“I’ve unearthed some information about the victims,” she risked saying, knowing that staying on the case after Court had removed her would be grounds for a suspension, if not worse. “Something’s wrong. I think this is a trap. The killers want to punish you and Wayne for messing with them like this.”
Court, dressed like the others, was wearing earphones.
“Moriarity, you are a total screwup,” he said, “and furthermore, you’ve been mucking about on a case that I specifically removed you from.”
“I had to finish some things I had started.”
“Bullshit! You’ll answer to me tomorrow at the office. Now just stay here out of the way until this thing plays itself out.”
“But—”
He had already started off, moving smoothly and silently through the trees toward the water. Patty hesitated, then followed. Fired for a penny, fired for a pound, she was thinking. Ten yards from the shore, just inside the tree line, Court dropped to one knee, adjusting his earphones as if something was coming in for the first time. Patty inched toward him. She was no good to anyone if he wouldn’t listen to her, and she had no chance of being listened to if she didn’t try.
“Lieutenant?”
Court’s glare would have cut glass. He lifted one earphone an inch.
“What is it with you? I told you to—”
“Lieutenant, I really need to speak with you. I went through Ben Morales’s office and—”
“Shut up, it’s him!” Court hissed. “Brasco’s wearing a wire. He’s talking to the bastard right now.”
Patty moved back into the densest shadows, six feet to Court’s left. Did he mean the killer was there at the waterfront? If so, she was wrong about everything. The killers weren’t shrewd at all, and the only misdirection and mayhem that was going on was between her ears, in which case she and the help-wanted sections were about to become serious friends. Five silent minutes passed. Finally, Court turned to her.
“We’ve got him,” he whispered, his tone an equal mix of excitement and triumph. “He’s coming in.”
“In from where?”
“It’s not clear. He left a two-way radio on the beach for Grant.”
“When did he do that if your people have been here?”
“I don’t know. Must have been before the SWAT guys infiltrated the area. Fortunately, we predicted he might do something like that. Our technicians brought the VDS here and hooked it up. Brasco just spoke to him through it.”
“And what did the killer say?”
“He ordered Brasco—I mean Grant—to take the radio, go up to the center of the balcony off the second floor, and wait for instructions.”
“Why the—”
“Shit, there’s no way he can get the VDS mike up there. Brasco’ll just have to wing it.”
“What makes you think the killer’s coming in?”
“He said so. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting you, Dr. Grant.’ That’s what he said. Now, just shut the F up, will you?”
A chill knifed up Patty’s spine. She wasn’t wrong after all. Brasco and Court were outmatched—way outmatched. Either this was going to be a Godzilla-size joke at their expense, no harm done, or Wayne Brasco was a dead man.
With Jack Court focused on the rec hall, she edged further away from him to the right, dropped to her hands and knees, and began a silent crawl toward the water. In moments she was at the tree line, facing a sandy beach that was eight or ten feet across. The wind had died off, and the thin mist was gone. The lake was an ebony mirror. Overhead, Patty thought she saw moonlight filtering through a rent in the clouds.
Was he out there in a boat, she wondered? That made no sense. Escape would be impossible if, as was the case, “Will Grant” had ignored his demand to come to Camp Sunshine alone. SCUBA gear? Elaborate and James Bondish, but risky. Could he be somewhere on land nearby, right now, right here in the camp, thumbing his nose at a legion of highly trained police, setting up for a close-in shot? Insane. There was no way the killers she was coming to know would put themselves in that kind of jeopardy. What about explosives? The fatal blast at 3 Serenity Lane was an expert job. Could the rec hall be wired? Wired and waiting to go up like a giant tinderbox? Noisy, colorful, and undeniably effective, she thought, but really not that much of a challenge, and open to discovery if the police took precautions. Still, what other options were there? A big bang—that had to be it. Bend over, you fraud, put your head between your legs, and kiss your dumb butt good-bye.
