attempt to attend Mr. Bérubé’s autopsy. And I’d have the rest of the weekend to par-tay.

“I know I could buy another one. My daughters have told me a thousand times they’ll buy one for me. But that one was his lucky silver dollar! I won it at a spelling contest.”

“I know. I know, I know,” I said, and found myself promising to stop by St. Joe’s one last time.

“Trouble?” said the officer, after I hung up.

I sighed. “I’m just going to do an elderly widow a favour. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but you know how it is.”

“Do I ever.” Her eyes met mine briefly in the rearview mirror. I tried to remember her name. She seemed a lot more helpful than J. Rivera already, but all I recalled was that her last name was Visser, before she pulled up at the UC parking lot. “Where’s your car?”

Twelve minutes later, I nestled my Ford Focus into a choice spot on Péloquin street. Is hospital parking ever easier to score on a Friday night.

If I ran, I could make it up to the palliative floor and back, and buzz back to my apartment, a few minutes before Ryan’s surprise. I might even take a shower!

I donned my white coat, which I’d thrown in the passenger seat at some point. Not only did it make me look more legit, but it had all my badges so I could pass through any locked doors. I still had to go in through the emerg, since the main doors were closed, and the elevator seemed stuck on the eighth floor, so I took the central stairs up, two at a time. Mr. B’s old room was just to the left of the stairs, not far from the nursing station. If I could just let them know I needed to take a quick look at room 5656—

I skidded to a halt just outside the room. The pharmaceutical guy was sitting in the pink fake leather chair, next to the window, reading a tablet. His jaundiced mother lay sleeping in the bed with a vase of pink roses on the small, mobile dresser on the right side of her bed. It shook me for a second, that there were new patients in the room, and that they’d rearranged the furniture.

“Nice to see you, Dr. Sze,” he said. He looked a hundred times better than the last time I’d seen him. He’d washed and combed his hair, for one thing, and his tie alone probably cost more than Peter the Preacher’s suit.

“You too, Mr.—” Oh, crap. What was his name again?

“Watson. David Watson. And this is my mother, Mary Kincaid. Did you need to check on something?”

I wanted to ask him why he was still here, after visiting hours, but I didn’t bother. First of all, he’d probably greased a few palms, and secondly, I needed him on my good side. “I had an unusual request from the widow of the patient who used to have his room. They lost a silver dollar that has a lot of sentimental value. Did you find one when you were moving in?”

He placed his tablet on the bedside table. “I didn’t, but I can’t say I checked too hard. Would you like to look around?”

I hesitated, glancing at his sleeping mother. I hadn’t even stopped in at the nursing station to tell them what I was up to. But if I could get this over with and hightail it to my apartment, so much the better.

“You won’t bother her. She’s exhausted. I was just about to leave, myself.” He folded the cover over his tablet. He opened the wide, black leather attaché case at his feet and slipped the tablet inside.

“Okay, thanks,” I said. I busied myself checking the windowsill, behind the curtains. Then I hit the bathroom, checking behind the toilet, peeking in the shower stall, and glancing inside Mrs. Kincaid’s shower caddy stocked with organic shampoo and bath salts. I even poked the deluxe shower cap drying out on the top of the shower head.

I saved the awkward stuff for last, like the beside table, but Mr. Watson pulled the first drawer out for me. “Don’t be shy. Maybe we missed something.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, as I peeked through her satin granny panties and thick socks. “Um, nothing so far.” I shut that drawer and rifled her flannel nightgowns in the second drawer. Then I lifted up the few items on top of that dresser, including the telephone and the vase. “Looks good.”

He stood up so I could inspect the chair, so I stuck my hand in the crease between the back and the seat, even though the fabric was still warm from his body. Yuckeroonies. Lots of crumbs, but no silver dollar.

I glanced at Mrs. Kincaid last. I really hated to disturb her. They made the bed every day, while Mrs. Kincaid was made comfortable in the chair. “I’ll ask the cleaning staff to check the bed thoroughly tomorrow, if that’s okay,” I said, trying to remember the skinny cleaner’s name, the soprano.

“Sure, sure.” Mr. Watson stood and stretched. “Thanks for stopping by, Dr. Sze. She’s so much happier here than she was, even on 5 South. Doesn’t she look wonderful?”

She looked a little more jaundiced to me, but her face had definitely relaxed in sleep. I smiled my agreement.

Mr. Watson gazed down at her, lightly touching the bed beside her pillow. “She’s a fighter, you know, but the noise in the emergency department and on 5 South were getting her down. Here, on palliative care, in her own room, it’s like her little corner of paradise where she can get well again. I have to thank you, Dr. Sze.”

I’d been about to make excuses and take off, but that startled me. “You do?”

