The Society

testimony to the power of money. Gloria Davenport, whom Patty never saw when she was last at Serenity Lane, answered the door herself, although Patty caught a glimpse of a maid scurrying past in the background. The mental image she had formed of a fiftyish, overly rouged bottle blonde wasn’t that far from the truth, but in some ways, perhaps with the help of surgery, Gloria had managed to retain a good deal of femininity in her figure and bearing, as well as her neck, face, and especially her eyes, which were a very soft blue. She didn’t have a drink in her hand, but Patty could tell one had been there not that long ago.

“Why, you’re lovely,” Gloria said, extending her hand and welcoming Patty into a home that was at once elegant and comfortable. “I thought police detectives who looked like you were only found on TV or in the movies.”

“Thank you. I don’t think the people I arrest pay much attention to my looks.”

The sitting room to which Patty was led featured matched satin love seats that might have been centuries old and an array of other antiques. A filled ice bucket and glasses were on the coffee table along with some mints and a half-empty glass of something amber. Patty commented on the room and the house, and confirmed her notion that, in fact, the love seats were Louis Quatorze.

“I know better than to expect you to be drinking while on duty,” Gloria said, after establishing that Patty should address her by her first name, “unless you’re one of those tragic, tortured detectives whose character development they try to compress in the interest of a two-hour movie by simply making them alcoholic.”

“I drink,” Patty said. “Sometimes more than I should. At the moment, though, I have a lot on my mind, and I’ve found that alcohol often makes me not as sharp as I could be. You should certainly go ahead if you wish.”

“And I shall. Well, aren’t you a breath of fresh air. You investigate murders, you know antiques, you give your hostess permission to drink, and, most important of all, you say Louis Quatorze with a decent French accent.”

“Thank you again. My father barely made it past high school, so he pushed education on me and my brother. He used to say that every single day we managed to stay in school translated into ten thousand people in the world we wouldn’t have to take B.S. from in our lives.”

Gloria’s raspy laugh was robust and genuine.

“That’s a very wise observation.”

“Possibly so, but at the moment, with about six years less formal education than I have, he’s my boss.”

Gloria laughed again. If she was in any way intoxicated, Kristine was right: She handled the state well. As if speaking to that point, she refilled her glass and added two ice cubes.

“Gloria, I know you’ve been interviewed more than once regarding your husband’s murder,” Patty said.

“That would be correct.”

“So I’m sure you know that his is just one of what looks like a string of serial killings-four of them now- apparently related to someone trying to avenge the death of a friend or relative.”

“The mother of the killer, one of the policemen told me.”

“We have reason to believe there is more than one killer-possibly a brother and sister.”

“Why would you believe that?”

“The killer has been funneling information piecemeal to us through a physician he keeps calling-a physician with a very public position against managed care. It’s as if he, or they, have chosen the doctor to be their press secretary-someone whose own stature more or less validates them.”

“Someone from the Hippocrates Society?”

Patty looked up at the woman, impressed.

“As a matter of fact, yes. So, you know about the Society.”

“Not all that much, but everyone in our industry knows about them. They’ve become quite a thorn in our side over recent years.”

Our industry. Before this visit, Patty had formed the impression of Gloria Davenport as some sort of dilettante, uninterested in anything other than drinking and finding ways to spend her husband’s money. Forming impressions of people on too little information was a habit she resolved, once again, to break.

“Gloria, you say our industry. Were you very involved in your husband’s business?”

“I’m not surprised that you are the first policeperson to ask me that question. The rest of them seem content to believe that I am nothing more than a chronically besotted spouse who was lucky enough to marry a health-care baron, and now even luckier to inherit all his money.”

“But that’s not true?”

“Well, maybe the besotted part is. I don’t blame Cyrill totally for my drinking, but I will say that he was. . how should I put it. . difficult. Do you know much about OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder?”

“Some.”

“Well, Cyrill has-had it. Unfortunately, he was the only one close to him who didn’t know it. And for as long as I knew him, chief among the things he was obsessive and compulsive about was making money.”

“Pardon me for saying so, but it seems like he did a good job of it.”

“I suppose you’re right. Of course, he did have a running head start.”

Gloria’s expression was mischievous.

“Okay,” Patty said, “I’ll bite. What sort of running head start?”

“My maiden name was Storer, as in Storer and Elliot.”

“The investment house?”

“Complete with our own padded cell-I mean seat-on the New York Stock Exchange. When Cyrill and I married, I was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred million dollars.”

“That’s some neighborhood,” Patty said.

“Cyrill was worth maybe a million cents depending on the status of his car payments, but he was full of dreams, and to his credit he had gotten a business degree from Wharton. Actually, that’s where we met. I was a year ahead of him. I bought Unity Comprehensive Health for him as a wedding present and out of curiosity to see just how good he could be. The rest is history.”

“Were you involved in the business?”

“Of course I was. I was on the board of directors from the start. I had to protect my investment. It wasn’t that hard to have Cyrill believe he was making all the brilliant decisions.”

“He didn’t?”

“Let’s just say he made some on his own, and lots that he thought were on his own.”

“So what’s the status of the company now?”

“Well, to all intents, Unity isn’t really a company anymore except on paper. We’re now well on our way to a merger with-”

“Excelsius Health,” Patty cut in excitedly.

Gloria looked at her queerly.

“Now, that’s a piece of information not many people are supposed to have-certainly not people outside our companies.”

Patty reached in her briefcase, passed over Ben Morales’s file, and explained how she had come by it. Gloria freshened her drink before opening it, and then scanned each sheet as if she were taking the final exam in a speed- reading course. In just a couple of minutes, she was nodding her head in understanding.

“There are several more cartons of Morales’s papers that I haven’t gone through yet,” Patty said, “so there may be more material on all this.”

“Well,” Gloria said with a sigh, “I tried to stay in the background, but I knew Ben Morales a bit, and most of the CEOs of these other companies, as well, and I knew Boyd Halliday at Excelsius was on the move. But until recently, I didn’t know how fast. Excelsius has already absorbed two of these companies, and if you count Unity, it’s three. I just read where Steadfast Health, which used to be a pretty well-run outfit, although not that big, has gotten itself into financial trouble and sold out to Halliday.”

“So why did your husband sell out to Excelsius?”

“Oh, he didn’t. He never would have parted with Unity. It was like an extension of him. I, on the other hand, was sick to death of the place, if you’ll pardon the gallows humor. I had been encouraging Cyrill to get out for more than a year in the interest of kick-starting our marriage, but no go. He had traded me in for the company. Such