The Society (12 page)

“There’s more,” MacDonald said from his desk, twenty miles south and east of where Patty was seated. “In addition to being booked for illegally blocking the egress and entrance of a public building, Grant was charged with shoving a security guard. It doesn’t look as if that charge led to a court appearance, but I can’t be sure. There are still holes in some of these reports.”

Patty’s spiral pad was filling up.

Just three years later, there was more—another arrest, this time for assaulting a fellow med student at some sort of book burning.

“Book burning?” Patty asked.

“That’s what it says here,” MacDonald replied. “The other student’s name was Streeter—Owen Streeter. Apparently, no official charges were filed.” Patty was recording the information when MacDonald said, “Wait, this is interesting.”

“What?”

“Will Grant was picked up as a suspect in the bombing of a lab at the medical school. Same year.”

“Arrested?”

“I don’t think so, but the Amherst police were impressed enough to put him in the data bank.”

“I wonder why?”

For a few seconds, MacDonald was silent.

“I think I know,” he said slowly.

“Go on.”

“There was someone in the lab at the time of the explosion—a janitor, it says here. He was killed.”

MURDER!!!

Patty wrote the word across the center of a blank page in her notebook, then added drops of blood coming off the legs of the
M
and
R
s. She noted the date and for the time being ended her conversation with MacDonald, but not before extracting his promise to keep searching the intervening years for more on Grant and to call her if anything additional turned up. Her shift was about to begin, and even before this latest turn of events, she was behind in her paperwork. Still, strongly sensing that this was no dead end, she was unwilling to put matters on hold. Using the Net, she jotted down the names and URLs of the newspapers in Amherst, as well as the nearby towns and cities, including Northampton and Springfield. Before she could make her way into those newspapers’ back issues, the door to the office opened. It took just a few seconds to recognize the voices of two men as Jack Court and Wayne Brasco.

“I don’t care if she did embarrass you in front of the Norfolk guys, Wayne, there’s no way I can take her any further off the case unless she fucks up.”

The overhead fluorescents flickered on. Patty’s cubicle was farthest from the door—just a few paces from Court’s office. Brasco’s was just inside the door.

“I could work better with Sonnenblick or even Tomasetti,” he said.

“You don’t have to work with her, Wayne, just put up with her. Throw her a crumb here and there. Show her how real detectives handle a murder investigation. The moment she steps out of line, she’s off the case.”

Patty heard Brasco grunt as he settled in front of his desk, then Court’s footsteps as he headed down the row of detectives’ cubicles toward her. He stopped when he realized she was at her desk, the nonplussed expression on his hawklike face clearly stating that he was calculating how much, if anything, she had heard.

“Morning, Patty,” he said.

“Lieutenant.”

Patty slid her arm over the notebook to cover up the macabre rendering of the word
MURDER
.

There was an unpleasant pause before Patty’s CO favored her with one of his most engaging, yet insincere, smiles.

“We’ll be meeting in the conference room at eight,” he said. “Carry on.”

The moment she heard the exchange between the two men, Patty conducted and resolved the internal dialogue surrounding whether or not to share her information and suspicions regarding Will Grant. She returned Court’s nod and remained motionless until she heard the door to his office close. Then she slipped the spiral notebook off her desk and into her shoulder bag.

CHAPTER
9

Impassioned Plea Helps Doc
Lambaste Managed Care

Four hundred of the city’s best and brightest, including Governor John A. Fromson, sat in stunned silence at Faneuil Hall last night as Fredrickston surgeon Willard Grant emotionally and effectively chastised managed-care companies for placing profits before patients and before physicians. . . .

The article was the headliner in Section B of the
Globe
—the City Section. There were two copies of the paper on Will’s desk when he arrived at the office, along with two copies of the article itself, neatly cut out by the Associates’ dauntless receptionist, Mimi. There was also a copy of the
Herald
, which contained an article saying essentially the same thing, albeit in many fewer words.

