The Surgeon

Nine

It was not virgins the Vikings sacrificed, but harlots.

In the year of our lord 922, the Arab diplomat ibn Fadlan witnessed just such a sacrifice among the people he called the Rus. He described them as tall and blond, men of perfect physique who traveled from Sweden, down the Russian rivers, to the southern markets of Kazaria and the Caliphate, where they traded amber and furs for the silk and silver of Byzantium. It was on that trade route, in a place called Bulgar, at the bend of the Volga, that a dead Viking man of great importance was prepared for his final journey to Valhalla.

Ibn Fadlan witnessed the funeral.

The dead man’s boat was hauled ashore and placed on posts of birch wood. A pavilion was built on the deck, and in this pavilion was a couch covered in Greek brocade. The corpse, which had been buried ten days, was then disinterred.

To ibn Fadlan’s surprise, the blackened flesh did not smell.

The newly dug-up corpse was then adorned in fine clothes: trousers and stockings, boots and a tunic, and a caftan of brocade with gold buttons. They placed him on the mattress inside the pavilion, and propped him up with cushions in a sitting position. Around him they placed bread and meat and onions, intoxicating drink, and sweet-smelling plants. They slew a dog and two horses, a rooster and a hen, and all these, too, they placed inside the pavilion, to serve his needs in Valhalla.

Last, they brought a slave girl.

For the ten days that the dead man had lain buried in the ground, the girl had been given over to whoredom. Dazed with drink, she was brought from tent to tent to service every man in the encampment. She lay with legs spread beneath a succession of sweating, grunting men, her well-used body a communal vessel into which the seed of all the tribesmen was spilled. In this way was she defiled, her flesh corrupted, her body made ready for sacrifice.

On the tenth day, she was brought to the ship, accompanied by an old woman whom they called the Angel of Death. The girl removed her bracelets and finger rings. She drank deeply to intoxicate herself. Then she was brought into the pavilion, where the dead man sat.

There, upon the brocade-draped mattress, she was defiled yet again. Six times, by six men, her body passed among them like shared meat. And when it was done, when the men were sated, the girl was stretched out at the side of her dead master. Two men held her feet, two men held her hands, and the Angel of Death looped a cord around the girl’s neck. While the men pulled the cord taut, the Angel raised her broad-bladed dagger and plunged it into the girl’s chest.

Again and again the blade came down, spilling blood the way a grunting man spills seed, the dagger reenacting the ravishment that came before, sharp metal piercing soft flesh.

A brutal rutting that delivered, with its final thrust, the rapture of death.

“She required massive transfusions of blood and fresh frozen plasma,” said Catherine. “Her pressure’s stabilized, but she’s still unconscious and on a ventilator. You’ll just have to be patient, Detective. And hope she wakes up.”

Catherine and Detective Darren Crowe stood outside Nina Peyton’s SICU cubicle and watched three lines trace across the cardiac monitor. Crowe had been waiting by the O.R. door when the patient was wheeled out, had stuck right beside her in the Recovery Room and later during the transfer to SICU. His role was more than merely protective; he was eager to take the patient’s statement, and for the last few hours he had made a nuisance of himself, demanding frequent progress reports and hovering outside the cubicle.

Now, once again, he repeated the question he’d been asking all morning: “Is she going to live?”

“All I can tell you is that her vital signs are stable.”

“When can I talk to her?”

Catherine gave a tired sigh. “You don’t seem to understand how critical she was. She lost more than a third of her blood volume before she even got here. Her brain may have been deprived of crucial circulation. When and if she does regain consciousness, there’s a chance she won’t remember anything.”

Crowe looked through the glass partition. “Then she’s useless to us.”

Catherine stared at him with mounting dislike. Not once had he expressed concern for Nina Peyton, except as a witness, as someone he could use. Not once, all morning, had he referred to her by name. He’d called her the victim or the witness. What he saw, looking into the cubicle, wasn’t a woman at all but simply a means to an end.

“When will she be moved from ICU?” he asked.

“It’s too early to ask that question.”

“Could she be transferred to a private room? If we keep the door closed, limit the personnel, then no one has to know she can’t talk.”

