Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Bundle Read online

  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.

  ten

  Even on a Monday afternoon, the Gramercy Pub was a happening place. It was 7:00 P.M., and the corporate singles were out on the town and ready to play. This was their playpen.

  Rizzoli sat at a table near the entrance and felt puffs of hot city air blow into the room every time the door swung open to admit yet another GQ clone, another office Barbie swaying in three-inch heels. Rizzoli, wearing her usual boxy pantsuit and sensible flats, felt like the high school chaperone. She saw two women walk in, sleek as cats, trailing mingled scents of perfume. Rizzoli never wore perfume. She owned one tube of lipstick, which was stored somewhere in the back of her bathroom cabinet, along with the dried-up mascara wand and the bottle of Dewy Satin foundation. She’d purchased the makeup five years ago at a department store cosmetics counter, thinking that perhaps, with the right tools of illusion, even she could look like cover girl Elizabeth Hurley. The salesgirl had creamed and powdered, stroked and sketched, and when it was over had triumphantly handed Rizzoli a mirror and asked, smiling, “What do you think of your new look?”

  What Rizzoli thought, staring at her own image, was that she hated Elizabeth Hurley for giving women false hope. The brutal truth was, there are some women who will never be beautiful, and Rizzoli was one of them.

  So she sat unnoticed and sipped her ginger ale as she watched the pub gradually fill with people. It was a noisy crowd, with much chatter and clinking of ice cubes, the laughter a little too loud, a little too forced.

  She rose and worked her way toward the bar. There she flashed her badge at the bartender and said, “I have a few questions.”

  He gave her badge scarcely a glance, then punched the cash register to ring up a drink. “Okay, shoot.”

  “You remember seeing this woman in here?” Rizzoli laid a photo of Nina Peyton on the counter.

  “Yeah, and you’re not the first cop to ask about her. Some other woman detective was in here ’bout a month or so ago.”

  “From the sex crimes unit?”

  “I guess. Wanted to know if I saw anyone trying to pick up that woman in the picture.”

  “And did you?”

  He shrugged. “In here, everyone’s on the make. I don’t keep track.”

  “But you do remember seeing this woman? Her name is Nina Peyton.”

  “I seen her in here a few times, usually with a girlfriend. I didn’t know her name. Hasn’t been back in a while.”

  “You know why?”

  “Nope.” He picked up a rag and began wiping the counter, his attention already drifting away from her.

  “I’ll tell you why,” said Rizzoli, her voice rising in anger. “Because some asshole decided to have a little fun. So he came here to hunt for a victim. Looked around, saw Nina Peyton, and thought: There’s some pussy. He sure didn’t see a human being when he looked at her. All he saw was something he could use and throw away.”

  “Look, you don’t need to tell me this.”

  “Yes, I do. And you need to hear it because it happened right under your nose and you chose not to see it. Some asshole slips a drug in a woman’s drink. Pretty soon she’s sick and staggers off to the bathroom. The asshole takes her by the arm and leads her outside. And you didn’t see any of that?”

  “No,” he shot back. “I didn’t.”

  The room had fallen silent. She saw that people were staring at her. Without another word, she stalked off, back to the table.

  After a moment, the buzz of conversation resumed.

  She watched the bartender slide two whiskeys toward a man, saw the man hand one of them to a woman. She watched drink glasses lifted to lips and tongues licking off salt from Margaritas, saw heads tilted back as vodka and tequila and beer slid down throats.

  And she saw men staring at women. She sipped her ginger ale, and she felt intoxicated, not with alcohol but anger. She, the lone female sitting in the corner, could see with startling clarity what this place really was. A watering hole where predator and prey came together.

  Her beeper went off. It was Barry Frost paging her.

  “What’s all that racket?” asked Frost, barely audible over her cell phone.

  “I’m sitting in a bar.” She turned and glared as a nearby table exploded with laughter. “What did you say?”

  “… a doctor over on Marlborough Street. I’ve got a copy of her medical record.”

  “Whose medical record?”

