The Surgeon

Four

Moore and Rizzoli sat sweating in the car, warm air roaring from the AC vent. They’d been stuck in traffic for ten minutes, and the car was getting no cooler.

“Taxpayers get what they pay for,” said Rizzoli. “And this car’s a piece of junk.”

Moore shut off the AC and rolled down his window. The odor of hot pavement and auto exhaust blew into the car. Already he was bathed in perspiration. He didn’t know how Rizzoli could stand keeping her blazer on; he had shed his jacket the minute they’d stepped out of Pilgrim Medical Center and were enveloped in a heavy blanket of humidity. He knew she must be feeling the heat, because he saw sweat glistening on her upper lip, a lip that had probably never made the acquaintance of lipstick. Rizzoli was not bad-looking, but while other women might smooth on makeup or clip on earrings, Rizzoli seemed determined to downplay her own attractiveness. She wore grim dark suits that did not flatter her petite frame, and her hair was a careless mop of black curls. She was who she was, and either you accepted it or you could just go to hell. He understood why she’d adopted that up-yours attitude; she probably needed it to survive as a female cop. Rizzoli was, above all, a survivor.

Just as Catherine Cordell was a survivor. But Dr. Cordell had evolved a different strategy: Withdrawal. Distance. During the interview, he’d felt as though he were looking at her through frosted glass, so detached had she seemed.

It was that detachment that irked Rizzoli. “There’s something wrong with her,” she said. “Something’s missing in the emotions department.”

“She’s a trauma surgeon. She’s trained to keep her cool.”

“There’s cool, and then there’s ice. Two years ago she was tied down, raped, and almost gutted. And she’s so friggin’ calm about it now. It makes me wonder.”

Moore braked for a red light and sat staring at the gridlocked intersection. Sweat trickled down the small of his back. He did not function well in the heat; it made him feel sluggish and stupid. It made him long for summer’s end, for the purity of winter’s first snowfall….

“Hey,” said Rizzoli. “Are you listening?”

“She is tightly controlled,” he conceded. But not ice, he thought, remembering how Catherine Cordell’s hand had trembled as she gave him back the photos of the two women.

Back at his desk, he sipped lukewarm Coke and re-read the article printed a few weeks before in the Boston Globe: “Women Holding the Knife.” It featured three female surgeons in Boston — their triumphs and difficulties, the special problems they faced in their specialty. Of the three photos, Cordell’s was the most arresting. It was more than the fact she was attractive; it was her gaze, so proud and direct that it seemed to challenge the camera. The photo, like the article, reinforced the impression that this woman was in control of her life.

He set aside the article and sat thinking of how wrong first impressions can be. How easily pain can be masked by a smile, an upward tilting chin.

Now he opened a different file. Took a deep breath and re-read the Savannah police report on Dr. Andrew Capra.

Capra made his first known kill while he was a senior medical student at Emory University in Atlanta. The victim was Dora Ciccone, a twenty-two-year-old Emory graduate student, whose body was found tied to the bed in her off-campus apartment. Traces of the date-rape drug Rohypnol were found in her system on autopsy. Her apartment showed no signs of forced entry.

The victim had invited the killer into her home.

Once drugged, Dora Ciccone was tied to her bed with nylon cord, and her screams were muffled with duct tape. First the killer raped her. Then he proceeded to cut.

She was alive during the operation.

When he had completed the excision, and had taken his souvenir, he administered the coup de grace: a single deep slash across the neck, from left to right. Though the police had DNA from the killer’s semen, they had no leads. The investigation was complicated by the fact Dora was known as a party girl who liked to cruise the local bars and often brought home men she’d only just met.

On the night she died, the man she brought home was a medical student named Andrew Capra. But Capra’s name did not come to the attention of the police until three women had been slaughtered in the city of Savannah, two hundred miles away.

Finally, on a muggy night in June, the killings ended.