Catherine knew exactly where this was going. “I won’t have my patient used as bait. She needs to stay here for round-the-clock observation. You see those lines on the monitor? That’s the EKG, the central venous pressure, and the arterial pressure. I need to stay on top of every change in her status. This unit is the only place to do it.”

“How many women could we save if we stop him now? Have you thought about that? Of all people, Dr. Cordell, you know what these women have gone through.”

She went rigid with anger. He had struck a blow at her most vulnerable spot. What Andrew Capra had done to her was so personal, so intimate, that she could not speak of the loss, even with her own father. Detective Crowe had ripped open that wound.

“She may be the only way to catch him,” said Crowe.

“This is the best you can come up with? Use a comatose woman as bait? Endanger other patients in this hospital by inviting a killer to show up here?”

“What makes you think he isn’t already here?” Crowe said, and he walked away.

Already here. Catherine could not help but glance around the unit. She saw nurses bustling between patients. A group of resident surgeons gathered near the bank of monitors. A phlebotomist carrying her tray of blood tubes and syringes. How many people walked in and out of this hospital every day? How many of them did she truly know as people? No one. That much Andrew Capra had taught her: that she could never really know what lurked in a person’s heart.

The ward clerk said, “Dr. Cordell, telephone call.”

Catherine crossed to the nurses’ station and picked up the phone.

It was Moore. “I hear you pulled her through.”

“Yes, she’s still alive,” Catherine answered bluntly. “And no, she’s not talking yet.”

A pause. “I take it this is a bad time to call.”

She sank into a chair. “I’m sorry. I just spoke to Detective Crowe, and I am not in a good mood.”

“He seems to have that effect on women.”

They both laughed, tired laughs that melted any hostility between them.

“How are you holding up, Catherine?”

“We had some hairy moments, but I think I’ve got her stablilized.”

“No, I mean you. Are you okay?”

It was more than just a polite inquiry; she heard real concern in his voice, and she did not know what to say. She knew only that it felt good to be cared about. That his words had brought a flush to her cheeks.

“You won’t go home, right?” he said. “Until your locks are changed.”

“It makes me so angry. He’s taken away the one place I felt safe.”

“We’ll make it safe again. I’ll see about getting a locksmith over there.”

“On a Saturday? You’re a miracle worker.”

“No. I just have a great Rolodex.”

She leaned back, the tension easing from her shoulders. All around her, the SICU hummed with activity, yet her attention was focused completely on the man whose voice now soothed her, reassured her.

“And how are you?” she asked.

“I’m afraid my day’s just beginning.” A pause as he turned to answer someone’s question, something about which evidence to bag. Other voices were talking in the background. She imagined him in Nina Peyton’s bedroom, the evidence of horror all around him. Yet his voice was quiet and unruffled.

“You’ll call me the instant she wakes up?” said Moore.

“Detective Crowe’s hanging around here like a vulture. I’m sure he’ll know it before I do.”

“Do you think she will wake up?”

“Honest answer?” said Catherine. “I don’t know. I keep saying that to Detective Crowe, and he doesn’t accept it, either.”

“Dr. Cordell?” It was Nina Peyton’s nurse, calling from the cubicle. The tone of her voice instantly alarmed Catherine.

“What is it?”

“You’ve got to come look at this.”

“Is something wrong?” Moore said over the phone.

“Hang on. Let me check.” She set down the receiver and went into the cubicle.

“I was cleaning her off with a washcloth,” the nurse said. “They brought her down from the O.R. with blood still caked all over her. When I turned her on her side, I saw it. It’s behind her left thigh.”

“Show me.”

The nurse grasped the patient’s shoulder and hip and rolled her onto her side. “There,” she said softly.

Fear skewered Catherine to the spot. She stared at the cheery message that had been written in black felt-tip ink on Nina Peyton’s skin.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY. DO YOU LIKE MY GIFT?

Moore found her in the hospital cafeteria. She was seated at a corner table, her back to the wall, assuming the position of one who knows she is threatened and wants to see any attack coming. She was still wearing surgeon’s scrubs, and her hair was tied back in a ponytail, exposing her strikingly angular features, the unadorned face, the glittering eyes. She had to be nearly as exhausted as he was, but fear had heightened her alertness, and she was like a feral cat, watching his every move as he approached the table. A half-empty cup of coffee sat in front of her. How many refills had she had? he wondered, and saw that she trembled as she reached for the cup. Not the steady hand of a surgeon, but the hand of a frightened woman.