To her left, perhaps fifteen yards away, Patty could see Brasco making his way to the side of the building and up the outside set of stairs to the second-story porch, which ran the full length of the building. She imagined him getting edgy, maybe panicking, as he thought about trying to improvise without the VDS.
Why the second story? Was the killer waiting inside the building? No chance, unless he actually believed it was Will waiting for him, and waiting alone.
This is very weird, she thought. Why the second story?
Patty inched out so that she could see Brasco, positioned midway across the porch, staring out like a sea captain searching for land. The gap in the clouds had widened, and moonlight was now pouring through, sparkling off the still water and illuminating the far shore.
The far shore.
Carefully, Patty rose to her feet. Brasco was motionless—a dark statue, silhouetted against the brightening sky.
Motionless . . .
Patty panned across the lake. The far shore seemed closer now than she had estimated from the scattered lights—closer even than she remembered. With the right weapon and the right sniper scope in the right hands, Wayne Brasco was nothing much more than a target in a shooting gallery. Granted, a successful head shot at this distance would be Olympian, but any number of rifles, tripod-mounted and fired by someone who knew the physics of long-distance shooting, could pull it off. That was why the killer had picked this spot and why Brasco had been so meticulously set up. A single shot.
Patty squinted as she scanned the far shore. Her imagination visualized the man she suddenly felt certain was out there, grinning as he tightened the bolts holding his Galil or L42A1 in place, or peering through the infrared scope on his FN 30–11.
The CEOs were dead—two or three that mattered, one or two that probably didn’t. The mergers, forged in the heat of their blood, were nearly complete. So much misdirection. And now the killer was playing the police like marionettes, sowing the seeds of chaos as he prepared for what was probably going to be his last kill, at least for this operation—the exclamation point on the managed-care murders.
Barely aware of what she was doing, and well beyond considering the consequences of her act, Patty broke past the line of trees and onto the beach, sprinting toward the stairs Brasco had ascended to the porch.
“Brasco, down!” she shouted. “It’s a trap. Get down!”
Totally bewildered, Brasco stood riveted in place as Patty took the wooden stairs two at a time.
“Get down!” she heard herself scream again.
She was just a few feet away when she saw a bright light flash in the darkness across the water. Launching herself at Brasco’s midsection, Patty slammed him backward against the railing at the instant a bullet ripped through her scalp and gouged the bone just above her right ear. The two detectives, one totally stunned, the other barely conscious, exploded through the dry, weakened wood and arced downward, twisting in the air so that when they landed on a rocky corner of the beach, Brasco’s full weight was on top. Patty’s head snapped against a boulder, cracking the already weakened bone in her skull. Instantly, what little awareness she had left was replaced by a deep, impenetrable darkness.
In slow motion, Patty’s rag-doll body toppled off the rock and came to rest facedown in the wet, pebbly sand.
CHAPTER 27
It was two-thirty in the morning before Augie Micelli stopped celebrating his coup with a wide variety of spirits and lurched off to bed. By that time, Will had pulle
d out the sofa bed and tucked in a rumpled pair of forest-green sheets printed with an armada of mallards. For the past hour he had more or less been a detached observer of the battle between his need for sleep and his desire to share the moment with Micelli. Of course, the moment he finally killed the lights and settled onto the wafer-thin pullout mattress, he became unable to sleep.
With the aromas of Micelli’s alcohol and cigars hanging heavy in the air, Will lay in the darkness, wondering why he hadn’t heard from Patty. He had left a message on her machine trumpeting the find in the ER and asking her to call anytime to share the good news and to explain why he was spending the night with the Law Doctor.
Competing with his concerns for Patty were thoughts about what the day ahead held in store. From the moment he spotted Will’s clothing bag, Micelli had been on his cell phone, wheeling and dealing. He was now optimistic that preliminary results of the analysis of Will’s sneaker insoles might be performed as early as noon. Calls to Sid Silverman and Tom Lemm had brought their promises that if the Chuck Taylors tested positive for any amount of fentanyl, they would immediately urge the Board of Registration to restore Will’s license and would then reinstate him at the hospital and in the Society as soon afterward as possible.
