She's smarter than she looks. Today, at the group, she gives us a riddle, trying to be all casual about it. "Let's say a woman's mother dies and, at the funeral, she meets this guy she thinks is her soul mate."
Everyone starts hooting.
"That's fucked-up shit."
"You know what they say, someone dies and you get all horny."
"Who says that? Are you some kind of nagrophiliac or whatever?"
"Necrophiliac, you dumbass!"
"Language," says Dr. Ven, but he's looking at Dr. Laura like, what the heck are you doing?
I see the blush on Dr. Laura's neck, but she ignores it and raises her voice. "Here's the strange part. Three days later, she kills her sister. Why?"
I know the answer. It's obvious. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. But I don't say anything. I breathe real quiet, in and out, and wait for everyone else.
There's silence, broken by: "Chicks, man. Who knows why they do anything?"
Now Dr. Laura's face is all red, too, but she waits out the laugh. "Anybody else?"
A curly-haired girl puts up her hand. "I don't get it. Is there, like, a right answer?"
"No. Just say what you think. It's sort of a getting-to-know-you game."
Some game. Dr. Laura looks right at me. I look back at her, innocent.
The same girl chews her bottom lip. "I'm not good at tests."
Dr. Laura tries to smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "It's not a test. Is it a test if I ask you what your favourite colour is?"
"Everything here's a test."
That's it. The room's uneasy now.
"I plead the Fifth," says the Goth girl.
Another mini-laugh from the crowd. I give a fake smile, better than Dr. Laura's, and straighten out my legs like I've got all the time in the world.
Finally, someone bites. "My great-aunt's super into funerals. She's always reading the newspaper, looking for people who died. She's from PEI, right, where they got nothing better to do than broadcast people's obituaries on the radio. Twice a day. I'm not kidding."
Someone else snorts. "What does that have to do with the soul mate guy?"
"The guy's a red herring."
"Nah. I bet he told her some shit about her sister, and she offed her because of it."
Dr. Laura's eyes flicker and her hands tense up. She'd make a lousy poker player. "What kind of information would that be?"
We stare at her blankly. Dr. Laura purses her lips. "Or, as you might say, what kind of shit would make someone off her sister?"
Even I got to laugh at that one. She's not that much older than us, but she acts like she's two-hundred and two.
The little black girl says, "Oh, Dr. Lee, you said a bad word! Now you're gonna get it!" She pretends to shave her finger at her, like it's a carrot she's peeling. I remember doing that in grade three. We're all cracking up.
Dr. Ven clears his throat, but Dr. Laura ignores him. She is bent on this. "I'm interested. Come on. Have you guys ever thought about killing someone?"
I almost laugh out loud. Sweet Jesus. Seems like I can't stop thinking about it.
Dr. Laura says, "It's important to be open about our feelings. That's what this group is all about." Her eyes flash on me again. "How about you?"
Even Dr. Ven perks up a bit. My lips feel stiff, all of a sudden. I got to tread carefully here. "Yeah, okay."
"Okay what?" Dr. Laura just can't wait.
"Okay, we should be open about our feelings." The group chuckles. Dr. Laura's nostrils flare, so I give a bit more. "Yeah, I've gotten mad at people. But I've never killed anyone."
Yet.
I feel like she can read that from my head. She's breathing faster, eyes narrowed. God, I love leading her on. I add, "If your mom dies, though, you might go kinda nuts."
And, like I knew he would, Dr. Ven jumps right on that like a flea on a dog. "Let's talk about that. Have any of you ever experienced a loss? It doesn't have to be your mother. A grandparent, a friend, even a pet. Hold up your hand."
Out of the corner of my eyes, I can see Dr. Laura gritting her teeth.
I know exactly why that woman in the riddle offed her sister. She's hoping the soul mate guy will show up to this funeral, too. Seems obvious. But since no one else seems to get it, I'm keeping my mouth shut.
I'm impressed, though. All these fancy degrees and Dr. Ven couldn't figure out how to lick his own ass if that was his only ticket out of hell. But this resident, this nothing, parachutes in, and like that, she's on to me. Or at least she's got her suspicions.
Right on, Dr. Laura. Keep playing.
