The Society

by Michael Palmer

  Forcing Court’s warning to the back of her mind, Patty made the twenty or so calls she had been assigned. The effort to alert all of the managed-care CEOs in the state seemed akin to trying to stop an elephant with a pop gun, but at least they would have done what they could do. The best they could hope for was that the killer’s dramatic proclamation about the piper being on the loose and needing to be paid was his way of keeping the police off balance—one of the I’m Smarter Than You Are ego games that ultimately led to the capture or death of so many like him.

  Now there was nothing more to do but sit down and analyze the tape that had been made of the killer’s call. Not surprisingly, Brasco had again managed to maneuver her out of the loop by suggesting that he and Court meet with the new profiler to pore over the recording. Patty was assigned to contact the cryptographer and, even though there were no new alphabet clues, to go over the letters they did have in light of the new information on the tape. She had a different idea, but it wasn’t one she wanted to discuss with her CO.

  She wasn’t surprised when she called Will to find him at home and anxious for company. He was openly relieved to hear that, in her mind at least, any lingering doubt about his not being connected to the killings was gone. What she didn’t share with him, but grudgingly acknowledged to herself, was that for days she had been looking for the opportunity to see him again.

  It was almost seven by the time she pulled into a parking space marked GUEST, not far from Will’s condo. On the drive over, she listened to Yo-Yo Ma’s contemplative score from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Spurred on by the horrible events of Will’s week, she found herself trying to rank some of the worst things that had ever happened to her. Certainly, her mother’s illness and death headed the list, and there were some tragedies over the years that had befallen her friends. But most of the rest, dating back to middle school, it seemed, centered about bad choices she had made in men, including last year’s follies with Jerry Parkhurst, a wildly attractive and successful mergers-and-acquisitions attorney, who lived in a stunning waterfront apartment in Charlestown.

  Parkhurst seemed like a potential keeper—a match for a lifetime—until after they had finally slept together following their fourth or fifth date, when he almost casually mentioned that in addition to his penthouse bachelor pad, he also had a sixteen-room mansion in Newton, where he lived “unhappily” with his wife and two children. That was a bad one, and would have been even more painful if she had actually fallen in love with him. But with images of the vivid imprint of her hand on the side of his face, and some tincture of time, the sleaze had become a relatively distant memory. In terms of pain, it was certainly nothing compared to what Will was going through now.

  With Jerry Parkhurst strutting through her brain like Harold Hill in The Music Man, Patty rang Will’s bell.

  “Be right down,” Will called from the window above.

  Dressed in rumpled chinos, a light-blue button-down, white socks, and slightly worn Nikes, he looked every bit like a man who had lost his medical license, was facing criminal drug and manslaughter charges, and was being harassed by a serial killer.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  Will made no attempt to mask his discouragement.

  “I can handle everything that’s happening to me,” he said, “but people aren’t being kind to my kids. That I can’t handle. Forgive me for saying it, but I really want to kill some of them.”

  “I don’t think I’d do very well at dealing with that, either.”

  Patty accepted the offer of a Diet Coke, set her tape recorder on the coffee table, and motioned that it was okay for Will to sit on the couch where they both could have access to the control buttons. The distance between them was the same as when he was on the recliner, but she knew there was something more to the sensation of having him sitting there. In her head, Jerry Parkhurst and Jack Court were engaged in some sort of heated discussion that she decided not to try to overhear.

  “Let’s start by listening to the whole conversation with no interruptions,” she suggested. “Then we’ll play it again and again if necessary until we both feel we’ve squeezed every ounce of juice from it.”

  It was the fifth time Patty had listened to the eerie exchange. While the gender of the caller was electronically obscured, the cadence and choice of words made her almost certain it was a man.

  “Do you think he’s going to kill someone tonight?” Will asked as she clicked off the tape and rewound it for another pass.

  “I’m hoping, praying, he’s just jerking our chain,” she replied. “Toying with us.”

  “He doesn’t seem like the toying type to me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know—maybe because this is a vendetta—anger but with a point to be made, and maybe a demand somewhere down the road. This person—these people if you believe all those references to we—is avenging the loss of someone they loved.”

  “I see your point, but what about the letters? Aren’t they some sort of game?”

  “I don’t know. Dramatic effect, maybe. Maybe the killer expected the press would glom on to the letter thing right away, and the publicity and speculation would go through the roof. People, the National Enquirer, Larry King—the works.”

  “You think they’re going to spell the mother’s name?”

  “That would be my first guess if it didn’t seem so obvious and didn’t point directly at the killer.”

  “Well, I hope you’re wrong about him being totally serious, Will. Because if this guy kills again, he gets two for one.”

  “Explain.”

  “My CO has made it clear that unless we produce a break, and soon, the team on this case is going to be revamped. He neglected to say, ‘Starting with Moriarity,’ but he didn’t have to.”

  “In that case, let’s listen to that tape again,” Will said. “The guy keeps saying ‘us.’ Let’s see if we can convince ourselves once and for all that there are more than one of them. Then maybe we can get a pen and some paper and see if we can come up with any other hints.”

