Rue signed out a department stealth SUV, and we traveled together to the nursing home to tell an elderly woman that her son had been murdered. I let Rue do the talking, melting into the background.
Delivering bad news to families was the worst part of the job. It had a strange effect on me, one Rue had noticed but never questioned. The instant that loved ones heard about their loss and broke down in tears, something toxic pooled in my gut. That poison, once released, was accompanied by a low-grade anger that stuck to my ribs and clotted my arteries. The anger wasn’t directed at the grieving families but at my absent mother, who hadn’t bothered contacting me in over sixteen years. Not that I wanted her to. In fact, if she ever deigned to pick up the phone, I would likely hang up. If I ran into her at the supermarket, I would turn and walk the other way.
Rooted in childhood trauma, the anger often surfaced when I faced situations where I was forced to witness somethingI’d missed out on. Unconditional love. Watching families who cared, who grieved, who cried for lost sons or daughters, only reminded me I had no one of flesh and blood who would do the same if I ended up a victim.
The elderly woman in the wheelchair didn’t cry when Rue broke the news about her son. She held a trembling hand to her mouth and continuously shook her head as though in disbelief. An orderly offered to find the woman tea as Rue asked a few meaningful questions. Unfortunately, Navid Kordestani’s mother had been estranged from her son for many years, so she wasn’t much help when it came to collecting details about his life.
As we left the building, I glanced back, witnessing the first signs of grief. The orderly offered the elderly woman a tissue, and she dabbed her watery eyes. Would my mother cry if a random detective told her I’d been murdered? I suspected not.
Our visit was short and perfunctory. Within twenty minutes, we headed to the hospital. The radio chirped incessantly with calls for the traffic cops in the city, so Rue turned down the volume. The calls didn’t pertain to us.
In the silence that followed, as we waited at traffic lights and weaved between morning commuters, I thought of Dominique. I replayed our conversation from the parking lot, wincing at the desperation I’d felt. Had he seen through me? Was his acquiescence a form of placation?
Rue parked in the emergency lot, a space reserved for the PD, and we headed inside. Despite the absence of uniforms, our matching OPD parkas and utility belts identified us as cops. Ottawa didn’t have a large division of detectives, so the handful of us who worked in homicide or other specialized sectors often shared resources with the regular crowd of constables.
Unexplained deaths were quickly divided into three categories upon discovery. Those seemingly accidental or natural deathswere allocated to standard PD. Those that were obvious homicides came to us, or another pair of detectives working under our specialization. The third category was the unknown. If there was ever a question or doubt as to what sort of death we were dealing with, homicide got the pleasure.
On occasion, first impressions were wrong. An autopsy would discover something unnatural about a seemingly natural or accidental death, and the regular PD involved would pass the case to us.
The emergency room waiting area ebbed and flowed. Over half the seats were occupied by the sick or injured. Scrub-clad nurses carried clipboards and called names from behind face masks. People shuffled into the examination area to be evaluated. Other patients exited the same area with prescription papers in hand, often leaning on the arm of a companion. Babies cried. Children whined. Aged men snoozed and snored and drooled, leaning against women with drawn faces bleached of color and happiness.
The line for triage was easily twenty people deep.
The coughing, moaning, and wheezing soundtrack sent shivers up my arms, and I wanted to grab a disposable face mask from the box by the door, but Rue was on a mission, and I rushed to keep up.
We bypassed the triage line, and my partner inquired if someone was available to talk to us about Dr. Kordestani.
Standing back, I didn’t hear the exchange, but when the reception nurse’s face fell, I knew that Rue had disclosed his untimely death.
We were given directions to a cramped breakroom and told someone would be with us shortly.
Niomi Allard, a Black middle-aged nurse in pink scrubs, met with us ten minutes later. Her tightly coiled hair was pulled off her face in a bun, but several frizzy strands stood out along herhairline. Her drawn features suggested she’d been informed of Navid’s death.
Niomi spoke English with a thick French accent. Being so close to Quebec, Ottawa was a bilingual city with as many first-language French-speaking residents as English. It was common to shift from one to the next, depending on who you spoke with or where in the city you were.
“I heard what happened to Navid. Please tell me it’s not true.”
“I’m afraid it is.” Rue motioned to the tattered couch, indicating Niomi should take a seat.
Niomi tipped her head to the ceiling and crossed herself, uttering French words of prayer under her breath. She collapsed onto the breakroom couch, a dated corduroy piece with wales worn smooth in places, and let out a long, tired sigh.
Without delay, she kicked off her runners. “Do you mind? If I have a second to let my feet breathe, I take it. They’re confined to those damnable things for fourteen or more hours a day. It feels good to let them out.”
I smothered a smile.
“By all means, Ms. Allard. We won’t take too much of your time.” Rue sat on a chair opposite, putting herself at the nurse’s level. “Were you and Dr. Kordestani well acquainted?”
Since there was nowhere else to sit, I leaned against a line of dinted half-size lockers, aiming for a casual stance that wouldn’t intimidate.
Niomi eyed me once but focused on Rue. “We were not friends, but I have worked with Navid for over a decade.”
“What can you tell us about him?”
Niomi didn’t seem to understand and peered helplessly at my partner. “I don’t know. He’s…” She shrugged, throwing her hands wide. “I didn’t spend time with him outside of work.”
“Do you know who he might have spent time with? Did he have a girlfriend? Buddies?”
“No girlfriend that I know of.”