While Micelli was making his rapid-fire volley of calls, Will made two—the unsuccessful attempt to reach Patty and a call to Jim Katz. The older surgeon’s relief was almost palpable. If the killer was true to his promise, he would be off the hook. After that, only time would tell whether or not his frangible relationship with Will could heal.
Beyond Patty and the vast implications of the overlooked clothing bag, Will wondered about Charles Newcomber and how the odd little radiologist would handle a visit from both him and Susan Hollister. Images of the radiologist—red-faced, terrified, trembling, and perilously close to firing a bullet into Will’s chest—brought a fist-size knot to his gut. Susan was as calm and elegant as he was emotional, and if anyone could break through Newcomber’s bizarre paranoia, it was she—especially armed with a notarized release from Grace Davis. Still, dealing with the man would be a test.
Will rolled from his back to his side and finally felt the beginnings of sleep settling in. For a time, the blue plastic clothing bag floated through his thoughts like the Goodyear blimp. Then, quite strangely, he envisioned himself as he would from the dirigible, lying in the bed in the ICU, an endotracheal tube connecting his lungs to a ventilator. It was a sickening vision, but symbolically the scene marked the beginning of the hell he had been through, and envisioning it now, so soon after Augie’s incredible find in the ER supply closet, meant that he had begun the journey back to reclaim his life.
Finally . . . finally . . .
As his breathing slowed, and the tension in his neck and shoulders abated, two words echoed in the darkness in his mind: Who? . . . and Why? . . .
Where could she be? . . . What’s happened to her? . . .
Will awoke the way he had drifted off—bewildered by a torrent of questions. By the time he left Micelli’s apartment to pick up Susan, he was consumed with fear for Patty. She knew where he was staying. Something had to have happened to her last night or she would have contacted him. Worse still, there was no obvious way he could find out if his concerns were founded. Phoning her office got him only an answering service. He left a message for her and then one for Wayne Brasco, as well, feeling that the man now in charge of the managed-care murders would return any call from him.
Will pulled into the lot behind his office, a captive of worry and his own wild imagination. Was there anything else he could do to locate her? What kind of danger did she feel he was in last night? Had it passed? Was it safe for him to go back to his condo? Had she been in danger, too? Would she be angry with him if he tried to call her father?
Susan, looking the total professional in a conservative charcoal-gray suit, kept her phone pressed against her ear and her conversation going as she motioned him to the chair across the desk from her.
“Well, thanks again,” she was saying. “I really never expected to enjoy The Boss as much as I did. It was just great. We’ll talk later, okay? Bye.”
The breathless way she said the last word left no doubt in Will’s mind that she was talking to someone special to her.
“So, you’re a new Springsteen fan.”
“I want him to think so,” she replied, gesturing to the phone, “but if I had just one last concert I could go to, I’d still take Cecilia Bartoli or Yo-Yo Ma.”
“Let’s hope you don’t have to make that choice for a long time.”
“Amen to that. Well, the hospital lawyer stopped by and left a notarized authorization she went and got last night from Grace Davis, so we’re all set.”
“Amen to that.”
“Are you all right?”
“Why?”
“Well, we’re partners and I’ve seen you almost every day for years and you always look exhausted. Don’t take this wrong, now, but today the bags under your eyes are baggier and the droop of your lids are droopier, and you nicked yourself shaving, which you almost never do, and—”
“Okay, okay, enough. The truth is, last night was a real emotional roller coaster that ended at around three or four o’clock this morning with me sleeping on a pullout in the Law Doctor’s living room.”
“The Law Doctor! Will, I forgot to ask. Did anything good come of last night?”
“Well,” he said, dragging out the word and managing a self-effacing grin. “I think you could say that.”
