Lonely Path Page 4

  From his window, Bodhi watched the early morning joggers zoom back and forth across Dufferin Terrace like so many busy, colorful ants. Further out, on the river, ships glided through the water.

  As Quebec City woke up and began the business of commerce, education, and living, he turned to his map to plot out his walking itinerary through the Upper and Lower Towns.

  Should he invite Eliza to join him?

  The question had surfaced in his mind several times since he’d awoken. He enjoyed her company. And their encounter with Tatiana had left him feeling unsettled. He didn’t really want to be alone.

  This urge for companionship was unfamiliar, so he inspected the feeling. Did he want company or did he want Eliza’s company? He couldn’t quite tell. Maybe he wanted both.

  His cell phone rang, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Hello?”

  “Dr. King?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Inspector Commaire with the Quebec City Police Service. I trust I didn’t wake you?” The inspector’s English held just the faintest trace of a French accent.

  “No, not at all. I was up. Are you calling about Tatiana?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “How’s she doing today?” He was eager for an update as to her status. She hadn’t been communicative when he and Eliza had left her the previous night, and her pale drawn face had stayed in his mind.

  “I am afraid she’s still not speaking. The doctors are running tests. We have run some tests of our own, which is why I’m calling.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Dr. Loomis suggested we reach out to you and Dr. Rollins for some assistance.”

  “Guillaume Loomis?”

  “Correct. Dr. Loomis consults on problematic cases with our coroner, so he’s been called in and believes we should also seek help from you and Dr. Rollins.”

  Bodhi wrinkled his forehead as he strained to make sense of the request. “I’m not sure how we can help you, inspector. We’re trained to deal with dead people.”

  “Ah, yes, I realize this. According to our records, the woman you brought in last night is Tatiana Georgette Viant. And she is very much dead.”

  “I don’t understand. Tatiana’s not dead.” Eliza repeated the statement for a third time.

  Bodhi glanced at her for a second before turning his attention back to the traffic.

  “Inspector Commaire said Guillaume would fill us in when we got there. I’m sure it’s a case of mistaken identity.” He spoke in a deliberately soothing tone in an effort to ease her mounting worry.

  “I suppose.” She bit down on her thumbnail. After a moment, she went on. “I mean, you must be right. No other explanation makes any sense.”

  “Right. And although his English was very good, I’m sure he’s more comfortable speaking French. Maybe there was a vocabulary issue and he worded things less accurately than he’d intended.”

  “Maybe.”

  He returned his focus to navigating through the narrow streets, and she returned hers to gnawing on her thumbnail.

  He knew they were both troubled by the same aspect of the strange call—if Tatiana Viant had been misidentified as a dead woman, once that error had been established, the case would have remained an investigation involving a living person. Why was the coroner’s office involved at all?

  Chapter Eleven

  “Tatiana Viant was declared brain dead eight months ago,” Guillaume explained. He pushed a folder across the table toward Bodhi and Eliza.

  Eliza flipped it open, and Bodhi leaned over to read the summary sheet clipped to the inside cover.

  After they scanned the report, Guillaume continued, “She was a twenty-year-old history major at McAllen University in Montreal. Her roommate returned from the gym and found her lying on the floor beside her bed, breathing but nonresponsive. She was rushed to the McAllen University Health Centre.”

  Bodhi looked up. “Isn’t that where Felix Bechtel works?”

  “Yes, pathology is the quintessential small world, isn’t it? Unfortunately, Felix isn’t aware of her case because his department didn’t handle it.”

  That struck Bodhi as odd, but he didn’t want to interrupt Guillaume’s recitation.

  “According to the report, she was comatose and paralyzed when she was admitted.”

  “Deep coma?” Eliza asked.

  Guillaume nodded. “She presented with fixed nonreactive pupils and apnea. There was no evidence of brain stem reflex.”

  Coma, apnea, and absence of brain stem reflexes. That generally meant brain death. Bodhi could see the others drawing the same conclusion.

  “When she was brought in, did she meet the Canadian criteria for a neurological determination of death?” Eliza asked.

  “Not initially. When she arrived, she was still breathing, slowly and in a labored fashion—but she was breathing. During the intake assessment, however, all respiratory function ceased. She was placed on a ventilator so the medical team could investigate whether there were any confounding factors to explain her condition before making the official NDD.”

  “I assume they found no such factors?” Bodhi asked.

  Guillaume pulled a face. “They never had the chance. Her parents arranged for her to be transported to their local hospital in Port Grey, Ontario, about a half hour outside Ottawa. That’s where the determination of brain death was made. She was removed from the ventilator the next day and was buried in the family plot.”

  His words landed with a thud.

  “How did the police come to the conclusion that the woman we found was Tatiana Viant? Beyond telling us her first name she didn’t say anything. And she wasn’t carrying any identification,” Bodhi pointed out.

  “One of the social workers who went with her to the hospital recognized her. Until quite recently, he had worked at McAllen’s counseling center, and he ran grief counseling sessions for Tatiana’s roommate and friends after her death. He’d seen many pictures of her.”

  Eliza shook her head. “This is obviously a bizarre coincidence. This woman may not even really be named Tatiana. But if she is, this is a simple mix-up. She resembles a dead woman.”

