The Surgeon (35 page)

Erin Volchko was sitting in front of the gammatech prism,
shuffling through a series of photomicrographs. As Rizzoli
came into the lab, Erin held up a photo and challenged:
"Quick! What is it?"
Rizzoli frowned at the black-and-white image of a scaly
band. "It's ugly."
"Yeah, but what is it?"
"Probably something gross. Like a cockroach leg."
"It's a hair from a deer. Cool, isn't it? It doesn't look a thing
like human hair."
"Speaking of human hair." Rizzoli handed her the report that
she'd just read. "Can you tell me more about this?"
"From Warren Hoyt's apartment?"
"Yeah."
"The short brown hairs on Hoyt's pillow show Trichorrhexis
invaginata. He does appear to be your unsub."
"No, the other hair. The black strand from his bathroom
floor."
"Let me show you the photo." Erin reached for a bundle of
photomicrographs. She shuffled through them like cards and

pulled one from the deck. "This is the hair from the bathroom.
You see the numerical scores there?"
Rizzoli looked at the sheet, at Erin's neat handwriting. A00-
B00-C05-D33. "Yeah. Whatever it means."
"The first two scores, A00 and B00, tell you the strand is
straight and black. Under the compound microscope, you can
see additional details." She handed Rizzoli the photo. "Look
at the shaft. It's on the thick side. Notice the cross-sectional
shape is nearly round."
"Meaning?"
"It's one feature that helps us distinguish between races. A
hair shaft from an African subject, for instance, is nearly flat,
like a ribbon. Now look at the pigmentation, and you'll notice
it's very dense. See the thick cuticle? These all point to the
same conclusion." Erin looked at her. "This hair is
characteristic of East Asian heritage."
"What do you mean by East Asian?"
"Chinese or Japanese. The Indian subcontinent. Possibly
Native American."
"Can that be confirmed? Is there enough hair root for DNA
tests?"
"Unfortunately, no. It appears to have been clipped, not

shed naturally. There's no follicular tissue on this strand. But
I'm confident this hair comes from someone of non-European,
non-African descent."
An Asian woman, thought Rizzoli as she walked back to the
homicide unit. How does this come into the case? In the
glass-walled corridor leading to the north wing she paused,
her tired eyes squinting against the sunlight as she looked out
over the neighborhood of Roxbury. Was there a victim whose
body they had yet to find? Had Hoyt clipped her hair as a
souvenir, the way he'd clipped Catherine Cordell's?
She turned and was startled to see Moore walk right past
her, on his way to the south wing. He might never have
acknowledged her presence had she not called out to him.
He stopped and reluctantly turned to face her.
"That long black strand on Hoyt's bathroom floor," she said.
"The lab says it's East Asian. There could be a victim we've
missed."
"We discussed that possibility."
"When?"
"This morning, at the meeting."
"Goddamnit, Moore! Don't leave me out of the loop!"

His cold silence served to amplify the shrillness of her
outburst.
"I want him, too," she said. Slowly, inexorably, she
approached him until she was right in his face. "I want him as
much as you do. Let me back in."
"It's not my decision. It's Marquette's." He turned to leave.
"Moore?"
Reluctantly he stopped.
"I can't stand this," she said. "This feud between us."
"This isn't the time to talk about it."
"Look, I'm sorry . I was pissed off at you about Pacheco. I
know it's a lousy excuse for what I did. For telling Marquette
about you and Cordell."
He turned to her. "Why did you do it?"
"I just told you why. I was pissed off."
"No, there's more to it than Pacheco. It's about Catherine,
isn't it? You've disliked her from the very first day. You couldn't
stand the fact--"
"That you were falling in love with her?"

A long silence passed.
When Rizzoli spoke, she could not keep the sarcasm from
her voice. "You know, Moore, for all your high-minded talk
about respecting women's minds, admiring women's
abilities, you still fall for the same thing every other man does.
Tits and ass."
He went white with anger. "So you hate her for the way she
looks. And you're pissed at me for falling for it. But you know
what, Rizzoli? What man's going to fall for you, when you don't
even like yourself?"
She stared in bitterness as he walked away. Only weeks
ago, she'd thought Moore was the last person on earth who
would say something so cruel. His words stung worse than if
they'd come from anyone else.
That he might have spoken the truth was something she
refused to consider.
Downstairs, passing through the lobby, she paused at the
memorial to Boston PD's fallen cops. The names of the dead
were engraved on the wall in chronological order, starting with
Ezekiel Hodson in 1854. A vase of flowers sat on the granite
floor in tribute. Get yourself killed in the line of duty, and you're
a hero. How simple, how permanent. She didn't know anything
about these men whose names were now immortalized. For
all she knew, some of them might have been dirty cops, but
death had made their names and reputations untouchable.