He sat down across from her. “There’ll be a patrol car parked outside your building all night. Did you get your new keys?”

She nodded. “The locksmith dropped them off. He told me he put in the Rolls-Royce of dead bolts.”

“You’ll be fine, Catherine.”

She looked down at her coffee. “That message was meant for me.”

“We don’t know that.”

“It was my birthday yesterday. He knew. And he knew I was scheduled to be on call.”

“If he’s the one who wrote it.”

“Don’t bullshit me. You know it was him.”

After a pause, Moore nodded.

They sat without speaking for a moment. It was already late afernoon, and most of the tables were empty. Behind the counter, cafeteria workers cleared away the serving pans, and steam rose in wispy columns. A lone cashier cracked open a fresh package of coins, and they clattered into the register drawer.

“What about my office?” she said.

“He left no fingerprints.”

“So you have nothing on him.”

“We have nothing,” he admitted.

“He moves in and out of my life like air. No one sees him. No one knows what he looks like. I could put bars on all my windows, and I’ll still be afraid to fall asleep.”

“You don’t have to go home. I’ll bring you to a hotel.”

“It doesn’t matter where I hide. He’ll know where I am. For some reason, he’s chosen me. He’s told me I’m next.”

“I don’t think so. It would be an incredibly stupid move on his part, warning his next victim. The Surgeon is not stupid.”

“Why did he contact me? Why write me notes on…” She swallowed.

“It could be a challenge to us. A way of taunting the police.”

“Then the bastard should have written to you!” Her voice rang out so loudly that a nurse pouring a cup of coffee turned and stared at her.

Flushing, Catherine rose to her feet. She’d embarrassed herself by that outburst, and she was silent as they walked out of the hospital. He wanted to take her hand, but he thought she would only pull away, interpreting it as a condescending gesture. Above all, he did not want her to think him condescending. More than any woman he’d ever met, she commanded his respect.

Sitting in his car, she said quietly: “I lost it in there. I’m sorry.”

“Under the circumstances, anyone would have.”

“Not you.”

His smile was ironic. “I, of course, never lose my cool.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.”

And what did that mean? he wondered as they drove to the Back Bay. That she thought him immune to the storms that roil a normal human heart? Since when had clear-eyed logic meant the absence of emotions? He knew his colleagues in the homicide unit referred to him as Saint Thomas the Serene. The man you turned to when situations became explosive and a calm voice was needed. They did not know the other Thomas Moore, the man who stood before his wife’s closet at night, inhaling the fading scent of her clothes. They saw only the mask he allowed them to see.

She said, with a note of resentment, “It’s easy for you to be calm about this. You’re not the one he’s fixated on.”

“Let’s try to look at this rationally—”

“Look at my own death? Of course I can be rational.”

“The Surgeon has established a pattern he’s comfortable with. He attacks at night, not during the day. At heart he’s a coward, unable to confront a woman on equal terms. He wants his prey vulnerable. In bed and asleep. Unable to fight back.”

“So I should never fall asleep? That’s an easy solution.”

“What I’m saying is, he’ll avoid attacking anyone during daylight hours, when a victim is able to defend herself. It’s after dark when everything changes.”

He pulled up in front of her address. While the building lacked the charm of the older brick residences on Commonwealth Avenue, it had the advantage of a gated and well-lit underground garage. Access to the front entrance required both a key as well as the correct security code, which Catherine punched into the keypad.

They entered a lobby, decorated with mirrors and polished marble floors. Elegant, yet sterile. Cold. An unnervingly silent elevator whisked them to the second floor.

At her apartment door, she hesitated, the new key in hand.

“I can go in and take a look first, if that would make you feel better,” he said.

She seemed to take his suggestion as a personal affront. In answer, she thrust the key in the lock, opened the door, and walked in. It was as if she had to prove to herself that the Surgeon had not won. That she was still in control of her life.

“Why don’t we go through all the rooms, one by one,” he said. “Just to make sure nothing has been disturbed.”

She nodded.

