Free Code Blues by Melissa Yi Page B

Tucker said, "You met
him, right? At orientation? Nice guy, but not a whole lot upstairs.
Very hung up on protocol."
    Mireille said, "Once I asked him about
improving Internet access at the FMC. He said to call his secretary
and make an appointment to talk about it. Then I did, but he spent
the whole meeting talking about himself and how good the FMC was
already, without the Net!"
    "Kurt was kind of the heart of the FMC,"
said Tori quietly. "We'll all miss him."
    Anu sniffed back a tear. She turned toward
the stereo, to hide it, but Tori handed her a napkin. She wiped her
eyes. The room got very quiet.
    "There's something else." I hesitated. I
didn't want to make a huge deal out of it, but I thought everyone
should know. "I, uh, went through Dr. Radshaw's pockets—the police
told me I shouldn't have, but I didn't know—and he wasn't wearing
his pager."
    Silence. Broken by Mireille's hissed breath.
"I knew it!" She threw her head back, eyes squeezed shut. "I knew
it, I knew it."
    Tori took a step toward her, but when
Mireille opened her eyes, they were exultant. "Someone killed
him."
    My thought exactly, but I hadn't appeared so
happy about it.
    "Thank you," she said to me.
    I glanced around. Everyone looked confused,
except Robin, who looked blank. He was probably sorting through his
mental file of articles, figuring out which ones applied for
evidence-based treatment of bizarre behaviour.
    Mireille smiled. "We all know he'd never go
anywhere without his pager. It was like his lover. The killer took
it away after murdering him." She grabbed my arm, her fingers
sinking painfully into my flesh. "What about his cell phone? He
always carried it too, so he could call back right away."
    I tried to ease my arm out of her grip. "I
didn't see any cell phone. Just his glucometer and his wallet."
    "Yes!" Spit flew out of her mouth and landed
on my cheek. I jerked back. She laughed, said sorry, and handed me
a napkin from the pile on the coffee table.
    At least she'd stopped gripping my arm.
    As I wiped my face, I had to add, "But if he
was hypoglycemic, he might've—"
    Tucker was nodding
thoughtfully, but Mireille's hand shot out as if to snap my words
out of the air. " Non ! I am telling you, I knew him better than anyone in this
room, and he never left home without his pager clipped to his belt
and his cell phone in his left pocket!"
    The ring of agony in her words silenced
us.
    Tori laid her hand on Mireille's forearm. I
could see Mireille's muscles clench in her arm and in her jaw, but
she forced herself to take a deep breath. "Okay. Good. I wanted to
talk about Kurt. We did. So thank you. Please, let's eat some more.
There's plenty of food."
    I felt obliged to take a few more sips of
water, and Tucker complimented Tori on her garlic bread, but we all
started shuffling our feet and taking peeks at our watches.
    "Thanks for inviting us," Tori said.
    With a relieved sigh, we rose to our feet.
Robin shoved Alex into recovery position and propped him up with
cushions from the sofa, but Robin was the first to take off without
bothering to air-kiss Mireille's cheeks. The last thing I saw, when
I waved goodbye, was Mireille's green eyes staring at me from the
doorway. She no longer pretended to smile.
     

 
    Chapter 7
     
    It was almost a relief to go to work the
next day. I wasn't sure what to think anymore. I'd arranged Henry
into so many positions, I'd finally left him sitting with his
knobby hands together, roughly approximating prayer position. No
more bad luck, please.
    In fact, I started off with a stroke of
fortune. Dr. Dave Dupuis was on again for my evening shift, while
Dr. Callendar was nowhere in sight. Dr. Dupuis looked calm and
stork-like again, as he sat in a wheeled black chair at the nursing
station, his feet propped on the base. "Hi there," he said. "You
all right?"
    Close enough. "Yeah. You?"
    He nodded. "I've got a good chest pain in B.
Go look at her."
    Right down to business. I liked that.
    In resus room B, I