The Society by Michael Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

of her colonel’s hand. “I miss her, too.”
    Moriarity seemed to sag for a moment, then just as quickly pulled himself up ramrod straight.
    “So, how are you doing on these cases?” he asked.
    Patty shook her head.
    “We’re working like hell on them, but nothing so far. My bet is it’s either a disillusioned, disgruntled physician or the relative of someone who died because of managed-care negligence. Our hope is that sometime soon the killer will feel the need to get his message across to the public more stridently, and move closer and closer to being out in the open. Then maybe we can get a hook into him.”
    “You still upset about Brasco taking your place in charge of this case?”
    “Nope. I’m fine, Dad.”
    “Good. I’m glad you understand why the change was made. Brasco’s been around a good while. I imagine you’ll learn a lot from him.”
    “I’ve learned a lot already.”
    “I heard he’s got a cryptographer and a psychologist on the case.”
    “That he does.”
    Patty narrowly avoided choking on the words. Even before the murder of Marcia Rising, she was concerned that the letters found beside Ben Morales’s body might be the start of something and had both the code-breaker and profiler at work. In one of his first acts after taking over as head of the investigations, Brasco had sent out a memo to all the higher-ups summing up the department’s efforts to date on the two managed-care killings. In it, he unabashedly took full credit for bringing both specialists on board.
    If Tommy Moriarity picked up on the venom in his daughter’s voice, he hid it well.
    “So,” he said, “you’re still happy you became a cop?”
    Tommy’s dream for his daughter centered around at least law school, and at most the Presidency. He didn’t speak to her for two months after learning she had taken the state police exam without consulting him.
    He’s the perfect father
, she often said to friends,
so long as you do what he wants
. “I’m very happy being a cop,” she said now.
    “I hear good things about you from Lieutenant Court.”
    He can’t stand me, Dad, or any other woman detective, for that matter. He and his pal Brasco are absolute Neanderthals. If a male version of me had handled this case exactly the same way I had, believe me, he’d still be running it.
    “I’m pleased to hear that,” she said.
    Tommy shifted uncomfortably. This wasn’t going to be the moment he suddenly blurted out how proud he was of her and what she had become, or how sorry he was for not insisting she be left in charge of the managed-care murders. If anything, Patty suspected he was embarrassed at how much pressure had been brought to bear on him to not protest her demotion to Brasco’s second fiddle. At some level, she thought, he had to be proud that she had chosen to follow in his footsteps. But then again, maybe not.
    “So,” he said, “we’re still on for our dinner a week from Friday?”
    Without ever really discussing it, they had gone from eating together twice a week following the death of Ruth Moriarity to every other.
    “My place, same time,” Patty said with forced cheer.
    “Well . . . good luck with this case. Call me if I can be of any help.”
    He gave her a wooden hug, turned, and headed off across the lawn, stepping to his left to avoid what looked like a piece of Cyrill Davenport.

CHAPTER 5
    The Boston chapter of the Hippocrates Society had been meeting on the third Thursday of each month since its inception fourteen years ago. Initially, the three founders of the chapter met at the home of one or another of them. Soon, driven by a steady increase in membership, they moved to a conference room at Harvard Medical School. Now, for nearly four years, meetings had been held in the amphitheater of the Massachusetts Medical Society—a spectacular modern structure located in a Waltham office park, featuring a massive four-story glass atrium at the main entrance, which opened onto terraced