our SWAT team geared up for like two days now. The moment he gave the word, they infiltrated the area. There’s a chopper on standby, too.”
“I know the camp. Brian, the killer’s too smart for this. Way too smart. How did Brasco get him to believe he was talking to Will Grant?”
“Patty, I’m sorry. I know this was your case.”
“I appreciate your concern, but don’t worry about it. I only look soft. In here where it counts”-she pointed to her heart-“I’m tough as nails. Now tell me how Brasco convinced the killer he was talking to Grant.”
“VDS,” Tomasetti said simply. “Voice duplication and substitution. From what I understand, an R and D company on one-twenty-eight has been under contract for this and they’ve come up with a machine that can take a person’s voice and substitute someone else’s for it.”
“I know about setups where a man can speak and a girl’s or boy’s voice can come out. Vice people all over the country are using it to contact predators who want to set up a rendezvous with young girls or young boys they meet online. But you’re talking about recording a specific person’s voice and then having it speak someone else’s words?”
“Exactly. So the killer responds to the ad and calls Grant, and Brasco intercepts the call and uses Grant’s voice to say his words. Apparently the killer bought it hook, line, and sinker. You know, just because Brasco doesn’t look too bright doesn’t mean he isn’t.”
“Yes it does. Brasco’s using Will Grant without Grant’s knowledge, and by doing so, he’s putting him in harm’s way. I’ve been on this killer-
“I never heard you talk that way.”
“I might be just getting started. You have directions to the camp?”
“Yes, but-”
“But what? Brasco said not to let anyone come out there?”
“Something like that.”
“B.T., give me the fucking directions.”
Tomasetti slid a paper from one corner of his desk and passed it over. “Copy it, and tell them you stole it from my desk without my knowing it, okay?”
“You got it. Thanks, pal. How much time do I have?”
“Maybe fifty minutes now. You’ve gotta really bust it in that Camaro of yours.”
“Speed is my middle name.”
“I thought that was Danger.”
“Danger’s my Confirmation name.”
Patty grabbed the directions, made a quick stop at the Xerox machine, and raced out to the parking lot.
The killer’s proclamation, issued shortly before he assassinated Dr. Richard Leaf with surgical planning and precision, resonated in her mind as she skidded out of the lot and into a tight right-hand turn. There was no shaking the grisly belief that soon, very soon, people were going to die.
By seven forty-five, when he returned to Fredrickston General, Will had given up on recruiting Patty to join the small safari about to explore the hospital for his clothing bag. Several calls to her cell phone had succeeded only in reaching her voice mail, and a wishful call to her place fared no better.
With a dense overcast and intermittent drizzle, night had descended prematurely. Around him, it was business as usual-visitors filing through the revolving glass doors along with a scattering of employees, many of whom Will knew. Two of them grinned uncomfortably and nodded, but most of the others simply averted their eyes and studied the pavement. Even though none of them meant anything special to Will, it was painful to be innocent and to be judged, and it would be an incredible relief to be reinstated. But that reinstatement, he knew, was still anything but automatic.
The board, the hospital, and the Society had been placed in a very difficult position. It would make the decision much easier for each of them if, by some miracle, his Chuck Taylors were found and the insoles tested positive for fentanyl. That possibility seemed remote. The most likely scenario, he believed, was that tonight they would find nothing and would be left speculating about what might have happened to his clothing. Even if Micelli’s theory about the shoes was right, it was unlikely that someone resourceful enough to frame him would allow the evidence just to lie around. Of course, it was also possible they would have felt confident enough in the sophistication of the frame-up to leave the shoes where they were.
“Good evening, Doctor.”
Jill Leary, a trench coat belted about her trim waist, came up from behind and touched him on the arm.
“Hey, welcome back,” Will said. “I really appreciate your doing this.”
“No problem. I hope we find something, but as you said in my office, there will be some significance if we find nothing at all. I’ve tried, but I still haven’t been able to poke any holes in your theory, except to say that in hospitals dumb things happen all the time, and yours wouldn’t be the first clothing bag that was inadvertently thrown out.”
Will sighed, momentarily and inexplicably consumed by an immense fatigue.
“I suspect we’ll be left with that possibility,” he said.
Leary’s look was understanding. Guilty or not, it said, she appreciated that he had been through a great deal. Will immediately felt his composure begin to regroup. Kindness and compassion cost so little.
“Let’s wait inside for the others,” she said finally. “I’m sure Sid wouldn’t mind.”
Will followed her into the hospital. A few minutes later, Augie Micelli arrived, wearing a rumpled navy blazer, gray slacks, a red power tie, and a dominating cologne. He looked like a premature retiree in Florida or Arizona, but he seemed excited and, best of all, totally sober. His eyes were bright and keen and showed none of the ennui Will had noted when they first met. Micelli was accompanied by a nattily dressed black man carrying a briefcase, whom he introduced as Gil Murray, an assistant DA from Middlesex. Behind Murray was Robert McGowen, a young uniformed Fredrickston policeman whom Will had worked with a number of times in the ER. The Law Doctor guided them over to a deserted corner of the lobby.
“So,” he said, clasping his hands together enthusiastically, “this mighty task force has been assembled to answer the question of what became of Will Grant’s clothing bag. Ms. Leary, thank you for sacrificing your evening on our behalf.”
“No problem.”
“Dr. Grant and I have each spent a good deal of time on the clinical side of hospitals, and so are well aware of the chaos and confusion that can accompany a medical emergency such as his. Officer McGowen assures me that the many cases he has helped haul to the ER here have taught him the same thing.
“Given that a massive amount of the drug fentanyl was in Dr. Grant’s body that day, and given that Dr. Grant is adamant in his denial of having taken any, we are forced either to brush him off as a loser and a liar or come up with another explanation. I have chosen to discard the loser-liar alternative and instead, after considering and rejecting many possible scenarios, have chosen to focus on his OR shoes, which, at least as of this moment, appear to be missing. A chemist at one of the pharmaceutical houses that manufacture fentanyl believes that my theory is physically and physiologically possible, provided enough drug is soaked into the insole. Everyone ready?”
“All set,” McGowen said.
“Well then, the supervising nurse in the ICU is expecting us, as is the nurse in charge of the ER. This shouldn’t take too long. The idea of having Gil and Officer McGowen along is that if, by any chance, we actually come up with something, it will immediately need to be handled by strict chain of custody. Gil has plastic bags and gummed seals we can all sign, and Officer McGowen will take the bags directly back to the station.”
“Do you really expect to find anything after all this time?” Leary asked.
“The truth is, I don’t know what to expect. People in hospitals-in most workplaces, for that matter-tend to ignore anything that isn’t directly their job. It’s not that hard to imagine a custodian, or nurse’s aide, or even a nurse working his or her way around a clothing bag, assuming someone else had placed it there for a reason.”
“I suppose.”
“Any other questions?”