Thirty-one-year-old Catherine Cordell, the chief surgical resident in Savannah’s Riverland Hospital, was startled by someone knocking at her door. When she opened it, she found Andrew Capra, one of her surgery interns, standing on her porch. Earlier that day, in the hospital, she had reprimanded him about a mistake he’d made, and now he was desperate to find out how he could redeem himself. Could he please come in to talk about it?

Over a few beers, they’d reviewed Capra’s performance as an intern. All the errors he’d made, the patients he might have harmed because of his carelessness. She did not sugarcoat the truth: that Capra was failing and would not be allowed to finish the surgery program. At some point in the evening, Catherine left the room to use the toilet, then returned to resume the conversation and finish her beer.

When she regained consciousness, she found herself stripped naked and tied to the bed with nylon cord.

The police report described, in horrifying detail, the nightmare that followed.

Photographs taken of her in the hospital revealed a woman with haunted eyes, a bruised and horribly swollen cheek. What he saw, in these photos, was summed up in the generic word: victim.

It was not a word that applied to the eerily composed woman he had met today.

Now, re-reading Cordell’s statement, he could hear her voice in his head. The words no longer belonged to an anonymous victim, but to a woman whose face he knew.

I don’t know how I got my hand free. My wrist is all scraped now, so I must have pulled it through the cord. I’m sorry, but things aren’t clear in my mind. All I remember is reaching for the scalpel. Knowing that I had to get the scalpel off the tray. That I had to cut the cords, before Andrew came back….

I remember rolling toward the side of the bed. Falling half onto the floor and hitting my head. Then I was trying to find the gun. It’s my father’s gun. After the third woman was killed in Savannah, he insisted I keep it.

I remember reaching under my bed. Grabbing the gun. I remember footsteps, coming into the room. Then — I’m not sure. That must be when I shot him. Yes, that’s what I think happened. They told me I shot him twice. I guess it must be true.

Moore paused, mulling over the statement. Ballistics had confirmed that both bullets were fired from the weapon, registered to Catherine’s father, that was found lying beside the bed. Blood tests in the hospital confirmed the presence of Rohypnol, an amnesiac drug, in her bloodstream, so she might very well have blank spots in her memory. When Cordell was brought to the E.R., the doctors described her as confused, either from the drug or from a possible concussion. Only a heavy blow to the head could have left such a bruised and swollen face. She did not recall how or when she received that blow.

Moore turned to the crime scene photos. On the bedroom floor, Andrew Capra lay dead, flat on his back. He had been shot twice, once in the abdomen, once in the eye, both times at close range.

For a long time he studied the photos, noting the position of Capra’s body, the pattern of the bloodstains.

He turned to the autopsy report. Read it through twice.

Looked once again at the crime scene photo.

Something is wrong here, he thought. Cordell’s statement does not make sense.

A report suddenly landed on his desk. He glanced up, startled, to see Rizzoli.

“Did you get a load of this?” she asked.

“What is it?”

“The report on that strand of hair found in Elena Ortiz’s wound margin.”

Moore scanned down to the final sentence. And he said: “I have no idea what this means.”

In 1997, the various branches of the Boston Police Department were moved under one roof, located inside the brand-new complex at One Schroeder Plaza in Boston’s rough-and-tumble Roxbury neighborhood. The cops referred to their new digs as “the marble palace” because of the extensive use of polished granite in the lobby. “Give us a few years to trash the place, and it’ll feel like home” was the joke. Schroeder Plaza bore little resemblance to the shabby police stations seen on TV cop shows. It was a sleek and modern building, brightened by large windows and skylights. The homicide unit, with its carpeted floors and computer workstations, could have passed for a corporate office. What the cops liked best about Schroeder Plaza was the integration of the various BPD branches.

For homicide detectives, a visit to the crime lab was only a walk down the hallway, to the south wing of the building.

