The Surgeon Read online

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a long way from the South.”

  “My mother grew up in Massachusetts. She brought us to New England every summer. It felt like . . . I was coming home.”

  “So you’ve been here over two years.”

  “Yes.”

  “Doing what?”

  Catherine frowned, perplexed by the question. “Working here at Pilgrim, with Dr. Falco. On Trauma Service.”

  “I guess the Globe got it wrong, then.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I read the article about you a few weeks ago. The one on women surgeons. Great photo of you, by the way. It said you’ve been working here at Pilgrim for only a year.”

  Catherine paused, then said, calmly, “The article was correct. After Savannah, I took some time to . . .” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t join Dr. Falco’s practice until last July.”

  “And what about your first year in Boston?”

  “I didn’t work.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing.” That answer, so flat and final, was all she’d damn well say. She was not going to reveal the humiliating truth of what that first year had been like. The days, stretching into weeks, when she was afraid to emerge from her apartment. The nights when the faintest sound could leave her shaking in panic. The slow and painful journey back into the world, when just riding an elevator, or walking at night to her car, was an act of sheer courage. She’d been ashamed of her vulnerability; she was still ashamed, and her pride would never allow her to reveal it.

  She looked at her watch. “I have patients coming in. I really have nothing more to add.”

  “Let me re-check my facts here.” Rizzoli opened a small spiral-bound notebook. “A little over two years ago, on the night of June fifteenth, you were attacked in your home by Dr. Andrew Capra. A man you knew. An intern you worked with in the hospital.” She looked up at Catherine.

  “You already know the answers.”

  “He drugged you, stripped you. Tied you to your bed. Terrorized you.”

  “I don’t see the point of—”

  “Raped you.” The words, though spoken quietly, had an impact as brutal as a slap.

  Catherine said nothing.

  “And that’s not all he planned to do,” continued Rizzoli.

  Dear god, make her stop.

  “He was going to mutilate you in the worst possible way. As he mutilated four other women in Georgia. He cut them open. Destroyed precisely what made them women.”

  “That’s enough,” said Moore.

  But Rizzoli was relentless. “It could have happened to you, Dr. Cordell.”

  Catherine shook her head. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Dr. Cordell, there is nothing I want more than to catch this man, and I would think you’d want to help us. You’d want to stop it from happening to other women.”

  “This has nothing to do with me! Andrew Capra is dead. He’s been dead for two years.”

  “Yes, I’ve read his autopsy report.”

  “Well, I can guarantee he’s dead,” Catherine shot back. “Because I’m the one who blew that son of a bitch away.”

  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 E
rin, “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.”