They were all tired. She herself had slept scarcely four hours last night. This morning she’d awakened in the dark pre-dawn, her mind zooming straight into fourth gear as it processed a kaleidoscope of images and voices. She had absorbed the Elena Ortiz case so deeply into her subconscious that in her dreams she and the victim had engaged in a conversation, albeit a nonsensical one. There had been no supernatural revelations, no clues from beyond the grave, merely images generated by the twitches of brain cells. Still, Rizzoli considered the dream significant. It told her just how much this case meant to her. Being lead detective on a high-profile investigation was like walking the high wire without a net. Nail the perp, and everyone applauded. Screw up, and the whole world watched you splat.
This was now a high-profile case. Two days ago, the headline hit the front page of the local tabloid: “The Surgeon Cuts Again.” Thanks to the Boston Herald, their unsub had his own moniker, and even the cops were using it. The Surgeon.
God, she’d been ready to take on a high-wire act, ready for the chance to either soar or crash on her own merits. A week ago, when she’d walked into Elena Ortiz’s apartment as lead detective, she had known, in an instant, that this was the case that would make her career, and she was anxious to prove herself.
How quickly things changed.
Within a day, her case had ballooned into a much wider investigation, led by the unit’s Lieutenant Marquette. The Elena Ortiz case had been folded into the Diana Sterling case, and the team had grown to five detectives, in addition to Marquette: Rizzoli and her partner, Barry Frost; Moore and his heavyset partner, Jerry Sleeper; plus a fifth detective, Darren Crowe. Rizzoli was the only woman on the team; indeed, she was the only woman in the entire homicide unit, and some men never let her forget it. Oh, she got along fine with Barry Frost, despite his irritatingly sunny disposition. Jerry Sleeper was too phlegmatic to get anybody pissed off at him or to be pissed off at anyone else. And as for Moore—well, despite her initial reservations, she was actually beginning to like him and truly respect him for his quietly methodical work. Most important, he seemed to respect her. Whenever she spoke, she knew that Moore listened.
No, it was the fifth cop on the team, Darren Crowe, she had issues with. Major issues. He sat across the table from her now, his tanned face wearing its usual smirk. She’d grown up with boys like him. Boys with lots of muscle, lots of girlfriends. Lots of ego.
She and Crowe despised each other.
A stack of papers came around the table. Rizzoli took a copy and saw it was a criminal profile that Dr. Zucker had just completed.
“I know some of you think my work is hocus-pocus,” said Zucker. “So let me explain my reasoning. We know the following things about our unknown subject. He enters the victim’s residence through an open window. He does this in the early morning hours, sometime between midnight and two A.M. He surprises the victim in her bed. Immediately incapacitates her with chloroform. He removes her clothes. He restrains her by binding her to the bed using duct tape around her wrists and ankles. He reinforces that with strips across her upper thighs and mid-torso. Finally, he tapes her mouth shut. Utter control is what he achieves. When the victim awakens shortly thereafter, she cannot move, cannot scream. It’s as though she’s paralyzed, yet she’s awake and aware of everything that happens next.
“And what happens next is surely anyone’s worst nightmare.” Zucker’s voice had faded to a monotone. The more grotesque the details, the softer he spoke, and they were all leaning forward, hanging on his words.
“The unsub begins to cut,” said Zucker. “According to the autopsy report, he takes his time. He is meticulous. He slices through the lower abdomen, layer by layer. First the skin, then the subcutaneous layer, the fascia, the muscle. He uses suture to control the bleeding. He identifies and removes only the organ he wants. Nothing more. And what he wants is the womb.”
Zucker looked around the table, taking note of their reactions. His gaze fell on Rizzoli, the only cop in the room who possessed the organ of which they spoke. She stared back, resentful that her gender had caused him to focus on her.
“What does that tell us about him, Detective Rizzoli?” he asked.
“He hates women,” she said. “He cuts out the one thing that makes them women.”