  “We emailed a picture of the woman calling herself Tatiana to the hospital in Ontario and to the Port Grey Police Department. They both insist the woman you found is Tatiana Viant. It’s a difficult situation to be sure, but the police there contacted Mr. and Mrs. Viant and showed them the picture. They believe she’s their daughter. The Viants are on their way in to see this woman and to submit DNA samples for testing.”

  The unnecessary heartbreak of creating false hope in grieving parents made Bodhi’s stomach seize. Judging by Eliza’s pained expression, she felt the same way.

  “Guillaume, this is ludicrous. Tatiana Viant was buried.” Eliza’s voice was strained and shaky.

  “A casket was buried. The Viants agreed to have it exhumed.”

  “Are you going to tell us it was empty?” she demanded.

  “No, Dr. Rollins. It wasn’t empty. It was filled with sandbags.”

  Chapter Twelve

  She was gone. She was really gone. Virgil dodged the vacant-eyed, mumbling workers who trudged, stiff-legged, from the lab to the packaging room, carrying trays of pills in their outstretched hands.

  Gone.

  His heart pounded. He ran back to the front of the house and retraced his steps.

  Think.

  She’d definitely been there when he’d stopped to check on production Sunday evening. He remembered that for a fact. When he walked into the room she’d briefly raised her head from the pill mould she was filling and it almost seemed as if she recognized him.

  In the moment, he’d scoffed at himself for being ridiculous, a fool. She didn’t have the cognitive capacity to know a person. She was no more than a rudimentary android. More of a robot or trained animal than a human being.

  Now, he skidded through the halls shouting her name in the hope she might somehow know it and respond.
/>   It was no use. She wasn’t here.

  But she had to be. Where else could she be? There was nowhere for her to go. And there was no way out. He was diligent about keeping the gate and the house locked up tight. He always followed the same routine. Always.

  Unlock the entrance gate. Walk into the front yard and immediately lock the gate behind him. Unlock the front door. Let himself into the building and immediately lock the door behind him.

  After he fed the workers and filled a suitcase with the bagged pills he made sure every door and window was secure before he left the house, locked it up, and then repeated the process with the gate before driving away.

  Each step of the process was ingrained, always performed in the same order, never deviating.

  He froze in horror as he remembered his return trip to Sainte-Anne, well after midnight, with the college student. He’d left the gate unlocked while he’d dragged the man into the house. And he was almost positive he’d left the door unlocked until he’d dumped his newest worker onto the parlor floor.

  Could she have drifted out of the house and walked through the unlatched gate?

  It seemed incredible to even consider. She hadn’t been outside in eight months. She couldn’t have formed the intention to go out. And there was no way she’d survive if she’d wandered off the property.

  He grabbed the heavy-duty flashlight from the hook by the back door. He’d start in the basement and search every inch of the dilapidated structure. Then he’d comb the property and the surrounding woods.

  If he didn’t find her … He couldn’t even complete the thought. The consequences were beyond his imagination.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After dropping the bombshell news about Tatiana Viant’s casket, Guillaume walked Eliza and Bodhi through the warren of offices, introducing them to a cadre of busy employees who offered hurried greetings before returning to their work.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?” he asked. “I’ve been remiss in offering.”

  “We had more pressing matters to discuss. But, now that you mention it, I really could use a coffee,” Eliza confessed.

  “Of course. Dr. King?”

  “A glass of water would be great.”

  “I’ll show you to the kitchenette. That way, you’ll know where it is.”

  He led them past a series of storage closets to a kitchen area. It was worn and utilitarian but brightly lit and clean.

  Eliza fixed her coffee to her liking, which Bodhi noted hadn’t changed since medical school—two sugars and a splash of milk. Guillaume steeped tea. And Bodhi sipped a glass of water and thought through how he and Eliza could possibly assist the authorities. The Tatiana Viant matter was so unusual, so out of the ordinary, that there was no clear path or process to follow to investigate her cause of death—or non-death.

  “It’s not entirely clear to me what role your department needs us to play, Guillaume,” he said.

  The doctor responded with a short laugh. “It’s not clear to us either, I’m afraid. At first, I thought the timing couldn’t be worse. The symposium is an enormous undertaking. I’ve taken the entire week off work to handle the logistics of two hundred pathologists arriving to attend three days of panel discussions, lectures, and roundtable talks. But then I viewed the timing through a different lens and realized it couldn’t have been better.”

  Bodhi tilted his head. Even he, who sought to find the good in every situation, could see that having a dead woman turn up, unable to explain how she was alive or where she’d been, would create a distraction for the conference organizer.

  “Truly. I have at my disposal a panel of specialists with experience in black swan medical events. And if returning from the dead isn’t a black swan, what is?”

  “So you’ll be asking Jon and Claude to lend a hand, too?” Eliza asked.

  “No. Not yet. I may ask them, and Dr. Bechtel, too, if we decide their talents are needed.”

  “But they’re all practicing pathologists, certified by your national organizations and members of respected Canadian associations. We’re more or a less a pair of tourists who stumbled across a woman in distress on the side of the road.”

