Michael Palmer - The Society

“And you want me to be the first one through his office door?”

Will turned her to him by the shoulders and perched her chin up on his fingertips.

“Maybe that’s not such a good idea after all.”

“No, it’s okay,” Susan said. “I’ve met him before, remember? Besides, who could shoot someone with such an angelic face as this?”

The entrance to the mammography wing of the Excelsius Cancer Center was on the south side. The waiting room was empty save for two women in their fifties and the silver-haired receptionist who had let Will visit Newcomber on his last visit.

“Dr. Davidson,” she said, “nice to see you again.”

Will nearly corrected her, then remembered making up the name. He made a major upward revision of his initial impression of the woman’s sharpness. Susan’s expression said that she had caught on immediately.

“Thank you for remembering me, Mrs. . ”

“Medeiros. Martha Medeiros. I have a thing about remembering names and faces. Sort of a hobby.”

She tried for a coquettish smile that missed by about four decades.

“This is-”

“I know, I know, Dr. Hollister,” she said proudly. “Sandra?”

“Susan,” Susan said. “That’s remarkable. Absolutely amazing. It’s been about a year since I was here.”

“Thank you. I enjoy shocking people.”

“Consider me shocked.”

“Mrs. Medeiros, we’re here to see Dr. Newcomber.”

“Was he expecting you?”

“No, but we just need to pick up a set of mammograms from him.”

“Well, Dr. Newcomber isn’t here.” Will and Susan exchanged disappointed glances. “He never comes in on Thursdays until after one. It’s like his day off, only it’s just half a day. Dr. Debra Grossbaum is here. Can she help you?”

Susan stepped forward and handed over the release signed by Grace Davis and notarized by Attorney Jill Leary.

“All we need are these films. Can you help us out there?”

“I can try. I think our film copier’s broken, though, so you’ll have to look at them here.”

Again disappointment.

“We can’t take them out?”

Martha shook her head. “It’s a strict policy.”

“Any idea when the copier will be fixed?”

“None. Dr. Grossbaum just made a call about it a little while ago. Let me call Daphna in the film library and see what she can do.”

Martha retrieved Grace’s X-ray number from the database, then called the librarian.

After almost five minutes with the phone tucked under her chin, during which she registered two new patients, Martha set the receiver down, a puzzled expression darkening her face.

“Mrs. Shemesh in the library says the copier isn’t expected to be fixed until at least tomorrow. No one seems to even know what’s wrong with it.”

“That’s okay,” Will said, frustrated, “we can view the films here.”

“Well, that’s a problem, too,” Martha replied. “She can’t find them. They’re not signed out, so she thinks they’ve just been misfiled. She’s going to keep looking.”

“What about a computerized storage service?” Susan asked.

Martha made another call, then shook her head. “Daphna says they’re talking about getting a service like that, but not yet. Apparently they’re quite expensive.”

“Always the bottom line,” Will muttered.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. We’re just a bit disappointed.”

“Daphna is upset, too. She apologizes and says she’ll keep looking. Do you want to wait or should I call you?”

Will glanced over at Susan and shook his head apologetically. At the same time, he could tell she was wondering, as was he, if the disappearance of Grace Davis’s mammograms was something more than a clerical error and coincidence.

What in the hell is going on? he could almost hear her thinking.

He wrote their office number down and then, remembering that their receptionist would be quite certain she knew nothing of a Dr. Davidson, he scratched it out and replaced it with his home phone. It was doubtful Martha Medeiros would be calling anyhow. If Grace Davis’s films were gone, they were gone for good.

Will passed the number over and then hesitated, hoping against hope that the film librarian would ring in with good news.

“I guess we should have called first,” he said finally.

“I can certainly leave a message for Dr. Newcomber that you were here. Or maybe you can try calling him or stopping by this afternoon.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Susan said. “Meanwhile, feel free to leave him a note that we were here, and tell your records-room person that we’d appreciate her doing everything possible to find those films.”

“I’ll do that,” Martha said, coming out from behind the reception counter to bring a clipboard with some forms over to one of the new arrivals. As she turned back, she stopped, staring out the window. “Now, that’s funny,” she said to Will and Susan.

“What?”

“That’s Dr. Newcomber’s car in the parking lot-that silver Lexus sports car over there. It’s his pride and joy. Maybe it broke down and someone drove him home. I didn’t notice it when I came in to work at seven-thirty, because my husband dropped me off at the main entrance, but it must have been there.”

Will had noticed the exquisite SC model when they arrived.

“Those cars don’t break down,” he said. “Maybe he got here before you came and he’s stayed in his office.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Could we check?”

“I. . um. . I suppose so. Let me call.”

Martha dialed Newcomber’s extension, waited a few rings, and then hung up.

Will flashed on the unbridled fear in the strange little radiologist’s eyes, on the shaking of the gun in his hand, and on the vibrant flush of red in his cheeks.

“I think we should check in there,” he said, motioning down the hallway. “Susan, I don’t like this.”

Clearly bewildered, Martha hesitated and then finally withdrew a ring of keys from her desk drawer.

Will was still ten feet away from Newcomber’s door when the air changed. It was a smell familiar to him after almost two decades of hospital work-an amalgam of feces, urine, blood, and body odor. It was the scent of death. He moved to stop Martha Medeiros, but the knob to Newcomber’s office turned in her hand. She swung the door open and stumbled backward, uttering a strangled, gurgled cry, her hand across her mouth.

The rancid odor of well-established death flooded the room.

The portly radiologist sat bolt upright in his high-backed leather chair, held in place by a band of duct tape pulled firmly across his throat. His wrists were similarly bound to the arms of the chair. His dress shirt was ripped open at the front, revealing a fleshy, hairless chest that was pocked by half a dozen or more dark, penny-size sores. Even from across the room, Will could tell they were burns. Still attached by an edge of adhesive to his glistening pate, Newcomber’s silver hairpiece flopped down over his left ear. His gray-green eyes, like a taxidermist’s marbles, stared sightlessly across the room. Dried blood cascaded around the corners of his mouth from the nostrils of a nose that was quite obviously broken.

Martha’s legs had gone out from beneath her. Will eased her gently to the floor and then stayed in the doorway as Susan hurried over to the desk. The fewer people in the room until the police arrived, the better, and this man was far beyond needing medical intervention. Susan didn’t bother confirming Will’s clinical impression.

“No obvious mortal wounds or injuries,” she said.

“A coronary?”

“Maybe. Will, I think these are electrical burns.”

“Some sort of cattle prod, maybe. It’s possible he died while he was being tortured.”