Standing there, before that wall, she almost envied them.
She walked out to her car. Rooting around in her glove
compartment, she found a New England map. She spread it
on the seat and eyed her two choices: Nashua, New
Hampshire, or Lithia, in western Massachusetts. Warren Hoyt
had used ATM's at both locations. It was down to pure
guesswork. A toss of a coin.
She started the car. It was ten-thirty; she didn't reach the
town of Lithia until noon.
Water. It was all Catherine could think about, the cool, clean
taste of it streaming into her mouth. She thought of all the
fountains from which she had drunk, the stainless-steel oases
in the hospital corridors spouting icy water that splashed her
lips, her chin. She thought of crushed ice and the way post-op
patients would crane their necks and open their parched
mouths like baby birds to receive a few precious chips of it.
And she thought of Nina Peyton, bound in a bedroom,
knowing she was doomed to die, yet able to think only of her
terrible thirst.
This is how he tortures us. How he beats us down. He
wants us to beg for water, beg for our lives. He wants
complete control. He wants us to acknowledge his power.

All night she had been left to stare at that lone lightbulb.
Several times she had dozed off, only to startle awake, her
stomach churning in panic. But panic cannot be sustained,
and as the hours passed and no amount of struggling could
loosen her bonds, her body seemed to shut down into a state
of suspended animation. She hovered there, in the
nightmarish twilight between denial and reality, her mind
focused with exquisite concentration on her craving for water.
Footsteps creaked. A door squealed open.
She snapped fully awake. Her heart was suddenly pounding
like an animal trying to beat its way out of her chest. She
sucked in dank air, cool cellar air that smelled of earth and
moist stone. Her breaths came in quickening gasps as the
footsteps moved down the stairs and then he was there,
standing above her. The light from the lone bulb cast shadows
on his face, turning it into a smiling skull with hollows for eyes.
"You want a drink, don't you?" he said. Such a quiet voice.
Such a sane voice.
She could not speak because of the tape over her mouth,
but he could see the answer in her feverish eyes.
"Look what I have, Catherine." He held up a tumbler and
she heard the delicious clink of ice cubes and saw bright
beads of water sweating on the cold surface of the glass.
"Wouldn't you like a sip?"

She nodded, her gaze not on him but on the tumbler. Thirst
was driving her mad, but she was already thinking ahead,
beyond that first glorious sip of water. Plotting her moves,
weighing her chances.
He swirled the water, and the ice rang like chimes against
the glass. "Only if you behave."
I will, her eyes promised him.
The tape stung as it was peeled off. She lay completely
passive, let him slip a straw into her mouth. She took a greedy
sip, but it was barely a trickle against the raging fire of her
thirst. She drank again and immediately began to cough,
precious water dribbling from her mouth.
"Can't--can't drink lying down," she gasped. "Please, let
me sit up. Please."
He set down the glass and studied her, his eyes bottomless
pools of black. He saw a woman on the verge of fainting. A
woman who had to be revived if he wanted the full pleasure of
her terror.
He began to cut the tape that bound her right wrist to the
bedframe.
Her heart was thumping hard, and she thought that surely he
would see it surging against her breastbone. The right bond
came free, and her hand lay limp. She did not move, did not

tense a single muscle.
There was an endless silence. Come on. Cut my left hand
free. Cut it!
Too late she realized she'd been holding her breath and he
had noticed it. In despair she heard the screech of fresh duct
tape peeling off the roll.
It's now or never.
She grabbed blindly at the instrument tray, and the glass of
water went flying, ice cubes clattering to the floor. Her fingers
closed around steel. The scalpel!
Just as he lunged at her, she swung the scalpel and felt the
blade strike flesh.
He flinched away, howling, clutching his hand.
She twisted sideways, slashed the scalpel across the tape
that bound her left wrist. Another hand free!
She shot upright in bed, and her vision suddenly dimmed. A
day without water had left her weak, and she fought to focus,
to direct the blade at the tape binding her right ankle. She
slashed blindly and pain nipped her skin. One hard kick and
her ankle was free.
She reached out toward the last binding.

