The Society

CHAPTER 23

For several minutes, those remaining in the Sears Conference Room sat in stunned, motionless silence. Finally, Sid Silverman stood, adjusted his vest, and gathered his papers together.

“The day after tomorrow, then,” he said, as if Brasco’s outburst was too outrageous even to acknowledge. “Dr. Grant, please be sure Attorney Weiss has a way of getting ahold of you.”

“Here’re my cell phone and home numbers,” Will said, passing them over to her. “I. . I know this situation isn’t easy for any of you. Jim, I just want you to know that I am horribly sorry for what this monster is putting you through. Julia, too. If you all decide to go along with the killer’s demands and reinstate me, I promise to keep a very low profile and not cause any problems. I doubt Lieutenant Brasco will be back here for our next meeting, but I will. Hopefully, before too much longer, you’ll all know what I know, namely that I’m not guilty of anything.”

The meeting ended without fanfare. Drained, Will remained in his place as the others left the room. Jim Katz, still pale and shaken, hurried out without so much as a glance at Will. Of the others, only Susan and Gordo made eye contact with him.

Will felt sad about this latest turn in his insane saga, but he also felt, in some strange way, vindicated. From the moment the fentanyl was detected in his blood, he had been a pariah in the hospital, among his colleagues, and in the press. Now, thanks to a murderer-a multiple murderer-the Society, the hospital, and the Board of Registration in Medicine were begging him to give them a reason, any reason, to restore his medical license, position within the Society, and hospital privileges. If he was being selfish in the face of Jim Katz’s anguish, so be it. No one could fully understand what he had been through, or how desperately he wanted his life back. He wanted to belong, to be challenged again. He wanted his children not to be ostracized from their playmates. He wanted to matter in the world that had mattered so much to him. He wanted to be a doctor again.

Was that so wrong?

It was quite possible that even letters of support from Benois Beane and Susan and Gordo and Jim, and maybe a couple of the docs who hadn’t turned away from him, would not be enough to convince the attorneys from the hospital and the board, but for the moment that was all he could think of to do.

Susan.

Will was gathering his notes together when he realized he had intended to speak with her after the meeting about the BB in Grace’s films, radiologist Rick Pizzi’s opinion, and the strange, violent reaction of the man who had referred Grace to her in the first place. He stuffed the papers in his briefcase and was just pushing back from the table when Sid Silverman returned to the room. His moon face was more flushed than usual.

“I thought I’d find you still here,” he said.

“I was just fixin’ to leave.”

“I came back to see to it that you do.”

“What?”

“You’re still suspended from here.”

“So?”

“So, I want you out of this hospital until-when and if-we restore your privileges to work here. Personally, Grant, I think you’re dirty. I think you took that drug, and I think that somehow you’re more involved with this killer than you would let anyone believe. If it weren’t that Jim Katz’s life is at stake, I would have leapt up to support Brasco’s position in a heartbeat. And if something happens to Katz, I hope you’re prepared to live with it. Now, get out of here.”

Having issued the order, rather than leave, Silverman stepped back against the wall and waited, his arms folded against his chest as tightly as his anatomy would allow.

Will wanted so desperately to charge across the room and punch the hospital president senseless. Stupid, insensitive bastard. In what he hoped was exasperatingly slow motion, Will stood up and made a pretext of repacking his briefcase. It was then he realized his cell phone was ringing. Gesturing what can you do? to Silverman, he answered it.

“Grant, Micelli here,” the lawyer rasped. “You someplace you can talk?”

“I can talk, Augie.”

The longer you have to stand around and wait, Sid, the happier it makes me.

“Grant, listen. As I told you earlier, I’ve been studying the pharmacology of fentanyl and thinking about how this could have happened to you.”

“And?”

“The drug had to be inside your shoes-those red sneakers you wear every time you operate! It’s the only explanation that makes any sense other than that you’re a liar, and I’ve chosen not to consider that possibility anymore. The drug-probably a lot of it-was soaked into the insoles of your OR shoes and allowed to dry there. Then, your own sweat reconstituted it and you absorbed it through your feet, just as if your socks were giant fentanyl patches. We have to find those shoes, Grant. Any idea where they could be?”

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, what happened when you went to see Newcomber?”

“Are you ready for this? When I asked to review Grace’s films with him, he got really frightened. He was gripping the edge of his desk so tightly I thought it was going to splinter. Then he said he needed a notarized release from Grace to show me anything. Then, when I said that was a ridiculous demand to make to a fellow physician, without any warning he reached in his desk drawer and pulled a gun on me.”

“A what?”

“A snub-nosed revolver. He threatened to shoot me if I didn’t get out, and it seemed he was just panicked enough to do it. His face was flaming red and his hand was shaking. I half expected to see smoke coming out of his ears.”

“If he had done that to me, he wouldn’t have had to bother pulling the trigger, because I would have just died on the spot. So, what do you want to do?”

“I want to see him again, this time with you in tow and clutching a notarized release from Grace Davis. And if he makes a move for that right-hand desk drawer, I’m going to launch myself over his desk, rip off that god-awful hairpiece of his, and ram it down his throat.”

“Goodness. The dark side of Will Grant.”

“Believe me, there is one. No one’s ever pointed a gun at me, either.”

“Should I call and make an appointment with him?”

“The cancer center’s not that far away from here. I favor just showing up. Maybe I’ll sort of hang back in the corridor until you’re through the door of his office, then I’ll slide in behind you.”

“Nine A.M. okay?”

“Fine. I’ll meet you here and we can drive over together.”

“And the notarized release?”

“Jill Leary, that hospital attorney, will be here tonight when we look for the shoes. If she can’t or won’t do it, I’ll figure out something.”

“I hope this search works out for you, Will. I’m sick of people getting angry at me because you’re not here to take care of them and they have to settle for me.”

“That’s nonsense. Just keep your fingers crossed tonight while you’re at the Fleet Center screaming for Springsteen.”

Susan stood and held up four sets of crossed fingers.

“Just practicing,” she said. “Hey, one more thing, could you give me the names of a couple of Springsteen’s songs? In case you couldn’t guess, I really don’t know much about him except that he’s a hunk.”

“‘I’m On Fire,’ ‘Born to Run,’ and ‘Badlands’-all theme songs of mine at the moment. For that information, I want a T-shirt.”

“See you in the morning, Doc. If my date’s impressed with those titles, you get your shirt.”