Together they walked through the living room, the kitchen. And last, the bedroom. She knew the Surgeon had taken souvenirs from other women, and she meticulously went through her jewelry box, her dresser drawers, searching for any sign of a trespasser’s hand. Moore stood in the doorway watching her sort through blouses and sweaters and lingerie. And suddenly he was hit with an unsettling memory of another woman’s clothes, not nearly as elegant, folded in a suitcase. He remembered a gray sweater, a faded pink blouse. A cotton nightgown with blue cornflowers. Nothing brand-new, nothing expensive. Why had he never bought Mary anything extravagant? What did he think they were saving for? Not what the money had eventually gone to. Doctors and nursing home bills and physical therapists.

He turned from the bedroom doorway and walked out to the living room, where he sat down on the couch. The late afternoon sun streamed through the window and its brightness stung his eyes. He rubbed them and dropped his head in his hands, afflicted by guilt that he had not thought of Mary all day. For that he felt ashamed. He felt even more ashamed when he raised his head to look at Catherine and all thoughts of Mary instantly vanished. He thought: This is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.

The most courageous woman I’ve ever known.

“There’s nothing missing,” she said. “Not as far as I can tell.”

“Are you sure you want to stay here? I’d be happy to bring you to a hotel.”

She crossed to the window and stared out, her profile lit by the golden light of sunset. “I’ve spent the last two years being afraid. Locking out the world with dead bolts. Always looking behind doors and searching closets. I’ve had enough of it.” She looked at him. “I want my life back. This time I won’t let him win.”

This time, she had said, as though this was a battle in a much longer war. As though the Surgeon and Andrew Capra had blended into a single entity, one she had briefly subdued two years ago but had not truly defeated. Capra. The Surgeon. Two heads of the same monster.

“You said there’d be a patrol car outside tonight,” she said.

“There will be.”

“You guarantee it?”

“Absolutely.”

She took a deep breath, and the smile she gave him was an act of sheer courage. “Then I have nothing to worry about, do I?” she said.

It was guilt that made him drive toward Newton that evening instead of going straight home. He had been shaken by his reaction to Cordell and troubled by how thoroughly she now monopolized his thoughts. In the year and a half since Mary’s death, he had lived a monk’s existence, feeling no interest whatsoever in women, all passions dampened by grief. He did not know how to deal with this fresh spark of desire. He only knew that, given the situation, it was inappropriate. And that it was a sign of disloyalty to the woman he had loved.

So he drove to Newton to make things right. To assuage his conscience.

He was holding a bouquet of daisies as he stepped into the front yard and latched the iron gate behind him. It’s like carrying coals to Newcastle, he thought, looking around at the garden, now falling into the shadows of evening. Every time he visited, there seemed to be more flowers crammed into this small space. Morning glory vines and rose canes had been trained up the side of the house, so that the garden seemed to be expanding skyward as well. He felt almost embarrassed by his meager offering of daisies. But daisies were what Mary had loved best, and it was almost a habit for him now, to choose them at the flower stand. She’d loved their cheery simplicity, the fringes of white around lemony suns. She’d loved their scent — not sweet and cloying like other flowers, but pungent. Assertive. She’d loved the way they sprang up wild in vacant lots and roadsides, reminders that true beauty is spontaneous and irrepressible.

Like Mary herself.

He rang the bell. A moment later the door swung open, and the face that smiled at him was so much like Mary’s, he felt a familiar twinge of pain. Rose Connelly had her daughter’s blue eyes and round cheeks, and although her hair was almost entirely gray and age had etched its mark on her face, the similarities left no doubt that she was Mary’s mother.

“It’s so good to see you, Thomas,” she said. “You haven’t been by lately.”

“I’m sorry about that, Rose. It’s hard to find time lately. I hardly know which day it is.”

“I’ve been following the case on the TV. What a terrible business you’re in.”

He stepped into the house and handed her the daisies. “Not that you need any more flowers,” he said wryly.

“One can never have too many flowers. And you know how much I love daisies. Would you like some iced tea?”

“I’d love some, thank you.”