***
Back home, I changed into a short sundress, bolted down a glass of water, and asked Ryan, "You sure you want to go to Mrs. Lee's?" It just might make the weirdest non-date in history.
Ryan nodded and laced up his shoes. "I want to talk to her and get an idea of what she's looking for."
"I know it's your last night here. I'm sorry. She said the date was auspicious." Ah, Chinese superstition. At least with Ryan, I didn't have to explain lucky numbers while we trotted down the stairs to the indoor garage, accessible through the apartment's basement. "You sure you're okay with this?" I asked one more time, even as I climbed in the car and fastened my seatbelt.
He kissed my cheek. "Absolutely." He looked at me and his forehead crinkled. "Are you okay?"
I adjusted the rearview mirror instead of meeting his eyes. What he didn't know about Tucker would not hurt him. At least, not right away. "Okay," I repeated brightly, and threw the Ford Focus into reverse while I hit the garage door opener attached to my visor.
While the door oozed open, a cyclist wheeled her bike into the bike rack near the washing machine. There wasn’t that much room to maneuver in the garage, so I waited instead of risking running her over. Obviously, I wasn’t from Montreal. She waved her thanks as she threw open the door to the apartment basement.
"Did you see what I did at your apartment?" said Ryan.
"Sort of," I hedged, trying not to think about how he'd beefed up my security while I'd straddled another man. "I know you changed the front door lock, so I'll have to give the new key to the concierge." I accelerated out of the garage.
"I cut sticks to prop the windows closed and stop anyone from forcing them open from the outside. There's a lot more I could do, but I had to get the tools."
"You mean you couldn't get by with my screwdriver and Ikea Allan wrenches?" I braked at the red light and signaled left on Côte-Ste-Catherine.
"You needed them anyway. I'll leave them at your apartment."
"What did you get?"
"Just the basics. A saw, a drill with multiple bits, a hammer and nails. Oh, and some hinges and nuts and bolts.”
"I'll pay you back." Thank God Tucker and I hadn't done more. I felt so guilty, my chest was practically concave.
"No, it's my present to you. I wanted you to be safe. Ever since..." Two lines appeared between his eyes again, the glabellar lines, as they say in derm.
The light changed. I squeezed my car into the right-hand lane despite an oncoming taxi. "Since what?"
"You know," he said.
I did know. He meant ever since I almost got killed last month. Tucker's reaction was to make me take time off work. Ryan's was to shore up my security. If I had to pick between their approaches, I'd go with Ryan's. At least that was practical.
For the first time, I wondered if it was a coincidence that my ex took a vacation in Montreal and just happened to run into me. I rubbed my eyes.
"Tired?" said Ryan.
I nodded. And foolhardy, going to a patient's house. But she insisted, and somehow, visiting her seemed more kosher with company. Ryan could testify that I didn't cross any limits.
Ryan touched the back of my neck. "You're tense."
I nodded again and gave him a pained smile.
He started massaging my neck as best he could from the passenger's seat. He hit a trigger point on my levator scapulae and I yelped.
"You want me to stop?" Ryan glanced at the bus that was trying to merge into my rear bumper.
I shook my head and hit the gas, before braking suddenly for the Lincoln in front of me. "Just go lighter."
He did his best in the stop and start traffic. Ryan's never been the best masseur, but I felt myself relax into his fingers. It was so good to have someone to care about me. It made a big difference to come home to him instead of an empty apartment.
Mrs. Lee lived in Montreal West, an area I didn't know well, but was only about 15 minutes' drive from mine. I managed to park right across from her building. "It's a omen," I muttered to myself.
A grey duplex apartment door popped opened. Mrs. Lee appeared on the front stoop, waving.
She greeted us and put the kettle on. Ryan answered in Cantonese and whipped out his laptop, so they were already best buds by the time she took us on a tour of her home, culminating in Laura's small, neat bedroom.
"I moved her things here after," Mrs. Lee said, and stopped. She forced herself to continue. "She had her own apartment."
"I understand." It must have been so painful to go through Laura's possessions and move them back to her childhood room. I didn't want to cross the threshold, but my dread was nothing compared to what she'd been through.
Ryan touched her arm and said something. Mrs. Lee paused, nodded at me, and allowed him to lead her back toward the kitchen. Since my Chinese is limited to hello, thank you, and the names of especially tasty restaurant dishes, I was grateful to Ryan for putting her at ease and giving me some privacy.