Zucker nodded, and his smile made her shudder. “It’s what Jack the Ripper did to Annie Chapman. By taking the womb, he defeminizes his victim. He steals her power. He ignores their jewelry, their money. He wants just one thing, and once he’s harvested his souvenir, he can proceed to the finale. But first, there is a pause before the ultimate thrill. The autopsy on both victims indicates that he stops at this point. Perhaps an hour passes, as the victims continue to bleed slowly. A pool of blood collects in their wound. What is he doing during that time?”
“Enjoying himself,” said Moore softly.
“You mean, like jerking off?” said Darren Crowe, posing the question with his usual crudeness.
“There was no ejaculate left at either crime scene,” pointed out Rizzoli.
Crowe tossed her an aren’t you smart look. “The absence of e-jac-u-late,” he said, sarcastically emphasizing every syllable, “doesn’t rule out jerking off.”
“I don’t believe he was masturbating,” said Zucker. “This particular unsub would not relinquish that much control in an unfamiliar environment. I think he waits until he’s in a safe place to achieve sexual release. Everything about the crime scene screams control. When he proceeds to the final act, he does it with confidence and authority. He cuts the victim’s throat with a single deep slash. And then he performs one last ritual.”
Zucker reached into his briefcase and took out two crime scene photos, which he laid on the table. One was of Diana Sterling’s bedroom, the other of Elena Ortiz’s.
“He meticulously folds their nightclothes and places them near the body. We know the folding was done after the slaughter, because blood splatters were found on the inside folds.”
“Why does he do that?” asked Frost. “What’s the symbolism there?”
“Control again,” said Rizzoli.
Zucker nodded. “That’s certainly part of it. By this ritual, he demonstrates he’s in control of the scene. But at the same time, the ritual controls him. It’s an impulse he may not be able to resist.”
“What if he’s prevented from doing it?” asked Frost. “Say he’s interrupted and can’t complete it?”
“It will leave him frustrated and angry. He may feel compelled to immediately start hunting for the next victim. But so far, he’s always managed to complete the ritual. And each killing has been satisfying enough to tide him over for long periods of time.” Zucker looked around the room. “This is the worst kind of unsub we can face. He went a whole year between attacks—that’s extremely rare. It means he can go months between hunts. We could run ourselves ragged looking for him, while he sits patiently waiting for the next kill. He is careful. He is organized. He will leave few, if any, clues behind.” He glanced at Moore, seeking confirmation.
“We have no fingerprints, no DNA, at either crime scene,” Moore said. “All we have is a single strand of hair, collected from Ortiz’s wound. And a few dark polyester fibers from the window frame.”
“I take it you’ve found no witnesses, either.”
“We had thirteen hundred interviews on the Sterling case. One hundred eighty interviews so far on the Ortiz case. No one saw the intruder. No one was aware of any stalker.”
“But we have had three confessions,” said Crowe. “They all walked in off the street. We took their statements and sent them on their way.” He laughed. “Wackos.”
“This unsub is not insane,” said Zucker. “I would guess he appears perfectly normal. I believe he’s a white male in his late twenties or early thirties. Neatly groomed, of above-average intelligence. He is almost certainly a high school graduate, perhaps with a college education or even more. The two crime scenes are over a mile apart, and the murders were co
mmitted at a time of day when there was little public transportation running. So he drives a car. It will be neat and well maintained. He probably has no history of mental health problems, but he may have a juvenile record of burglary or voyeurism. If he’s employed, it will be a job that requires both intelligence and meticulousness. We know he is a planner, as demonstrated by the fact he carries his murder kit with him—scalpel, suture, duct tape, chloroform. Plus a container of some kind in which to bring his souvenir home. It could be as simple as a Ziploc bag. He works in a field that requires attention to detail. Since he obviously has anatomical knowledge, and surgical skills, we could be dealing with a medical professional.”
Rizzoli met Moore’s gaze, both struck by the same thought: There were probably more doctors per capita in the city of Boston than anywhere else in the world.
