Something was definitely up.
After her meeting with Gloria Davenport, Patty had gone over to see Marcia Rising’s husband, a surgeon named Michael Springer who was in practice in Norwood, toward the South Shore. Springer, who still seemed genuinely distraught over his wife’s murder, knew a great deal about medical politics, managed care, and his wife’s company. What he didn’t know was anything about Excelsius Health or any merger plans with Marcia’s Eastern Quality Health. Still, it was possible one was in the works. That made two victims connected with the merger list, one maybe or maybe not. The pendulum swung several degrees toward coincidence, but not nearly far enough for her to dismiss the belief that the killings were not the least bit random, and also that they were not the least bit related to the death of anyone’s mother.
This was business-pure and simple.
“So, B.T.,” she said, setting a bag of M amp;Ms down on the keyboard of his computer, “what’s going on here? You’re on days, yet here you are.”
“Oh, this is big, Patty,” Tomasetti said, loosening his belt a notch before tearing open the M amp;Ms, “real big. I told them I’d man the phones. Sort of control central. Look at me-I’m so excited about this one that I’m cleaning my gun, even though I’m not even out there in the field.”
“That is excitement. . So?”
“So what?”
Tomasetti poured the last half of the bag onto his desk blotter and divided the candies up by color.
“So what gives? What’s going on?”
As she asked the question, Patty felt an eerie tightening beneath her breastbone. She had been on duty all day and had called in any number of times, yet she hadn’t heard so much as a whisper about something big going down. Now she felt certain that she had been purposely excluded from whatever it was. Margie Moore, one of the secretaries, swooshed by, packed up for home, and headed for the door.
“Hey, Patty, hey, B.T.,” she said, “hope this is it.”
“Us, too,” Tomasetti said. “We’ll all be at the top of the pig pile if it is. Have a good one, Margie.”
“B.T.,” Patty asked after the secretary had left, “does this have something to do with the HMO killings?”
“You’re shitting me, right?”
“I’m not shitting you. Now, what’s going on?”
“Boy, have they ever cut you out of this one.”
Patty boiled over. Hands on hips, she swept around the desk and stood at Tomasetti’s elbow, towering over him with menace that she did not have to conjure up.
“Goddammit, B.T., tell me and tell me now!”
“Okay, okay. Nobody told me not to tell you anything. I thought you already knew, it once being your case and all. I thought you knew. Brasco’s set up a meeting with the killer. It’s going down in”-Tomasetti checked his Timex-“fifty-five minutes.”
“That’s not possible. The killer’s never even made contact with us. Not once, except for those damn letters he leaves at the murders.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly us he made contact with. It was that doctor, the one you’ve been. . what I mean is-”
“Will Grant,” Patty said, exasperated that if Tomasetti knew, undoubtedly the rest of the squad knew as well-probably her father, too. Just how badly was it possible for her to screw up?
“Yeah, him,” Tomasetti said. “Apparently the killer told Grant he could put a personal ad in the Herald if he ever needed to meet.”
“We took that information off the tap on Grant’s phone. I gave it to Brasco and Lieutenant Court myself.”
“Well, Brasco used it and set up a meeting with the killer.”
Patty was feeling more uneasy by the second.
“Where?”
“At a place called Camp Sunshine, believe it or not. It’s an old, run-down, unused summer camp on Lake Trumbull, north of Fredrickston. I’m surprised you didn’t know about all this.”
“Well, I’m not. Who picked the place?”
“The killer. Brasco allowed him to choose the meeting place so he wouldn’t be suspicious. But Brasco’s had 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-these killers-for months. They never make a careless or dangerous move, even though it might seem like that’s what’s happening, and they don’t care a rat’s behind for anyone’s life but their own, and that includes Grant’s. If Brasco thinks he’s outsmarting these people, he’s even dumber than he looks, and that’s saying something.”
“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 piper’s on the loose and he must be paid.
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.