Mrs. Lee called over her shoulder, "You're the detective. Look at anything you want. Open it up. I trust you."
I nodded and smiled, but it felt more like a wince.
I've read a lot of books where they say the dead person's room is kept as a shrine. Probably that was true here. At least, I didn't get the feeling a whole lot of moving and shaking went on here, aside from regular dusting. But there was a clear division between Laura's childhood and adulthood in this small, square space.
The décor was the most obvious blast from the past. One bookshelf was dedicated to school photos, awards, and stuffed animals, but an older Laura had hung an Oasis poster above her bed and suspended some CD's on fishing wire from the ceiling in front of the window. The evening light made them sparkle like rainbows.
I swallowed hard and scanned for the newer, less emotional stuff. The most obvious sources of information were the two black filing cabinets pushed against the wall and a bulky old computer squatting on the desk alongside a freshly-dusted box of 3 1/2 inch floppy disks. I wasn't one hundred percent sure how to use those, so it was good that Ryan had come along.
The bookshelf wedged next to the door, preventing it from opening it all the way, was crammed with medical books and neatly-labeled binders.
I sighed to myself. Needle. Haystack. Meet the twenty-first century's lust for paperwork and gigabytes. What was I looking for again? What kind of clue?
Mrs. Lee had specifically asked me to look at Laura's files, so that's what I would start with and, more than likely, end with.
Ryan's voice carried from the kitchen, talking faster than usual, and Mrs. Lee laughed in reply.
It was the first time I'd heard her laugh, and she surprised me with a deep chuckle.
I couldn't abandon her now. I yanked the first filing cabinet's drawer open.
Within a minute, I could see that the similarity between me and Laura ran only skin deep. I sighed with relief. I hadn't consciously realized it, but the whole "you look like Laura" thing had been getting to me.
Fortunately, we were entirely different animals.
She'd been very organized. She'd made file folders according to clinical specialty—oncology, say, or rheumatology—and kept filing articles until at least the week before she died. I couldn't get over her alphabetized and colour-coded files. She even used those stick-on dots, I guess so she could tell at a glance, "Oh, it's yellow, must be family medicine."
I made up a less complicated system, but gave up after a week when I decided, "If I need it, the Internet is my friend. If I don't print it out, I can save a few trees." Plus I was lazy.
I wasn't sure how research articles were going to clue me in to any potential murderer, but at least I knew how to sift through this stuff better than the police. And since everyone said Laura was into psych and emerg, that's where I'd find any money.
I started with the specialty I liked and missed: emerg. I recognized two of the same articles they passed out to me last month. Geez, didn't they update their teaching files in eight years? But I agreed with the topics she'd kept, like intubation, toxicology, coumadin. All keepers.
I flipped through a few handouts she'd made, including transparent plastic overheads (remember those? My teachers used them in middle school) for presentations on sepsis and ectopic pregnancy.
There was nothing personal except four reference letters, which I read.
"Laura is extremely organized, punctual, and knowledgeable."
"Laura has excellent clinical acumen."
"I would not hesitate to recommend Dr. Lee."
"One of the best residents in recent memory."
Wow. I could only hope they'd speak half so well of me when I graduated. Two were doctors I didn't know, Dr. P.K. Kumar and Dr. Charles Ouimet. The last and warmest was from Dr. Kurt Radshaw, the doctor whose murder I had solved. I paused and blinked. He'd been a good man.
Otherwise, the emerg file was pretty much business and not very useful.
The psych file was a lot fatter. I flipped through the articles quickly. The topics were the same then as now: suicide risk assessment, determining patient competence, depression and bipolar disorder, etc. But then I found a whole stack of papers on antisocial personality disorder.
That was unusual. It's the medical term for sociopaths, psychopaths, whatever you want to call Robert Pickton, Jeffrey Dahmer, Paul Bernardo, Hannibal Lecter, and other personifications of evil.
I've never diagnosed a patient as antisocial. Not even on the advice of the attending staff. You can imagine how it wouldn't exactly be a popular label.
Maybe Laura had done a presentation on it. But for her emerg presentations, she'd kept copies of the overheads. No such animal here. And again, I couldn't imagine the staff saying, "Let's teach the medical students about something useful like antisocial personality!"
