The Surgeon (14 page)

female genital tract was displayed beneath the words:
Woman. Amazing Beauty . Though Moore agreed that a
woman's body was a miraculous creation, he felt like a dirty
voyeur, staring at that explicit diagram. He noticed that several
women in the waiting room were eyeing him the way gazelles
regard a predator in their midst. That he was accompanied by
Rizzoli did not seem to alter the fact he was the alien male.
He was relieved when the receptionist finally said, "She'll
see you now, Detectives. It's the last room on the right."
Rizzoli led the way down the hall, past posters with The 10
signs your partner is abusive and How do you know if it's
rape? With every step he felt as if another stain of male guilt
had attached itself to him, like dirt soiling his clothes. Rizzoli
felt none of this; she was the one on familiar ground. The
territory of women. She knocked on the door that said: "Sarah
Daly, Nurse Practitioner."
"Come in."
The woman who stood up to greet them was young and hip-
looking. Under her white coat she wore blue jeans and a black
tee shirt, and her boyish haircut emphasized dark gamine
eyes and elegant cheekbones. But what Moore could not stop
focusing on was the small gold hoop in her left nostril. For
much of the interview, he felt as if he were talking to that hoop.
"I reviewed her medical chart after you called," said Sarah.

"I know a police report was filed."
"We've read it," said Rizzoli.
"And your reason for coming here?"
"Nina Peyton was attacked last night, in her home. She's
now in critical condition."
The woman's first reaction was shock. And then, fast on its
heels, rage. Moore saw it in the way her chin jutted up and her
eyes glittered. "Was it him?"
"Him?"
"The man who raped her?"
"It's a possibility we're considering," said Rizzoli.
"Unfortunately, the victim is comatose and can't talk to us."
"Don't call her the victim. She does have a name."
Rizzoli's chin jutted up as well, and Moore knew she was
pissed off. It was not a good way to start an interview.
He said, "Ms. Daly, this was an incredibly brutal crime, and
we need--"
"Nothing is incredible," retorted Sarah. "Not when we're
talking about what men do to women." She picked up a folder
from her desk and held it out to him. "Her medical record. The

from her desk and held it out to him. "Her medical record. The
morning after she was raped, she came to this clinic. I was the
one who saw her that day."
"Were you also the one who examined her?"
"I did everything. The interview, the pelvic exam. I took the
vaginal swabs and confirmed there was sperm under the
microscope. I combed the pubic hair, collected nail clippings
for the rape kit. Gave her the morning-after pill."
"She didn't go to the E.R. for any other tests?"
"A rape victim who walks in our door gets everything taken
care of in this building, by one person. The last thing she
needs is a parade of changing faces. So I draw the blood and
send it out to the lab. I make the necessary calls to the police.
If that's what the victim wants."
Moore opened the folder and saw the patient information
sheet. Nina Peyton's date of birth, address, phone number,
and employer were listed. He flipped to the next page and
saw it was filled with small, tight handwriting. The date of the
first entry was May 17.
Chief Complaint: Sexual assault
History of Present Illness: 29-year-old white female,
believes she was sexually assaulted. Last night while

having drinks at the Gramercy Pub, she felt dizzy and
remembers walking to the bathroom. She has no memory
of any events that followed. . . .
"She woke up at home, in her own bed," said Sarah. "She
didn't remember how she got home. Didn't remember getting
undressed. She certainly didn't remember tearing her own
blouse. But there she was, stripped of her clothes. Her thighs
were caked with what she thought was semen. One eye was
swollen, and she had bruises on both wrists. She figured out
pretty quick what had happened. And she had the same
reaction other rape victims have. She thought: `It's my fault. I
shouldn't have been so careless.' But that's how it is with
women." She looked directly at Moore. "We blame ourselves
for everything, even when it's the man who does the fucking."
In the face of such anger, there was nothing he could say.
He looked down at the chart and read the physical exam.
Patient is a disheveled, withdrawn female who speaks in
a monotone. She is unaccompanied, and has walked to
the clinic from her home. . . .
"She kept talking about her car keys," said Sarah. "She was

battered, one eye was swollen shut, and all she could focus on
was the fact she'd lost her car keys and she needed to find
them or she couldn't drive to work. It took me awhile to get her
to break out of that repeating loop and talk to me. This is a
woman who'd never had anything really bad happen to her.
She was educated, independent. A sales rep for Lawrence
Scientific Supplies. She deals with people every day. And
here she was, practically paralyzed. Obsessed with finding
her stupid car keys. Finally we opened her purse and
searched through all the pockets, and the keys were there.
Only after we found them could she focus on me, and tell me
what happened."
"And what did she say?"
"She went into the Gramercy Pub around nine o'clock to
meet a girlfriend. The friend never showed, so Nina hung
around for a while. Had a martini, talked to a few guys. Look,
I've been there, and every night it's a busy place. A woman
would feel safe." She added, on a bitter note: "As if there is
any safe place."
"Did she remember the man who took her home?" asked
Rizzoli. "That's what we really need to know."
Sarah looked at her. "It's all about the criminal, isn't it?
That's all those two cops from Sex Crimes wanted to hear
about. The perp gets the attention."
Moore could feel the room heating up with Rizzoli's temper.