“Yes. I’d been dreading transferring her to palliative care, even though Dr. Underwood had put the application in on Tuesday. I thought it meant that she was dying. But after talking more with you, and then Dr. Huot, I realized that palliative care is really about pain control and making the patient feel better, no matter where they are in their illness course. So she can still receive chemotherapy, but if she just needs some extra TLC to turn the corner, this is the perfect place for her.”

I nodded. I should’ve gotten a warm fuzzy, but instead, I couldn’t help picturing him and Dr. Huot getting together and making commercials about the wonders of palliative care, complete with puppies, chubby babies, and pictures of angels. By the time they made it over here, most patients had stopped chemo. On the internal medicine ward, you got more frequent medical visits, tests, drugs and vital signs checks. Here, you got more hand-holding and hands-off otherwise. But Dr. Huot would have made that clear at the family meeting I’d missed. But maybe Mr. Watson had paid for a private nurse here, too.

He ran his hand through his hair, smiling. “Oh, I’d love for her to be at home, putting her garden to bed for the winter, and buying Christmas presents. But the most important thing is for her to heal in the best place possible, and St. Joseph’s fits the bill. I’ll be making a generous donation to the foundation, of course.”

“Of course.” Where did all his money come from? I decided to ask. If I was a few minutes late getting to the apartment, Ryan could hang out in the lobby for a few minutes. I now lived in a hoity-toity apartment with a lobby big enough for a couch. “You’re extremely generous.”

“When you’ve got it, share it. That’s my motto.” He dropped his left eyelid in a wink at me.

“That’s a good motto,” I said, even though I’ve never seen a generous rich person. It’s more like, if you’ve got it, hoard it. “They must pay you well at your company. Where do you work?”

His smile dimmed. “I’m at TaylorWexlerParr, but I’ve had to take a few days off lately.”

“Of course,” I said again.

“Now that she’s under the excellent care on this ward, however, I imagine I’ll be back to work in no time.”

“Magnificent. Okay, well, I’ve got to head out.” I suddenly had to pee. Not the coolest thing, but maybe the adrenaline had worn off from the hoo ha around Elvis.

“Me too. ‘Til next time, Dr. Sze.” He gathered his briefcase while I hurried out the door. The closest bathroom was down the left hallway, across from the 5 South elevators, and that way I could avoid the palliative nursing station altogether.

It would have been so easy to take the elevators downstairs, but in the two minutes it took me to get out of the bathroom, I heard a commotion in the hallway and glanced toward 5 South. A nurse was wheeling a stretcher loaded with a patient and a portable cardiac monitor, as the RT bagged the intubated patient. They needed the elevator more than I did. So I decided to risk the stairs, crossing my fingers that Mr. Watson had already left. I’d have to pass room 5656 just before the staircase.

When I rounded the corner, I noticed Mr. Watson closing the lid of the dirty linen cart in the hallway, across from his mother’s room. He could have been tossing in a wet towel, but I’d already personally checked the towels and facecloth hanging neatly in her bathroom.

Mr. Watson turned to his right and pushed the stair case door open for him to descend the stairs, barely acknowledging Toni, the préposée who was returning to the nursing station, from the end of the hall.

Hmm. The Mr. Watson I knew would never pass up a chance to schmooze.

I glanced in room 5656, where Mrs. Kincaid lay sleeping. Then I used the foot pedal to pop open the lid of the dirty linen cart. At first, it looked like the usual tangle of white sheets. No towel. But he couldn’t have changed her bed, because she was snoozing on it.

The cart isn’t so much a cart, as a white rectangular plastic frame with a moveable lid stamped with the words SOILED LINEN. They hang a white fabric bag in the frame, like a garbage bag, and collect the bag and its contents for the laundry. There’s no solid plastic part around it, so it’s hanging out for easy picking.

Or kicking. I nudged the fabric bag with my knee.

I thought I felt something in there that wasn’t just sheets.

Call it a hunch. Maybe I’d caught a glimpse of something more than Mr. Watson just closing the lid, I don’t know. But I donned a pair of gloves, lifted the lid, and reached beyond the first tangle of sheets to spy a pillowcase tied with a knot.

I lifted it into the air. Someone had filled the pillowcase with something of medium weight and a squarish appearance.

“Hey!”

The man’s voice rang from the far side of palliative care hallway, beyond the staircase Mr. Watson had disappeared down.

I glanced at the tall, thick-set white man who was bearing down on me. He was wearing a leather jacket, so he wasn’t a hospital worker, although he looked vaguely familiar through his scowl. I froze with the pillowcase still in my hands.

“Hey! That’s mine!” he hollered.

