The Surgeon (21 page)

in the back of the elevator, behind everyone else. He would be
careful to keep another person between him and the camera.
They were up against someone who knew exactly how a
hospital functioned.
She watched the second group of elevator passengers
move off the screen. Two of the faces had remained hidden
throughout.
Now Moore switched tapes, and the view changed. They
were looking at the stairwell door. For a moment nothing
happened. Then the door swung open, and a man in a white
coat came barreling through.
"I know him. That's Mark Noble, one of the interns," said
Sharon.
Rizzoli took out her spiral notebook and jotted down the
name.
The door flew open again, and two women emerged, both
in white uniforms.
"That's Veronica Tam," said the charge nurse, pointing to
the shorter of the pair. "She works on Five West. She was on
break when the code was called."
"And the other woman?"
"I don't know. You can't see her face very well."

Rizzoli wrote down:
10:48, stairwell camera:
Veronica Tam, nurse, 5 West.
Unknown female, black hair, lab coat.
A total of seven people came through the stairwell door.
The nurses recognized five of them. So far Rizzoli had
counted thirty-one people who'd arrived by either elevator or
stairwell. Add to that the personnel already at work on the
floor, and they were dealing with at least forty people with
access to 5 West.
"Now watch what happens as people leave during and after
the code," said Moore. "This time they're not rushing. Maybe
you can pick up a few more faces and names." He fast-
forwarded. At the bottom of the screen, the time display
advanced eight minutes. The code was still in progress, but
already unneeded personnel were beginning to drift away
from the ward. The camera caught only their backs as they
walked to the stairwell door. First, two male medical students,
followed a moment later by a third unidentified man, departing
alone. Then there was a long pause, which Moore fast-
forwarded through. Next a group of four men exited together

into the stairwell. The time was 11:14. By then the code had
officially ended, and Herman Gwadowski had been declared
dead.
Moore switched tapes. Once again, they were watching the
elevator.
By the time they'd run through the tapes again, Rizzoli had
jotted down three pages of notes, tallying the number of
arrivals during the code. Thirteen men and seventeen women
had responded to the emergency. Now Rizzoli counted how
many were seen leaving after the code ended.
The numbers did not add up.
At last Moore pressed Stop, and the screen went blank.
They had been staring at the video for over an hour, and the
two nurses looked shell-shocked.
Cutting through the silence, Rizzoli's voice seemed to
startle them both. "Do you have any male employees working
on Five West during your shift?" she asked.
The charge nurse focused on Rizzoli. She seemed
surprised that another cop had somehow slipped into the
room without her realizing it. "There's a male nurse who
comes on at three. But I have no men during day shift."
"And no men were working on Five West at the time the
code was called?"

"There might have been surgical residents on the floor. But
no male nurses."
"Which residents? Do you remember?"
"They're always in and out, making rounds. I don't keep
track of them. We have our own work to do." The nurse looked
at Moore. "We really need to get back to the floor."
Moore nodded. "You can go. Thank you."
Rizzoli waited until the two nurses had left the room. Then
she said to Moore, "The Surgeon was already on the ward.
Before the code was even called. Wasn't he?"
Moore rose to his feet and went to the VCR. She could see
anger in his body language, the way he jerked the tape out of
the machine, the way he shoved in the second tape.
"Thirteen men arrived on Five West. And fourteen men left.
There's an extra man. He had to be there the whole time."
Moore pressed Play. The stairwell tape began rolling again.
"Damn it, Moore. Crowe was in charge of arranging
protection. And now we've lost our only witness."
Still he said nothing but stared at the screen, watching the
by-now familiar figures appear and disappear through the
stairwell door.

"This unsub walks through walls," she said. "He hides in thin
air. They had nine nurses working on that floor, and none of
them realized he was there. He was with them the whole
goddamn time."
"That's one possibility."
"So how did he get to that cop? Why would any cop let
himself be talked into leaving the patient's door? Stepping
into a supply room?"
"It would have to be someone he was familiar with. Or
someone who posed no threat."
And in the excitement of a code, with everyone scrambling
to save a life, it would be natural for a hospital employee to
turn to the one guy who's just standing there in the hallway
--the cop. Natural to ask that cop to help you with something
in the supply room.
Moore pressed Pause. "There," he said softly. "I think that's
our man."
Rizzoli stared at the screen. It was the lone man who'd
walked out the stairwell door early in the code. They could see
only his back. He wore a white coat and an O.R. cap. A
narrow swath of trimmed brown hair was visible beneath the
cap. He had a slender build, his shoulders not at all
impressive, his whole posture stooped forward like a walking