“Because he is intelligent,” said Zucker, “he knows we’re staking out the crime scenes. And he will resist the temptation to return. But the temptation is there, so it’s worth continuing the stakeout of Ortiz’s residence, at least for the near future.
“He is also intelligent enough to avoid choosing a victim in his immediate neighborhood. He’s what we call a ‘commuter,’ rather than a ‘marauder.’ He goes outside his neighborhood to hunt. Until we have more data points to work with, I can’t really do a geographical profile. I can’t pinpoint which areas of the city you should focus on.”
“How many data points do you need?” asked Rizzoli.
“A minimum of five.”
“Meaning, we need five murders?”
“The criminal geographic targeting program I use requires five to have any validity. I’ve run the CGT program with as few as four data points, and sometimes you can get an offender residence prediction with that, but it’s not accurate. We need to know more about his movements. What his activity space is, where his anchor points are. Every killer works inside a certain comfort zone. They’re like carnivores hunting. They have their territory, their fishing holes, where they find their prey.” Zucker looked around the table at the detectives’ unimpressed faces. “We don’t know enough about this unsub yet to make any predictions. So we need to focus on the victims. Who they were, and why he chose them.”
Zucker reached into his briefcase and took out two folders, one labeled Sterling, the other Ortiz. He produced a dozen photographs, which he spread out on the table. Images of the two women when they were alive, some dating all the way back to childhood.
“You haven’t seen some of these photos. I asked their families to provide them, just to give us a sense of the history of these women. Look at their faces. Study who they were as people. Why did the unsub choose them? Where did he see them? What was it about them that caught his eye? A laugh? A smile? The way they walked down a city street?”
He began to read from a typewritten sheet.
“Diana Sterling, thirty years old. Blond hair, blue eyes. Five foot seven, one hundred twenty-five pounds. Occupation: travel agent. Workplace: Newbury Street. Residence: Marlborough Street in the Back Bay. A graduate of Smith College. Her parents are both attorneys, who live in a two-million-dollar home in Connecticut. Boyfriends: none at the time of her death.”
He put that sheet of paper down, picked up another.
“Elena Ortiz, twenty-two years old. Hispanic. Black hair, brown eyes. Five foot two, one hundred four pounds. Occupation: retail clerk in her family’s floral business in the South End. Residence: an apartment in the South End. Education: high school graduate. Has lived all her life in Boston. Boyfriends: none at the time of her death.”
He looked up. “Two women who lived in the same city but moved in different universes. They shopped at different stores, ate at different restaurants, and had no friends in common. How does our unsub find them? Where does he find them? Not only are they different from each other; they’re different from the usual sex crime victim. Most perps attack the vulnerable members of society. Prostitutes or hitchhikers. Like any hunting carnivore, they stalk the animal who’s at the edge of the herd. So why choose these two?” Zucker shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Rizzoli looked at the photos on the table, and an image of Diana Sterling caught her eye. It showed a beaming young woman, the brand-new Smith College grad in her cap and gown. The golden girl. What would it be like to be a golden girl? Rizzoli wondered. She had no idea. She’d grown up the scorned sister of two strappingly handsome brothers, the desperate little tomboy who only wanted to be one of the gang. Surely Diana Sterling, with her aristocratic cheekbones and her swan neck, had never known what it was like to be shut out, excluded. She’d never known what it was like to be ignored.
Rizzoli’s gaze paused on the gold pendant dangling around Diana’s throat. She picked up the photo and took a closer look. Pulse accelerating, she glanced around the room to see if any of the other cops had registered what she had just noticed, but no one was looking at her or the photos; they were focused on Dr. Zucker.
He had unfurled a map of Boston. Overlaid on the grid of city streets were two shaded areas, one encompassing the Back Bay, the other limited to the South End.
“These are the known activity spaces for our two victims. The neighborhoods they lived in and worked in. All of us tend to conduct our day-to-day lives in familiar areas. There’s a saying among geographic profilers: Where we go depends upon what we know, and what we know depends on where we go. This is true for both victims and perps. You can see, from this map, the separate worlds in which these two women lived. There’s no overlap. No common anchor point or node in which their lives intersected. This is what puzzles me most. It’s key to the investigation. What is the link between Sterling and Ortiz?”
