The Society

The Morales home, on a quiet, unostentatious street, had a well-groomed front lawn that today featured a bicycle with training wheels lying on its side. Patty had met both of Morales’s young daughters and felt as ill today thinking about what life held in store for them as she had during that initial investigation. Morales’s wife, Wendy, opened the front door before Patty had reached it. She was a trim, fair-skinned blonde who seemed to have aged years in the two months since her husband’s death. She served Patty some tea and willingly answered her questions.

“Does the name Clementine mean anything at all to you?”

“Nothing.”

“How about Marcia Rising?”

“Still no bells. After you called and asked about her, I looked for her name when I cleaned out Ben’s desk at work, then again when I went through his study upstairs. There was nothing.”

Wendy was maintaining her composure, but Patty could see the inestimable pain in her eyes.

“Are you all right to do this?” Patty asked.

“There really is nothing left for me from all this except to help find Ben’s killer.”

“I appreciate that. Okay, how about Dr. Richard Leaf?”

“The latest victim. From what I read in the paper this morning and heard on the news, he’s not a man I would care to know.”

“Me, either.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever read his name or heard Ben mention him, but I didn’t look through all the boxes again after Ben was-after he was killed.”

“Are those boxes still here?”

“Upstairs. It’s fine with me if you want to look through them.”

“I do. How about Cyrill Davenport?”

Wendy shook her head.

“The truth is, I was crying a lot going through Ben’s things, and I don’t think my concentration was really all that good.”

“I understand.”

“If you don’t mind working in his study, I can set you up there. Our nanny is away, but I’ll do my best to keep the girls out of your hair.”

“They won’t bother me.”

“I still can’t believe this, I just can’t. Civic organizations loved him; business organizations honored him.” Her eyes moistened. “Do you know much about him?”

“What you told me when I first was investigating his-his death, and also from interviews I did at his business.”

“He was born in absolute poverty in Mexico.”

“I do know that.”

“And do you know that his company’s worth more than doubled in each of the five years he was the CEO?”

“He sounds like quite a guy.”

As Patty trudged up the carpeted stairs, she suddenly felt a consuming fatigue take hold. This whole investigation had felt like one step forward, two steps back. Now, here she was, all the way back to the beginning.

“Here you go,” Wendy said, gesturing to the carpeted floor in a richly paneled study.

Patty looked inside the room and deflated even more. There were five good-size cartons piled with files and papers that looked as if they had been tossed in randomly. Reflexively, she assessed the situation. Time to completely examine the material: hours. Chances of coming up with anything significant: zero or close to it. End of assessment.

Later, Wendy. I think I’ll come back another time to do this.

The words were midway from her brain to her lips when she heard her voice saying, “Thanks. If I need anything, I’ll yell.”

Cursing herself for not simply backing off and letting Brasco make a fool or a hero of himself, she settled into Ben Morales’s soft leather high-backed chair and began. An hour passed with one carton done and most of a second. Outside, the afternoon light had begun to fade. Morales’s papers were mostly dry and technical and gave little feel for the man who had guided Premier Care to a very solid place in a fiercely competitive industry.

Near the bottom of the second carton, thick with bound legal documents and loose sheets, was a cardboard file pocket with the word Merger written in pencil in the upper right corner of one side. Her curiosity suddenly yanked from the doldrums, Patty dumped the contents of the file onto Morales’s empty desktop and started with the first sheet, a memo to Morales written in a flourished hand on plain white typing paper. It was dated six months ago.

Dear Ben,

I was very pleased to hear from you and to learn that, although you have reservations, you are at least willing to allow us to present the benefits to all of us from bringing our companies together. Responses from the others we have polled have been quite encouraging, but I feel that the inclusion of Premier Care would be the boost that really gets the project rolling. Ultimately, I feel certain a merger would be to the good of all. Let’s meet in the next week or two to share our feelings on this matter. After that, if we are in agreement, we can involve the lawyers and bankers and begin to tinker with possible formulas for stock disbursal.

Warmest regards,

Boyd

Boyd! It had to be Boyd Halliday. The Faneuil Hall debate where Patty had first laid eyes on Will and Boyd Halliday seemed eons ago. Will had come across that night as earnest, intelligent, humorous, and self-effacing; Halliday as brilliant, intense, droll, and urbane. The fact that Patty had a long-standing personal bias against the profit-motivated HMOs probably affected her overall negative impression of Halliday, although Will’s unassuming good looks may have had something to do with that, as well.

The legal reports seemed to be repeated attempts on the part of several different merger-and-acquisition experts to devise a formula for assigning stock and power to at least seven managed-care companies, all of them located in the Northeast. In addition to Premier Health, Cyrill Davenport’s Unity Comprehensive Health was on the list. However, the companies headed by Marcia Rising and Dr. Richard Leaf were not. Aside from the original memo, there did not seem to be any further direct contact between Halliday and Morales.

A merger, Patty thought as she set the last of the documents aside. Now, what’s that all about? Had it ever actually happened? Was it still on the table? Where did Ben Morales stand on the possibility? Were the other victims’ companies involved?

Suddenly energized, she inspected the contents of the final cartons in much less time than the first two, then called and firmed up an appointment with Gloria Davenport.

When Patty finally came downstairs, Wendy Morales was preparing macaroni and cheese in the kitchen.

“Find anything helpful?” Wendy asked.

“Maybe. Did you know anything about a merger or proposed merger between Premier Health and some other companies?”

“No, but that’s not possible. Ben would never allow it.”

“Why?”

“This company was his life. He had wonderful plans for it. Someday he hoped to use it as a vehicle for bringing health-care coverage to those who couldn’t afford it. He would sooner have lost his arm than his company.”

“Do you mind if I borrow those cartons for a while? I’d like to go through them again. I promise to return everything very soon.”

“No problem. Just a minute and I’ll help you carry them down. You can’t stop right in the middle of preparing Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, you know. I add a little ketchup and some sour cream. That’s how my mother used to make it for me.”

“Sounds delicious,” Patty said. “For me it’s always been chunks of hot dogs.”