The Surgeon

Twenty-two

Catherine paused in the doorway to Peter’s office. He sat at his desk, unaware she was watching him, his pen scratching in a chart. She had never taken the time to truly observe him before, and what she saw now brought a faint smile to her lips. He worked with fierce concentration, the very picture of the dedicated physician, except for one whimsical touch: the paper airplane lying on the floor. Peter and his silly flying machines.

She knocked on the door frame. He glanced up over his glasses, startled to see her there.

“Can I talk to you?” she asked.

“Of course. Come in.”

She sat down in the chair facing his desk. He said nothing, just waited patiently for her to speak. She had the impression that no matter how long she took, he would still be there, waiting for her.

“Things have been… tense between us,” she said.

He nodded.

“I know it bothers you as much as it does me. And it bothers me a lot. Because I’ve always liked you, Peter. It may not seem so, but I do.” She drew in a breath, struggling to come up with the right words. “The problems between us, they have nothing to do with you. It’s all because of me. There are so many things going on in my life right now. It’s hard for me to explain.”

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s just that I see us falling apart. Not just our partnership, but our friendship. It’s funny how I never realized it was there between us. I didn’t realize how much it meant to me until I felt it slipping away.” She rose to her feet. “Anyway, I’m sorry. That’s what I came to say.” She started toward the door.

“Catherine,” he said softly, “I know about Savannah.”

She turned and stared at him. His gaze was absolutely steady.

“Detective Crowe told me,” he said.

“When?”

“A few days ago, when I talked to him about the break-in here. He assumed I already knew.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

“It wasn’t my place to bring it up. I wanted you to feel ready to tell me. I knew you needed time, and I was willing to wait, as long as it took for you to trust me.”

She released a sharp breath. “Well, then. Now you know the worst about me.”

“No, Catherine.” He stood up to face her. “I know the best about you! I know how strong you are, how brave you are. All this time I had no idea what you were dealing with. You could have told me. You could have trusted me.”

“I thought it would change everything between us.”

“How could it?”

“I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I don’t ever want to be pitied.”

“Pitied for what? For fighting back? For coming out alive against impossible odds? Why the hell would I pity you?”

She blinked away tears. “Other men would.”

“Then they don’t really know you. Not the way I do.” He stepped around his desk, so that it was no longer separating them. “Do you remember the day we met?”

“When I came for the interview.”

“What do you remember about it?”

She gave a bewildered shake of her head. “We talked about the practice. About how I’d fit in here.”

“So you recall it as just a business meeting.”

“That’s what it was.”

“Funny. I think of it quite differently. I hardly remember any of the questions I asked you, or what you asked me. What I remember is looking up from my desk and seeing you walk into my office. And I was stunned. I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound trite or stupid or just plain ordinary. I didn’t want to be ordinary, not for you. I thought: Here’s a woman who has it all. She’s smart; she’s beautiful. And she’s standing right in front of me.”

“Oh god, you were so wrong. I didn’t have it all.” She blinked away tears. “I never have. I’m just barely holding it together….”

Without a word he took her in his arms. It all happened so naturally, so easily, without the awkwardness of a first embrace. He was simply holding her, and making no demands. One friend comforting another.

“Tell me what I can do to help,” he said. “Anything.”

She sighed. “I’m so tired, Peter. Could you just walk me to my car?”

“That’s all?”

“That’s what I really need right now. Someone I can trust to walk with me.”

He stood back and smiled at her. “Then I’m definitely your man.”

The fifth floor of the hospital parking garage was deserted, and the concrete echoed back their footsteps like the sound of trailing ghosts. Had she been alone, she would have been glancing over her shoulder the whole way. But Peter was beside her, and she felt no fear. He walked her to her Mercedes. Stood by while she slid behind the wheel. Then he shut her door and pointed to the lock.

Nodding, she pressed the lock button and heard the comforting click as all the doors were secured.

“I’ll call you later,” he said.

As she drove away, she saw him in her rearview mirror, his hand raised in a wave. Then he slid from view as she turned down the ramp.

She found herself smiling as she drove home to the Back Bay.

Some men are worth trusting, Moore had told her.

Yes, but which ones? I never know.

You won’t know until push comes to shove. He’ll be the one still standing beside you.

Whether as a friend or a lover, Peter would be one of those men.

Slowing down at Commonwealth Avenue, she turned into the driveway for her building and pressed the garage remote. The security gate rumbled open and she drove through. In her rearview mirror she saw the gate close behind her. Only then did she swing into her stall. Caution was second nature to her, and these were rituals she never failed to perform. She checked the elevator before stepping in. Scanned the hallway before stepping out again. Secured all her locks as soon as she’d stepped into her apartment. Fortress secure. Only then could she allow the last of her tension to drain away.

Standing at her window she sipped iced tea and savored the coolness of her apartment as she looked down at people walking on the street, sweat glistening on their foreheads. She’d had three hours of sleep in the last thirty-six hours. I have earned this moment of comfort, she thought as she pressed the icy glass to her cheek. I’ve earned an early night to bed and a weekend of doing nothing at all. She wouldn’t think of Moore. She wouldn’t let herself feel the pain. Not yet.