In Hair and Fiber, Moore and Rizzoli watched as Erin Volchko, a forensic scientist, sifted through her collection of evidence envelopes. “All I had to work with was that single hair,” said Erin. “But it’s amazing what one hair can tell you. Okay, here it is.” She’d located the envelope with Elena Ortiz’s case number, and now she removed a microscope slide. “I’ll just show you what it looks like under the lens. The numerical scores are in the report.”

“These numbers?” said Rizzoli, looking down at the long series of scoring codes on the page.

“Correct. Each code describes a different characteristic of hair, from color and curl to microscopic features. This particular strand is an A01—a dark blond. Its curl is B01. Curved, with a curl diameter of less than eighty. Almost, but not quite, straight. The shaft length is four centimeters. Unfortunately, this strand is in its telogen phase, so there’s no epithelial tissue adhering to it.”

“Meaning there’s no DNA.”

“Right. Telogen is the terminal stage of root growth. This strand fell out naturally, as part of the shedding process. In other words, it was not yanked out. If there were epithelial cells on the root, we could use their nuclei for DNA analysis. But this strand doesn’t have any such cells.”

Rizzoli and Moore exchanged looks of disappointment.

“But,” added Erin, “we do have something here that’s pretty damn good. Not as good as DNA, but it might hold up in court once you nail a suspect. It’s too bad we don’t have any hairs from the Sterling case to compare.” She focused the microscope lens, then scooted aside. “Take a look.”

The scope had a teaching eyepiece, so both Rizzoli and Moore could examine the slide simultaneously. What Moore saw, peering through the lens, was a single strand beaded with tiny nodules.

“What are the little bumps?” said Rizzoli. “That’s not normal.”

“Not only is it abnormal, it’s rare,” said Erin. “It’s a condition called Trichorrhexis invaginata, otherwise known as ‘bamboo hair.’ You can see how it gets its nickname. Those little nodules make it look like a stalk of bamboo, don’t they?”

“What are the nodules?” asked Moore.

“They’re focal defects in the hair fiber. Weak spots which allow the hair shaft to fold back on itself, forming a sort of ball and socket. Those little bumps are the weak spots, where the shaft has telescoped on itself, making a bulge.”

“How do you get this condition?”

“Occasionally it can develop from too much hair processing. Dyes, permanents, that sort of thing. But since we’re most likely dealing with a male unsub, and since I see no evidence of artificial bleaching, I’m inclined to say this is not due to processing, but to some sort of genetic abnormality.”

“Like what?”

“Netherton’s Syndrome, for instance. That’s an autosomal recessive condition that affects keratin development. Keratin is a tough, fibrous protein found in hair and nails. It’s also the outer layer of our skin.”

“If there’s a genetic defect, and the keratin doesn’t develop normally, then the hair is weakened?”

Erin nodded. “And it’s not just the hair that can be affected. People with Netherton’s Syndrome may have skin disorders as well. Rashes and flaking.”

“We’re looking for a perp with a bad case of dandruff?” said Rizzoli.

“It may be even more obvious than that. Some of these patients have a severe form known as icthyosis. Their skin can be so dry it looks like the hide of an alligator.”

Rizzoli laughed. “So we’re looking for reptile man! That should narrow down the search.”

“Not necessarily. It’s summertime.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“This heat and humidity improves skin dryness. He may look entirely normal this time of year.”

Rizzoli and Moore glanced at each other, simultaneously struck by the same thought.

Both victims were slaughtered during the summertime.

“As long as this heat holds up,” said Erin, “he probably blends right in with everyone else.”

“It’s only July,” said Rizzoli.

Moore nodded. “His hunting season’s just begun.”

John Doe now had a name. The E.R. nurses had found an ID tag attached to his key ring. He was Herman Gwadowski, and he was sixty-nine years old.

Catherine stood in her patient’s SICU cubicle, methodically surveying the monitors and equipment arrayed around his bed. A normal EKG rhythm blipped across the oscilloscope. The arterial waves spiked at 110/70, and the readings from his central venous pressure line rose and fell like swells on a windblown sea. Judging by the numbers, Mr. Gwadowski’s operation was a success.