They sat in the living room, sipping their tea. It tasted sweet and sunny, the way they drank it in South Carolina where Rose was born. Not at all like the somber New England brew that Moore had grown up drinking. The room was sweet as well, hopelessly old-fashioned by Boston standards. Too much chintz, too many knickknacks. But oh, how it reminded him of Mary! She was everywhere. Photos of her hung on the walls. Her swimming trophies were displayed on the bookshelves. Her childhood piano stood in the living room. The ghost of that child was still here, in this house where she had been raised. And Rose was here, the keeper of the flame, who looked so much like her daughter that Moore sometimes thought he saw Mary herself gazing from Rose’s blue eyes.

“You look tired,” she said.

“Do I?”

“You never went on vacation, did you?”

“They called me back. I was already in the car, heading up the Maine Turnpike. Had my fishing poles packed. Bought a new tacklebox.” He sighed. “I miss the lake. It’s the one thing I look forward to all year.”

It was the one thing Mary had always looked forward to as well. He glanced at the swimming trophies on the bookshelf. Mary had been a sturdy little mermaid who would happily have lived her life in the water had she been born with gills. He remembered how cleanly and powerfully she had once stroked across the lake. Remembered how those same arms had wasted away to twigs in the nursing home.

“After the case is solved,” said Rose, “you could still go to the lake.”

“I don’t know that it will be solved.”

“That doesn’t sound like you at all. So discouraged.”

“This is a different sort of crime, Rose. Committed by someone I can’t begin to understand.”

“You always manage to.”

“Always?” He shook his head and smiled. “You give me too much credit.”

“It’s what Mary used to say. She liked to brag about you, you know. He always gets his man.”

But at what cost? he wondered, his smile fading. He remembered all the nights away at crime scenes, the missed dinners, the weekends when his mind was occupied only by thoughts of work. And there had been Mary, patiently waiting for his attention. If I had just one day to relive, I would spend every minute of it with you. Holding you in bed. Whispering secrets beneath warm sheets.

But God grants no such second chances.

“She was so proud of you,” Rose said.

“I was proud of her.”

“You had twenty good years together. That’s more than most people can say.”

“I’m greedy, Rose. I wanted more.”

“And you’re angry you didn’t get it.”

“Yes, I suppose I am. I’m angry that she had to be the one with the aneurysm. That she was the one they couldn’t save. And I’m angry that—” He stopped. Released a deep breath. “I’m sorry. It’s just hard. Everything is so hard these days.”

“For both of us,” she said softly.

They gazed at each other in silence. Yes, of course it would be even harder for widowed Rose, who had lost her only child. He wondered whether she would forgive him if he ever remarried. Or would she consider it a betrayal? The consignment of her daughter’s memory to an even deeper grave?

Suddenly he found he could not hold her gaze, and he glanced away with a twinge of guilt. The same guilt he’d felt earlier that afternoon when he’d looked at Catherine Cordell and felt the unmistakable stirring of desire.

He set down his empty glass and rose to his feet. “I should be going.”

“So it’s back to work already?”

“It doesn’t stop until we catch him.”

She saw him to the door and stood there as he walked through the tiny garden to the front gate. He turned and said, “Lock your doors, Rose.”

“Oh, you always say that.”

“I always mean it, too.” He gave a wave and walked away, thinking: Tonight more than ever.

Where we go depends on what we know, and what we know depends on where we go.

The rhyme kept repeating in Jane Rizzoli’s head like an irritating childhood ditty as she stared at the Boston map tacked on a large corkboard on her apartment wall. She had hung the map the day after Elena Ortiz’s body was discovered. As the investigation wore on, she had stuck more and more colored pins on the map. There were three different colors representing three different women. White for Elena Ortiz. Blue for Diana Sterling. Green for Nina Peyton. Each marked a known location within the woman’s sphere of activity. Her residence, her place of employment. The homes of close friends or relatives. Which medical facility she visited. In short, the habitat of the prey. Somewhere in the course of her day-to-day activities, each woman’s world had intersected with the Surgeon’s.

Where we go depends on what we know, and what we know depends on where we go.

And where did the Surgeon go? she wondered. What made up his world?

She sat eating her cold supper of a tuna sandwich and potato chips washed down with beer, studying the map as she chewed. She had hung the map on the wall next to her dining table, and every morning when she drank her coffee, every evening when she had dinner — provided she got home for dinner — she would find her gaze inexorably drawn to those colored pins. While other women might hang pictures of flowers or pretty landscapes or movie posters, here she was, staring at a death map, tracing the movements of the deceased.