The heavy retractor slammed into her temple, a blow so
brutal she saw bright flashes of light.
The second blow caught her on the cheek, and she heard
bone crack.
She never remembered dropping the scalpel.
When she surfaced back to consciousness, her face was
throbbing and she could not see out her right eye. She tried to
move her limbs and found her wrists and ankles were once
again bound to the bedframe. But he had not yet taped her
mouth; he had not yet silenced her.
He was standing above her. She saw the stains on his shirt.
His blood, she realized with a feral sense of satisfaction. His
prey had lashed back and had drawn blood. I am not so
easily conquered. He feeds on fear; I will show him none of
it.
He picked up a scalpel from the tray and came toward her.
Though her heart was slamming against her chest, she lay
perfectly still, her gaze on his. Taunting him, daring him. She
now knew her death was inevitable, and with that acceptance
came liberation. The courage of the condemned. For two
years she'd cowered like a wounded animal in hiding. For two
years, she had let Andrew Capra's ghost rule her life. No
longer.

Go ahead, cut me. But you will not win. You will not see me
die defeated.
He touched the blade to her abdomen. Involuntarily her
muscles snapped taut. He was waiting to see fear on her
face.
She showed him only defiance. "You can't do it without
Andrew, can you?" she said. "You can't even get it up on your
own. Andrew had to do the fucking. All you could do was watch
him."
He pressed the blade, pricking her skin. Even through her
pain, even as the first drops of blood trickled out, she kept her
gaze locked on his, showing no fear, denying him all
satisfaction.
"You can't even fuck a woman, can you? No, your hero
Andrew had to do it. And he was a loser, too."
The scalpel hesitated. Lifted. She saw it hovering there, in
the dim light.
Andrew The key is Andrew the man he worships. His god.
.                 ,
"Loser. Andrew was a loser," she said. "You know why he
came to see me that night, don't you? He came to beg."
"No." The word was barely a whisper.

"He asked me not to fire him. He pleaded with me." She
laughed, a harsh and startling sound in that dim place of
death. "It was pitiful. That was Andrew, your hero. Begging me
to help him."
The hand on the scalpel tightened. The blade pressed
down on her belly again, and fresh blood oozed out and
trickled down her flank. Savagely she suppressed the instinct
to flinch, to cry out. Instead she kept talking, her voice as
strong and confident as though she were the one holding the
scalpel.
"He told me about you. You didn't know that, did you? He
said you couldn't even talk to a woman, you were such a
coward. He had to find them for you."
"Liar."
"You were nothing to him. Just a parasite. A worm."
"Liar."
The blade sank into her skin, and though she fought against
it, a gasp escaped her throat. You will not win, you bastard.
Because I'm no longer afraid of you. I'm not afraid of
anything.
She stared, her eyes burning with the defiance of the
damned, as he made the next slice.

twenty-five
R   izzoli stood eyeing the row of cake mixes and
wondered how many of the boxes were infested with
mealybugs. Hobbs' FoodMart was that kind of grocery store
--dark and musty, a real Mom and Pop establishment, if you
pictured Mom and Pop as a pair of mean geezers who'd sell
spoiled milk to school kids. "Pop" was Dean Hobbs, an old
Yankee with suspicious eyes who paused to study a
customer's quarters before accepting them as payment.
Grudgingly he handed back two pennies' worth of change,
then slammed the register shut.

"Don't keep track of who uses that ATM thingamajig," he
said to Rizzoli. "Bank put it in, as a convenience to my
customers. I got nothing to do with it."
"The cash was withdrawn back in May. Two hundred dollars.
I have a photo of the man who--"
"Like I told that state cop, that was May. This is August. You
think I remember a customer from that far back?"
"The state police were here?"
"This morning, asking the same questions. Don't you cops
talk to each other?"
So the ATM transaction had already been followed up on,
not by Boston PD but by the staties. Shit, she was wasting her
time here.
Mr. Hobbs's gaze suddenly shot to a teenage boy studying
the candy selection. "Hey, you gonna pay for that Snickers
bar?"
"Uh . . . yeah."
"Then take it outta your pocket, why don't ya?"
The boy put the candy bar back on the shelf and slunk out of
the store.