question mark.
"This is the only place we see him," said Moore. "I couldn't
spot him in the elevator footage. And I don't see him coming
up through this stairwell door. But he leaves this way. See how
he pushes the door open with his hip, never touching it with his
hands? I'm betting he left no prints anywhere. He's too careful.
And see how he hunches over, as though he knows he's on
camera. He knows we're looking for him."
"We got any ID?"
"None of the nurses can name him."
"Shit, he was on their floor."
"So were a lot of other people. Everyone was focused on
saving Herman Gwadowski. Everyone except him."
Rizzoli approached the video screen, her gaze frozen on
that lone figure framed in the white hallway. Though she could
not see his face, she felt as chilled as though she were
looking into the eyes of evil. Are you the Surgeon?
"No one remembers seeing him," said Moore. "No one
remembers riding up with him in the elevator. Yet there he is. A
ghost, who appears and vanishes at will."
"He left eight minutes after the code started," said Rizzoli,
looking at the time on the screen. "There were two medical

students who walked out right before him."
"Yes, I spoke to them. They had to get to a lecture at eleven.
That's why they left the code early. They didn't notice our man
follow them into the stairwell."
"So we have no witnesses at all."
"Just this camera."
She was still focused on the time. Eight minutes into the
code. Eight minutes was a long time. She tried to
choreograph it in her head. Walk up to the cop: ten seconds.
Talk him into following you a few feet up the hallway, into the
supply room: thirty seconds. Cut his throat: ten seconds. Walk
out, shut the door, enter Nina Peyton's room: fifteen seconds.
Dispatch the second victim, walk out: thirty seconds. That
added up to two minutes, tops. That still left six minutes. What
did he use that extra time for? To clean up? There was a lot of
blood; he may well have been splattered with it.
He'd had plenty of time to work with. The nurse's aide did
not discover Nina's body until ten minutes after the man on
that video screen walked out the stairwell door. By then, he
could have been a mile away, in his car.
Such perfect timing. This unsub moves with the accuracy
of a Swiss watch.
Abruptly she sat up straight, the realization zinging through

her like a bolt of electricity. "He knew. Jesus, Moore, he knew
there'd be a Code Blue." She looked at him and saw, by his
calm reaction, that he had already reached that conclusion.
"Did Mr. Gwadowski have any visitors?"
"The son. But the nurse was in the room the whole time. And
she was there when the patient coded."
"What happened just prior to the code?"
"She changed the IV bag. We've sent the bag for analysis."
Rizzoli looked back at the video screen, where the image of
the man in a white coat remained frozen in mid-stride. "This
makes no sense. Why would he take such a risk?"
"This was a mop-up job, to get rid of a loose end--the
witness."
"But what did Nina Peyton actually witness? She saw a
masked face. He knew she couldn't identify him. He knew she
posed almost no danger. Yet he went to a lot of trouble to kill
her. He exposed himself to capture. What does he gain by it?"
"Satisfaction. He finally finished his kill."
"But he could have finished it at her house. Moore, he let
Nina Peyton live that night. Which means he planned to end it
this way."

"In the hospital?"
"Yes."
"To what purpose?"
"I don't know. But I find it interesting that of all the patients
on that ward, it was Herman Gwadowski he chose as his
diversion. A patient of Catherine Cordell's."
Moore's beeper went off. As he took the call Rizzoli turned
her attention back to the monitor. She pressed Play and
watched the man in the white coat approach the door. He
tilted his hip to hit the door's opening bar and stepped into the
stairwell. Not once did he allow any part of his face to be
visible on camera. She hit Rewind, viewed the sequence
again. This time, as his hip rotated slightly, she saw it: the
bulge under his white coat. It was on his right side, at the level
of his waist. What was he concealing there? A change of
clothes? His murder kit?
She heard Moore say into the phone: "Don't touch it! Leave
it right where it is. I'm on my way."
As he disconnected, Rizzoli asked: "Who's that?"
"It's Catherine," said Moore. "Our boy's just sent her another
message."