  “Diana Sterling’s.”

  At once Rizzoli was hunched forward, every ounce of attention focused on Frost’s faint voice. “Tell me again. Who’s the doctor and why did Sterling see him?”

  “The doctor’s a she. Dr. Bonnie Gillespie. A gynecologist over on Marlborough Street.”

  Another noisy burst of laughter drowned out his words. Rizzoli cupped her hand over her ear so she could hear his next words. “Why did Sterling see her?” she yelled.

  But she already knew the answer; she could see it right in front of her as she stared at the bar, where two men were converging on a woman like lions stalking a zebra.

  “Sexual assault,” said Frost. “Diana Sterling was raped, too.”

  “All three were sexual assault victims,” said Moore. “But neither Elena Ortiz nor Diana Sterling reported their attacks. We found out about Sterling’s rape only because we checked local women’s clinics and gynecologists to find out if she was ever treated for it. Sterling never even told her parents about the attack. When I called them this morning, they were shocked to find out about it.”

  It was only midmorning, but the faces he saw around the conference room table looked drained. They were operating on sleep deficits, and another full day stretched ahead of them.

  Lieutenant Marquette said, “So the only person who knew about Sterling’s rape was this gynecologist on Marlborough Street?”

  “Dr. Bonnie Gillespie. It was Diana Sterling’s one and only visit. She went in because she was afraid she’d been exposed to AIDS.”

  “What did Dr. Gillespie know about the rape?”

  Frost, who’d interviewed the physician, answered the question. He opened the folder containing Diana Sterling’s medical record. “Here’s what Dr. Gillespie wrote: ‘Thirty-year-old white female requests HIV screen. Unprotected sex five days ago, partner’s HIV status unknown. When asked if her partner was in a high-risk group, patient became upset and tearful. Revealed that sex was not consensual, and she does not know assailant’s name. Does not wish to report the assault. Refuses referral for rape counseling.’ ” Frost looked up. “That’s all the information Dr. Gillespie got from her. She did a pelvic exam, tested for syphilis, gonorrhea, and HIV, and told the patient to return in two months for a follow-up HIV blood test. The patient never did. Because she was dead.”

  “And Dr. Gillespie never called the police? Even after the murder?”

  “She didn’t know her patient was dead. She never saw the news reports.”

  “Was a rape kit collected? Semen?”

  “No. The patient, uh …” Frost flushed in embarrassment. Some topics even a married man like Frost found difficult to discuss. “She douched a few times, right after the attack.”

  “Can you blame her?” said Rizzoli. “Shit, I would’ve felt like douching with Lysol.”

  “Three rape victims,” said Marquette. “This is no coincidence.”

  “You find the rapist,” said Zucker, “I think you’ll have your unsub. What’s the status on the DNA from Nina Peyton?”

  “It’s on expedite,” said Rizzoli. “Lab’s had the semen sample for nearly two months, and nothing’s been done with it. So I lit a fire under them. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that our perp’s already in CODIS.”

  CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System, was th
e FBI’s national database of DNA profiles. The system was still in its infancy, and the genetic profiles of half a million convicted offenders had not yet been entered into the system. The chances of their getting a “cold hit”—a match with a known offender—were slim.

  Marquette looked at Dr. Zucker. “Our unsub sexually assaults the victim first. Then returns weeks later to kill her? Does that make sense?”

  “It doesn’t have to make sense to us,” said Zucker. “Only to him. It’s not uncommon for a rapist to return and attack his victim a second time. There’s a sense of ownership there. A relationship, however pathological, has been established.”

  Rizzoli snorted. “You call it a relationship?”

  “Between abuser and victim. It sounds sick, but there it is. It’s based on power. First he takes it away from her, makes her something less than a human being. She’s now an object. He knows it and, more importantly, she knows it. It’s the fact she’s damaged, humiliated, that may excite him enough to return. First he marks her with the rape. Then he returns to claim ultimate ownership.”

  Damaged women, thought Moore. That’s the common link among these victims. It suddenly occurred to him that Catherine, too, was among the damaged.