  “I really appreciate your help with this,” Patty said, “especially with all you’re going through yourself.”

  “I need to get my mind off my own stuff.”

  Without either of them orchestrating things, Patty slid a few inches closer, and Will gently lowered his arm down around her waist. She hesitated, then set her head on his shoulder. For a time, neither of them moved.

  “Do you think we’re just making our bad situations worse?” she asked.

  Will stroked her hair.

  “Not from where I’m sitting,” he said.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Careful there, Jennifer. Handle that suction with care and never, ever forget, that’s brain you’re suckin’ on.”

  “Yes, sir,” the med student said grimly.

  To keep the nervous tremor in her hands at bay, she braced them against the patient’s skull.

  Standing across the table in OR 4 of Boston’s prestigious White Memorial Hospital, Richard Leaf noted the protective maneuver and smiled beneath his mask. The kid, a Harvard senior, was bright and witty and had a better than decent body. Now he could see that she was resourceful, as well. The potential for something interesting was very much there. He could tell from the way she had been looking at him on morning rounds since she started her neurosurgical rotation. He had Tuesday free next week and his wife had a board meeting scheduled at some society foundation or other. Maybe something could be set up for then. Tonight, though, he had another fish to fry—a fish by the name of Kristin O’Neill. His mouth grew dry at the prospect.

  “Be gentle, there, Jen. That’s it. That’s it. You’re doing great. We’re almost done.”

  It had been a tricky piece of surgery, but the patient’s cancer, a low-grade malignant astrocytoma, was gone. In all likelihood it would be cured after a course of radiation and chemo.

  The legend grows, Leaf was thinking. The legend grows.

>   “Take over, Jeff,” Leaf said to his resident. “Let Jennifer help as much with the closure as you feel comfortable with. You’ve all done a terrific job. Thank you. Thank you all very much.”

  He stepped back from the table to allow the resident to take his place, then dramatically stripped off his gown and gloves and strode out of the OR, reveling in the gazes he knew were fixed on him.

  Leaf was as talented a surgeon as he was flamboyant, and as handsome as he was talented. From his earliest days of awareness in grammar school, he knew he was special. Through his years as class president and all-state athlete, he had come to know that he was destined to do great things. Now, at forty-five, wealthy by most people’s standards and world renowned for his skill as a neurosurgeon, his remarkable life was becoming even more so.

  Hub Health Care, the HMO he and three other physicians had started just six years ago, was on the verge of making a public offering. The moment the stock went public, Richard Leaf would instantly go from wealthy to rich. Hub Health’s money people were estimating that, for starters, each of the founders would increase his net worth by thirty to forty million—and that was a lowball projection.

  Leaf showered. Then, breathing deeply just to keep himself in check over what his life held in store, he entered the busy main corridor of the hospital and headed for his office. Just two days ago, in about this very spot, he was leaving the OR when he literally collided with the library cart being pushed by Kristin O’Neill. Nothing—not the ugly salmon-colored volunteer’s jacket, not her conservative skirt and loose-fitting blouse, not the barrettes with which she controlled her reddish-blond hair, not her wire-rimmed glasses—could negate her natural beauty. As she presented herself, there were some who might pass her by without even noticing how rarely fine her features were, how sensual her movements, or how incredibly full her breasts, especially compared to her narrow waist. But that group would certainly not include Richard Leaf.

  She was in her twenties and wore no wedding ring—no jewelry of any kind, in fact; not that adornment was needed on this woman. By the time they had laughed over the incident and had spoken a bit, she had accepted Richard’s invitation to coffee. His fantasies at that moment would have put a July Fourth fireworks display to shame. Over coffee he learned that she was home in Boston helping to care for her invalid mother while taking some time from a Hollywood acting career that was about to break through. The idea for her to do some volunteer work at the hospital had come from her mother, who had been a salmon-coated information lady for years before her diabetes and kidney failure made it impossible to continue.

  By the time he had handed a twenty to the waitress for their six-dollar bill and waved off receiving any change, a rendezvous had been set at the Scandinavian Motor Inn south of the city. With Kristin’s gaze threatening to set his white coat on fire, Leaf went through information to call the manager of the hotel and book a room.

  “It sounds like you do this often,” she said, her expression suggesting she might be even more intrigued if that were true.

  “No way,” Leaf lied, unwilling to take any chances. “Taking out people’s brain tumors is my style. It just so happens that Maury Gross, the manager, is a former patient of mine. A few years ago he had a tumor the size of a golf ball. Couldn’t walk. Had trouble speaking. Now he runs and does the Sunday Times crossword in ink.”

  “It must be really wonderful to be able to cure someone of cancer,” she sighed.

  Eyes closed, Leaf stretched out on the king-size bed in room 181 of the Scandinavian Motor Inn and imagined what it would be like to see Kristin O’Neill ease open the door and step inside. The woman was perfect in every respect—and an actress to boot. It would be really something to have slept with her and then to have her become a big star. She had the looks, so it certainly seemed possible. He checked the time and then took the painkiller-and-tranquilizer combination that experience had taught would keep him from coming too soon.