But he’s not waking up, thought Catherine as she flashed her penlight into the left pupil, then the right. Nearly eight hours after surgery, he remained in a deep coma.

She straightened and watched his chest rise and fall with the cycling of the ventilator. She had stopped him from bleeding to death. But what had she really saved? A body with a beating heart and no functioning brain.

She heard tapping on the glass. Through the cubicle window she saw her surgical partner, Dr. Peter Falco, waving to her, a concerned expression on his usually cheerful face.

Some surgeons are known to throw temper tantrums in the O.R. Some sweep arrogantly into the operating suite and don their surgical gowns the way one dons royal robes. Some are coldly efficient technicians for whom patients are merely a bundle of mechanical parts in need of repair.

And then there was Peter. Funny, exuberant Peter, who sang earsplittingly off-key Elvis songs in the O.R., who organized paper airplane contests in the office and happily got down on his hands and knees to play Legos with his pediatric patients. She was accustomed to seeing a smile on Peter’s face. When she saw him frowning at her through the window, she immediately stepped out of her patient’s cubicle.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“Just finishing rounds.”

Peter eyed the tubes and machinery bristling around Mr. Gwadowski’s bed. “I heard you made a great save. A twelve-unit bleeder.”

“I don’t know if you’d call it a save.” Her gaze returned to her patient. “Everything works but the gray matter.”

They said nothing for a moment, both of them watching Mr. Gwadowski’s chest rise and fall.

“Helen told me two policemen came by to see you today,” said Peter. “What’s going on?”

“It wasn’t important.”

“Forgot to pay those parking tickets?”

She forced a laugh. “Right, and I’m counting on you to bail me out.”

They left the SICU and walked into the hallway, lanky Peter striding beside her in that easy lope of his. As they rode the elevator, he asked:

“You okay, Catherine?”

“Why? Don’t I look okay?”

“Honestly?” He studied her face, his blue eyes so direct she felt invaded. “You look like you need a glass of wine and a nice dinner out. How about joining me?”

“A tempting invitation.”

“But?”

“But I think I’ll stay in for the night.”

Peter clutched his chest, as though mortally wounded. “Shot down again! Tell me, is there any line that works on you?”

She smiled. “That’s for you to find out.”

“How about this one? A little bird told me it’s your birthday on Saturday. Let me take you up in my plane.”

“Can’t. I’m on call that day.”

“You can switch with Ames. I’ll talk to him.”

“Oh, Peter. You know I don’t like to fly.”

“Don’t tell me you have phobias about flying?”

“I’m just not good at relinquishing control.”

He nodded gravely. “Classic surgical personality.”

“That’s a nice way of saying I’m uptight.”

“So it’s a no-go on the flying date? I can’t change your mind?”

“I don’t think so.”

He sighed. “Well, that’s it for my lines. I’ve gone through my entire repertoire.”

“I know. You’re starting to recycle them.”

“That’s what Helen says, too.”

She shot him a look of surprise. “Helen’s giving you tips on how to ask me out?”

“She said she couldn’t stand the pathetic spectacle of a man banging his head against an impregnable wall.”

They both laughed as they stepped off the elevator and walked to their suite. It was the comfortable laugh of two colleagues who knew this game was all tongue-in-cheek. Keeping it on that level meant no feelings were hurt, no emotions were at stake. A safe little flirtation that kept them both insulated from real entanglements. Playfully he’d ask her out; just as playfully she’d turn him down, and the whole office was in on the joke.

It was already five-thirty, and their staff was gone for the day. Peter retreated to his office and she went into hers to hang up her lab coat and get her purse. As she put the coat on the door hook, a thought suddenly occurred to her.

