CHAPTER 34

Peter had flown to Ottawa for a meeting at Health and Welfare Canada, but it had only lasted a short time. It could have been done by conference call, but the minister liked to wield her powers every now and then, summoning people to the capital.

The soulwave work, of course, wasn’t the only project Hobson Monitoring was involved with. This meeting had been about the still-secret Project Indigo: a plan to produce a sensor that could categorically distinguish between an active smoker and one who had only been exposed to secondhand smoke. That way, the former could be disallowed benefits under provincial health-insurance plans for any illness caused by or exacerbated by smoking.

Anyway, with the meeting breaking up early, Peter found himself with an unexpected day to spend in Ottawa.

Ottawa was a government town, full of faceless bureaucrats. It produced nothing except documents and law, legislation and red tape. Still, it had to be a showcase for visiting world leaders — not everything could be in Toronto. Ottawa had many fine museums and galleries, a small amount of interesting shopping, the Rideau Canal (which in winter froze over, letting civil servants skate to work), and the pageantry of the changing of the guard on Parliament Hill. But Peter had seen all those things more than enough times in the past.

He asked the receptionist if there was a phone he could use, and she directed him to an unoccupied office. With government hiring freezes in their third decade, there were lots of those. The phone was an old audio-only model. Well, thought Peter, if they were going to spend tax dollars putting phones in unused offices, it was good that some restraint was being practiced. Like most Canadian executives, he knew Air Canada’s 800-number by heart. He was about to dial it to see if he could change his flight, but suddenly he found himself dialing 4-1-1 instead.

A voice said in English, “Directory assistance for what city, please?” Then the same phrase was quickly repeated in French.

“Ottawa,” said Peter. Videophones could access directory listings at the touch of a few keys, and for those who didn’t have such things, it was cheaper, and more environmentally friendly, to have free directory assistance. About half the time, one got an electronic operator, but Peter could tell by the bored slurring of the words that he’d landed a real live human today.

“Go ahead,” said the voice, realizing Peter’s language preference from the way he’d said the single word “Ottawa.”

“Do you have a listing for a Rebecca Keaton?” He spelled it.

“Nothing under that name, sir.”

Oh, well. It had been an idle thought. “Thank — ” Wait. Although now single, she’d been married for a short time years ago. What had that jerk’s name been? Hunnicut? No. “Cunningham,” said Peter. “Try Rebecca Cunningham, please.”

“I have an R. L. Cunningham on Slater.”

Rebecca Louise. “Yes, that would be it.”

The bored human voice was replaced with a perky computer, which read out the number, then added, “Press the star key to dial that number now.”

Peter hit the asterisk. He heard a medley of tones then the sound of a phone ringing. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Oh, well—

“Hello?”

“Becky?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“It’s Peter Hobson. I’m—”

“Petey! How wonderful to hear your voice. Are you in town?”

“Yes. I had a meeting this morning at Health and Welfare. It broke up early and my flight’s not till seven this evening. I didn’t even know if you’d be home, but I thought I’d give you a call.”

“I’m working Sundays through Thursdays. I’m off today.”

“Ah.”

“The famous Peter Hobson!” she said. “I saw you on The National.”

Peter chuckled. “Still the same old guy,” he said. “It’s good to hear your voice, Becky.”

“And yours, too.”

Peter felt his throat go dry. “Would you — would you be free for lunch today?”

“Oh, I’d love that. I’ve got to go by the bank this morning — in fact I was just on my way out to do that — but I could meet you, oh, gee, is eleven-thirty too soon?”

Not at all. “That would be great. Where?”

“Do you know Carlo’s on the Sparks Street Mall?”

“I can find it.”

“I’ll see you there at eleven-thirty, then.”

“Great,” said Peter. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Becky’s voice was full of warmth. “Me, too. Bye!”

“Bye.”

Peter left the little office and asked the receptionist if she knew Carlo’s. “Oh, yes,” she said, smiling mischievously. “It’s quite a singles spot in the evening.”

“I’m going there for lunch,” said Peter, feeling a need to explain himself.

“Ah, well, it’s a lot more quiet then. Good tortellini, though.”

“Can you tell me how to get there?”

“Sure. Are you driving?”

“I’ll walk if it’s not too far.”

“It’ll take about half an hour.”

“That’s no problem,” said Peter.

“I’ll draw you a little map,” she said, and proceeded to do so. Peter thanked her, took the elevator down to the lobby, and exited onto the street. The walk actually only took him twenty minutes; Peter was famous for his brisk walking speed. That meant he still had close to half an hour to kill. He found an on-demand newspaper box, fed three loonies into the machine, and waited the twenty seconds it took to print off a hardcopy of today’s Ottawa Citizen. He then made his way back to Carlo’s. It was deserted.

He asked for a table for two, was seated, and ordered black coffee. He looked around the place, trying to imagine it hopping with sweaty flesh in the evenings. He wondered if the receptionist had been pulling his leg. Still, there was a familiar face across the room: the same Molson’s cutie who adorned the wall next to the pay phones at The Bent Bishop. Peter settled into reading the paper, trying to contain his nervousness.

Heather Miller was a general practitioner with an office in the lower floor of her house. She was about forty-five, short and wide, with chestnut hair cut in a bob. Her desk was made out of a thick glass sheet supported by marble blocks. When Sandra Philo came in, Miller waved a hand, indicating she should sit in a green leather chair facing the desk. “As I said on the phone, Detective, I’m severely constrained in what I can say because of physician-patient confidentiality.”

Sandra nodded. It was the usual dance, the establishing of turf. “I understand, Doctor. The patient I wish to discuss is Rod Churchill.”

Miller waited.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but Mr. Churchill died last week.”

The doctor’s jaw dropped open. “I hadn’t heard.”

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” said Sandra. “He was found dead in his dining room. The medical examiner said it had likely been an aneurysm. I visited his house and found that you’d been treating him with Nardil, which, according to the label, means he had to watch what he ate. And yet he’d been eating take-out food before he died.”

“Damn. Damn.” She spread her arms. “I told him to be careful about what he ate, because of the phenelzine.”

“Phenelzine?”

“Nardil is a brand name of phenelzine, Detective. It’s an antidepressant.”

Sandra’s eyebrows went up. Bunny Churchill had thought both her husband’s prescriptions were for his heart condition. “An antidepressant?”

“Yes,” said Miller. “But it’s also a monoamine oxi-dase inhibitor.”

“Which means?”

“Well, the bottom line is if you’re taking phenelzine,. you have to avoid foods high in tyramine. Otherwise your blood pressure will go through the roof — a hypertensive crisis. See, when you’re taking phenelzine, tyramine builds up; it’s not metabolized. That causes vasoconstriction — a pressor effect.”

“Which means?” said Sandra again. She just loved talking to doctors.

“Well, that kind of thing could conceivably kill even a healthy young person. For someone like Rod, who had a history of cardiovascular problems, it could very likely be fatal — causing a massive stroke, a heart attack, a neurological event, or, as your medical examiner suggested, a burst aneurysm. I assume he ate the wrong thing. But I warned him about that.”