Tess Gerritsen - The Surgeon

He could stand to watch this no longer. He went to her, pulled her against him. Held her as she shook in his embrace. All day he had thought about holding her, had longed for it. He had not wanted it to be like this, with her driven by fear into his arms. He wanted to be more than a safe haven, a reliable man to turn to.

But that was exactly what she needed now. So he wrapped himself around her, shielding her from the terrors of the night.

“Why is this happening again?” she whispered.

“I don’t know, Catherine.”

“It’s Capra—”

“No. He’s dead.” He cupped her wet face, made her look at him. “Andrew Capra is dead.”

Staring back at him, she went very still in his arms. “Then why has the Surgeon chosen me ?”

“If anyone knows the answer, it’s you.”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe not on a conscious level. But you yourself told me you don’t remember everything that happened in Savannah. You don’t remember firing the second shot. You don’t remember who cut your hair, or when. What else don’t you remember?”

She shook her head. Then blinked, startled, at the sound of his beeper.

Why can’t they leave me alone? He crossed to the phone on the kitchen wall to answer the page.

Rizzoli’s voice greeted him with what sounded like an accusation. “You’re at her place.”

“Good guess.”

“No, caller ID. It’s midnight. Have you thought about what you’re doing?”

He said, irritably, “Why did you page me?”

“Is she listening?”

He watched Catherine walk out of the kitchen. Without her, the room suddenly seemed empty. Bled of any interest. “No,” he said.

“I’ve been thinking about the hair clipping. You know, there’s one more explanation for how she got it.”

“And that would be?”

“She sent it to herself.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

“And I can’t believe it never even crossed your mind.”

“What would be the motive?”

“The same motive that makes men walk in off the street and confess to murders they never committed. Look at all the attention she’s getting! Your attention. It’s midnight, and you’re right there, fussing over her. I’m not saying the Surgeon hasn’t been stalking her. But this hair thing makes me step back and say whoa . It’s time to look at what else might be going on. How did the Surgeon get that hair? Did Capra give it to him two years ago? How could he do that when he’s lying dead on her bedroom floor? You saw the inconsistencies between her statement and Capra’s autopsy report. We both know she didn’t tell the whole truth.”

“That statement was coaxed out of her by Detective Singer.”

“You think he fed her the story?”

“Think of the pressure Singer was under. Four murders. Everyone screaming for an arrest. And he had a nice, neat solution: the perp is dead, shot by his intended victim. Catherine closed the case for him, even if he had to put the words in her mouth.” Moore paused. “We need to know what really happened that night in Savannah.”

“She’s the only one who was there. And she claims she doesn’t remember it all.”

Moore looked up as Catherine came back into the room. “Not yet.”

You’re certain Dr. Cordell’s willing to do this?” asked Alex Polochek.

“She’s here and waiting for you,” said Moore.

“You didn’t talk her into this? Because hypnosis won’t work if the subject is resistant. She has to be fully cooperative, or it’ll be a waste of time.”

A waste of time was what Rizzoli had already called this session, and her opinion was shared by more than a few of the other detectives in the unit. They considered hypnosis a lounge act, the purview of Vegas entertainers and parlor magicians. At one time, Moore had agreed with them.

The Meghan Florence case had changed his mind.

On October 31, 1998, ten-year-old Meghan had been walking home from school when a car pulled up beside her. She was never again seen alive.

The only witness to the abduction was a twelve-year-old boy standing nearby. Although the car was in plain view and he could recount its shape and color, he could not remember the license plate. Weeks later, with no new developments in the case, the girl’s parents had insisted on hiring a hypnotherapist to interview the boy. With every avenue of investigation exhausted, the police reluctantly agreed.

Moore was present during the session. He watched Alex Polochek gently ease the boy into a hypnotic state and listened in amazement as the boy quietly recited the license number.

Meghan Florence’s body was recovered two days later, buried in the abductor’s backyard.

Moore hoped that the magic Polochek had worked on that boy’s memory could now be repeated on Catherine Cordell’s.

The two men now stood outside the interview room, looking through the one-way mirror at Catherine and Rizzoli, seated on the other side of the window. Catherine appeared uneasy. She shifted in her chair and glanced at the window, as though aware she was being watched. A cup of tea sat untouched on the small table beside her.

“This is going to be a painful memory to retrieve,” said Moore. “She may want to cooperate, but it won’t be pleasant for her. At the time of the attack, she was still under the influence of Rohypnol.”

“A drugged memory from two years ago? Plus you said it’s not pure.”

“A detective in Savannah may have planted a few suggestions through questioning.”

“You know I can’t work miracles. And nothing we get from this session is going to be admissible as evidence. This will invalidate any future testimony she gives in court.”

“I know.”

“And you still want to proceed?”

“Yes.”

Moore opened the door and the two men stepped into the interview room. “Catherine,” said Moore, “this is the man I told you about, Alex Polochek. He’s a forensic hypnotist for the Boston PD.”

As she and Polochek shook hands, she gave a nervous laugh.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t sure what to expect.”

“You thought I’d have a black cape and a magician’s wand,” said Polochek.

“It’s a ridiculous image, but yes.”

“And instead you get a chubby little bald guy.”

Again she laughed, her posture relaxing a bit.

“You’ve never been hypnotized?” he asked.

“No. Frankly, I don’t think I can be.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because I don’t really believe in it.”

“Yet you’ve agreed to let me try.”

“Detective Moore thought I should.”

Polochek sat down in a chair facing her. “Dr. Cordell, you don’t have to believe in hypnosis for this session to be useful. But you have to want it to work. You have to trust me. And you have to be willing to relax and let go. To let me guide you into an altered state. It’s a lot like the phase you go through just before you fall asleep at night. You won’t be asleep. I promise, you’ll be aware of what’s happening around you. But you’ll be so relaxed you’ll be able to reach into parts of your memory you don’t normally have access to. It’s like unlocking a filing cabinet that’s there, in your brain, and finally being able to open the drawers and take out the files.”

“That’s the part I don’t believe. That hypnosis can make me remember.”

“Not make you remember. Allow you to.”

“All right, allow me to remember. It strikes me as unlikely that this can help me pull out a memory I can’t reach on my own.”

Polochek nodded. “Yes, you’re right to be skeptical. It doesn’t seem likely, does it? But here’s an example of how memories can be blocked. It’s called the Law of Reversed Effect. The harder you try to remember something, the less likely it is you’ll be able to recall it. I’m sure you’ve experienced it yourself. We all have. For instance, you see a famous actress on the TV screen, and you know her name. But you just can’t retrieve it. It drives you crazy. You spend an hour wracking your brain for her name. You wonder if you’ve got early Alzheimer’s. Tell me it’s happened to you.”