trunk, we can speculate that Bradley was murdered while lying in the trunk of the car. No mutilation, but like the other two, approximately two dozen stab wounds cover his face, chest, and groin. The killer keeps the body in the trunk overnight, wakes up the next morning, and dumps his body behind a gay bar.”
“Maybe Bradley knew the guy,” Sara said. “Hold on. Skip that. If they knew each other, there would have been no need for the jimmied lock.”
Max managed a grin. “And I was all ready to jump on you for being wrong.”
“Sorry to spoil it for you.”
“Never mind. But you’re ignoring the more important question.”
“Which is?”
“Why did the killer take Bradley out of the apartment in the first place? Think about it. Trian and Whitherson were both murdered in their apartments, right? The killer got them alone, did his thing, and left the mess. But not with Bradley. He went to the trouble of taking him out of the apartment. That meant the killer had to go to the trouble of stealing a car, one. Two, he had to risk being seen leaving the apartment as well as risk being seen getting rid of the body behind the Black Magic. Why? Why not just kill him like the others and get it over with? And why dump the body behind a gay bar?”
Sara thought for a moment. “I see what you mean. Look, Max, I know the heat is coming down on you, but I can’t hold back much longer. I won’t say anything about the mutilation of Trian, but I have to let the public know about the connection of the three victims to the AIDS clinic.”
“Sara…”
“Someone is going to dig it up soon anyway, and now Bradley’s father can’t be hurt any more than he already is.” She gripped her cane. “More important, Harvey has decided to go public with the clinic’s success. He needs to raise funds. There’ll be an hour story on the success of his AIDS treatment on
Max whistled. “Talk about a major scoop,” he said. “Could be Pulitzer here, Sara. I’d hate to see you miss that.”
“Not fair, Max.”
“I know. My bias against the press flaring up again. Sorry.”
“Forget it.” She watched him start to gnaw on his finger — not the nail, the finger. “Max, don’t you think the connection to the clinic is important?”
“Crucial,” he answered, removing his finger from his mouth and rubbing his face with the same hand. “My people are checking out everyone involved with the place.”
“That’s the crux of the whole thing, isn’t it?” she asked. “I mean, everyone assumes that a psychopath is targeting gays, but he could really be after AIDS patients or, more specifically, patients at Harvey’s clinic.”
“Could be.”
“What about Harvey’s fear that someone is trying to sabotage the clinic?”
Bernstein stood up and began pacing in a small, tight circle. “A possibility but a long shot. According to Harvey, nobody outside the clinic — not the FDA, you, or anybody else — knew how close they were to finding a cure. Sure, there were rumors, but people don’t usually try to sabotage a rumor.”
“I’m not sure I agree with you there,” Sara said. “We’ve both seen plenty of people act on a lot less than unsubstantiated rumors before.”
“Granted, but look at it this way — if someone wanted to destroy Harvey and Bruce’s work, why go to the trouble of murdering all these people in such a grisly fashion? Why not just burn down the clinic? Or why not just kill…?” His voice trailed away.
“Just kill?”
Max swallowed. “I was about to say, ‘Why not just kill the doctors?’ ”
There was a long silence. “Max, what did the handwriting analyst say?”
“Bruce Grey wrote the note. No chance of it being a forgery.”
“Does that mean he definitely committed suicide?”
Bernstein paused, his hand still nervously massaging his chin. “Not necessarily,” he began. “Because of the note in Grey’s handwriting, the suicide was barely questioned. It was an open-and-shut case.”
“And now?”
“There’s so many holes, Sara. I checked out Grey’s history. He seemed happy enough, normal enough, no signs of depression or mental illness.”
“But if Bruce wrote the note—”
“Ah, but
“I don’t understand.”
“As you know, I took the liberty of having the handwriting analyst check the note again. But this time I had him look for other details.”
“Such as?”
“For one thing, Swinster noted that the handwriting was unusually shaky. Words and letters ran into one another. It was definitely written by Grey — the shape and design of the letters tell you that — but it was not his normal handwriting. He was in a rush or under duress or something like that.”
“Isn’t that normal in the case of a suicide?”
“Not really. Usually, the handwriting is slow and even and fairly normal. Grey always wrote very neatly — even when he scribbled down a prescription. The suicide note was uncharacteristically sloppy. It could have been — I said
Sara sat forward with her eyes opened wide. Her words came fast. “Then what you’re saying is that maybe Bruce was forced to write it,” she nearly shouted. “Maybe somebody put a gun to his head and made him do it.”
“Calm down, Sara. We don’t know anything of the sort yet.”
“And if that’s the case, Harvey could be in real danger.”
Bernstein shook his head. “Don’t start building this into something it’s not. There are a million better explanations for all of this. It could be something as simple as Bruce Grey being so cold his hand shook when he wrote the note. Or it could be that he was nervous at the thought of running headfirst through a window.”
“You don’t buy any of that.”
Max pocketed his keys. “But it sounded good.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the Days Inn. I want to check out Grey’s room.”
“Hey, hey, Mikey, boy! How you feeling?”
Michael looked up and smiled. Reece and Jerome piled into the room with a half dozen other Knicks. “You guys are a bunch of the ugliest candy stripers I’ve ever seen.”
“But look what we brought you,” Jerome said, holding up a brown paper bag.
“What is it?” Michael asked.
“Hospital food sucks, right?” Jerome continued.
“Bet your ass,” Michael replied. “Two days of it and I’m already going crazy.”
“And,” Reece added, “everyone knows how you Jews love food from the Orient.”
“You mean—”
“Yup,” Reece interrupted, “takeout from Hunan Empire.”
“I think I love you guys.”
“Don’t get mushy on us, old dude.”
“I’ll try not to break down.”
“So how you feeling, Mikey?”
“Okay.”
“When you coming back?”
“Probably not till next season.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. But, guys, guess what.”
There was a pause. “Reece already told us the good news,” Jerome said with a wide smile. “You’re going to
