Tess Gerritsen - The Surgeon

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?”