  The room was candlelit in exactly the way it had been for the other trysts he had arranged there. Champagne was chilling in a silver ice bucket on the desk. Velvety-voiced Morgana King was singing “A Taste of Honey” on his CD player. On the bureau, sandalwood incense was smoldering alongside an envelope containing a couple of tabs of ecstasy, just in case Kristin wanted it at some point. He surely didn’t need anything, even ecstasy. Of all the women he had ever slept with, this one was possibly the hottest. His marriage wasn’t in any trouble, and Cindy was certainly decent enough in bed, but she wasn’t nearly enough. John Kennedy had been quoted as saying that he got a terrible headache unless he had a woman every other day—or maybe it was every third? No matter. Kennedy was a remarkable, powerful man, and so was Richard Leaf. And for Kennedy, even Jackie wasn’t enough.

  Leaf slipped his hand down his boxer briefs and gently massaged himself while he waited. Time passed, during which he thought about the night ahead but also reflected on the incredibly rapid rise of Hub Health. Exclusion was the key, he had told his partners when they were first starting out—careful screening of applicants and their lab work, and rejection for any reason of those likely to cost Hub significant sums in the short or long haul. Preexisting condition was their watchword. The finance people had told him that Hub stock absolutely couldn’t miss, and he was going to have a bundle of it.

  At precisely the time they had agreed upon, there was a light knock on the door. Leaf’s lingering fear that the young beauty might not show instantly evaporated.

  “Come in, it’s open,” he said, trying for a cadence and tone of voice that was something of a cross between Bill Clinton and Sting.

  The door swung open. A man slipped into the room and closed the door quickly behind him. He was wearing a black motorcycle jacket and a baseball cap with the brim pulled low enough to obscure his eyes, and he was carrying a small orange pillow.

  Leaf, hardened against panic by years in the neurosurgical OR and convinced that, whatever the situation, money could cure it, glared at the intruder.

  “What the fuck is this? Where’s Kristin?”

  “Kristin is back where I found her, turning tricks for rich, horny men like you.”

  “So what is this, some sort of shakedown? How much do you want? Take what’s in my wallet, then get the fuck out of here.”

  “What this is, you self-centered jerk, is payback time.”

  “Wait . . . do I know you?”

  The man merely shook his head.

  “You do now,” he said. “That’s for sure, and I don’t think you’ll ever forget me.”

  Calmly, he withdrew a pistol from his waistband and jammed it into the pillow.

  “No! Please, wait. I can pay you anything—anything y—”

  The three rapid shots, from eight feet, were deadly accurate. Heart, throat, forehead—straight up the line.

  Leaf saw the hole materialize in the pillow and felt the scalding heat of the shots as they entered his body. But slumped back against the bloody pillow, his head twisted grotesquely to one side, he never saw the man extract a plain white business envelope and carefully set it beneath the palm of his right hand.

  CHAPTER 17

  EXCELSIUS HEALTH CANCER CENTER

  Cancer. The word, while carved into the granite archway identically to the other three words, and highlighted in gold like the others, stood out as if the others did not exist. In spite of herself, Grace Peng Davis paused on the sidewalk and stared up at the letters through a raw drizzle.

  Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me. Well, she thought viciously, this one can.

  It was Grace’s first day of chemotherapy for the cancerous nodule that Susan Hollister had removed from her breast. Dr. Max D’Antonio, the oncologist, had assured her that there was really no rush to begin the treatments, but both she and her husband wanted the tumor out and gone and any remaining vagabond cells blasted with poison as soon as was possible. IV Adriamycin and Cytoxan every three weeks, Dr. D’Antonio had told them—two
drugs that were toxic to every cell in the body, but more so to those that were rapid multipliers, especially cancer cells. In between visits to the clinic, she would be taking oral medication, as well.

  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

  Courage to change the things I can,

  And the wisdom to know the difference.

  Grace had been exposed to the Serenity Prayer at her first AA meeting more than a decade ago but had never paid it more than lip service until, with Dr. Will Grant’s help, she finally connected with people who helped her get honest with herself about her alcoholism. Now, although her life was in remarkable order, it wasn’t unusual for her to recite the prayer to herself every ten minutes when she needed to get through difficult situations.

  God grant me the serenity . . .

  Mark Davis took his wife’s arm and guided her into the building.

  “You’re doing great,” he whispered.

  They both knew how fearful she was and always had been of doctors and hospitals. And although the cancer center was a glittering, modern outpatient clinic, with comfortable furniture and dazzling artwork on the walls, it was more of a hospital than she would ever care to see.

  Only Mark would ever fully appreciate how anxious she had been about having her surgery done by a doctor she didn’t even know. It was such a blessing that day to have run into Dr. Grant the way they did, and later such a terrible blow to learn that his license had been suspended because of drugs. But Dr. Hollister had helped soften the blow by being kind and patient with both Grace and Mark, and best of all, she unabashedly supported Dr. Grant’s claim that he was innocent.

  The receptionist, a prim young Hispanic woman with Carla on her name tag, greeted her warmly, then handed her a clipboard with some forms attached.

  “I already filled these out,” Grace said, “when I came here to meet Dr. D’Antonio.”