  He conceded her point with a nod. “Yes, but that’s good. Leaving aside your organic connection to the woman—after all, you did find her—the fact that you’re not associated with a province medical examiner’s office or a university pathology department or otherwise within the system is an asset.”

  “How so?” Bodhi rinsed his glass and placed it in the small dishwasher.

  Guillaume set down his mug of tea, waved his hands, and made a resigned sighing sound. “This case will quickly become a morass, I’m afraid. For instance, who has primary investigatory authority? It’s not a missing person case. It’s not a death investigation. What, if any crime, has occurred here? Then you turn to the jurisdictional questions. Tatiana Viant collapsed in Montreal. She was declared dead in Port Grey. You found her on Île d’Orléans. She’s now receiving treatment in Quebec City. Who is in charge? Do you see? If Doctors Bechtel, Malvern, and Ripple were involved, each of their institutions would also try to assert its will in the matter. And then, without fail, the lawyers would get involved. It is, as you would say, too many cooks in the kitchen.”

  Bodhi and Eliza both nodded their understanding. It seemed the universal language was neither love nor music but bureaucratic jockeying for primacy.

  He continued. “So it is much cleaner if you are the cooks, yes? The coroner can’t officially ask two Americans to step in, but we have a relationship, you and I. And you might do a favor for a colleague … unofficially.”

  “Say no more. We’ve both been around the block enough times to catch your drift,” Eliza assured him.

  “The issue that still remains is the minor detail that there’s no corpse,” Bodhi reminded them both.

  Guillaume nodded. “Perhaps you would like to visit our non-corpse in the hospital and speak to her parents when they arrive?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Eliza and Bodhi drove in silence for most of the short trip from the police department to the hospital. The sky was gray, and a light, cold rain fell, painting everything with a dismal veneer that Bodhi found to be a good match for Eliza’s mood.

  As he guided the rental vehicle up the steep entrance to a parking garage, she turned to him and voiced a thought that he suspected had been looping through her mind ever since they’d left Guillaume. “There are only two options. Either the woman we’re about to see is not Tatiana Viant or Tatiana Viant was never dead. I mean, right?” She gave a small, forced laugh.

  Bodhi took the ticket that the parking gate machine spit out. Then he eyed Eliza carefully for several long seconds before he responded. He knew his answer would add to her distress, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her.

  “I don’t know.” He pulled into a compact parking spot and killed the car’s engine.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? Of course you know. It doesn’t take a medical degree to understand that those are the only two possible explanations.”

  “You believe that’s true because it gives you the illusion that the universe is an orderly place with static rules. But it’s not.”

  She fell into step beside him and they headed toward the elevator. “How can you say that? As a trained doctor, you know you have to acknowledge certain immutable rules. Scientific principles, causes and effects.”

  “Immutable? Without exception?”

  She started to argue then cut herself off and tried a different tack. “Yes, okay, there are always exceptions. But that doesn’t mean there are no rules.”

  “Not-knowing doesn’t mean ignoring the evidence around us. It simply means we accept there are no shoulds. We aren’t limited by unquestioned beliefs. As a medical examiner, you already know this, though. Parents outlive their children. Workers fall into industrial machinery and are mangled to death. Healthy young women drink an herbal energy beverage and col
lapse. People who believe they’ve been cursed die of fright. In a universe with rules, none of these things would happen, but they do happen. Daily. And you accept that. Is it really impossible to accept that Tatiana Viant’s brain ceased functioning, her heart stopped beating, and her respiratory system shut down but she’s alive now? Because if this woman is Tatiana, then that did happen. We didn’t know that it could, but it has.”

  “Sure, brain function can return. Patients are revived every day. There’s a reason protocol calls for the medical team to rule out confounding factors before making a neurological determination of death. I get all that. But once heartsick parents make the decision to remove mechanical ventilation and a comatose young woman codes, she’s dead, Bodhi. And once her body’s handed over to a mortician and is embalmed, she’s really dead. Or does your not-knowing belief encompass the possibility of zombies roaming the earth?” She blew out a frustrated breath.

  He took note of the color rising in her cheeks, her rapid, jerky breathing, and the faint tremor in her voice and decided not to answer the question directly. “Let’s see what the Viants have to say.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Viant had not yet arrived from Port Grey when a cheerfully efficient nurse showed Bodhi and Eliza to Tatiana’s private room.

  “You have visitors,” Nurse Grace trilled as she ushered them into the room and drew open the blinds.

  Given the damp, dark day, the weak light that filtered through the window did not have its desired effect of flooding the room with sunlight, but it nonetheless caught her patient’s attention. Tatiana struggled to raise herself on her elbows and turned her unblinking eyes toward the window.

  Nurse Grace smiled her encouragement. “Isn’t that nice, Tatiana? A cleansing rain washing the city clean?”

  Bodhi had to smile himself at the nurse’s choice of lens. All situations were utterly changeable depending on what one chose to see.

  After a long moment, Tatiana shifted her attention from the rain-splattered window to Bodhi and Eliza. Her blank expression showed no hint of recognition. The nurse let herself out of the room and quietly shut the door behind her.