Tess Gerritsen - The Surgeon

He was relieved when the receptionist finally said, “She’ll see you now, Detectives. It’s the last room on the right.”

Rizzoli led the way down the hall, past posters with The 10 signs your partner is abusive and How do you know if it’s rape? With every step he felt as if another stain of male guilt had attached itself to him, like dirt soiling his clothes. Rizzoli felt none of this; she was the one on familiar ground. The territory of women. She knocked on the door that said: “Sarah Daly, Nurse Practitioner.”

“Come in.”

The woman who stood up to greet them was young and hip-looking. Under her white coat she wore blue jeans and a black tee shirt, and her boyish haircut emphasized dark gamine eyes and elegant cheekbones. But what Moore could not stop focusing on was the small gold hoop in her left nostril. For much of the interview, he felt as if he were talking to that hoop.

“I reviewed her medical chart after you called,” said Sarah. “I know a police report was filed.”

“We’ve read it,” said Rizzoli.

“And your reason for coming here?”

“Nina Peyton was attacked last night, in her home. She’s now in critical condition.”

The woman’s first reaction was shock. And then, fast on its heels, rage. Moore saw it in the way her chin jutted up and her eyes glittered. “Was it him ?”

“Him?”

“The man who raped her?”

“It’s a possibility we’re considering,” said Rizzoli. “Unfortunately, the victim is comatose and can’t talk to us.”

“Don’t call her the victim . She does have a name.”

Rizzoli’s chin jutted up as well, and Moore knew she was pissed off. It was not a good way to start an interview.

He said, “Ms. Daly, this was an incredibly brutal crime, and we need—”

“Nothing is incredible,” retorted Sarah. “Not when we’re talking about what men do to women.” She picked up a folder from her desk and held it out to him. “Her medical record. The morning after she was raped, she came to this clinic. I was the one who saw her that day.”

“Were you also the one who examined her?”

“I did everything. The interview, the pelvic exam. I took the vaginal swabs and confirmed there was sperm under the microscope. I combed the pubic hair, collected nail clippings for the rape kit. Gave her the morning-after pill.”

“She didn’t go to the E.R. for any other tests?”

“A rape victim who walks in our door gets everything taken care of in this building, by one person. The last thing she needs is a parade of changing faces. So I draw the blood and send it out to the lab. I make the necessary calls to the police. If that’s what the victim wants.”

Moore opened the folder and saw the patient information sheet. Nina Peyton’s date of birth, address, phone number, and employer were listed. He flipped to the next page and saw it was filled with small, tight handwriting. The date of the first entry was May 17.

Chief Complaint: Sexual assault

History of Present Illness: 29-year-old white female, believes she was sexually assaulted. Last night while having drinks at the Gramercy Pub, she felt dizzy and remembers walking to the bathroom. She has no memory of any events that followed….

“She woke up at home, in her own bed,” said Sarah. “She didn’t remember how she got home. Didn’t remember getting undressed. She certainly didn’t remember tearing her own blouse. But there she was, stripped of her clothes. Her thighs were caked with what she thought was semen. One eye was swollen, and she had bruises on both wrists. She figured out pretty quick what had happened. And she had the same reaction other rape victims have. She thought: ‘It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have been so careless.’ But that’s how it is with women.” She looked directly at Moore. “We blame ourselves for everything, even when it’s the man who does the fucking.”

In the face of such anger, there was nothing he could say. He looked down at the chart and read the physical exam.

Patient is a disheveled, withdrawn female who speaks in a monotone. She is unaccompanied, and has walked to the clinic from her home….

“She kept talking about her car keys,” said Sarah. “She was battered, one eye was swollen shut, and all she could focus on was the fact she’d lost her car keys and she needed to find them or she couldn’t drive to work. It took me awhile to get her to break out of that repeating loop and talk to me. This is a woman who’d never had anything really bad happen to her. She was educated, independent. A sales rep for Lawrence Scientific Supplies. She deals with people every day. And here she was, practically paralyzed. Obsessed with finding her stupid car keys. Finally we opened her purse and searched through all the pockets, and the keys were there. Only after we found them could she focus on me, and tell me what happened.”

“And what did she say?”

“She went into the Gramercy Pub around nine o’clock to meet a girlfriend. The friend never showed, so Nina hung around for a while. Had a martini, talked to a few guys. Look, I’ve been there, and every night it’s a busy place. A woman would feel safe.” She added, on a bitter note: “As if there is any safe place.”

“Did she remember the man who took her home?” asked Rizzoli. “That’s what we really need to know.”

Sarah looked at her. “It’s all about the criminal, isn’t it? That’s all those two cops from Sex Crimes wanted to hear about. The perp gets the attention.”

Moore could feel the room heating up with Rizzoli’s temper. He said, quickly: “The detectives said she was unable to provide a description.”

“I was in the room when they interviewed her. She asked me to stay, so I heard the whole story twice. They kept after her about what he looked like, and she just couldn’t tell them. She honestly could not remember anything about him.”

Moore turned to the next page in the chart. “You saw her a second time, in July. Only a week ago.”

“She came back for a follow-up blood test. It takes six weeks after exposure for an HIV test to become positive. That’s the ultimate atrocity. First to be raped, and then to find out your attacker has given you a fatal disease. It’s six weeks of agony for these women, waiting to find out if they’ll get AIDS. Wondering if the enemy is inside you, multiplying in your blood. When they come for their follow-up test, I have to give them a pep talk. And swear that I’ll call them the instant I get the results back.”

“You don’t analyze the tests here?”

“No. It all gets sent out to Interpath Labs.”

Moore turned to the last page of the chart and saw the sheet of results. HIV screen: Negative. VDRL (syphilis): Negative. The page was tissue-thin, a sheet from a printed carbon form. The most important news of our lives, he thought, so often arrives on such flimsy paper. Telegrams. Exam scores. Blood tests.

He closed the chart and laid it on the desk. “When you saw Nina the second time, the day she came in for the follow-up blood test, how did she strike you?”

“Are you asking me if she was still traumatized?”

“I have no doubt she was.”

His quiet answer seemed to puncture Sarah’s swelling bubble of rage. She sat back, as though, without anger, she had lost some vital fuel. For a moment she considered his question. “When I saw Nina the second time, she was like one of the walking dead.”

“How so?”

“She sat in that chair where Detective Rizzoli is now, and I felt as if I could almost see straight through her. As if she was transparent. She hadn’t been to work since the rape. I think it was hard for her to face people, especially men. She was paralyzed by all these strange phobias. Afraid to drink tap water, or anything that hadn’t been sealed. It had to be in an unopened bottle or can, something that couldn’t be poisoned or drugged. She was afraid that men could look at her and see she’d been violated. She was convinced her rapist had left sperm on her bedsheets and clothes, and she was spending hours every day washing things over and over. Whoever Nina Peyton used to be, that woman was dead. What I saw in her place was a ghost.” Sarah’s voice had trailed off, and she sat very still, staring toward Rizzoli, seeing another woman in that chair. A succession of women, different faces, different ghosts, a parade of the damaged.