Rizzoli’s gaze dropped back to the photo. To the gold pendant dangling at Diana’s throat. I could be wrong. I can’t say anything, not until I’m certain, or it’ll be one more thing Darren Crowe will use to ridicule me.
“You’re aware there’s another twist to this case?” said Moore. “Dr. Catherine Cordell.”
Zucker nodded. “The surviving victim from Savannah.”
“Certain details about Andrew Capra’s killing spree were never released to the public. The use of catgut suture. The folding of the victims’ nightclothes. Yet our unsub here is reenacting those very details.”
“Killers do communicate with each other. It’s a twisted brotherhood, of sorts.”
“Capra’s been dead two years. He can’t communicate with anyone.”
“But while he was alive, he may have shared all the gruesome details with our unsub. That’s the explanation I’m hoping for. Because the alternative is far more disturbing.”
“That our unsub had access to the Savannah police reports,” said Moore.
Zucker nodded. “Which would mean he’s someone in law enforcement.”
The room fell silent. Rizzoli couldn’t help looking around at her colleagues—all of them men. She thought about the kind of man who is drawn to police work. The kind of man who loves the power and authority, the gun and the badge. The chance to control others. Precisely what our unsub craves.
When the meeting broke up, Rizzoli waited for the other detectives to leave the conference room before she approached Zucker.
“Can I hold on to this photo?” she asked.
“May I ask why?”
“A hunch.”
Zucker gave her one of his creepy John Malkovich smiles. “Share it with me?”
“I don’t share my hunches.”
“It’s bad luck?”
“Protecting my turf.”
“This is a team investigation.”
“Funny thing about teamwork. Whenever I share my hunches, someone else always gets the credit.” With photo in hand, she walked out of the room and immediately regretted making that last comment. But all day she had been irritated by her male colleagues, by their little remarks and snubs that together added up to a pattern of disdain. The last straw was the interview that she and Darren Crowe had conducted of Elena
Ortiz’s next-door neighbor. Crowe had repeatedly interrupted Rizzoli’s questions to ask his own. When she’d yanked him out of the room and called him on his behavior, he’d shot back the classic male insult:
“I guess it’s that time of month.”
No, she was going to keep her hunches to herself. If they didn’t pan out, then no one could ridicule her. And if they bore fruit, she would rightfully claim credit.
She returned to her workstation and sat down to take a closer look at Diana Sterling’s graduation photo. Reaching for her magnifying glass, she suddenly focused on the bottle of mineral water she always kept on her desk, and her temper boiled up when she saw what had been shoved inside.
Don’t react, she thought. Don’t let ’em see they’ve gotten to you.
Ignoring the water bottle and the disgusting object it contained, she aimed the magnifying glass on Diana Sterling’s throat. The room seemed unusually hushed. She could almost feel Darren Crowe’s gaze as he waited for her to explode.
It ain’t gonna happen, asshole. This time I’m gonna keep my cool.
She focused on Diana’s necklace. She had almost missed this detail, because the face was what had initially drawn her attention, those gorgeous cheekbones, the delicate arch of the eyebrows. Now she studied the two pendants dangling from the delicate chain. One pendant was in the shape of a lock; the other was a tiny key. The key to my heart, thought Rizzoli.
She rifled through the files on her desk and found the photos from the Elena Ortiz crime scene. With the magnifying glass, she studied a close-up shot of the victim’s torso. Through the layer of dried blood caked on the neck, she could just make out the fine line of the gold chain; the two pendants were obscured.
She reached for the phone and dialed the M.E.’s office.
“Dr. Tierney is out for the afternoon,” said his secretary. “Can I help you?”
“It’s about an autopsy he did last Friday. Elena Ortiz.”
“Yes?”
“The victim was wearing an item of jewelry when she was brought into the morgue. Do you still have it?”