He was still a good sixty feet away from the soiled linen cart, not even next to the nursing station. And anyway, who puts their belongings in a soiled linen cart? But he was closing in on me fast, and my only choices were to rush down the staircase, where Mr. Watson might be waiting for me, or—

I rushed toward him, but took a quick left into the nursing station, still clutching the pillowcase in my gloved hands. “Help!” I called to Toni, the préposée, who was standing next to the chart rack, gaping at me. Then I kept running into the miniature staff lounge and slammed the door shut.

The door had a lock, so I turned it closed and jammed a chair under the doorknob just before a meaty fist slammed on it. “Give. That. Back. Bitch!”

I grabbed the phone on the windowsill, half-hidden behind a stack of magazines, and punched in locating. “This is Dr. Sze. I need the police. A man is trying to attack me in the nurse’s lounge on the palliative care ward. I’ve barricaded myself in the room.”

Bang.

The door reverberated with his pounding.

I tried to ignore that. He couldn’t break down the door in the middle of the hospital, with at least one witness. Could he?

“Do you want to call a Code White?” asked the male on the phone, who was no doubt an incompetent security guard who replaced the operator at night time.

“Send up security! And call the police. Now!”

I hung up on him and called 911 myself to repeat the story. The woman who answered asked, “Don’t you have security at the hospital?”

“The guards are all a hundred years old. Yes, they’re on their way, but I need real protectors. Hurry!”

I hung up on her, too. The city’s finest, always at your service.

Bang.

I squeezed the pillowcase. There was definitely something inside. Something rectangular with edges, solid but bendable.

I unknotted the bag with some difficulty and glanced at all the $20 and $50 bills inside, bundled neatly and encased in a Ziploc.

Bang!

“That’s mine, bitch. I earned it!”

“What did you do?” I yelled back through the door.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” I called, while checking out the window as an escape route. I was on the fifth floor. Even if I could break the glass, jumping out the window wouldn’t be my first choice. What kind of weapons did I have in the nurse’s lounge? Could I electrocute him with the coffee maker?

No.

Could I shove him in the microwave and sizzle him, like a modern day Hansel and Gretel?

Nope.

Then I remembered that I’d shoved a needle in my lab coat pocket for the arterial blood gas I’d never done on the CHF patient. I rummaged in the depths of my pockets and even found the 18 gauge, large bore needle, as well as the 5 cc blood gas syringe. I fitted the 18 gauge needle on the syringe and kept the little ABG needle capped in my pocket. If a woman could defend herself in a parking lot with her keys in her fist, I could certainly jab a crazy man with a syringe, and I wanted the biggest motherfucking needle possible at my disposal.

Then I shoved the pillowcase in the microwave. The door just barely closed on all that cash, and I knew the nurses would be pissed because now their microwave was now contaminated with money from the soiled linen cart, but if I survived this, I could donate my own home microwave. I just figured that if he broke down the door, that was one of the last places he’d look.

Why the fuck was I worrying about microwaves?

BANG.

He was kicking the door now. The acoustic ceiling tiles vibrated with his kicks. The door handle rattled. Secretly, I was amazed that anything at St. Joe’s had held up this long. I was not surprised that security and the police had not achieved anything in the past few minutes, but I could probably hold out until they came and arrested this crazy bastard.

The kicking stopped.

My heart hammered on. He might have gone for a weapon. He could break open one of the “in case of fire, break glass” displays, maybe get an axe, chop the door down.

And then a woman screamed. A real, horrifying, make-your-hairs-stand-straight-up holler.

I stiffened.

The man’s voice called, from farther away, “I’ve got her, bitch, If you don’t want the fat bitch to get it, you better come out now with the money.”

He had Toni.

She screamed again.

I couldn’t let him kill her. I’ve always prized human life above money. That’s why I went into medicine instead of business.

“Don’t hurt her,” I called. “I’ve hidden the money. Just give me a minute.”

“Come out right now, or the bitch buys it!”

Too many bitches, I thought crazily. A girl could get confused this way. I made sure the 18 gauge needed was still firmly covered with its plastic sheath before I dropped it back in my lab coat pocket, on my right side, so I didn’t stab myself with the bare needle. There was little chance I’d get to use it, so I might as well put the safety back on, so to speak.

I opened the microwave door and yanked out the pillowcase. Of course the fabric got jammed in the hinge, and I sweated and swore, but I got the wad of cash out. Good thing Mr. Watson had been neat enough to bundle it and place it in a Ziploc. That way, leather jacket guy wouldn’t lose a single 50 dollar bill.

I’ve always loved fifty dollar bills. They’re red, one of my favourite colours, and used to have a ring of Mounties on horseback on one side. They’re still the prettiest Canadian bills around. But of course, I didn’t feel too fond of them now.

“I’ve got them,” I said, moving the chair away from the door.