This is what her life had come to: eat, sleep, and work. She’d been living in this apartment for three years now, but there were few decorations on the walls. No plants (who had time to water ’em?), no stupid knickknacks, not even any curtains. Only venetian blinds on the windows. Like her life, her home was streamlined for work. She loved, and lived for, her job. Had known she’d wanted to be a cop since she was twelve years old, when a woman detective visited her school on Career Day. First the class had heard from a nurse and a lawyer, then a baker and an engineer. The students’ fidgeting got louder. Rubber bands shot between rows and a spitball sailed across the room. Then the woman cop stood up, weapon holstered at her waist, and the class suddenly hushed.

Rizzoli never forgot that. She never forgot how even the boys gazed in awe at a woman.

Now she was that woman cop, and while she could command the awe of twelve-year-old boys, the respect of adult men often eluded her.

Be the best was her strategy. Outwork them, outshine them. So here she was, working even as she ate her dinner. Homicide and tuna fish sandwiches. She took a long pull of beer, then leaned back, staring at the map. There was something creepy about seeing the human geography of the dead. Where they’d lived their lives, the places that were important to them. At yesterday’s meeting, the criminal psychologist Dr. Zucker had tossed out a number of profiling terms. Anchor points. Activity nodes. Target backcloths. Well, she didn’t need Zucker’s fancy words or a computer program to tell her what she was looking at and how to interpret it. Gazing at the map, what she imagined was a savanna teeming with prey. The color pins defined the personal universes of three unlucky gazelles. Diana Sterling’s was centered in the north, in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill. Elena Ortiz’s was in the South End. Nina Peyton’s was to the southwest, in the suburb of Jamaica Plain. Three discrete habitats, with no overlap.

And where is your habitat?

She tried to see the city through his eyes. Saw canyons of skyscrapers. Green parks like swaths of pastureland. Paths along which herds of dumb prey moved, unaware that a hunter was watching them. A predatory traveler who killed across both distance and time.

The phone rang and she gave a start, tipping the beer bottle on its side. Shit. She grabbed a roll of paper towels and dabbed up the spill as she answered the phone.

“Rizzoli.”

“Hello, Janie?”

“Oh. Hey, Ma.”

“You never called me back.”

“Huh?”

“I called you a few days ago. You said you’d call back and you didn’t.”

“It slipped my mind. I’m up to my eyeballs in work.”

“Frankie’s coming home next week. Isn’t that great?”

“Yeah.” Rizzoli sighed. “That’s great.”

“You see your brother once a year. Couldn’t you sound a little more excited?”

“Ma, I’m tired. This Surgeon case is going round-the-clock.”

“Have the police caught him?”

“I am the police.”

“You know what I mean.”

Yeah, she knew. Her mother probably pictured little Janie answering the phones and bringing coffee to those all-important male detectives.

“You’re coming for dinner, right?” said her mother, sliding right out of the topic of Jane’s work. “Next Friday.”

“I’m not sure. It depends on how the case goes.”

“Oh, you can be here for your own brother.”

“If things heat up, I may have to do it another day.”

“We can’t do it another day. Mike’s already agreed to drive down Friday.”

Well of course. Let’s cater to brother Michael.

“Janie?”

“Yeah, Ma. Friday.”

She hung up, her stomach churning with unspent anger, a feeling that was all too familiar. God, how had she survived her childhood?

She picked up her beer and swallowed the few drops that hadn’t spilled. Looked up at the map again. At that moment, catching the Surgeon had never been more important to her. All the years of being the ignored sister, the trivial girl, made her focus her rage on him.

Who are you? Where are you?

She went very still for a moment, staring. Thinking. Then she picked up the package of pins and chose a new color. Red. She stabbed one red pin on Commonwealth Avenue, another in the location of Pilgrim Hospital, in the South End.

The red marked Catherine Cordell’s habitat. It intersected both Diana Sterling’s and Elena Ortiz’s. Cordell was the common factor. She moved through the worlds of both victims.

And the life of the third victim, Nina Peyton, now rests in her hands.