“Yes!” Susan exclaimed, pumping her fist.
Will hurried through the events surrounding the clothing bag. Susan’s expression was one of amazement and excitement.
“Incredible,” she said. “D’you think the insoles will be positive for fentanyl?”
“I don’t want to even consider the possibility that they won’t.”
“Me, neither. So, did you drink too much last night? Is that why you ended up on the couch?”
Will hesitated, then checked his watch. They had half an hour. He hadn’t really spoken to anyone about his connection with Patty, but suddenly he wanted to. And Susan, who had supported him in the Society and worried about his isolation and long work hours like a protective sister, was the perfect person on whom to unburden.
“You know Patty Moriarity, the detective?”
“Very cute, very serious, carries a gun.”
“Well, she and I have begun . . . um . . . seeing each other.”
“Aha! You know, when she was hanging around here interviewing everyone, I actually thought in passing that she looked and sounded like an interesting match for you. The gun turned me off, though.”
“I’m a little embarrassed to say it, but even though at first the notion of it made me edgy, recently it’s actually begun to sort of turn me on.”
“I thought you said Newcomber’s gun scared you half to death.”
“Correction. Newcomber scared me half to death. Having him standing there like an apoplectic frog, his hands trembling as he held a gun on me, merely came close to completing the job.”
“Well, I’m happy for you. You’re going through tough times, and having someone has got to help.”
“It would, only she seems to have disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“She left a message with Augie Micelli that I was in danger and should stay with him last night, then she never got back to me.”
“I don’t know,” Susan said. “I wouldn’t worry too much. Police are always going on stakeouts and clandestine operations and such and—”
“Ah no, young sir. You are too simple. You might have said a great many things about this proboscis of mine. Mon dieu, why waste your opportunity.”
The bellowing was coming from the waiting room.
“. . . For example, thus: Aggressive: Sir, if that nose were mine I’d have it amputated on the spot! . . .”
There was no question the voice was Gordo’s, yet it wasn’t.
“. . . Friendly: How do you drink with such a nose. You ought to have a cup made specially. . . .”
Will and Susan hurried through her office door and down the hall to the waiting room entrance.
“. . . The descriptive: ’Tis a rock, a crag, a cape! . . .”
Cameron, gleaming epee in hand, darted about the deserted waiting room with surprising grace, furiously fencing against an invisible adversary. He was sartorially quite subdued this day—tan slacks, white dress shirt, sedate suspenders, blue tie. A navy blazer lay over one of the chairs.
“. . . A cape? Nay! Say rather a peninsula. The curious: What is that receptacle—a razor case or a portfolio? . . .”
Amused and astounded as much by Cameron’s deftness with the sword as the recital, itself, his two partners stood by the wall, arms folded, and watched.
“. . . The kindly: Ah, do you love the little birds so much that when they come to sing to you, you give them this perch to sit on?”
Cameron noticed them and lowered his sword, his head tilted back haughtily.
“Cyrano?” Will asked.
“Very good, lad,” Cameron replied, his brogue now returned, richer than ever. “Believe it or not, I’ve won the role of de Bergerac in my local community theater’s upcoming production.”
“That’s wonderful, Gordo,” Susan exclaimed. “Cyrano de Bergerac is a marvelous play.”
“Yes, bravo,” Will said. “You surely seem to have the skill and the voice. But wasn’t Cyrano . . . um . . . I mean, wasn’t he . . .”
“Thin?” Cameron said, instantaneously changing his accent from Robert Burns to Olivier. “I, sir, am the consummate actor. I can do British, I can do French—bonjour, mademoiselle et monsieur. I can do German—I vas only following orders. I can do Confederate—frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn. And by God, I CAN DO THIN!”
He switched accents facilely as he spoke and was right on with each of them. Will suddenly remembered a number of times over the years when Gordo had regaled a cocktail party with stories requiring accents and even impressions. The man was good.
The Society Page 28