“Come on out with your hands up!”

I twisted the door handle with my right hand, holding the bag of money in my left hand.

Leather jacket guy had his hands around Toni’s neck. She’d made it to the nursing station desk, but the phone was beeping helplessly from the floor as, slowly, he began to squeeze.

Toni let out a peep. She yanked on his hands.

He squeezed harder.

Her face turned from red to redder. Tears gleamed in her eyes.

“Stop it! You can have your money.” I threw it on the floor halfway between us, to force him to let go of Toni’s throat.

He grinned behind from the dark bristle dotting his face. He shook his head, still clamping on Toni. She tried to elbow him, but he didn’t flinch. I could tell that she’d gotten weaker in a matter of seconds. He said, “Not over there. Hand it to me.”

My stomach twisted. I didn’t want to get into range. My voice still wasn’t quite as strong as before the last time I nearly got strangled, and I could clearly picture him breaking my neck.

On the other hand, I couldn’t let Toni die in front of me. She’d closed her eyes now, like she was praying, but her face had turned purple.

I took two steps toward them, scooped up the bag with my left hand, and let my voice tremble. “I don’t want to come near you. You killed Mr. Bérubé, didn’t you?”

His smile flickered for a second.

“George Bérubé. The old man in 5656.” I pointed to the room diagonally across the hall, with my money hand, hypnotizing him, while I delved in my right hand pocket and uncapped the syringe.

“He was dying anyway,” he said.

“But he wasn’t dead. He was waiting for his lunch. Did you put a pillow over his face?”

His mouth twitched before he met my gaze full on. “A plastic bag. Easier to carry.”

Toni moaned softly.

His hands tightened.

I kept my voice soft, unthreatening. “But you didn’t think of it yourself, right? David Watson paid you to do it.”

He glanced over his shoulder for a microsecond, but I knew he’d seen Mr. Watson disappear down that staircase.

“You did all the hard work,” I said. “He just handed over the money. And he couldn’t even do that right.”

“You’re telling me!” His hands squeezed again. Where his fingers had shifted a little on her flesh, I spotted purple bruises already forming under his thumbs.

I said, slowly and clearly, “I’m going to give you the money and you can disappear. But you have to let go of Toni.”

Toni’s lips trembled. She was still conscious, but barely. And we both knew he could kill her before he took the money, even by accident.

I kept my voice soothing. “I’m a doctor. When you let go of Toni, I’m going to take care of her. I’m not going to chase you. You can just take the money and run.”

“You’d better not call the cops!”

“You’ll see me with Toni, not calling the cops.” I still had my hand around the syringe. It was a terrible weapon, a weapon of last resort. He could easily get it away from me and stab me in the eyeball. It would only work if I had a modicum of surprise. I waved my left hand, to attract his attention to the money. I held it at arm’s length between us. “This is what you really want. You don’t want to hurt her.” Any more than you already have. “You were just trying to get payment.”

“Yeah. Right.” He was staring at the money. The veins bulged in his forehead, under a sheen of sweat.

“Here you go.”

He snatched the bag with his right hand, keeping his left on Toni’s neck, but turning to face me.

I think he would have let her go, except Toni tried to kick him in the nuts. She was so weak and dizzy, she just clunked him in the thigh, but he roared and clamped both hands around her neck again, serious this time, so I stabbed him high in the flank, where his jacket had exposed when he reached up.

I hoped to puncture a lung or a kidney, but I felt the needle sink less than a centimetre before it stopped hard.

I knew that feeling from failed lumbar punctures.

I’d hit bone.

I got a rib.

Fuck.

He roared again—this must be what wounded bears sound like, I thought at the back of my mind—and he whipped around, but not before I wrenched the syringe back out. So when he whirled around to face me, I ducked and jabbed the syringe into his belly, right through his T-shirt, up to the hilt.

His eyes widened.

Oh, my God. I’ve killed him.

Then I thought, It’s a 1.5 inch syringe and he’s fat. What could I have hit that would have killed him?

I yanked the syringe out and held it like a knife between us. The needle dripped burgundy blood. “Take the money and get out!”

He drew back his fist.

This is it. I’m dead.

“Jeremy!” a woman’s voice screamed, with such horror that my eyes flew to her. It was the very skinny cleaner, the one with a beautiful voice.

I remembered her name.

Rosie.

Verna Rosenberg.

Kameron and Kaitlyn Rosenberg’s mother.

Hatred burned through my core. I said, “I know what you’re doing to Kaitlyn, you son of a bitch.” I lifted up the syringe again, to stab him a third time, when a man’s voice called, “Police! Put your hands up in the air.”

The police. Thank God for the police. But I kept my eyes on Jeremy while I raised my hands in the air.