I did attend a forensic psych lecture in med school. I thought I'd hear about cool cases, but it turned out to be an hour or two of legalese and disappointment.
I scanned the articles themselves to learn more about the disorder. I already knew a little bit. The classic triad—the "watch out for this kid" trio of symptoms—is fire-setting, cruelty to animals, and bedwetting. We all laughed about the last one in med school because it seems so incongruous, but here it was again in black and white. If you dig into their childhood, they often tortured pets and set fires by day and required rubber sheets at night.
The other thing I remembered, the biggie, was lack of remorse. Usually, if you hurt someone, you feel bad about it, even if you quickly justify it to yourself. But psychopaths really and truly just don't care beyond their own needs. It's mine, I want it. You're in my way, too bad. Steal from the collection plate. Boot the dog out of the way. Just a hop, skip, and a jump away from adultery, embezzlement, and yes, murder.
Fellow people and creatures are just obstacles in their way.
They may be charming. They may sleep around. In other words, they'd probably out-play and out-last on Survivor.
A few more nuggets from Dr. Hare, a Ph.D. and the research main man: a lot of them work in the entertainment industry, which kind of makes sense. Law and politics are an even more natural fit. And once he mentioned it, I could imagine them fitting in as cult leaders, mercenaries, and (ugh) military personnel. But he also found them in medicine and the clergy.
Yikes. They were everywhere. All cunning. Hostile. Treacherous. Cruel.
I shivered. It makes you wonder how many people are wearing a mask.
Arguably, the job of a psychiatrist is to take that mask off.
Had Laura encountered someone who fit this picture? And instead of blowing the whistle, had she tried to diagnose and treat him herself?
Because if there was one flaw in this golden girl, I suspected it was her pride. She wanted the A plus-plus-plus. What better way to do it than to capture a criminal herself?
Then I almost smiled. Okay, I still saw some similarities between us.
But back to the more pressing question. If I went out on a limb and said, Yes, there is a psychopath who killed Laura on purpose, who was it?
I ran through the rest of the file and found two oddities. One was an orthopedic review article on bone age, focusing on the closure of epiphyseal (growth) plates in adolescents. She should have filed that under ortho, or possibly emerg, not psych. I flipped through it. I already knew that long bones lengthen through little growth plates on either end of the bones, turning cartilage into bone. The growth plates look like black lines on X-rays.
When I show teenagers the film, they occasionally get excited because those black lines mean they're still growing. Once the growth plate closes and the black line disappears, that bone's as long as it's going to get. But since most of them are already taller than me, I can't get too excited. I just want to know if they've fractured right through the growth plate because that's the weakest link.
Laura had made a note:
Humerus ossification:
Upper end ~20 y.o. , lower end ~16 y.o.
Radius:
Upper end ~18 y.o., lower end ~20 y.o.
That was hard core. Orthopods need to know that kind of information, but not most emergency doctors. Well, more evidence that Laura deserved a gold star.
The other weird thing was a pamphlet for gay-lesbian-bi-transgendered teens. That made me wonder if Laura had been gay.
I skimmed the remainder of the filing cabinets, trying to avoid sustaining any paper cuts, while Mrs. Lee started up some heavy duty opera in the other room. A soprano filled the apartment, further setting my teeth on edge.
Finally, I shut the cabinet with a bang. As I'd suspected, Laura was far too ethical to bring patient notes home. Even if she had, there was no way I could pull the charts on all the patients she'd seen.
The psychopath might not have been a patient anyway.
I tapped my pencil on my teeth while Ryan hummed along to the music. I grinned to myself. Mr. Culture.
There might be a faster way of cutting through the chaos. I flipped through Laura's old Day Timer. It was all work, no play, but it did tell me that when she died, she was running Monday evening group therapy at the Douglas Hospital. A truly antisocial personality might be memorable eight years later.
Tucker knew the doctors at the Douglas. It was time to talk to Tucker again. Oy vey.
A baritone joined the soprano, their voices dueling for supremacy on the recording. My stomach rumbled at the smell and sizzle of food from the kitchen.
At long last, I stood to join Ryan and Mrs. Lee, wondering just how, even if a sociopath existed, I might manage to catch him nearly a decade later.