"It came up in interdepartmental mail," said Catherine. "As
soon as I saw the envelope, I knew it was from him."
Rizzoli watched as Moore pulled on a pair of gloves--a
useless precaution, she thought, since the Surgeon had never
left his prints on any evidence. It was a large brown envelope
with a string-and-button closure. On the top blank line was
printed in blue ink: "To Catherine Cordell. Birthday greetings
from A.C."
Andrew Capra, thought Rizzoli.
"You didn't open it?" asked Moore.
"No. I put it right down, on my desk. And I called you."
"Good girl."
Rizzoli thought his response was condescending, but
Catherine clearly didn't take it that way, and she flashed him a
tense smile. Something passed between Moore and
Catherine. A look, a warm current, that Rizzoli registered with
a twinge of painful jealousy. It's gone further than I realized
between these two.
"It feels empty," he said. With gloved hands, he unwound the
string clasp. Rizzoli slid a sheet of plain white paper on the
countertop to catch the contents. He lifted the flap and turned
the envelope upside down.

Silky red-brown strands slid out and lay in a gleaming
clump on the sheet of paper.
A chill shot up Rizzoli's spine. "It looks like human hair."
"Oh god. Oh god. . . ."
Rizzoli turned and saw Catherine backing away in horror.
Rizzoli stared at Catherine's hair, then looked back at the
strands that had fallen from the envelope. It's hers. The hair is
Cordell's.
"Catherine." Moore spoke softly, soothingly. "It may not be
yours at all."
She looked at him in panic. "What if it is? How did he--"
"Do you keep a hairbrush in your O.R. locker? Your office?"
"Moore," said Rizzoli. "Check out these strands. They
weren't pulled off a hairbrush. The root ends have been cut."
She turned to Catherine. "Who last cut your hair, Dr. Cordell?"
Slowly Catherine approached the countertop and regarded
the clipped strands as though staring at a poisonous viper. "I
know when he did it," she said softly. "I remember."
"When?"
"It was that night . . ." She looked at Rizzoli with a stunned

expression. "In Savannah."
Rizzoli hung up the phone and looked at Moore. "Detective
Singer confirms it. A clump of her hair was cut."
"Why didn't that appear in Singer's report?"
"Cordell didn't notice it until the second day of her
hospitalization, when she looked in a mirror. Since Capra was
dead, and no hair was found at the crime scene, Singer
assumed the hair was cut by hospital personnel. Maybe
during emergency treatment. Cordell's face was pretty
bruised up, remember? The E.R. may have snipped away
some hair to clean her scalp."
"Did Singer ever confirm it was someone in the hospital
who cut it?"
Rizzoli tossed down her pencil and sighed. "No. He never
followed up."
"He just left it at that? Never mentioned it in his report
because it didn't make sense."
"Well, it doesn't make sense! Why weren't the clippings
found at the scene, along with Capra's body?"
"Catherine doesn't remember a large part of that night. The

Rohypnol wiped out a significant chunk of her memory. Capra
may have left the house. Returned later."
"Okay. Here's the biggest question of all. Capra's dead.
How did this souvenir end up in the Surgeon's hands?"
For this, Moore had no answer. Two killers, one alive, one
dead. What bound these two monsters to each other? The link
between them was more than merely psychic energy; it had
now taken on a physical dimension. Something they could
actually see and touch.
He looked down at the two evidence bags. One was
labeled: Unknown hair clippings. The second bag contained
a sample of Catherine's hair for comparison. He himself had
snipped the coppery strands and had placed them into the
Ziploc bag. Such hair would indeed make a tempting
souvenir. Hair was so very personal. A woman wears it,
sleeps with it. It carries fragrance and color and texture. A
woman's very essence. No wonder Catherine had been
horrified to learn that a man she did not know possessed such
an intimate part of her. To know that he had stroked it, sniffed
it, acquainting himself like a lover with her scent.
By now the Surgeon knows her scent well.
,
It was nearly midnight, but her lights were on. Through the
closed curtains, he saw her silhouette glide past, and he knew

