Tess Gerritsen - The Surgeon

He took the book over to the corner of the room, where the coffeepot and a plate of cookies were set in the small sitting area. He sank into a worn easy chair and opened the Emory Medical School student yearbook. The noon hour came, and a parade of fresh-faced students in white coats began dropping in to check their mail. Since when had kids become doctors? He could not imagine submitting his middle-aged body to the care of these youngsters. He saw their curious glances, heard Winnie Bliss whisper: “He’s a homicide detective, from Boston.” Yes, that decrepit old man sitting in the corner.

Moore hunched deeper into the chair and focused on the photos. Next to each was the student’s name, hometown, and the internship he or she had been accepted to. When he came to Capra’s photo, he paused. Capra looked straight at the camera, a smiling young man with an earnest gaze, hiding nothing. This was what Moore found most chilling — that predators walked unrecognized among prey.

Next to Capra’s photo was the name of his residency program. Surgery, Riverland Medical Center, Savannah, Georgia.

He wondered who else from Capra’s class had gone to a residency in Savannah, who else had lived in that town while Capra was butchering women. He flipped through the pages, scanning the listings, and found that three other medical students had been accepted into programs in the Savannah area. Two of them were women; the third was an Asian male.

Yet another blind alley.

He leaned back, discouraged. The book fell open in his lap, and he saw the medical school dean’s photograph smiling up at him. Beneath it was his printed graduation message: “To heal The World.”

Today, 108 fine young people take the solemn oath that completes a long and difficult journey. This oath, as physician and healer, is not taken lightly, for it is meant to last a lifetime….

Moore sat up straight and re-read the dean’s statement.

Today, 108 fine young people…

He rose and went to Winnie’s desk. “Mrs. Bliss?”

“Yes, Detective?”

“You said that Andrew had one hundred ten students in his freshman class.”

“We admit one hundred ten every year.”

“Here, in the dean’s speech, he says one hundred eight graduated. What happened to the other two?”

Winnie shook her head sadly. “I still haven’t gotten over it, what happened to that poor girl.”

“Which girl?”

“Laura Hutchinson. She was working in a clinic down in Haiti. One of our elective courses. The roads there, well, I hear they’re just awful. The truck went into a ditch and turned right over on her.”

“So it was an accident.”

“She was riding in the back of the truck. They couldn’t evacuate her for ten hours.”

“What about the other student? There’s one more who didn’t graduate with the class.”

Winnie’s gaze fell to her desk, and he could see she was not anxious to talk about this particular topic.

“Mrs. Bliss?”

“It happens, every so often,” she said. “A student drops out. We try to help them stay in the program, but you know, some of them do have problems with the material.”

“So this student — what was the name?”

“Warren Hoyt.”

“He dropped out?”

“Yes, you could say that.”

“Was it an academic problem?”

“Well…” She looked around, as though seeking help and not finding any. “Perhaps you should talk to one of our professors, Dr. Kahn. He’ll be able to answer your questions.”

“You don’t know the answer?”

“It’s something of a… private matter. Dr. Kahn should be the one to tell you.”

Moore glanced at his watch. He had thought to catch a plane back to Savannah tonight, but it didn’t look like he would make it. “Where do I find Dr. Kahn?”

“The anatomy lab.”

He could smell the formalin from the hallway. Moore paused outside the door labeled ANATOMY , bracing himself for what came next. Though he thought he was prepared, when he stepped through the door he was momentarily stunned by the view. Twenty-eight tables, laid out in four rows, stretched the length of the room. On the tables were corpses in advanced stages of dissection. Unlike the corpses Moore was accustomed to viewing in the Medical Examiner’s lab, these bodies looked artificial, the skin tough as vinyl, the exposed vessels embalmed bright blue or red. Today the students were focusing on the heads, teasing apart the muscles of the face. There were four students assigned to each corpse, and the room was abuzz with voices reading aloud to one another from textbooks, trading questions, offering advice. If not for the ghastly subjects on the table, these students might be factory workers, laboring over mechanical parts.

A young woman glanced up curiously at Moore, the business-suited stranger who had wandered into their room. “Are you looking for someone?” she asked, her scalpel poised to slice into a corpse’s cheek.

“Dr. Kahn.”

“He’s at the other end of the room. See that big guy with the white beard?”

“I see him, thank you.” He continued down the row of tables, his gaze inexorably drawn to each cadaver as he passed. The woman with wasted limbs like shriveled sticks on the steel table. The black man, skin splayed open to reveal the thick muscles of his thigh. At the end of the row, a group of students listened attentively to a Santa Claus lookalike who was pointing out the delicate fibers of the facial nerve.

“Dr. Kahn?” said Moore.

Kahn glanced up, and all semblance to Santa Claus vanished. This man had dark, intense eyes, without a trace of humor. “Yes?”

“I’m Detective Moore. Mrs. Bliss in Student Affairs sent me.”

Kahn straightened, and suddenly Moore was looking up at a mountain of a man. The scalpel looked incongruously delicate in his huge hand. He set the instrument down, stripped off his gloves. As he turned to wash his hands in a sink, Moore saw that Kahn’s white hair was tied back in a ponytail.

“So what’s this all about?” asked Kahn, reaching for a paper towel.

“I have a few questions about a freshman medical student you taught here seven years ago. Warren Hoyt.”

Kahn’s back was turned, but Moore could see the massive arm freeze over the sink, dripping water. Then Kahn yanked the paper towel from the dispenser and silently dried his hands.

“Do you remember him?” asked Moore.

“Yes.”

“Remember him well?”

“He was a memorable student.”

“Care to tell me more?”

“Not really.” Kahn tossed the crumpled paper towel in the trash can.

“This is a criminal investigation, Dr. Kahn.”

By now, several students were staring at them. The word criminal had drawn their attention.

“Let’s go into my office.”

Moore followed him into an adjoining room. Through a glass partition, they had a view of the lab and all twenty-eight tables. A village of corpses.

Kahn closed the door and turned to him. “Why are you asking about Warren? What’s he done?”

“Nothing to our knowledge. I just need to know about his relationship with Andrew Capra.”

“Andrew Capra?” Kahn snorted. “Our most famous graduate. Now there’s something a medical school loves to be known for. Teaching psychos how to slice and dice.”

“Did you think Capra was crazy?”

“I’m not sure there is a psychiatric diagnosis for men like Capra.”

“What was your impression of him, then?”

“I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Andrew struck me as perfectly normal.”

A description that seemed more chilling every time Moore heard it.

“What about Warren Hoyt?”

“Why do you ask about Warren?”