The Society

waiting room farthest from the receptionist. She was wearing a black hip-length leather jacket over dark slacks and a light blue sweater. Will couldn’t help but notice that the only ring she wore was on the third finger of her right hand.

“Dr. Grant, the crime-scene people will be here any moment to go over your office. Is there a place we can speak in private?”

“We have two empty physician’s offices. Either one would be fine.”

“You choose.”

Will led her to Susan’s consultation room, which was on the side of the suite directly opposite Gordo’s. The size and setup of the room were nearly identical to Will’s, but the modern art on the wall and extra touches Susan had added to the basic decor-curtains with a repeating Parisian street scene and a small reading table by the bookshelf-made it quite distinctively hers. Moriarity pulled one of the patients’ chairs away from the desk and motioned Will to the other. Then she flipped open a notepad and slid a government-issue pen from the wire.

“Dr. Grant,” she began, with no pleasantries or even a mention that they had met just twelve hours before, “what on earth were you thinking when you pulled that envelope out of your desk and opened it before calling me?”

Will took a few seconds to stabilize himself.

“I. . I think I was so bewildered and frightened by the call that I wasn’t really thinking straight.”

“And there was nothing about the caller’s voice that you recognized?”

“It was totally mechanical. In fact, whoever it was might have been typing the words into a computer that then read them over the phone.”

“That technology is available.”

Even when she was writing, Patty kept her eyes on Grant. Despite what she had learned of the man-his temper, his history of violence, his suspected though apparently never documented association with an explosion that had killed a man-he had a vulnerability and sensitivity about him that seemed real. She reminded herself that if sociopaths had a major, it was gentleness and genuineness-just ask those who knew charming Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy, who dressed as a clown to entertain hospitalized children. As far as she was concerned, until proven otherwise, this man was a suspect in three violent murders.

Will forced himself to remain calm as Moriarity grilled him about his whereabouts at the time each of the three managed-care executives was killed. He expected the questions-even without a phone call like the one he had just received, others in the Hippocrates Society had been interviewed-but not the icy, disbelieving tone in which they were delivered. Even with the help of his calendar, the firmest alibi he could come up with was that on the nights of two of the murders-Morales and Rising-he was on call in the hospital. Of course, he was forced to admit, with his pager he could just as easily have been outside the hospital as in. If there was an emergency requiring his immediate presence, there might have been a problem, but in most situations he could have bought some time by giving instructions to the nurses and the resident on duty. The morning of Cyrill Davenport’s execution, he was at home, trying as usual when he wasn’t on call to catch up on lost sleep.

After writing down his responses, Moriarity again took him step by step through the minutes preceding, during, and following the eerie call. She was clinical if not cold, and even the most innocent attempt on his part to inject anything light or personal was immediately stonewalled. It did not take long before the fact that she had the sort of scrubbed, earthy good looks that most appealed to him was lost in the chill of her interrogation and in the realization that she did not believe his only connection to the murderer was through the phone call.

“Dr. Grant, tell me again why you think there is more than one killer?” she asked.

Will consulted his notes and read off each time the words we or us were spoken by the caller.

“You have no idea how the killer could have gotten your private, inside line?”

“None at all. It’s not like it’s the combination to Fort Knox, though. People do have the number.”

“And you have no idea how the killer or someone associated with the killer could have gotten into your office?”

“The maintenance people in this building probably make eight-fifty an hour. It wouldn’t take much to get one of them to put the envelope in my desk. Hell, with what I earn, it wouldn’t take much to bribe me into doing it.”

“There’s nothing funny about this, Dr. Grant.”

“And there’s nothing funny about you insinuating that I might have murdered three people,” he snapped back.

“Did you?”

“No. Why would I call you about a phone call that never happened and put that envelope in my desk?”

“Crazy is its own definition, Doctor. Sooner or later, most serial killers need attention, and many of them also need to prove that they are smarter than we are. That’s when games like claiming you received a call from the killer begin.”

“I’m not crazy and I didn’t kill anyone. Should I have a lawyer here?”

“If you want one.”

At that moment, Wayne Brasco appeared at the doorway, looking like he just rode into Dodge. He was wearing jeans with a wide, hand-tooled belt, cinched with a massive silver horseshoe buckle, a suede jacket, and alligator cowboy boots. He glared first at Patty, then at Will.

“Why didn’t you call me about this?” he snapped, gesturing to the office in general.

Jesus. Patty felt herself flush at being rebuked in front of someone, let alone a suspect.

“You were out of the office when I got the call from Dr. Grant here about the alphabet letters. I felt we needed to get right down here, so I called the crime-lab people and I told Tomasetti to get a- hold of you. Didn’t he?”

Patty flashed on the notes in her shoulder bag dealing with Will Grant’s past. Originally, she had decided to keep the information to herself until she could investigate the charges in more detail and see if there was anything else on the man between the explosion in the lab at medical school and the restraining order taken out against him by his wife. Now, with the phone call and the envelope, whether real or concocted by Grant himself, things had changed. The longer she held information back from Brasco, the worse it was going to be for her.

“This Grant?” Brasco growled, pointedly ignoring her question about Tomasetti.

Patty groaned inaudibly and introduced the two men.

“Lieutenant Brasco is in charge of the investigation of the managed-care murders,” she explained, disgusted with herself for trying to mollify the jerk at all.

Brasco made no attempt to shake hands.

“So, what’s this all about?” he asked Will.

“I. . um. . I’ve been interviewing him,” Patty said evenly.

“So now I’ll interview him. That’s what officers in charge are supposed to do.”

Will looked over at Patty, embarrassed for her. He wasn’t the most socially aware being on the planet, but he certainly knew a boor when he saw one.

“I. . need to speak with you first, Wayne.”

“So, speak.”

“In private?”

They left Will in Susan Hollister’s office and found a spot in the waiting room out of earshot from the crime- scene people and the two uniformed officers who were keeping the office staff from getting in anyone’s way. Patty considered beginning on the offensive by demanding that Brasco apologize for his behavior in front of Will Grant and also by reminding him of his failure to call her from Cyrill Davenport’s place. Instead, she propped herself against the wall, extracted her notes, and ran through them. She could tell from Brasco’s hardly subtle expression that she should have brought up her research at their team meeting with Lieutenant Court. Brasco was a pigheaded brute, but he was hardly stupid.

Stick a fork in Patty, folks, it looks like she’s done, she was thinking.

“So,” Brasco said when she had finished, “let me get this straight. You uncovered this guy with a recurrent history of violence, connection to a murder committed by some sort of social-action group, and current active membership in another social-action group that just happens to hate HMOs, and you didn’t feel this information was