She drained her glass and had just set it on the kitchen counter when her beeper went off. A page from the hospital was the last thing she wanted to deal with. When she called the Pilgrim Hospital operator, she could not keep the irritation out of her voice.

“This is Dr. Cordell. I know you just paged me, but I’m not on call tonight. In fact, I’m going to turn off my beeper right now.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Dr. Cordell, but there was a call from the son of a Herman Gwadowski. He insists on meeting with you this afternoon.”

“Impossible. I’m already home.”

“Yes, I told him you were off for the weekend. But he said this is the last day he’ll be in town. He wants to see you before he visits his attorney.”

An attorney?

Catherine sagged against the kitchen counter. God, she had no strength to deal with this. Not now. Not when she was so tired she could barely think straight.

“Dr. Cordell?”

“Did Mr. Gwadowski say when he wants to meet?”

“He said he’ll wait in the hospital cafeteria until six.”

“Thank you.” Catherine hung up and stared numbly at the gleaming kitchen tiles. How meticulous she was about keeping those tiles clean! But no matter how hard she scrubbed or how thoroughly she organized every aspect of her life, she could not anticipate the Ivan Gwadowskis of the world.

She picked up her purse and car keys and once again left the sanctuary of her apartment.

In the elevator she glanced at her watch and was alarmed to see it was already 5:45. She would not make it to the hospital in time, and Mr. Gwadowski would assume she’d stood him up.

The instant she slid into the Mercedes, she picked up the car phone and called the Pilgrim operator.

“This is Dr. Cordell again. I need to reach Mr. Gwadowski to let him know I’ll be late. Do you know which extension he was calling from?”

“Let me check the phone log…. Here it is. It wasn’t a hospital extension.”

“A cell phone, then?”

There was a pause. “Well, this is strange.”

“What is?”

“He was calling from the number you’re using now.”

Catherine went still, fear blasting like a cold wind up her spine. My car. The call was made from my car.

“Dr. Cordell?”

She saw him then, rising like a cobra in the rearview mirror. She took a breath to scream, and her throat burned with the fumes of chloroform.

The receiver dropped from her hand.

Jerry Sleeper was waiting for him at the curb outside airport baggage claim. Moore threw his carry-on into the backseat, stepped into the car, and yanked the door shut with a slam.

“Have you found her?” was the first question Moore asked.

“Not yet,” said Sleeper as he pulled away from the curb. “Her Mercedes has vanished, and there’s no evidence of any disturbance in her apartment. Whatever happened, it was fast, and it was in or near her vehicle. Peter Falco was the last one to see her, around five-fifteen in the hospital garage. About a half hour later, the Pilgrim operator paged Cordell and spoke to her on the phone. Cordell called back again from her car. That conversation was abruptly cut off. The operator claims it was the son of Herman Gwadowski who called in the original page.”

“Confirmation?”

“Ivan Gwadowski was on a plane to California at twelve noon. He didn’t make that call.”

They did not need to say who had called in the page. They both knew. Moore stared in agitation at the row of taillights, strung as densely as bright red beads in the night.

He’s had her since 6:00 P.M. What has he done to her in those four hours?

“I want to see where Warren Hoyt lives,” said Moore.

“We’re headed there now. We know he got off his shift at Interpath Labs around seven A.M. this morning. At ten A.M., he called his supervisor to say he had a family emergency and wouldn’t be back at work for at least a week. No one’s seen him since. Not at his apartment, not at the lab.”

“And the family emergency?”

“He has no family. His only aunt died in February.”

The row of taillights blurred into a streak of red. Moore blinked and turned his gaze so that Sleeper would not see his tears.

Warren Hoyt lived in the North End, a quaint maze of narrow streets and redbrick buildings that made up the oldest neighborhood in Boston. It was considered a safe part of town, thanks to the watchful eyes of the local Italian population, who owned many of the businesses. Here, on a street where tourists and residents alike walked with little fear of crime, a monster had lived.

Hoyt’s apartment was on the third floor of a brick walk-up. Hours before, the team had combed the place for evidence, and when Moore stepped inside and saw the sparse furnishings, the nearly bare shelves, he felt he was standing in a room that had already been swept clean of its soul. That he’d find nothing left of whoever — whatever — Warren Hoyt might be.

Dr. Zucker emerged from the bedroom and said to Moore, “There’s something wrong here.”

“Is Hoyt our unsub or not?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do we have?” Moore looked at Crowe, who had met them at the door.

“We’ve got a bingo on shoe size. Eight and a half, matches the footprints from the Ortiz crime scene. We’ve got several hair strands from the pillow — short, light brown. Also looks like a match. Plus we found a long black hair on the bathroom floor. Shoulder-length.”

Moore frowned. “There was a woman here?”

“Maybe a friend.”

“Or another victim,” said Zucker. “Someone we don’t know about yet.”

“I spoke to the landlady, who lives downstairs,” said Crowe. “She last saw Hoyt this morning, coming home from work. She has no idea where he is now. Bet you can guess what she has to say about him. Good tenant. Quiet man, never any trouble.”

Moore looked at Zucker. “What did you mean when you said there’s something wrong here?”

