“May I ask why?”
“Because I want you to go to Savannah.”
“Frost is ready to go. He’s already prepared for it.”
“This isn’t about Frost. It’s about you. You need some separation from this case.”
Moore fell silent, knowing where this was leading.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Catherine Cordell,” said Marquette.
“She’s key to this investigation.”
“Too many evenings in her company. You were with her at midnight on Tuesday.”
Rizzoli. Rizzoli knew that.
“And Saturday, you stayed all night with her. What, exactly, is going on?”
Moore said nothing. What could he say? Yes, I’ve crossed the line. But I couldn’t help myself.
Marquette sank into his chair with a look of profound disappointment. “I can’t believe I’m talking to you about this. You, of all people.” He sighed. “It’s time for you to pull back. We’ll have someone else deal with her.”
“But she trusts me.”
“Is that all it is between you, trust? What I’ve heard goes way beyond that. I don’t need to tell you how inappropriate this is. Look, we’ve both seen this happen before to other cops. It never works out. It won’t work out this time, either. Right now, she needs you, and you happen to be handy. You two get hot and heavy for a few weeks, a month. Then you both wake up one morning and bam, it’s over. Either she’s hurt or you’re hurt. And everyone’s sorry it ever happened.” Marquette paused, waiting for a response. Moore had none.
“Aside from the personal issues,” continued Marquette, “this complicates the investigation. And it’s fucking embarrassing to the whole unit.” He gave a brusque wave toward the door. “Go to Savannah. And stay the hell away from Cordell.”
“I need to explain to her—”
“Don’t even call her. We’ll see she gets the message. I’ll assign Crowe in your place.”
“Not Crowe,” Moore said sharply.
“Who, then?”
“Frost.” Moore sighed. “Let Frost be the one.”
“Okay, Frost. Now go catch a plane. Getting out of town is just what you need to cool things down. You’re probably pissed at me now. But you know I’m only asking you to do the right thing.”
Moore did know, and it was painful to have a mirror held up to his own behavior. What he saw in that mirror was Saint Thomas the Fallen, brought down by his own desires. And the truth enraged him, because he could not rail against it. He could not deny it. He managed to hold his silence until he walked out of Marquette’s office, but when he saw Rizzoli sitting at her desk he could no longer contain his fury.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You got your payback. Feels good to draw blood, does it?”
“Have I?”
“You told Marquette.”
“Yeah, well, if I did, I wouldn’t be the first cop to rat on a partner.”
It was a stinging comeback, and it had its intended effect. In cold silence he turned and walked away.
Stepping out of the building, he paused in the breezeway, desolate at the thought of not seeing Catherine tonight. Yet Marquette was right; this was how it had to be. How it should have been from the start, a careful separation between them, the forces of attraction ignored. But she had been vulnerable, and he, foolishly enough, had been drawn to that. After years of walking the straight and narrow, he now found himself in unfamiliar territory, a disturbing place ruled not by logic but by passion. He was not comfortable in this new world. And he did not know how to find his way out of it.
Catherine sat in her car, collecting the courage to walk into One Schroeder Plaza. All afternoon, through a succession of clinic appointments, she’d mouthed the usual pleasantries as she’d examined patients, consulted colleagues, and tackled the minor annoyances that always arose in the course of her workday. But her smiles had been hollow, and beneath her cordial mask had lurked a rip current of despair. Moore was not returning her calls, and she did not know why. Only one night together, and already something had gone wrong between them.
At last she stepped out of the car and walked into Boston Police Headquarters.
Though she had been here once before, for the session with Dr. Polochek, the building still seemed like a forbidding fortress where she did not belong. That impression was reinforced by the uniformed officer who eyed her from behind the reception desk.
“Can I help you?” he asked. Neither friendly nor unfriendly.
“I’m looking for Detective Thomas Moore in Homicide.”
“Let me call upstairs. Your name, please?”
“Catherine Cordell.”
As he made the call, she waited in the lobby, feeling overwhelmed by the polished granite, by all the men, both in uniform and in plainclothes, walking past, throwing curious glances her way. This was Moore’s universe, and she was a stranger here, trespassing in a place where hard men stared and guns gleamed in holsters. Suddenly she realized this was a mistake, that she should never have come, and she started toward the exit. Just as she reached the door, a voice called out:
“Dr. Cordell?”
She turned and recognized the blond man with the mild and pleasant face who had just stepped off the elevator. It was Detective Frost.
“Why don’t we go upstairs?” he said.
“I came to see Moore.”
“Yes, I know. I came down to get you.” He motioned toward the elevator. “Shall we?”
On the second floor, he led her up the hallway, into Homicide. She had not been in this area before, and she was surprised by how much it looked like any business office, with its computer terminals and desks grouped into workpods. He led her to a chair and sat her down. His eyes were kind. He could see she was uncomfortable in this alien place, and he tried to put her at ease.
“A cup of coffee?” he asked.
“No, thank you.”
“Is there anything I can get you? A soda? A glass of water?”
“I’m fine.”
He sat down as well. “So. What do you need to talk about, Dr. Cordell?”
“I was hoping to see Detective Moore. I spent the whole morning in surgery, and I thought that he might have tried to reach me. . . .”