Will had begun his day as usual by making rounds at the hospital, where nearly everyone seemed already to have heard about the forum and his unofficial victory over Boyd Halliday. Several people—two nurses, a lab tech, and a ward secretary—buttonholed him to share their own angry managed-care stories. Two others felt the need to tell him how pleased they were with the care
their
HMOs were providing for their families. Even his patients seemed to have heard some version of the debate.

Will persistently denied doing anything special, but in truth he was puffed over the turnabout he had been able to effect in the encounter with Halliday. He was not, however, at all pleased that the Willard cat had been let out of the bag. Even his office staff was surprised and amused that he was not a William. It didn’t help that the classic horror flick that had initially caused his dubbing as Ratboy had not too long ago been remade, and to generally favorable reviews, as well. As he flipped through a dozen excited e-mails, mostly from Hippocrates Society colleagues, Will wondered if he had ever even bothered telling the twins his true given name. Most likely, he acknowledged, even if he hadn’t, Maxine had found a way.

In addition to the article, Mimi had dutifully left a copy of the day’s appointment schedule on his desk. Patient visits, sandwiched about the removal of a large fatty tumor from a woman’s back, were light. This was exactly the mellow, stress-free day he would have prescribed for himself after an evening that hadn’t ended until nearly two in the morning.

He was scanning the list of patients when he remembered the card Detective Sergeant Patricia Moriarity had given him, along with the request that he call her. He had little doubt she wanted to speak to him about the managed-care murders. Others in the Hippocrates Society had already been questioned. He took the card from his wallet and studied it absently as he thought about the woman. In all likelihood there had been a shoulder holster and pistol under her vest. Except for the one time a friend had dragged him to a firing range, he had never even held a real handgun. Patricia Moriarity lived by one. He gave a moment’s thought to calling her, then wedged the card alongside his desk blotter, protruding out as a reminder. This just wasn’t the time he wanted to be grilled about serial killings and his views on managed care.

“Dr. Grant, it’s Mimi. Could you come out here, please?”

Will did as the intercom requested and found Grace Peng—Grace Davis, he remembered—seated alone in an otherwise empty waiting room. He was struck, as he had been yesterday, with the remarkable transformation in the woman, who had essentially been a bag lady not that many years before.

“Do you have a moment to speak with me?” she asked, quite obviously agitated and distressed.

“Sure, come in to my office.”

She settled into one of the two walnut-stained, Danish modern chairs that Jim Katz’s interior-decorator wife had chosen for each of the offices.

“My insurance company is Steadfast Health,” she said.

“I’ve done some business with them.”

Will hadn’t actually had all that much contact with the company, but he had operated on a number of patients whom they covered. From what he recalled, Steadfast Health was smaller than most of the HMOs, and for the most part more civil.

“Well, they are refusing to allow you to do my surgery.”

“When did they say that?” he asked, wondering if somehow last night’s forum and the resulting publicity could have already had some undesirable fallout.

“Yesterday. Just in case there was some clause or other like the one they have requiring preapproval for everything, I called them shortly after we got home from here to inform them about the change we wanted from Dr. Hollister to you. The woman who answered the phone checked around and then called me back to say they have a contract with Excelsius Health that includes the requirement that the referral surgeon is the only one allowed to operate on Steadfast Health patients.”

Will was stunned. Was this yet another managed-care game?

“What do you mean contract?” he asked. “What’s Excelsius Health got to do with this?”

“From what I was told when my primary-care doctor scheduled my mammogram, Steadfast Health is too small to have cancer centers the way Excelsius Health does, so their patients are X-rayed at the Excelsius mammography clinics, and if they need it, they’re treated at the Excelsius cancer centers. Then, I guess, Steadfast Health reimburses them somehow.”

“Well, this is just crazy,” Will said. “I’m on the provider panels for both Steadfast Health and Excelsius.” Even though, he chose not to add, Excelsius had tried several times in the past to have him removed from their provider list for various technicalities, including failure to get a form in on time.

“No matter what,” Grace said, “my husband and I have decided that we want you to do my biopsy, even if we have to pay for it ourselves. We have some money saved and—”

“Stop right there. This is absolute nonsense. You aren’t going to have to pay for this yourselves.”