she was awake.
Moore walked over to the parked cruiser and bent to talk to
the two patrolmen inside. "Anything to report?"
"She hasn't stepped outta the building since she got home.
Doing a lot of pacing. Looks like she's in for a restless night."
"I'm going in to talk to her," said Moore, and turned to cross
the street.
"Staying all night?"
Moore halted. Turned stiffly to look at the cop. "Excuse me?
"
"Are you staying all night? 'Cause if you are, we'll pass it
along to the next team. Just to let 'em know it's one of ours
upstairs with her."
Moore swallowed back his anger. The patrolman's question
had been a reasonable one, so why had he been so quick to
take offense?
Because I know how it must look, to be walking in her
door at midnight. I know what must be going through their
heads. It's the same thing that's going through my head.
The instant he stepped into her apartment, he saw the
question in her eyes, and he answered with a grim nod. "I'm

afraid the lab confirmed it. It was your hair he sent."
She accepted the news in stunned silence.
In the kitchen, a kettle whistled. She turned and walked out
of the room.
As he locked the door, his gaze lingered on the shiny new
dead bolt. How insubstantial even tempered steel seemed,
against an opponent who could walk through walls. He
followed her into the kitchen and watched her turn off the heat
to the squealing kettle. She fumbled with a box of tea bags,
gave a startled gasp as they spilled out and scattered across
the countertop. Such a minor mishap, yet it seemed to be the
crushing blow. All at once she sagged against the counter,
hands clenched, white knuckles against white tiles. She was
fighting not to cry, not to fall apart before his eyes, and she
was losing the battle. He saw her draw in a deep breath. Saw
her shoulders knot up, her whole body straining to stifle the
sob.
He could stand to watch this no longer. He went to her,
pulled her against him. Held her as she shook in his embrace.
All day he had thought about holding her, had longed for it. He
had not wanted it to be like this, with her driven by fear into his
arms. He wanted to be more than a safe haven, a reliable
man to turn to.
But that was exactly what she needed now. So he wrapped
himself around her, shielding her from the terrors of the night.

"Why is this happening again?" she whispered.
"I don't know, Catherine."
"It's Capra--"
"No. He's dead." He cupped her wet face, made her look at
him. "Andrew Capra is dead."
Staring back at him, she went very still in his arms. "Then
why has the Surgeon chosen me?"
"If anyone knows the answer, it's you."
"I don't know."
"Maybe not on a conscious level. But you yourself told me
you don't remember everything that happened in Savannah.
You don't remember firing the second shot. You don't
remember who cut your hair, or when. What else don't you
remember?"
She shook her head. Then blinked, startled, at the sound of
his beeper.
Why can't they leave me alone? He crossed to the phone
on the kitchen wall to answer the page.
Rizzoli's voice greeted him with what sounded like an
accusation. "You're at her place."

"Good guess."
"No, caller ID. It's midnight. Have you thought about what
you're doing?"
He said, irritably, "Why did you page me?"
"Is she listening?"
He watched Catherine walk out of the kitchen. Without her,
the room suddenly seemed empty. Bled of any interest. "No,"
he said.
"I've been thinking about the hair clipping. You know, there's
one more explanation for how she got it."
"And that would be?"
"She sent it to herself."
"I can't believe I'm hearing this."
"And I can't believe it never even crossed your mind."
"What would be the motive?"
"The same motive that makes men walk in off the street and
confess to murders they never committed. Look at all the
attention she's getting! Your attention. It's midnight, and you're
right there, fussing over her. I'm not saying the Surgeon hasn't

been stalking her. But this hair thing makes me step back and
say whoa. It's time to look at what else might be going on.
How did the Surgeon get that hair? Did Capra give it to him
two years ago? How could he do that when he's lying dead on
her bedroom floor? You saw the inconsistencies between her
statement and Capra's autopsy report. We both know she
didn't tell the whole truth."
"That statement was coaxed out of her by Detective Singer.
"
"You think he fed her the story?"
"Think of the pressure Singer was under. Four murders.
Everyone screaming for an arrest. And he had a nice, neat
solution: the perp is dead, shot by his intended victim.
Catherine closed the case for him, even if he had to put the
words in her mouth." Moore paused. "We need to know what
really happened that night in Savannah."
"She's the only one who was there. And she claims she
doesn't remember it all."
Moore looked up as Catherine came back into the room.
"Not yet."

fourteen
Y ou're certain Dr. Cordell's willing to do this?" asked
Alex Polochek.
"She's here and waiting for you," said Moore.
"You didn't talk her into this? Because hypnosis won't work
if the subject is resistant. She has to be fully cooperative, or
it'll be a waste of time."
A waste of time was what Rizzoli had already called this