She crossed the hallway and stuck her head in Peter’s office. He was reviewing charts, his reading glasses perched on his nose. Unlike her own neat office, Peter’s looked like chaos central. Paper airplanes filled the trash can. Books and surgery journals were piled on chairs. One wall was nearly smothered by an out-of-control philodendron. Buried in that jungle of leaves were Peter’s diplomas: an undergraduate degree in aeronautical engineering from MIT, an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

“Peter? This is a stupid question….”

He glanced up over his glasses. “Then you’ve come to the right man.”

“Have you been in my office?”

“Should I call my lawyer before I answer that?”

“Come on. I’m serious.”

He straightened, and his gaze sharpened on hers. “No, I haven’t. Why?”

“Never mind. It’s not a big deal.” She turned to leave and heard the creak of his chair as he stood up. He followed her into her office.

“What’s not a big deal?” he asked.

“I’m being obsessive-compulsive, that’s all. I get irritated when things aren’t where they should be.”

“Like what?”

“My lab coat. I always hang it on the door, and somehow it ends up on the filing cabinet, or over a chair. I know it’s not Helen or the other secretaries. I asked them.”

“The cleaning lady probably moved it.”

“And then it drives me crazy that I can’t find my stethoscope.”

“It’s still missing?”

“I had to borrow the nursing supervisor’s.”

Frowning, he glanced around the room. “Well, there it is. On the bookshelf.” He crossed to the shelf, where her stethoscope lay coiled beside a bookend.

Silently she took it from him, staring at it as though it were something alien. A black serpent, draped over her hand.

“Hey, what’s the matter?”

She took a deep breath. “I think I’m just tired.” She put the stethoscope in the left pocket of her lab coat — the same place she always left it.

“Are you sure that’s all? Is there something else going on?”

“I need to get home.” She walked out of her office, and he followed her into the hall.

“Is it something to do with those police officers? Look, if you’re in some kind of trouble — if I can help out—”

“I don’t need any help, thank you.” Her answer came out cooler than she’d intended, and she was instantly sorry for it. Peter didn’t deserve that.

“You know, I wouldn’t mind if you did ask me for favors every so often,” he said quietly. “It’s part of working together. Being partners. Don’t you think?”

She didn’t answer.

He turned back to his office. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Peter?”

“Yes?”

“About those two police officers. And the reason they came to see me—”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“No, I should. You’ll just wonder about it if I don’t. They came to ask me about a homicide case. A woman was murdered Thursday night. They thought I might have known her.”

“Did you?”

“No. It was a mistake, that’s all.” She sighed. “Just a mistake.”

Catherine turned the dead bolt, felt it drive home with a satisfying thud, and then slid the chain in place. One more line of defense against the unnamed horrors that lurked beyond her walls. Safely barricaded in her apartment, she removed her shoes, set her purse and car keys down on the cherrywood butler’s table, and walked in stockinged feet across the thick white carpet of her living room. The flat was pleasantly cool, thanks to the miracle of central air-conditioning. Outside it was eighty-six degrees, but in here the temperature never wavered above seventy-two in the summer or below sixty-eight in the winter. There was so little in one’s life that could be pre-set, pre-determined, and she strove to maintain what order she could manage within the circumscribed boundaries of her life. She had chosen this twelve-unit condominium building on Commonwealth Avenue because it was brand-new, with a secure parking garage. Though not as picturesque as the historic redbrick residences in the Back Bay, neither was it plagued by the plumbing or electrical uncertainties that come with older buildings. Uncertainty was something Catherine did not tolerate well. Her flat was kept spotless, and except for a few startling splashes of color, she’d chosen to furnish it mostly in white. White couch, white carpets, white tile. The color of purity. Untouched, virginal.

In her bedroom she undressed, hung up her skirt, set aside the blouse to be dropped off at the dry cleaner’s. She changed into loose slacks and a sleeveless silk blouse. By the time she walked barefoot into the kitchen, she was feeling calm, and in control.

