The Society

Stunned, Will sank down into the chair, the cell phone pressed tightly against his ear. Was it possible? Micelli was crazy. There was no way he was right this time. Still, Will was well known for the red Chuck Taylor All Stars he invariably wore in the OR. He decided to hang on to the possibility, at least for the moment. Like Micelli had said, they were long on facts and way short on explanations.

“I have no idea where they can be now,” Will said. “The ER nurses put everyone’s clothes into a labeled plastic bag. I never got them back. Maybe the police have them.”

“They don’t. I checked.”

“I can check with the nurses in the ICU.”

“No! We’ve got to find them, but we need a cop there with us when we do. A cop or someone from the DA’s office. And also someone in authority at your hospital. So, for God’s sake, don’t go looking for them, because if you luck out and actually find them, you’ve ruined everything. We’ll need a tight chain of custody. Listen, I know someone in the DA’s office who owes me a favor. Maybe he’ll come. Meanwhile, see if you can get someone from your hospital to meet us in the lobby there at, say, eight tonight. Call me if you can’t pull that off.”

“I’ll do my best. I know a state police detective I might be able to get.”

“Terrific. For this search, the more witnesses the merrier. It’s the shoes, pal! It’s always the shoes!”

Will slipped the phone back in his briefcase and turned dramatically to Silverman.

“We need to talk, Sid,” he said.

Sid Silverman flatly refused to represent the hospital in the search for Will’s OR shoes. Instead, he led Will to attorney Jill Leary’s office, stayed long enough to ensure she would be available at eight, and left with another warning that when his business with Leary was finished, Will was to wait outside the hospital until Micelli’s group convened in the lobby. Learning that the infamous Law Doctor was representing Will did nothing to brighten Silverman’s day.

“I thought Micelli just sued doctors,” he said.

“He’s making an exception in my case.”

“Why?”

“I think it’s because he believes I could be innocent, Sid.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“You know what I think? I think Micelli’s right. I think the shoes are how I was poisoned. And I think you’re frightened to death that you might be wrong about me and wrong in the way you’ve treated me. And when we find out that he’s right, and you’re wrong, I want my staff privileges back on the spot. And you know what else I want, Sid? I want you never to speak to me or about me again.”

It took most of half an hour for Will to bring Jill Leary up to speed on the pharmacology of fentanyl and on the evolution of his relationship with Augie Micelli. Given her outwardly severe demeanor, she was surprisingly kind and, from what he could tell, nonjudgmental. Still, he felt distracted and rushed his account wherever he could. He hadn’t yet had the opportunity to call Patty and invite her to meet them at the hospital, and he also needed to track down Susan to see if something could be set up involving the two of them and Charles Newcomber.

“Tell me something,” Leary said. “If what your lawyer believes happened is actually what did, don’t you think that whoever is responsible would have gone out of their way to locate your OR shoes and dispose of them?”

It was a good question-a very good question, in fact. Will took some time to think his answer through.

“I guess it’s possible they did just that,” he said finally. “But if the police don’t have my clothes from that day, and they’re not in the ICU and not in the ER, then either a clothing bag with my name on it was thrown away accidentally, or someone took it. And since I can’t imagine housekeeping just chucking a patient’s belongings’ bag away without giving it to a nurse, we would have to deal with the likelihood that whoever poisoned me got rid of it.”

“I suppose at first blush I can buy that logic,” the lawyer said, her smile genuine and warm. “Well, it’s my night to make dinner for my husband and kid, so I’d better run. I’ll see if I can poke any holes in your theory on the way home, and I’ll see you back here tonight at eight.”

“Terrific.”

“And, Dr. Grant?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry this is happening to you.”

Using a hospital phone, Will tried Patty at home and on her car phone. They had agreed that so long as his home, his cell, and his office phones were tapped, they would try to avoid talking on them. When they did connect through one of those phones, it would be strictly business. Use of the word danger meant that Will would call her car phone from someplace safe.

When Will arrived at the office of Fredrickston Surgical Associates, Susan was seeing the last of her patients. It had been more than a week since he had been there, and the staff greeted him with edgy warmth. It was, he knew, a natural reaction. The more time that passed without his exoneration, the more doubt that accrued.

“Doin’ fine,” he said to the receptionist before she even asked. “Not to worry. I’m doin’ fine.”

He failed to reach Patty again, this time using the phone in Gordo’s office. Then he sat at his uncharacteristically ordered desk, bending and unbending a paper clip as he tried to remember what normal felt like. What would life be like now if he had simply said no when Tom Lemm and the rest of the Society had so skillfully maneuvered him into the Faneuil Hall debate?

“Hey, big fella, I heered you wuz waitin’ fer me.”

Susan sidled into Will’s office and took the chair opposite him. She was unpretentiously elegant in an ankle- length skirt with a bright African print and a beige silk blouse. Her sorrel hair was, as usual, pulled back in a tight bun.

“Thanks for sticking up for me at that session today,” Will said.

“I wish that fop Silverman had given me the chance to say more. I’m sure this has been hell for you.”

“I’m ready to have it be over, that’s for sure. Maybe tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

Will recounted the call from Micelli and the search that was to commence at eight.

“You’re welcome to come along, Suze.”

“If I thought it would make any difference, I would. I hope you know that, even though, believe it or not, I am being taken to the Bruce Springsteen concert tonight.”

For emphasis, she bit on her lower lip and played a few notes on an imaginary guitar.

“I didn’t know you were into The Boss.”

“Let me put it this way-everyone I know is excited that I’m going, so I am, too.”

“You’ll love him.”

“Anything’s possible. Hey, before I forget, what’s going on with Grace Davis and her X-ray?”

“That’s actually what I wanted to see you about.”

“Grace’s husband told me she had a BB in her chest that wasn’t in her mammograms.”

“Exactly. She was shot by her brother when she was a kid.”

“You saw the mammograms?”

“I did that day you agreed to let me take over her case. I can’t be sure the BB wasn’t there, but it seems unlikely I would have missed it. Yesterday I went to see Dr. Newcomber, the mammographer at the Excelsius Health Cancer Center.”

“He’s an odd little duck.”

“You’ve met him?”

“A couple of times. I think he’s gay, but other than that I have no read on him.”

“Well, what I think happened is that he read her films correctly, then mistakenly put someone else’s films in her jacket. I just didn’t notice that the name on the jacket and the name on the films were different.”

“Someone who also had a left upper outer-quadrant cancer?”

“I guess. It’s the only explanation I can come up with.”

“If that’s the case, I must have missed the name difference, too. I studied those films before I did her surgery.”

“It’s possible. The name on the film isn’t something we go out of our way to check.”

“I suppose.” Susan’s nonplussed expression made it clear she was searching for other explanations. “So,