Jonathan Kellerman - The Conspiracy Club

Which is what it had become. An obsession and, like any neurosis, time-wasting and energy-depleting.

Enough. He was a busy guy, patients to see, a book to write.

But someone was definitely playing him. If not Arthur, who?

Arthur setting up expectations, then dashing them, yet again?

The old man had even scrambled Jeremy’s intuition. Before meeting Arthur, Jeremy had had faith in his ability to judge people, to sum up, predict, all those tricks you convinced yourself you knew so that you could go from room to room and comfort the ill and the scared and the dying.

Lately, he had nothing to show for his efforts but a slew of bad guesses. The doting wife, living well, haute cuisine. Turned out the old bastard roomed out in the flatlands, surrounded by fast-food joints.

That first time at the bookstore, assuming Arthur would be reading a book on butterflies, turned out he’d been studying war strategy.

Where’s the war, old man?

At least he’d been right about the house in Queen’s Arms. Decades off the mark, but technically right.

A feeble vindication. He was turning into Wrong Man. He needed his intuition. Without it, where would he be?

Arthur had definitely led him up a path.

Late-night supper, fine wine, haute cuisine, the old eccentrics filling their geriatric guts.

All that good cheer, then a curt dismissal.

Now, this. Postcards.

The old eccentrics…

Had Arthur appointed one of them to send the articles? Handed over a pile of ENT envelopes to one of his pals and left instructions about mailing them, in his absence?

Why not? The articles hadn’t been posted from the outside, simply dropped down the intrahospital tubes. Anyone could gain access to the system. Just waltz through the lobby, find a mail drop, and poof .

How did the tube system actually work? He thumbed through his hospital directory and found the number for Postal Collection. Down on the subbasement, a floor below Pathology.

A deep-voiced man answered his call. “Collection, this is Ernest Washington.”

“Mr. Washington, this is Dr. Carrier. I was just wondering how mail got from the tubes to each department.”

“Dr. who?”

“Carrier.”

“Carrier,” Washington repeated. “Yeah, I recognize the name. First time anyone’s ever asked me that.”

“There’s always a first.”

“Dr. Carrier, from…”

“Psychiatry.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” Then: “This a prank?”

“Not at all. If you want to call me back, my extension is-”

“I know what it is, got it right here, hold on… Jeremy Carrier, Ph.D., Extension 2508.”

“That’s it.”

“It’s really you, huh?”

“Last time I checked.”

Washington chuckled. “Okay, okay, sorry. It’s just that no one ever asked me… is this some kind of psychiatry experiment?”

“No, sir, just curiosity. I was walking past a chute and realized I’ve worked here for years, had no idea how my mail gets to me. It must be quite a challenge.”

“For sure. You don’t have no idea,” said Ernest Washington. “We’re down here all day, and no one ever sees us. Like invisible folk.”

“Know what you mean.”

Washington harrumphed. “The system’s divided up. The U.S. Mail don’t go through the tubes, they bring it all in trucks, once a day, and it goes straight to our central clearing area- right where I am. We sort it and send it to you.”

“And the intrahospital mail?”

“That goes through the tubes. The way it works is the tubes all lead to three collection bins, all down here in the Sub-B. One on the north end of the building, one on the south end, and one right here, in the middle. My staff checks each bin out- we do it regular, so you doctors can have your important mail ASAP. We sort it and send it on to your departments. Not once a day like the U.S. Postal Service. Twice. So you doctors can keep up with your important medical issues. That clear it up for you?”

“Crystal clear,” said Jeremy. “Does it matter where the mail comes from?”

“What do you mean?”

“If it comes from Otolaryngology as opposed to let’s say Surgery, is it handled differently?”

“Nope,” said Washington. “To us, you’re all the same.”

Any port of entry. A sweet old person could slip an envelope down a chute and walk away, and no one would notice or care. A bomb could be dropped down the tubes…

Then he realized he’d been wasting his time and Ernest Washington’s. The envelopes had found their way to him, despite being unmarked. That meant someone was getting to his mail between the time it arrived at Washington’s dominion and ended up at his door.

Someone in Psychiatry? Or afterward?

He couldn’t see anyone in the mental health army doing this. A pleasant, bland bunch, the lot of them. Caring people, nice. Vanilla nice. He was happy to be housed away from them.

Someone else knew he was an isolate, was taking advantage of that.

“Who? How?” he said out loud.

Obsessed.

So this was what curiosity was all about. It had been a long time since question marks had danced in his head. Then Arthur Chess, the most inquisitive man Jeremy had ever encountered, had come along, and now his own mind couldn’t sit still.

Contagious, like a virus.

That made him think about poor Angela. He phoned her apartment, got no answer. Probably sleeping. Good.

The suicide article and the postcard from the Museum of Tools stared up at him. He found the drawer where he’d tossed the card from Oslo, placed all of it in a folder that he labeled Curiosity .

Then he took pen in hand and composed a list. Alphabetizing, because it blessed him with a sense of pseudocontrol.

Tina Balleron

Arthur Chess

Norbert Levy

Edgar Marquis

Harrison Maynard

His first patient was scheduled soon- half an hour- and he had several more appointments after that. Meaning for the rest of the day he’d stuff his ego in the closet and concentrate on others. For thirty minutes, he’d indulge himself.

None of the CCC gourmets had listed phone numbers.

Twenty minutes before he had to run. Jeremy scrambled to remember personal details.

Harrison Maynard had written romance novels under female pseudonyms; no easy avenue of inquiry, there. The ancient Edgar Marquis was ex-State Department and had served on remote islands. That, too, offered little promise.

Norbert Levy. The engineer was emeritus at an Eastern university. A campus one thousand miles away and Levy living here implied an appointment in name only.

If Levy lived here.

No more assuming. Jeremy phoned the institution, connected to the Engineering Department, and asked for Professor Levy.

“Retired,” said the secretary. “Quite a while back.”

“Do you have a current address for him?”

“What’s this about?”

Jeremy gave his name and the hospital’s, spun a tale about a biomechanical engineering convention, wanting to invite Levy.

“Okay,” said the secretary. “Here it is.”

Levy took his mail at a post office box south of downtown, not far from the Seagate district where Arthur had taken him for supper and confusion.

In a movie, Jeremy would rush over to stake out the mail drop. In real life, he had neither the time nor the ability- nor a sane reason to do so. Sitting day and night waiting in the rain? And what if, through some quirk, he encountered the white-bearded academic?

Professor Levy, what a coincidence! You wouldn’t happen to be sending me weird stuff in hospital envelopes, would you?