“Ah! That’s where Mr. Benson comes in.”
Judd looked at him blankly.
“Mr. Benson is the witness to your accident,” explained Moody benevolently. “I got his name from the police report and went to see him after you left my office. That’ll be three-fifty for taxicabs. OK?”
Judd nodded, speechless.
“Mr. Benson—he’s a furrier, by the way. Beautiful stuff. If you ever want to buy anything for your sweetheart, I can get you a discount. Anyway, Tuesday, the night of the accident, he was comin’ out of an office building where his sister-in-law works. He dropped some pills off because his brother Matthew, who’s a Bible salesman, had the flu an’ she was goin’ to take the pills home to him.”
Judd controlled his impatience. If Norman Z. Moody had felt like sitting there and reciting the entire Bill of Rights, he was going to listen.
“So Mr. Benson dropped off these pills an’ was comin’ out of the building when he saw this limousine headin’ toward you. Of course, he didn’t know it was you at the time.”
Judd nodded.
“The car was kinda crabbin’ sideways, an’ from Benson’s angle, it looked like it was in a skid. When he saw it hit you, he started runnin’ over to see if he could help. The limousine backed up to make another run at you. He saw Mr. Benson an’ got out of there like a bat outta hell.”
Judd swallowed. “So if Mr. Benson hadn’t happened along…”
“Yeah,” said Moody mildly. “You might say you an’ me wouldn’t have met. These boys aren’t playin’ games. They’re out to get you, Doc.”
“What about the attack in my office? Why didn’t they break the door down?”
Moody was silent for a moment, thinking. “That’s a puzzler. They coulda broken in an’ killed you an’ whoever was with you an’ got away without anybody seein’ them. But when they thought you weren’t alone, they left. It don’t fit in with the rest.” He sat there worrying his lower lip. “Unless…” he said.
“Unless what?”
A speculative look came over Moody’s face. “I wonder…” he breathed.
“What?”
“It’ll keep for the time bein’. I got me a little idea, but it don’t make sense until we find a motive.”
Judd shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know of anyone who has a motive for killing me.”
Moody thought about this a moment. “Doc, could you have any secret that you shared with this patient of yours, Hanson, an’ Carol Roberts? Somethin’ maybe only the three of you knew about?”
Judd shook his head. “The only secrets I have are professional secrets about my patients. And there’s not one single thing in any of their case histories that would justify murder. None of my patients is a secret agent, or a foreign spy, or an escaped convict. They’re just ordinary people—housewives, professional men, bank clerks—who have problems they can’t cope with.”
Moody looked at him guilelessly. “An’ you’re sure that you’re not harboring a homicidal maniac in your little group?”
Judd’s voice was firm. “Positive. Yesterday I might not have been sure. To tell you the truth, I was beginning to think that I was suffering from paranoia and that you were humoring me.”
Moody smiled at him. “The thought had crossed my mind,” he said. “After you phoned me for an appointment, I did some checking up on you. I called a couple of pretty good doctor friends of mine. You got quite a reputation.”
So the “Mr. Stevenson” had been part of Moody’s country bumpkin facade.
“If we go to the police now,” Judd said, “with what we know, we can at least get them to start looking for whoever’s behind all this.”
Moody looked at him in mild surprise. “You think so? We don’t really have much to go on yet, do we, Doc?”
It was true.
“I wouldn’t be discouraged,” Moody said. “I think we’re makin’ real progress. We’ve narrowed it down nicely.”
A note of frustration crept into Judd’s voice. “Sure. It could be anyone in the Continental United States.”
Moody sat there a moment, contemplating the ceiling. Finally he shook his head. “Families,” he sighed.
“Families?”
“Doc—I believe you when you say you know your patients inside out. If you tell me they couldn’t do anything like this, I have to go along with you. It’s your beehive an’ you’re th’ keeper of the honey.” He leaned forward on the couch. “But tell me somethin’. When you take on a patient, do you interview his family?”