The oversize manila folder with Grace’s mammograms in it was still propped against his desk from the previous evening. It was ironic and somewhat amusing that he had completely missed the Excelsius Health label in the upper left corner. Briefly, he scanned the films once more. The cancer was as he remembered—not huge but, in truth, indisputable. Biopsying the lesion would be technically simple, as would be its removal, provided there were no local lymph nodes with cancer in them. If the cancer had spread to the nodes—a part of the system draining foreign matter from the body—a meeting with the oncologist would be worth having to decide whether removing the lump or the upper outer quadrant of the breast would be statistically the best way to go.

Charles Newcomber was the radiologist who had read the mammogram, dictated his reading, and subsequently referred his patient to Susan. Emphasizing his title to the Excelsius Cancer Center operator, Will had no problem getting patched through to the man, who had a rather high-pitched voice and a fairly pronounced British accent.

“Dr. Newcomber,” Will said after introducing himself, “I’m here with a Mrs. Grace Davis, who had a set of mammograms that you correctly read as showing probable cancer.”

“Well, I’m certainly relieved at being deemed correct about such a thing.”

“Oops. I’m sorry, Doctor. I hope you know that’s not what I meant. I really do apologize.” Will expected the man to say something that would help ease his discomfiture, but there was only silence from the radiologist. “I . . . um . . . the problem I’m calling about is that you referred Mrs. Davis to Dr. Susan Hollister, who is one of my partners.”

“Yes?”

“Well, it turns out that Mrs. Davis and I have a history together that goes back more than ten years.”

“How sweet,” Newcomber said.

Will sensed his neck redden, but held his tongue in check. Newcomber was part of the Excelsius Health family. It was quite possible he was aware of the forum and its aftermath. Perhaps he had even been there.

“Dr. Newcomber, Mrs. Davis is here with me right now. She would like me to perform her surgery. I have spoken with Dr. Hollister, and she has no problem with the change.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t possible.”

“What?”

“Dr. Grand, first of all, this cancer center has an approved list of consultants from which we select a surgeon based on our patients’ hometown and any sexual preference. Dr. Hollister is on that list. You, sir, are not. Secondly, I have made it a point to personally get to know any surgeon to whom I make a referral. I don’t know you at all. If Mrs. Davis has a problem with that, I suggest she make an appointment to come in and share her concerns with me.”

Will could barely speak.

“Dr. Newcomber,” he managed, “who is your supervisor?”

“
I
am the supervisor, sir,” came the acid reply.

“Well, you’re not the boss!” Will shot. “And my name’s Grant, not Grand.”

He slammed the receiver down.

A call to information gave him the number of the headquarters of Excelsius Health. He and Boyd Halliday had mixed it up yesterday, and Will was more than ready for another go.

“There’s no way they’re going to get away with this,” he muttered as much to himself as to Grace.

“Excelsius Health, the leader in cost-effective, comprehensive health care. How may I direct your call?”

“This is Dr. Grant. Mr. Halliday’s office, please.”

“One moment.”

“Boyd Halliday’s office. May I help you?”

“This is Dr. Will Grant. May I speak with Mr. Halliday, please?”

“Dr. Willard Grant? From last evening?”

“That’s right.”

“Um . . . just a moment, please.”

For nearly two minutes, Will sat with the phone pressed to his ear, listening to a Spanish flamenco guitar piece and looking across at Grace. Her transformation, while certainly remarkable, was not the only one of its kind he had encountered. Over his years as a physician and as a volunteer at the Open Hearth, he had known a number of alcoholics and drug addicts who had failed at rehab again and again, only to suddenly get it and become straight and sober forces for good in their own lives and the lives of many others. His own dentist had survived a horrible stretch of drinking, during which he was hospitalized more than two dozen times in a ten-year period. Now, twenty years into recovery, the man was something of a saint, practicing his craft with wonderful skill, while helping countless men and women in and out of his profession to face their demons and prevail.