  “He never raped Catherine Cordell,” said Moore.

  “But she is a rape victim.”

  “Her attacker’s been dead two years. How did the Surgeon identify her as a victim? How did she even show up on his radar screen? She never talks about the attack, to anyone.”

  “She talked about it online, didn’t she? That private chat room …” Zucker paused. “Jesus. Is it possible he’s finding his victims through the Internet?”

  “We explored that theory,” said Moore. “Nina Peyton doesn’t even own a computer. And Cordell never revealed her name to anyone in that chat room. So we’re right back to the question: Why did the Surgeon focus on Cordell?”

  Zucker said, “He does seem obsessed with her. He goes out of his way to taunt her. He takes risks, just to e-mail her that photograph of Nina Peyton. And that leads to a disastrous chain of events for him. The photo brings the police right to Nina’s door. He’s rushed and can’t complete the kill, can’t achieve satisfaction. Even worse, he leaves behind a witness. The worst mistake of all.”

  “That was no mistake,” said Rizzoli. “He meant for her to live.”

  Her remark elicited skeptical expressions around the table.

  “How else do you explain a screwup like this?” she continued. “That photo he e-mailed to Cordell was meant to pull us in. He sent it, and he waited for us. Waited till we called the vic’s house. He knew we were on our way. And then he did a half-ass job of cutting her throat, because he wanted us to find her alive.”

  “Oh yeah,” snorted Crowe. “It was all part of his plan.”

  “And his reason for this?” Zucker asked Rizzoli.

  “The reason was written right on her thigh. Nina Peyton was an offering to Cordell. A gift intended to scare the shit out of her.”

  There was a pause.

  “If so, then it worked,” said Moore. “Cordell is terrified.”

  Zucker leaned back and considered Rizzoli’s theory. “It’s a lot of risks to take, just to scare one woman. It’s a sign of megalomania. It could mean he’s decompensating. That’s what eventually happened to Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. They lost control of their fantasies. They became careless. That’s when they made their mistakes.”

  Zucker rose and went to the chart on the wall. There were three victim names there. Beneath the name Nina Peyton, he wrote in a fourth name: Catherine Cordell.

  “She’s not one of his victims—not yet. But in some way he’s identified her as an object of interest. How did he choose her?” Zucker looked around the room. “Have you interviewed her colleagues? Do any of them trip any alarm bells?”

  Rizzoli said, “We’ve eliminated Kenneth Kimball, the E.R. doc. He was on duty the night Nina Peyton was attacked. We’ve also interviewed most of the male surgical staff, as well as the residents.”

  “What about Cordell’s partner, Dr. Falco?”

  “Dr. Falco has not been eliminated.”

  Now Rizzoli had caught Zucker’s attention, and he focused on her with a strange light in his eyes. The nutso-shrink look was what the cops in the homicide unit called it. “Tell me more,” he said softly.

  “Dr. Falco looks great on paper. MIT grad in aeronautical engineering. M.D. from Harvard. Surgery residency at Peter Bent Brigham. Raised by a single mom, worked his way through college and med school. Flies his own airplane. Nice-looking guy, too. Not Mel Gibson, but he could turn a few heads.”

  Darren Crowe laughed. “Hey, Rizzoli’s rating suspects by their looks. Is this how lady cops do it?”

  Rizzoli shot him a hostile glance. “What I’m saying,” she continued, “is this guy could have a dozen women on his arm. But I hear from the nurses that the only woman he’s been interested in is Cordell. It’s no secret that he keeps asking her out. And she keeps turning him down. Maybe he’s starting to get pissed.”

  “Dr. Falco bears watching,” said Zucker. “But let’s not narrow down our list too soon. Let’s stick with Dr. Cordell here. Are there other reasons the Surgeon might choose her as a victim?”