“Actually . . .” Frost paused, discomfort plainly in his eyes. “I left a message with your office staff around noontime. From now on, you should call me with any concerns. Not Detective Moore.”
“Yes, I got that message. I just want to know . . .” She swallowed back tears. “I want to know why things have changed.”
“It’s to, uh, streamline the investigation.”
“What does that mean?”
“We need Moore to focus on other aspects of the case.”
“Who decided that?”
Frost was looking more and more unhappy. “I don’t really know, Dr. Cordell.”
“Was it Moore?”
Another pause. “No.”
“So it’s not that he doesn’t want to see me.”
“I’m sure that’s not the case.”
She did not know if he was telling her the truth or simply trying to soothe her. She noticed that two detectives in another workpod were staring in her direction, and she flushed with sudden anger. Did everyone but her know the truth? Was that pity she saw in their eyes? All morning she had savored the memories of last night. She had waited for Moore to call, had longed to hear his voice and know that he was thinking of her. But he had not called.
And at noon, she’d been handed Frost’s telephoned message that in the future she should direct all concerns to him.
It was all she could do now to hold her head up and keep the tears under control as she asked: “Is there some reason I can’t talk to him?”
“I’m afraid he’s not in town right now. He left this afternoon.”
“I see.” She understood, without being told, that this was as much as he would reveal. She didn’t ask where Moore had gone, nor did she ask how to r
each him. Already she had embarrassed herself by coming here, and now pride took over. For the last two years, the sheer force of pride had been her main source of strength. It had kept her marching forward, day after day, refusing to wear the cloak of victimhood. Others looking at her saw only cool competence and emotional distance, because it was all she allowed them to see.
Only Moore saw me as I really am. Damaged and vulnerable. And this is the result. This is why I can’t ever be weak again.
When she rose to leave, her spine was straight, her gaze steady. As she walked out of the workpod, she passed Moore’s desk. She knew it was his because of the nameplate. She paused just long enough to focus on the photograph displayed there, of a smiling woman, with the sun in her hair.
She walked out, leaving behind Moore’s world, and returned in sorrow to her own.
eighteen
Moore had thought the heat in Boston was unbearable; he was unprepared to deal with Savannah. Walking out of the airport late that afternoon was like instant submersion in a hot bath, and he felt as though he were wading through liquid, his limbs sluggish as he proceeded toward the rental car parking lot, where watery air rippled above the macadam. By the time he checked into his hotel room, his shirt was drenched in sweat. He stripped off his clothes, lay down on the bed for just a few minutes’ rest, and ended up sleeping through the afternoon.
When he awakened, it was dark, and he was shivering in the over-cooled room. He sat up on the side of the bed, his head pounding.
He pulled a fresh shirt from his suitcase, got dressed, and left the hotel.
Even at night, the air was like steam, but he drove with his window open, inhaling the damp smells of the South. Though he’d never been to Savannah before, he’d heard of its charm, its fine old homes and wrought-iron benches and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. But tonight he was not on a quest for tourist sites. He was driving to a particular address in the northeast corner of town. It was a pleasant neighborhood of small but tidy homes with front porches and fenced gardens and trees with spreading branches. He found his way to Ronda Street and pulled to a stop in front of the house.
Inside the lights were on, and he could see the blue glow of a TV.
He wondered who lived there now and whether the current occupants knew the history of their house. When they turned off the lights at night and climbed into bed, did they ever think about what had happened in that very room? Lying in the darkness, did they listen for the echoes of terror still reverberating within those walls?
A silhouette moved past the window—a woman’s, slender and long-haired. Very much like Catherine’s.
He saw it now, in his mind’s eye. The young man on the porch, knocking on the front door. The door opening, spilling golden light into the darkness. Catherine standing there, haloed by that light, inviting in the young colleague she knew from the hospital, never suspecting the horrors he had in mind for her.
And the second voice, the second man—where does he come in?
Moore sat for a long time, studying the house, noting the windows and the shrubbery. He stepped out of his car and walked along the sidewalk, to see around the side of the house. The shrubbery was mature and dense, and he could not see past it, into the backyard.
Across the street, a porch light came on.
He turned and saw a stout woman standing at her window, staring at him. She was holding a telephone to her ear.
He got back in his car and drove away. There was one more address he wished to see. It was near the State College, several miles south. He wondered how often Catherine had driven this very road, whether that little pizza shop on the left or that dry-cleaning shop on the right was a place she had frequented. Everywhere he looked, he seemed to see her face, and this disturbed him. It meant he’d allowed his emotions to become entwined in this investigation, and it would serve no one well.
He arrived at the street he’d been looking for. After a few blocks, he stopped at what should have been the address. What he found was merely an empty lot, thick with weeds. He had expected to find a building here, owned by Mrs. Stella Poole, a widow, age fifty-eight. Three years ago, Mrs. Poole had rented out her upstairs apartment to a surgical intern named Andrew Capra, a quiet young man who always paid his rent on time.