She had not felt that way earlier today. The visit by the two detectives had left her shaken, and all afternoon she had caught herself making careless mistakes. Reaching for the wrong lab slip, writing the incorrect date on a medical chart. Only minor errors, but they were like faint ripples that mar the surface of waters that are deeply disturbed. For the last two years she had managed to suppress all thoughts of what had happened to her in Savannah. Every so often, without warning, a remembered image might return, as sharp as a knife’s slash, but she would dance away from it, deftly turning her mind to other thoughts. Today, she could not avoid the memories. Today, she could not pretend that Savannah had never happened.

The kitchen tiles were cool under her bare feet. She fixed herself a screwdriver, light on the vodka, and sipped it as she grated Parmesan cheese and chopped tomatoes and onions and herbs. She had not eaten since breakfast, and the alcohol sluiced straight into her bloodstream. The vodka buzz was pleasant and anesthetizing. She took comfort in the steady rap of her knife against the cutting board, the fragrance of fresh basil and garlic. Cooking as therapy.

Outside her kitchen window, the city of Boston was an overheated cauldron of gridlocked cars and flaring tempers, but in here, sealed behind glass, she calmly sautéed the tomatoes in olive oil, poured a glass of Chianti, and heated a pot of water for fresh angel-hair pasta. Cool air hissed from the air-conditioning vent.

She sat down with her pasta and salad and wine and ate to the background strains of Debussy on the CD player. Despite her hunger and the careful attention to the preparation of her meal, everything seemed tasteless. She forced herself to eat, but her throat felt full, as though she had swallowed something thick and glutinous. Even drinking a second glass of wine could not dislodge the lump in her throat. She put down her fork and stared at her half-eaten dinner. The music swelled and swept over her in breaking waves.

She dropped her face in her hands. At first no sound came out. It was as if her grief had been bottled up so long, the seal had permanently frozen shut. Then a high keening escaped her throat, the thinnest thread of sound. She gasped in a breath, and a cry burst forth as two years’ worth of pain came pouring out all at once. The violence of her emotions scared her, because she could not hold them back, could not fathom how deep her pain went or if there would ever be an end to it. She cried until her throat was raw, until her lungs were stuttering with spasms, the sound of her sobbing trapped in that hermetically sealed apartment.

At last, drained of all tears, she lay down on the couch and fell at once into a deep and exhausted sleep.

She came sharply awake to find herself in darkness. Her heart was pounding, her blouse soaked in sweat. Had there been a noise? The crack of glass, the tread of a footstep? Was that what had startled her from such a deep sleep? She dared not move a muscle, for fear she would miss the telltale sound of an intruder.

Moving lights shone through the window, the headlights of a passing car. Her living room briefly brightened, then slid back into darkness. She listened to the hiss of cool air from the vent, the growl of the refrigerator in the kitchen. Nothing alien. Nothing that should inspire this crushing sense of dread.

She sat up and summoned the courage to turn on the lamp. Imagined horrors instantly vanished in the warm glow of light. She rose from the couch, moving deliberately from room to room, turning on lights, looking into closets. On a rational level, she knew that there was no intruder, that her home, with its sophisticated alarm system and its dead bolts and its tightly latched windows, was as protected as any home could be. But she did not rest until this ritual had been completed and every dark nook had been searched. Only when she was satisfied that her security had not been breached did she allow herself to breathe easily again.

It was ten-thirty. A Wednesday. I need to talk to someone. Tonight I cannot deal with this alone.

She sat down at her desk, booted up her computer, and watched as the screen flickered on. It was her lifeline, her therapist, this bundle of electronics and wires and plastic, the only safe place into which she could pour her pain.

She typed in her screen name, CCORD, signed onto the Internet, and with a few clicks of the mouse, a few words typed on the keyboard, she navigated her way into the private chat room called, simply: womanhelp.

Half a dozen familiar screen names were already there. Faceless, nameless women, all of them drawn to this safe and anonymous haven in cyberspace. She sat for a few moments, watching the messages scroll down the computer screen. Hearing, in her mind, the wounded voices of women she had never met, except in this virtual room.

