The Surgeon (10 page)

directly on her forehead, Rizzoli had the chilling sensation that
she was staring at the same face that had looked up at her
from the autopsy table.
"With these little guys around, it takes me forever to do the
smallest thing," said Anna. She picked up the toddler hanging
on her leg and propped him expertly on one hip. "Now, let me
see. You came for the necklace. Let me get the jewelry box."
She walked out of the kitchen, and Rizzoli felt a moment of
panic, left alone with three babies. A sticky hand landed on
her ankle and she looked down to see the crawler chewing on
her pant cuff. She shook him off and quickly put a safe
distance between her and that gummy mouth.
"Here it is," said Anna, returning with the box, which she set
on the kitchen table. "We didn't want to leave it in her
apartment, not with all those strangers going in and out
cleaning the place. So my brothers thought I should keep the
box until the family decides what to do with the jewelry." She
lifted the lid, and a melody began to tinkle. "Somewhere My
Love." Anna seemed momentarily stunned by the music. She
sat very still, her eyes filling with tears.
"Mrs. Garcia?"
Anna swallowed. "I'm sorry. My husband must have wound it
up. I wasn't expecting to hear . . ."
The melody slowed to a few last sweet notes and stopped.
In silence Anna gazed down at the jewelry, her head bent in

mourning. With sad reluctance she opened one of the velvet-
lined compartments and withdrew the necklace.
Rizzoli could feel her heartbeat quickening as she took the
necklace from Anna. It was as she'd remembered it when
she'd seen it around Elena's neck in the morgue, a tiny lock
and key dangling from a fine gold chain. She turned over the
lock and saw the eighteen-karat stamp on the back.
"Where did your sister get this necklace?"
"I don't know."
"Do you know how long she's owned it?"
"It must be something new. I never saw it before the day . . ."
"What day?"
Anna swallowed. And said softly: "The day I picked it up at
the morgue. With her other jewelry."
"She was also wearing earrings and a ring. Those you've
seen before?"
"Yes. She's had those a long time."
"But not the necklace."
"Why do you keep asking about it? What does it have to do
with . . ." Anna paused, horror dawning in her eyes. "Oh god.

You think he put it on her?"
The baby in the high chair, sensing something was wrong,
let out a wail. Anna set her own son down on the floor and
scurried over to pick up the crying infant. Hugging him close,
she turned away from the necklace as though to protect him
from the sight of that evil talisman. "Please take it," she
whispered. "I don't want it in my house."
Rizzoli slipped the necklace into a Ziploc bag. "I'll write you
a receipt."
"No, just take it away! I don't care if you keep it."
Rizzoli wrote the receipt anyway and placed it on the
kitchen table next to the baby's dish of creamed spinach. "I
need to ask one more question," she said gently.
Anna kept pacing the kitchen, jiggling the baby in agitation.
"Please go through your sister's jewelry box," said Rizzoli.
"Tell me if there's anything missing."
"You asked me that last week. There isn't."
"It's not easy to spot the absence of something. Instead, we
tend to focus on what doesn't belong. I need you to go through
this box again. Please."
Anna swallowed hard. Reluctantly she sat down with the

baby in her lap and stared into the jewelry box. She took out
the items one by one and laid them on the table. It was a sad
little assortment of department store trinkets. Rhinestones and
crystal beads and faux pearls. Elena's taste had run toward
the bright and gaudy.
Anna laid the last item, a turquoise friendship ring, on the
table. Then she sat for a moment, a frown slowly forming on
her face.
"The bracelet," she said.
"What bracelet?"
"There should be a bracelet, with little charms on it. Horses.
She used to wear it every day in high school. Elena was crazy
about horses. . . ." Anna looked up with a stunned expression.
"It wasn't worth anything! It was just made of tin. Why would he
take it?"
Rizzoli looked at the Ziploc bag containing the necklace--a
necklace she was now certain had once belonged to Diana
Sterling. And she thought, I know exactly where we'll find
Elena's bracelet: around the wrist of the next victim.
Rizzoli stood on Moore's front porch, triumphantly waving the
Ziploc bag containing the necklace.