  It was Moore who turned the question on its head. “What if she isn’t just another in a string of prey? What if she’s always been the object of his attention? Each of these attacks has been a reenactment of what was done to those women in Georgia. What was almost done to Cordell. We’ve never explained why he imitates Andrew Capra. We’ve never explained why he’s zeroed in on Capra’s only survivor.” He pointed to the list. “These other women, Sterling, Ortiz, Peyton—what if they’re merely placeholders? Surrogates for his primary victim?”

  “The theory of the retaliatory target,” said Zucker. “You can’t kill the woman you really hate because she’s too powerful. Too intimidating. So you kill a substitute, a woman who represents that target.”

  Frost said, “You’re saying his real target’s always been Cordell? But he’s afraid of her?”

  “It’s the same reason Edmund Kemper didn’t kill his mother until the very end of his murder spree,” said Zucker. “She was the real target all along, the woman he despised. Instead he vented his rage against other victims. With each attack he symbolically destroyed his mother again and again. He couldn’t actually kill her, not at first, because she wielded too much authority over him. On some level, he was afraid of her. But with each killing he gained confidence. Power. And in the end, he finally achieved his goal. He crushed his mother’s skull, decapitated her, raped her. And as the final insult, he tore out her larynx and shoved it into the garbage disposal. The real target of his rage was finally dead. That’s when his spree ended. That’s when Edmund Kemper turned himself in.”

  Barry Frost, who was usually the first cop to toss his cookies at a crime scene, looked a little queasy at the thought of Kemper’s brutal finale. “So these first three attacks,” he said, “they could be just the warm-up for the main event?”

  Zucker nodded. “The killing of Catherine Cordell.”

  It almost hurt Moore to see the smile on Catherine’s face as she walked into the clinic waiting room to greet him, because he knew the questions he brought would surely destroy this welcome. Looking at her now, he did not see a victim but a warm and beautiful woman who immediately took his hand in hers and seemed reluctant to release it.

  “I hope this is a convenient time to talk,” he said.

  “I’ll always make time for you.” Again, that bewitching smile. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

  “Let’s go into my office, then.”

  She settled in behind her desk and waited expectantly for whatever news he had brought. In the last few days she had learned to trust him, and her gaze was unguarded. Vulnerable. He had earned her confidence as a friend, and now he was about to shatter it.

  “
It’s clear to everyone,” he said, “that the Surgeon is focused on you.”

  She nodded.

  “What we’re wondering is why. Why does he reenact Andrew Capra’s crimes? Why have you become the center of his attention? Do you know the answer to that?”

  Bewilderment flickered in her eyes. “I have no idea.”

  “We think you do.”

  “How could I possibly know the way he thinks?”

  “Catherine, he could stalk any other woman in Boston. He could choose someone who’s unprepared, who has no idea she’s being hunted. That would be the logical thing for him to do, to go after the easy victim. You’re the most difficult prey he could choose, because you’re already on your guard against attack. And then he makes the hunt even more difficult by warning you. Taunting you. Why?”

  The welcome was gone from her eyes. Suddenly her shoulders squared and her hands closed into fists on her desk. “I keep telling you, I don’t know.”

  “You’re the one physical connection between Andrew Capra and the Surgeon,” he said. “The common victim. It’s as if Capra is still alive, picking up where he left off. And where he left off was you. The one who got away.”

  She stared down at her desk, at the files so neatly stacked in their in and out boxes. At the medical note she’d been writing in tight and precise script. Though she sat perfectly still, the knuckles of her hands stood out, stark as ivory.

  “What haven’t you told me about Andrew Capra?” he asked quietly.

  “I haven’t kept anything from you.”

  “The night he attacked you, why did he come to your house?”

  “How is this relevant?”

  “You were the only victim Capra knew as a person. The other victims were strangers, women he picked up in bars. But you were different. He chose you.”

  “He was—he may have been angry with me.”

  “He came to see you about something at work. A mistake he’d made. That’s what you told Detective Singer.”

  She nodded. “It was more than just one mistake. It was a series of them. Medical errors. And he’d failed to follow up on abnormal blood tests. It was a pattern of carelessness. I’d confronted him earlier in the day, in the hospital.”