LAURIE45: So what did you do then?

VOTIVE: I told him I wasn’t ready. I was still having flashbacks. I told him if he cared about me, he’d wait.

HBREAKER: Good for you.

WINKY98: Don’t let him rush you.

LAURIE45: How did he react?

VOTIVE: He said I should just GET OVER IT. Like I’m a wimp or something.

WINKY98: Men should get raped!!!!

HBREAKER: It took me two years before I was ready.

LAURIE45: Over a year for me.

WINKY98: All these guys think about are their dicks. It’s all about them. They just want their THING satisfied.

LAURIE45: Ouch. You’re pissed off tonight, Wink.

WINKY98: Maybe I am. Sometimes I think Lorena Bobbitt had the right idea.

HBREAKER: Wink’s getting out her cleaver!

VOTIVE: I don’t think he’s willing to wait. I think he’s given up on me.

WINKY98: You’re worth waiting for. You’re WORTH IT!

A few seconds passed, with the message box blank. Then,

LAURIE45: Hello, CCord. It’s good to see you back.

Catherine typed.

CCORD: I see we’re talking about men again.

LAURIE45: Yeah. How come we can’t ever get off this tired subject?

VOTIVE: Because they’re the ones who hurt us.

There was another long pause. Catherine took a deep breath and typed.

CCORD: I had a bad day.

LAURIE45: Tell us, CC. What happened?

Catherine could almost hear the coo of female voices, gentle, soothing murmurs through the ether.

CCORD: I had a panic attack tonight. I’m here, locked in my house, where no one can touch me and it still happens.

WINKY98: Don’t let him win. Don’t let him make you a prisoner.

CCORD: It’s too late. I am a prisoner. Because I realized something terrible tonight.

WINKY98: What’s that?

CCORD: Evil doesn’t die. It never dies. It just takes on a new face, a new name. Just because we’ve been touched by it once, it doesn’t mean we’re immune to ever being hurt again. Lightning can strike twice.

No one typed anything. No one responded.

No matter how careful we are, evil knows where we live, she thought. It knows how to find us.

A drop of sweat slid down her back.

And I feel it now. Closing in.

Nina Peyton goes nowhere, sees no one. She has not been to her job in weeks. Today I called her office in Brookline, where she works as a sales representative, and her colleague told me he doesn’t know when she will return to them. She is like a wounded beast, holed up in her cave, terrified of taking even one step out into the night. She knows what the night holds for her, because she has been touched by its evil, and even now she feels it seeping like vapor through the walls of her home. The curtains are closed tight, but the fabric is thin, and I see her moving about inside. Her silhouette is balled up, arms squeezed to her chest, as though her body has folded into itself. Her movements are jerky and mechanical as she paces back and forth.

She is checking the locks on the doors, the latches on the windows. Trying to shut out the darkness.

It must be stifling inside that little house. The night is like steam, and there are no air conditioners in any of her windows. All evening she has stayed inside, the windows closed despite the heat. I picture her gleaming with sweat, suffering through the long hot day and into the night, desperate to let in fresh air, but afraid of what else she might let in.

She walks past the window again. Stops. Lingers there, framed by the rectangle of light. Suddenly the curtains flick apart, and she reaches through to unlock the latch. She slides up the window. Stands before it, taking in hungry gulps of fresh air. She has finally surrendered to the heat.

There is nothing so exciting to a hunter as the scent of wounded prey. I can almost smell it wafting out, the scent of a bloodied beast, of defiled flesh. Just as she breathes in the night air, so, too, am I breathing in her scent. Her fear.

My heart beats faster. I reach into my bag, to caress the instruments. Even the steel is warm to my touch.

She closes the window with a bang. A few deep gulps of fresh air was all she dared allow herself, and now she retreats to the misery of her stuffy little house.

After a while, I accept disappointment and I walk away, leaving her to sweat through the night in that oven of a bedroom.

Tomorrow, they say, it will be even hotter.