“There’s no murder kit. No tools. His car’s parked right outside, and there’s no kit in there, either.” Zucker gestured to the nearly empty living room. “This apartment looks barely lived in. There are only a few items in the refrigerator. The bathroom has soap, a toothbrush, and a razor. It’s like a hotel room. A place to sleep, nothing more. It’s not where he keeps his fantasies alive.”

“This is where he lives,” said Crowe. “His mail comes here. His clothes are here.”

“But this place is missing the most important thing of all,” Zucker said. “His trophies. There are no trophies here.”

A feeling of dread had seeped into Moore’s bones. Zucker was right. The Surgeon had carved an anatomical trophy out of each of his victims; he would keep them around to remind him of his kills. To tide him over between hunts.

“We’re not looking at the whole picture,” said Zucker. He turned to Moore. “I need to see where Warren Hoyt worked. I need to see the lab.”

Barry Frost sat down at the computer keyboard and typed in the patient’s name: Nina Peyton. A new screen appeared, filled with data.

“This terminal is his fishing hole,” said Frost. “This is where he finds his victims.”

Moore stared at the monitor, startled by what he saw. Elsewhere in the lab, machines whirred and phones rang and medical technicians processed their clattering racks of blood tubes. Here, in this antiseptic world of stainless steel and white coats, a world devoted to the healing sciences, the Surgeon had quietly hunted for prey. At this computer terminal, he could call up the names of every woman whose blood or body fluids had been processed at Interpath Labs.

“This is the primary diagnostic lab in the city,” said Frost. “Get your blood drawn at any doctor’s office or any outpatient clinic in Boston, and the chances are, that blood will come right here to be analyzed.”

Right here, to Warren Hoyt.

“He had her home address,” said Moore, scanning the information on Nina Peyton. “Her employer’s name. Her age and marital status—”

“And her diagnosis,” said Zucker. He pointed to two words on the screen: sexual assault. “This is exactly what the Surgeon hunts for. It’s what turns him on. Emotionally damaged women. Women marked by sexual violence.”

Moore heard the lilt of excitement in Zucker’s voice. It was the game that fascinated Zucker, the contest of wits. At last he could see his opponent’s moves, could appreciate the genius behind them.

“Here he was,” said Zucker. “Handling their blood. Knowing their most shameful secrets.” He straightened and gazed around the lab, as though seeing it for the first time. “Did you ever stop to think what a medical lab knows about you?” he said. “All the personal information you give them when you open your arm and let them stick a needle in your vein? Your blood reveals your most intimate secrets. Are you dying of leukemia or AIDS? Did you smoke a cigarette or drink a glass of wine in the last few hours? Are you taking Prozac because you’re depressed, or Viagra because you can’t get it up? He was holding the very essence of those women. He could study their blood, touch it, smell it. And they never knew. They never knew that part of their own body was being fondled by a stranger.”

“The victims never knew him,” said Moore. “Never met him.”

“But the Surgeon knew them. And on the most intimate of terms.” Zucker’s eyes were feverishly bright. “The Surgeon doesn’t hunt like any serial killer I’ve ever come across. He is unique. He stays hidden from view, because he chooses his prey sight unseen.” He stared in wonder at a rack of tubes on the countertop. “This lab is his hunting ground. This is how he finds them. By their blood. By their pain.”

When Moore stepped out of the medical center, the night air felt cooler, crisper, than it had in weeks. Across the city of Boston, fewer windows would be left open, fewer women lying vulnerable to attack.

But tonight, the Surgeon will not be hunting. Tonight, he’ll be enjoying his latest catch.

Moore came to a sudden halt beside his car and stood there, paralyzed by despair. Even now, Warren Hoyt might be reaching for his scalpel. Even now…

Footsteps approached. He summoned the strength to raise his head, to look at the man standing a few feet away in the shadows.

“He has her, doesn’t he?” said Peter Falco.

Moore nodded.

“God. Oh, god.” Falco looked up in anguish at the night sky. “I walked her to her car. She was right there with me, and I let her go home. I let her drive away….”

“We’re doing everything we can to find her.” It was a stock phrase. Even as he said it, Moore heard the hollowness of his own words. It’s what you said when matters are grim, when you know that even your best efforts will likely come to nothing.

“What are you doing?”

“We know who he is.”

“But you don’t know where he’s taken her.”

“It will take time to track him down.”

“Tell me what I can do. Anything at all.”

Moore fought to keep his voice calm, to hide his own fears, his own dread. “I know how hard it is to stand on the sidelines and let others do the work. But this is what we’re trained to do.”

“Oh yes, you’re the professionals! So what the hell went wrong?”

Moore had no answer.

In agitation, Falco crossed toward Moore and came to stand beneath the parking lot lamp. The light fell on his face, haggard with worry. “I don’t know what happened between you two,” he said. “But I do know she trusted you. I hope to god that means something to you. I hope she’s more than just another case. Just another name on the list.”

“She is,” said Moore.

The men stared at each other, acknowledging in silence what they both knew. What they both felt.

“I care more than you’ll ever know,” said Moore.

And Falco said softly, “So do I.”