“That’s an image.”

“Ho, ho, ho, grumble, grumble. Thank God there were no kids to sit in his lap. What I was getting at, Alex, is that Patty wasn’t at that party or any other. Always straight home when she finished charting. When I tried to convince her otherwise it was ‘I love you, Richard, but I am needed at home.’”

“Single-parent responsibilities?”

“Guess so. Tanya was the one person Patty tolerated in her hospital room. Kid seems sweet. Premed, she told me she’s thinking psychiatry or neurology. Maybe you made a good impression.”

He got up, stretched his arms over his head. Sat back down.

“Alex, the poor kid’s not even twenty years old and she’s alone.” He reached for his coffee, stared into the cup, didn’t drink. “Any particular reason you took the time to come over here?”

“I was wondering if there was anything about Patty I should know.”

“She got sick, she died, it stinks,” he said. “Why am I thinking that’s not what you’re after?”

I considered how much to tell him. Technically, he could be thought of as the referring physician. Or not.

I said, “Tanya’s wanting to see me has nothing to do with grief. She wants to talk about a ‘terrible thing’ Patty confessed on her deathbed.”

His head shot forward. “What?”

“That’s as much as she’d say over the phone. Make any sense to you?”

“Sounds ridiculous to me. Patty was the most moral person I’ve met. Tanya’s stressed out. People say all kinds of things when they’re under pressure.”

“That could be it.”

He thought for a while. “Maybe this ‘terrible thing’ was Patty’s guilt about leaving Tanya. Or she was just talking nonsense because of how sick she was.”

“Did the disease affect her cognition?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me, but it’s not my field. Talk to her oncologist. Tziporah Ganz.” His beeper sounded and he read the text message. “Beverly Hills EMTs, infarc arriving momentarily…gotta go try to save someone, Alex.”