That caused Jeremy to think of something. “Did you know Mr. Renfrew- the used bookseller?”

“Shadley Renfrew,” said Kaplan. “Certainly. A fine man- ah, you knew him because his shop was right near the hospital.”

“Yes,” said Jeremy.

“I heard he passed on. Too bad.”

“He beat cancer, then his heart gave out.”

“Throat cancer,” said Kaplan. “That’s why he never spoke. Before the cancer, he used to sing. Had a wonderful voice.”

“Did he?”

“Oh, yes. An Irish tenor. Maybe he was lucky.”

“In what way?”

“Enforced silence,” said Kaplan. “Perhaps it made him wiser. That’s something else you’ll find in there.” He tapped the book. “ ‘Be cautious with your words, lest they learn to lie.’ Here, let me wrap it for you.” He reached into a drawer and drew out something shiny and orange. “And here’s a hard candy to go with it. Elite, from Israel. They’re very good. I used to give it out to the kids when they came in. You’re the youngest person I’ve seen around here in ages, so today you’ll be the lucky kid.”

Jeremy thanked him and paid for the book. As he left the shop, Bernard Kaplan said, “That customer could wait for his ethics. I’m glad you couldn’t.”

On the way to the car, Jeremy popped the orange candy in his mouth and ground it to sweet, citrus dust.

He opened the book while the Nova’s engine idled. The right side was Hebrew, the left English translation. During the brief time he’d been in the shop, the temperature had dropped, and the car had turned frigid. Still a good ways from winter, but his windshield was coated with a gossamer layer of rime. It could get like that because of the lake. Winds whipping across the water, churning up the cold.

His first year at City Central, a storm from the north had plunged the mercury from forty above to forty below in two hours, and the hospital’s auxiliary generators had threatened to shut down.

No deaths, the bottom-liners claimed, but Jeremy’d heard tales of respirators hesitating, operating lights switching off midincision.

He switched on the heater, reached to activate the wipers to clear the frost and thought better of it. Privacy was good.

Time to soak up some ethics from the Fathers. From Bernard Kaplan’s quotations and the Bartlett’s analogy, he’d expected a collection of homilies, and the pages he flipped on the way to Chapter Five seemed consistent with that.

But Chapter Five, paragraph 8 was different.

A litany of punishments wreaked upon the world for a host of transgressions.

Famine for failure to tithe, a plague of wild beasts for vain oaths, exile for idolatry.

Section e read:

The sword of war comes to the world

for the delay of justice.

Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno’s commentary backed that up with a citation from Leviticus: A sword avenging the vengeance of the covenant.

Someone out to set things in order.

A covenant- an agreement- to set things straight.

By clearing up unsolved murders?

Or committing new ones- a cleansing plague?

Viewed through the prism of vengeful justice, the articles took on a different cast.

Laser surgery on women. Newspaper accounts of two murdered women.

The laser, a cleansing weapon- a cleansing tool?

Had some madman used an ancient text as rationale for his personal brand of justice?

Or worse: a fiend, simply bragging?

Jeremy flipped through the pink book and gazed, uncomprehending, at the Hebrew letters. Could there be a Jewish link to all this? Someone wanting him to think there was?

That brought to mind something he’d read years ago, in college. About Jack the Ripper. An abnormal psych professor, straining for relevance, had placed a true-crime account of the Whitehall murders on his reading list, claiming it illustrated sadistic psychopathy better than any textbook.

Straining for relevance was generally a fool’s game, and Jeremy had considered the work yet more gratuitous dumbing-down: lots of speculation, theories that could never be proved or disproved, pages of gory photos.

But one particular illustration came to mind, now. An etched reproduction of chalk graffiti scrawled on a black brick wall in London’s East End. A message left at the scene of a prostitute killing- something about “the Juwes” not being blamed for nothing. The original writing had been sponged off, and some police constable had jotted from memory. The etcher had drawn upon his imagination.

The Ripper had done his thing in a heavily Jewish slum, and the accepted interpretation of the scrawl was an attempt to cast blame upon an already distrusted ethnic group.

According to Bernard Kaplan, Central Hospital had once been besmirched by anti-Semitism.

The murdered girls in the clipping had been English.

His head spinning, Jeremy closed the book and started the drive back to the hospital.

Oslo, Paris- Damascus by way of Berlin. The Syrian capital was sure to be a place hostile to Jews. And nowhere had Jew-hatred blossomed more fully than in Germany. Was Arthur guiding him in a certain direction?

Arthur and others? Tina Balleron hadn’t been the least bit surprised to hear about the envelopes.

So maybe the articles weren’t correspondence from a killer but precisely what he’d guessed initially: one of Arthur’s surrogates doing the old man’s bidding.

Leading him to an ancient Jewish book.

The only CCC member with a Jewish surname was Norbert Levy and during Jeremy’s initial search nothing had come up linking the engineering professor to any homicides. Maybe he just needed to dig deeper.

He pressed down on the gas pedal, drove too quickly on streets slicked by oil and rain, found his way to the doctors’ lot, parked quickly. Bounding out of the car, he hurried to his office.

A specific assignment. That felt good.

He’d barely hung his coat and booted up the computer when Angela phoned.

“I need to come over.”

“Right now?”

“Yes- may I? Please?”

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. Are you free? Please say you are.”

“I am,” said Jeremy.

“I’m coming now.”

She burst in wearing a black blouse tucked into khakis, and sneakers. No coat or stethoscope. Her hair was tied back carelessly and loose strands flew out wildly. Her eyes were raw, her cheeks tear-streaked.

“What is it?” said Jeremy.

She flashed a smile that sickened him. Pure defeat. When the words came out, her voice was strangled.

“I am so, so stupid.”

Dirgrove had hit on her. Hard.

It had just happened- thirty minutes ago- in the surgeon’s office. She’d been sitting shell-shocked in the female residents’ locker room since then, had finally garnered the energy to call Jeremy.

Dirgrove had set it up carefully, inviting her over to discuss the aftereffects of coronary bypass surgery.

Something you should know, Dr. Rios, as a practicing physician.

When she showed up, he greeted her warmly but with formality, remained behind his desk and pointed to the journal articles he’d laid out for her in a neat, overlapping row. Bookmarks designated pages he deemed noteworthy.

When she sat down, he began lecturing her about patient care, then instructed her to have a look at one article in particular. His tie was tightly knotted, and he smelled freshly showered. When Angela began reading, he came around from behind his desk, made a show of smoothing the tailored white coats and freshly pressed scrubs that hung from a wooden rack next to a burbling saltwater aquarium.

Then he moved behind her. Stood there as she read.