"It belonged to Diana Sterling. I just spoke to her parents.
They didn't realize it was missing until I called them."
He took the bag but didn't open it. Just held it, staring at the
gold chain coiled inside the plastic.
"It's the physical link between both cases," she said. "He
takes a souvenir from one victim. Leaves it with the next."
"I can't believe we missed this detail."
"Hey, we didn't miss it."
"You mean you didn't miss it." He gave her a look that
made her feel ten feet taller. Moore wasn't a guy who'd slap
your back or shout your praises. In fact, she could not
remember ever hearing him raise his voice, either in anger or
in excitement. But when he gave her that look , the eyebrow
raised in approval, the mouth tilted in a half smile, it was all the
praise she'd ever need.
Flushing with pleasure, she reached down for the bag of
take-out food she'd brought. "You want dinner? I stopped in at
that Chinese restaurant down the street."
"You didn't have to do that."
"Yeah, I did. I figure I owe you an apology."
"For what?"

"For this afternoon. That stupid deal with the tampon. You
were just standing up for me, trying to be the good guy. I took it
the wrong way."
An awkward silence passed. They stood there, not sure of
what to say, two people who don't know each other well and
are trying to get past the rocky start of their relationship.
Then he smiled, and it transformed his usually sober face
into that of a much younger man. "I'm starved," he said. "Bring
that food in here."
With a laugh, she stepped into his house. It was her first
time here, and she paused to glance around, taking in all the
womanly touches. The chintz curtains, the floral watercolors on
the wall. It was not what she expected. Hell, it was more
feminine than her own apartment.
"Let's go into the kitchen," he said. "My papers are in there."
He led her through the living room, and she saw the spinet
piano.
"Wow. You play?" she asked.
"No, it's Mary's. I've got a tin ear."
It's Mary's. Present tense. It struck her then that the reason
this house seemed so feminine was that it was still present-
tense-Mary, a house waiting, unaltered, for its mistress to

come home. A photo of Moore's wife was displayed on the
piano, a sunburned woman with laughing eyes and hair in
windblown disarray. Mary, whose chintz curtains still hung in
the house she would never return to.
In the kitchen, Rizzoli set the bag of food on the table, next
to a stack of files. Moore shuffled through the folders and
found the one he was searching for.
"Elena Ortiz's E.R. report," he said, handing it to her.
"Cordell dug this up?"
He gave an ironic smile. "I seem to be surrounded by
women more competent than I am."
She opened the folder and saw a photocopy of a doctor's
chicken-scratch handwriting. "You got the translation on this
mess?"
"It's pretty much what I told you over the phone. Unreported
rape. No kit collected, no DNA. Even Elena's family didn't
know about it."
She closed the folder and set it down on his other papers.
"Jeez, Moore. This mess looks like my dining table. No place
left to eat."
"It's taken over your life, too, has it?" he said, clearing away
the files to make space for their dinner.

"What life? This case is all there is to mine. Sleep. Eat.
Work. And if I'm lucky, an hour at bedtime with my old pal
Dave Letterman."
"No boyfriends?"
"Boyfriends?" She snorted as she took out the food cartons
and laid napkins and chopsticks on the table. "Oh yeah. Like I
gotta beat 'em all off." Only after she said it did she realize
how self-pitying that sounded--not at all the way she meant it.
She was quick to add: "I'm not complaining. If I need to spend
the weekend working, I can do it without some guy whining
about it. I don't do well with whiners."
"Hardly surprising, since you're the opposite of a whiner. As
you made painfully clear to me today."
"Yeah, yeah. I thought I apologized for that."
He got two beers from the refrigerator, then sat down
across from her. She'd never seen him like this, with his
shirtsleeves rolled up and looking so relaxed. She liked him
this way. Not the forbidding Saint Thomas but a guy she could
shoot the breeze with, a guy who'd laugh with her. A guy who,
if he just bothered to turn on the charm, could knock a girl's
socks off.
"You know, you don't always have to be tougher than
everyone else," he said.

"Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"Because they don't think I am."
"Who doesn't?"
"Guys like Crowe. Lieutenant Marquette."
He shrugged. "There'll always be a few like that."
"How come I always end up working with them?" She
popped open her beer and took a swig. "That's why you're the
first one I told about the necklace. You won't hog the credit."
"It's a sad day when it gets down to who claims credit for
this or that."
She picked up her chopsticks and dug into the carton of
kung pao chicken. It was burn-your-mouth spicy, just the way
she liked it. Rizzoli was no wimp when it came to hot peppers,
either.
She said, "The first really big case I worked on in Vice and
Narcotics, I was the only woman on a team with five men.
When we cracked it, there was this press conference. TV
cameras, the whole nine yards. And you know what? They
mentioned every name on that team but mine. Every other
goddamn name." She took another swallow of beer. "I make

sure that doesn't happen anymore. You guys, you can focus all
your attention on the case and the evidence. But I waste a lot
of energy just trying to make myself heard."
"I hear you fine, Rizzoli."
"It's a nice change."
"What about Frost? You have problems with him?"
"Frost is cool." She winced at the unintended quip. "His
wife's got him well trained."
They both laughed at that. Anyone who overheard Barry
Frost's meek yes dear, no dear phone conversations with his
wife had no doubt who was boss in the Frost household.
"That's why he's not gonna move up very far," she said. "No
fire in the belly. Family man."
"There's nothing wrong with being a family man. I wish I'd
been a better one."
She glanced up from the carton of Mongolian beef and saw
that he wasn't looking at her but was staring at the necklace.
There'd been a note of pain in his voice, and she didn't know
what to say in response. Figured that it was best not to say
anything.
She was relieved when he turned the subject back to the

investigation. In their world, murder was always a safe topic.
"There's something wrong here," he said. "This jewelry thing
doesn't make sense to me."
"He's taking souvenirs. Common enough."
"But what's the point of taking a souvenir if you're going to
give it away?"
"Some perps take the vic's jewelry and give it to their own
wives or girlfriends. They get a secret thrill from seeing it
around their girlfriend's neck, and being the only one who
knows where it really comes from."
"But our boy's doing something different. He leaves the
souvenir at the next crime scene. He doesn't get to keep
seeing it. Doesn't get the recurrent thrill of being reminded of
his kill. There's no emotional gain that I can see."
"A symbol of ownership? Like a dog, marking his territory.
Only he uses a piece of jewelry to mark his next victim."
"No. That's not it." Moore picked up the Ziploc bag and
weighed it in his palm, as though divining its purpose.
"The main thing is, we're onto the pattern," she said. "We'll
know exactly what to expect at the next crime scene."
He looked up at her. "You just answered the question."

"What?"
"He's not marking the victim. He's marking the crime scene.
"
Rizzoli paused. All at once, she understood the distinction.
"Jesus. By marking the scene . . ."
"This isn't a souvenir. And it's not a mark of ownership." He
set down the necklace, a tangled filigree of gold that had
skimmed the flesh of two dead women.
A shudder went through Rizzoli. "It's a calling card," she
said softly.
Moore nodded. "The Surgeon is talking to us."
A place of strong winds and dangerous tides.
This is how Edith Hamilton, in her book Mythology,
describes the Greek port of Aulis. Here lie the ruins of the
ancient temple of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. It was at
Aulis where the thousand Greek black ships gathered to
launch their attack on Troy. But the north wind blew and the
,
ships could not sail. Day after day, the wind was relentless
and the Greek army, under the command of King
Agamemnon, grew angry and restless. A soothsayer

revealed the reason for the ill winds: the goddess Artemis
was angry, because Agamemnon had slain one of her
beloved creatures, a wild hare. She would not allow the
Greeks to depart unless Agamemnon offered up a terrible
sacrifice: his daughter, Iphigenia.
And so he sent for Iphigenia, claiming that he had
arranged for her a great marriage to Achilles. She did not
know she was coming instead to her death.
Those fierce north winds were not blowing on the day you
and I walked the beach near Aulis. It was calm, the water was
green glass, and the sand was as hot as white ash beneath
our feet. Oh, how we envied the Greek boys who ran barefoot
on the sun-baked shore! Though the sand scorched our
pale tourist skin, we reveled in the discomfort, because we
wanted to be like those boys, our soles like toughened
leather. Only through pain and hard wear do calluses form.
In the evening, when the day had cooled, we went to the
Temple of Artemis.
We walked among the lengthening shadows, and came to
the altar where Iphigenia was sacrificed. Despite her
prayers, her cries of "Father, spare me!," the warriors carried
the girl to the altar. She was stretched over the stone, her
white neck bared to the blade. The ancient playwright
Euripides writes that the soldiers of Atreus, and all the army,