He hung up, sat there trembling, was still unsteady when he walked to the box down the hall and collected his mail.

Totally irrational, calling Doresh. What could he have hoped to accomplish?

The second article had spooked him. Made it impossible for him to brush it off as a mail screwup. But what if he was wrong, and some fool had simply made the same mistake twice?

Dissection… even if someone was playing with his head, there couldn’t be any real connection to Jocelyn.

Could it be Arthur?

Jeremy entertained visions of the old man stockpiling interoffice envelopes and other hospital supplies in his musty old Victorian house.

Retired, but hanging on.

Hoarding was consistent with Arthur’s clothing, his car, his excessive reminiscences. Holding on to old things.

Living in the past. An inability to let go.

Jeremy vowed to forget about him and the envelopes, once and for all. Time to keep going on his book chapter, which miraculously seemed to be falling into place. Since receiving the first laser article and realizing how poorly written it was- how clunky and pompous most medical writing was- he’d decided he could do better.

He’d written twenty good pages, done a redraft, felt satisfied he was on his way.

Onward: the book and Angela.

They’d seen each other only twice during the last eight days, made love on both occasions, drunk wine, talked for hours, seemed to be moving toward that comfort two people experience when the chemistry quiets but doesn’t vanish.

Shoptalk with Angela had cleared one thing up: It was she who’d given his name to Dr. Ted Dirgrove.

“I was rotating through cardiothoracic, and he gave us a terrific lecture on transmyocardial revascularization. Then he brought up the topic of anxiety as a surgical risk factor, and I thought that was admirable, for a cutter.”

“Being concerned about anxiety?”

“Most of those guys, you can’t get them to see beyond their scalpels. Dirgrove actually seems to realize there’s a human being at the other end. I mentioned the work you did- the strides you’d made relaxing anxious patients. I gave the example of Marian Boehmer- my lupus patient. Who, incidentally, is doing fine. Whatever that blood dysgrasia was, it self-limited. Anyway, Dirgrove seemed very interested. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” said Jeremy. “Unfortunately, I didn’t help his patient much.”

“Really?” said Angela. “He said you did.”

“I think he’s being kind.”

“Maybe you had more of an effect than you figured.”

Jeremy thought about the brief encounter with the hostile Merilee Saunders and doubted he’d accomplished anything other than to convert her anxiety to anger.

On the other hand, that could sometimes be therapeutic- if anger made the patient feel in charge, reduced the panic that came from crushing vulnerability.

Still, it was hard to see the Saunders girl as anything more than failed rapport. How long had he been with her? Five, ten minutes?

Angela said, “Dirgrove sounded pretty pleased.”

He supposed she could be right. There’d been instances when patients got in touch years after treatment, to thank him. Some were specific about what had helped.

Things he’d said. Or hadn’t. Word choices and phraseologies that had proved crucial in tipping them over the therapeutic brink.

In every case, the “cure” had been unintentional. He’d had no idea he’d shot the magic bullet.

Then there were the cases where he’d drawn upon every technique in his shrink’s arsenal and fallen flat on his face.

What did that say? That he was a pawn, not a king?

What a strange way to make a living.

“I think,” said Angela, “that you sometimes sell yourself short.”

“Do you?” He kissed her nose.

“I do.” She ran her fingers through his hair.

“You’re a nice woman.”

“Sometimes.”

“I haven’t seen otherwise.”

“Ha,” she said.

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“No,” she said, suddenly serious. She pressed her cheek close to his. Her breath was warm, light, alcoholically sweet. “I’d never do that. I’d never do anything to put space between us.”

Tumor board was canceled for the week. The following session, Arthur was back at the lectern, running the show.

Jeremy arrived late and had to sit at the rear. The room was dark- slides, always slides- and it stayed that way for most of the hour. The old man’s sonorous baritone rhapsodizing about mediastinal teratomas.

But when the lights went on, Arthur was gone, and Dr. Singh had taken his place, explaining, “Dr. Chess had to leave early for a prior engagement. Let us proceed.”

The final ten minutes were taken up by a spirited debate about cell permeability. Jeremy had trouble staying awake, managed to do so by scolding himself:

At least this is science, not some randomized process where the so-called expert doesn’t have a clue.

The next day, the third envelope arrived. Jeremy had nearly finished a rough draft of his chapter and was feeling pretty flush. The sight of “Otolaryngology” in the sender slot froze his fingers on the keyboard.

He thought about throwing it out unopened. Couldn’t resist temptation and tore the flap so hard the little metal clasp flew off.

No medical reprint inside. Instead, Jeremy extracted a newspaper clipping, crumbling at the edges and browned with age. No identifying marks- the article had been trimmed well below the upper margin- but the tone and the locale suggested a British tabloid.

Vanished Bridget’s Chum Found Murdered

Two years ago pretty Bridget Sapsted left a pub in Broadstairs, Kent, after a night of serving pints only to vanish. Despite extensive police inquiries, the fate of the lovely lass was never discovered. Now a close friend of the pretty brunette has been murdered brutally, and efforts are being made to learn if the fate of one girl is connected to that of the other.

The case took a grisly twist when, early this morning, the body of 23 yr old Suzie Clevington was found by a man walking to work on the outskirts of Broadstairs. Suzie and the vivacious Bridget had been classmates at Belvington School, Branchwillow, Kent, and the two girls had remained fast friends. With aspirations as a dancer, Suzie had spent some time in London and on the Continent, but had returned home recently to seek employment opportunities.

“At this point,” said the principal investigator, Det Insp Nigel Langdon, “we are treating these as independent incidents. However, should the facts warrant, we will pursue them as related.”

In response to rumours that the body had undergone horrible mutilation, Det Insp Langdon would say only that the police could not reveal all the details of the case in the interest of an “efficient investigation.”

Suzie Clevington was described by friends and family as an out-going, friendly-

And there the article ended, cut off in midsentence.

Laser scalpels, female surgery, a dead girl. Mutilation.

A Humpty-Dumpty situation.

This was not a postal screwup.

Someone in the hospital, wanting Jeremy to know.

Who could it be, other than Arthur?

He called Arthur’s office. No answer. Was the old man still caught up in yesterday’s “prior engagement”? The exigent circumstance that had caused the pathologist to flee Tumor Board before the meeting had ended?

Jeremy realized something: All three envelopes had arrived during periods when Arthur had been impossible to reach. What was that, an alibi?

For what?

Slipping on his white coat, he walked to the faculty office and lied to the secretary- an exceptionally cheerful woman named Anna Colon with whom he’d always gotten along- about having bought a gift for Dr. Chess and needing a home address.