He stepped out of his car and stood on the sidewalk where Andrew Capra had surely walked. He gazed up and down the street that had been Capra’s neighborhood. It was only a few blocks from the State College, and he assumed that many of the houses on this street were rented to students—short-term tenants who might not know the story of their infamous neighbor.
A wind stirred the soupy air, and he did not like the smell that arose. It was the damp odor of decay. He looked up at a tree in Andrew Capra’s old front yard and saw a clump of Spanish moss drooping from a branch. He shuddered and thought: Strange fruit, remembering a grotesque Halloween from his childhood, when a neighbor, thinking it a fine display to scare trick-or-treaters, had tied a rope around a scarecrow’s neck and hung it from a tree. Moore’s father had been livid when he saw it. Immediately he’d stormed next door and, ignoring the protests of the neighbor, cut down the scarecrow.
Moore felt the same impulse now, to climb into the tree and yank down that dangling moss.
Instead he returned to his car and drove back to the hotel.
Detective Mark Singer set a carton on the table and clapped dust from his hands. “This is the last one. Took us the weekend to track ’em down, but they’re all here.”
Moore eyed the dozen evidence boxes lined up on the table and said, “I should bring a sleeping bag and just move in.”
Singer laughed. “Might as well, if you expect to get through every piece of paper in those there boxes. Nothin’ leaves the building, okay? Photocopier’s down the hall; just log in your name and agency. Bathroom’s thataway. Most times, there’ll be doughnuts and coffee in the squad room. If you take any doughnuts, the boys’d surely ‘preciate it if you’d slip a few bucks in the jar.” Though all this was said with a smile, Moore heard the underlying message in that soft southern drawl: We have our ground rules, and even you big boys from Boston have to follow them.
Catherine had not liked this cop, and Moore understood why. Singer was younger than he’d expected, not yet forty, a muscular overachiever who would not take kindly to criticism. There can be only one alpha dog in a pack, and for the moment Moore would let Singer be that dog.
“These here four boxes, they hold the investigation control files,” said Singer. “Might want to start with ’em. Cross-index files’re in that box, action files are in this one here.” He walked along the table, slapping boxes as he spoke. “And this has the Atlanta files on Dora Ciccone. It’s just photocopies.”
“Atlanta PD has those originals?”
Singer nodded. “First victim, only one he killed there.”
“Since they’re photocopies, may I take that box out? Review the documents in my hotel?”
“Long as you bring ’em back.” Singer sighed, looking around at the boxes. “Y’know, I’m not sure what you think you’re lookin’ for. Never get a more open-and-shut case. Every one of them, we got Capra’s DNA. We got fiber matches. We got the timeline. Capra’s living in Atlanta, Dora Ciccone gets killed in Atlanta. He moves to Savannah, our ladies here start turning up dead. He was always in the right place, at the right time.”
“I don’t question for a minute that Capra was your man.”
“So why you diggin’ through this now? Some of this stuff is three, four years old.”
Moore heard defensiveness in Singer’s voice and knew diplomacy was key here. Any hint that Singer had made mistakes during the Capra investigation, that he’d missed the vital detail that Capra had a partner, and there’d be no hope of cooperation from the Savannah PD.
Moore chose an answer that would in no way cast blame. “We have a copycat theory,” he said. “Our unsub in Boston appears to be an admirer of Capra’s. He’s reproducing his crimes i
n painstaking detail.”
“How would he know the details?”
“They may have corresponded while Capra was still alive.”
Singer seemed to relax. Even laughed. “A sick fucker’s fan club, huh? Nice.”
“Since our unsub is intimately familiar with Capra’s work, I need to be, as well.”
Singer waved at the table. “Y’all go for it, then.”
After Singer had left the room, Moore surveyed the labels on the evidence boxes. He opened the one marked: IC #1. The Savannah Investigation Control Files. Inside were three accordion file folders, each pocket filled to capacity. And this was just one of four IC boxes. The first accordion folder contained the occurrence reports for the three Savannah attacks, witness statements, and executed warrants. The second accordion folder held suspects files, criminal record checks, and lab reports. There was enough, just in this first box, to keep him reading all day.
And there were eleven more boxes to go.
He started by reviewing Singer’s final summary. Once again he was struck by how airtight the evidence was against Andrew Capra. There were a total of five attacks on record, four of them fatal. The first victim was Dora Ciccone, killed in Atlanta. One year later, the murders began in Savannah. Three women in one year: Lisa Fox, Ruth Voorhees, and Jennifer Torregrossa.
The killings ended when Capra was shot to death in Catherine Cordell’s bedroom.
In every case, sperm was found in the victim’s vaginal vault and the DNA matched Capra’s. Hair strands left at the Fox and Torregrossa crime scenes matched Capra’s. The first victim, Ciccone, was killed in Atlanta the same year Capra was finishing his final year of medical school in Atlanta’s Emory University.
The murders followed Capra to Savannah.
Every thread of evidence wove neatly into a tight pattern, and the fabric appeared indestructible. But Moore realized he was reading only a case summary, which pulled together the elements in favor of Singer’s conclusions. Contradictory details might be left out. It was these very details, the small but significant inconsistencies, that he hoped to ferret out of these evidence boxes. Somewhere in here, he thought, the Surgeon has left his footprints.