Tess Gerritsen - The Surgeon

“Yes, I read the interviews.”

“Then you know he had ’em all fooled. I kept hearing the same comments: ‘Compassionate doctor! Such a polite young man!’ ” Singer snorted.

“They had no idea who Capra really was.”

Singer swiveled back to his laptop. “Hell, no one ever knows who the monsters are.”

Time to view the last videotape. Moore had put this one off till the very end, because he had not been ready to deal with the images. He had managed to watch the others with detachment, taking notes as he studied the bedrooms of Lisa Fox and Jennifer Torregrossa and Ruth Voorhees. He had viewed, again and again, the pattern of blood splatters, the knots in the nylon cord around the victims’ wrists, the glaze of death in their eyes. He could look at the tapes with a minimum of emotion because he did not know these women and he heard no echo of their voices in his memory. He was focused not on the victims but on the malevolent presence that had passed through their rooms. He ejected the tape of the Voorhees crime scene and set it on the table. Reluctantly he picked up the remaining tape. On the label was the date, the case number, and the words: “Catherine Cordell Residence.”

He thought about putting it off, waiting until tomorrow morning, when he’d be fresh. It was now nine o’clock, and he had been in this room all day. He held the tape, weighing what to do.

It was a moment before he realized Singer was standing in the doorway, watching him.

“Man. You’re still here,” said Singer.

“I’ve got a lot to go over.”

“You watched all the tapes?”

“All except this one.”

Singer glanced at the label. “Cordell.”

“Yeah.”

“Go ahead; play it. Maybe I can fill in a few details.”

Moore inserted it into the VCR slot and pressed Play.

They were looking at the front of Catherine’s house. Nighttime. The porch was lit up and the lights all on inside. On audio, he heard the videographer give the date and time—2:00 A.M. — and his name. Again, it was Spiro Pataki, who seemed to be everyone’s favorite cameraman. Moore heard a lot of background noise — voices, the fading wail of a siren. Pataki did his routine pan of the surroundings, and Moore saw a grim gathering of neighbors staring over crime scene tape, their faces illuminated by the lights of several police cruisers parked on the street. This surprised him, knowing the hour of night. It must have been a considerable disturbance to awaken so many neighbors.

Pataki turned back to the house and approached the front door.

“Gunshots,” said Singer. “That’s the initial report we got. The woman across the street heard the first shot, then a long pause, and then a second shot. She called nine-one-one. First officer on the scene was there in seven minutes. Ambulance was called two minutes later.”

Moore remembered the woman across the street, staring at him through her window.

“I read the neighbor’s statement,” said Moore. “She said she didn’t see anyone come out the front door of the house.”

“That’s right. Just heard the two shots. She got out of bed after the first one, looked out the window. Then, maybe five minutes later, she heard the second gunshot.”

Five minutes, thought Moore. What accounted for the gap?

On the screen, the camera entered the front door and was now just inside the house. Moore saw a closet, the door opened to reveal a few coats on hangers, an umbrella, a vacuum cleaner. The view shifted now, sweeping around to show the living room. On the coffee table next to the couch sat two drinking glasses, one of them still containing what looked like beer.

“Cordell invited him inside,” said Singer. “They had a few drinks. She went to the bathroom, came back, finished her beer. Within an hour the Rohypnol took effect.”

The couch was peach-colored, with a subtle floral design woven into the fabric. Moore did not see Catherine as a floral-fabric kind of woman, but there it was. Flowers on the curtains, on the cushions in the end chair. Color. In Savannah, she had lived with lots of color. He imagined her sitting on that couch with Andrew Capra, listening sympathetically to his concerns about work, as the Rohypnol slowly passed from her stomach into her bloodstream. As the drug’s molecules swirled their way toward her brain. As Capra’s voice began to fade away.

They were moving into the kitchen now, the camera making a sweep of the house, recording every room as they’d found it at two o’clock on that Saturday morning. In the kitchen sink sat a single water glass.

Suddenly Moore leaned forward. “That glass — you have DNA analysis on the saliva?”

“Why would we?”

“You don’t know who drank from it?”

“There were only two people in the house when the first officer responded. Capra and Cordell.”

“Two glasses were on the coffee table. Who drank from this third glass?”

“Hell, it could’ve been in that kitchen sink all day. It was not relevant to the situation we found.”

The cameraman finished his sweep of the kitchen and now turned up the hallway.

Moore grabbed the remote control and pressed Rewind. He backed up the tape to the beginning of the kitchen segment.

“What?” said Singer.

Moore didn’t answer. He leaned closer, watching the images play once again on the screen. The refrigerator, dotted with bright magnets in the shapes of fruits. The flour and sugar canisters on the kitchen counter. The sink, with the single water glass. Then the camera swept past the kitchen door, toward the hallway.

Moore hit Rewind again.

“What are you looking at?” Singer asked.

The tape was back at the water glass. The camera started its pan toward the hallway. Moore hit Pause. “This,” he said. “The kitchen door. Where does it lead?”

“Uh — the backyard. Opens to a lawn.”

“And what’s beyond that backyard?”

“Adjoining yard. Another row of houses.”

“Did you talk to the owner of that adjoining yard? Did he or she hear the gunshots?”

“What difference does it make?”

Moore rose and went to the monitor. “The kitchen door,” he said, tapping on the screen. “There’s a chain. It isn’t fastened.”

Singer paused. “But the door’s locked. See the position of the knob button?”

“Right. It’s the kind of button you can push on your way out, locking the door behind you.”

“And your point is?”

“Why would she push that button but not fasten the chain? People who lock up for the night do it all at once. They press in the button, slide in the chain. She left out that second step.”

“Maybe she just forgot.”

“There’d been three women murdered in Savannah. She was worried enough to keep a gun under her bed. I don’t think she’d forget.” He looked at Singer. “Maybe someone walked out that kitchen door.”

“There were only two people in that house. Cordell and Capra.”

Moore considered what he should say next. Whether he had more to gain or lose if he was perfectly forthright.

By now Singer knew where this conversation was headed. “You’re sayin’ Capra had a partner.”

“Yes.”

“That’s a mighty big conclusion to draw from one unlocked chain.”

Moore took a breath. “There’s more. The night Catherine Cordell was attacked, she heard another voice in her house. A man, speaking to Capra.”

“She never told me that.”

“It came out during a forensic hypnosis session.”

Singer burst out laughing. “Did you get a psychic to back that up? ’Cause then I’d really be convinced.”

“It explains why the Surgeon knows so much about Capra’s technique. The two men were partners. And the Surgeon is carrying on the legacy, to the point of stalking their only surviving victim.”