He said, quickly: "The detectives said she was unable to
provide a description."
"I was in the room when they interviewed her. She asked
me to stay, so I heard the whole story twice. They kept after
her about what he looked like, and she just couldn't tell them.
She honestly could not remember anything about him."
Moore turned to the next page in the chart. "You saw her a
second time, in July. Only a week ago."
"She came back for a follow-up blood test. It takes six
weeks after exposure for an HIV test to become positive.
That's the ultimate atrocity. First to be raped, and then to find
out your attacker has given you a fatal disease. It's six weeks
of agony for these women, waiting to find out if they'll get
AIDS. Wondering if the enemy is inside you, multiplying in
your blood. When they come for their follow-up test, I have to
give them a pep talk. And swear that I'll call them the instant I
get the results back."
"You don't analyze the tests here?"
"No. It all gets sent out to Interpath Labs."
Moore turned to the last page of the chart and saw the
sheet of results. HIV screen: Negative. VDRL (syphilis):
Negative. The page was tissue-thin, a sheet from a printed
carbon form. The most important news of our lives, he thought,
so often arrives on such flimsy paper. Telegrams. Exam

scores. Blood tests.
He closed the chart and laid it on the desk. "When you saw
Nina the second time, the day she came in for the follow-up
blood test, how did she strike you?"
"Are you asking me if she was still traumatized?"
"I have no doubt she was."
His quiet answer seemed to puncture Sarah's swelling
bubble of rage. She sat back, as though, without anger, she
had lost some vital fuel. For a moment she considered his
question. "When I saw Nina the second time, she was like one
of the walking dead."
"How so?"
"She sat in that chair where Detective Rizzoli is now, and I
felt as if I could almost see straight through her. As if she was
transparent. She hadn't been to work since the rape. I think it
was hard for her to face people, especially men. She was
paralyzed by all these strange phobias. Afraid to drink tap
water, or anything that hadn't been sealed. It had to be in an
unopened bottle or can, something that couldn't be poisoned
or drugged. She was afraid that men could look at her and
see she'd been violated. She was convinced her rapist had
left sperm on her bedsheets and clothes, and she was
spending hours every day washing things over and over.
Whoever Nina Peyton used to be, that woman was dead.

What I saw in her place was a ghost." Sarah's voice had
trailed off, and she sat very still, staring toward Rizzoli, seeing
another woman in that chair. A succession of women, different
faces, different ghosts, a parade of the damaged.
"Did she say anything about being stalked? About the
attacker reappearing in her life?"
"A rapist never disappears from your life. For as long as
you live, you're always his property." Sarah paused. And
added, bitterly: "Maybe he just came to claim what was his."

nine
It was not virgins the Vikings sacrificed, but harlots.
In the year of our lord 922, the Arab diplomat ibn
Fadlan witnessed just such a sacrifice among the people he
called the Rus. He described them as tall and blond, men of
perfect physique who traveled from Sweden, down the
Russian rivers, to the southern markets of Kazaria and the
Caliphate, where they traded amber and furs for the silk and
silver of Byzantium. It was on that trade route, in a place
called Bulgar, at the bend of the Volga, that a dead Viking

called Bulgar, at the bend of the Volga, that a dead Viking
man of great importance was prepared for his final journey
to Valhalla.
Ibn Fadlan witnessed the funeral.
The dead man's boat was hauled ashore and placed on
posts of birch wood. A pavilion was built on the deck, and in
this pavilion was a couch covered in Greek brocade. The
corpse, which had been buried ten days, was then
disinterred.
To ibn Fadlan's surprise, the blackened flesh did not
smell.
The newly dug-up corpse was then adorned in fine
clothes: trousers and stockings, boots and a tunic, and a
caftan of brocade with gold buttons. They placed him on the
mattress inside the pavilion, and propped him up with
cushions in a sitting position. Around him they placed bread
and meat and onions, intoxicating drink, and sweet-smelling
plants. They slew a dog and two horses, a rooster and a
hen, and all these, too, they placed inside the pavilion, to
serve his needs in Valhalla.
Last, they brought a slave girl.
For the ten days that the dead man had lain buried in the
ground, the girl had been given over to whoredom. Dazed
with drink, she was brought from tent to tent to service every

man in the encampment. She lay with legs spread beneath
a succession of sweating, grunting men, her well-used body
a communal vessel into which the seed of all the tribesmen
was spilled. In this way was she defiled, her flesh corrupted,
her body made ready for sacrifice.
On the tenth day, she was brought to the ship,
accompanied by an old woman whom they called the Angel
of Death. The girl removed her bracelets and finger rings.
She drank deeply to intoxicate herself. Then she was
brought into the pavilion, where the dead man sat.
There, upon the brocade-draped mattress, she was
defiled yet again. Six times, by six men, her body passed
among them like shared meat. And when it was done, when
the men were sated, the girl was stretched out at the side of
her dead master. Two men held her feet, two men held her
hands, and the Angel of Death looped a cord around the
girl's neck. While the men pulled the cord taut, the Angel
raised her broad-bladed dagger and plunged it into the girl's
chest.
Again and again the blade came down, spilling blood the
way a grunting man spills seed, the dagger reenacting the
ravishment that came before, sharp metal piercing soft flesh.
A brutal rutting that delivered, with its final thrust, the
rapture of death.

*   *   *
"She required massive transfusions of blood and fresh frozen
plasma," said Catherine. "Her pressure's stabilized, but she's
still unconscious and on a ventilator. You'll just have to be
patient, Detective. And hope she wakes up."
Catherine and Detective Darren Crowe stood outside Nina
Peyton's SICU cubicle and watched three lines trace across
the cardiac monitor. Crowe had been waiting by the O.R. door
when the patient was wheeled out, had stuck right beside her
in the Recovery Room and later during the transfer to SICU.
His role was more than merely protective; he was eager to
take the patient's statement, and for the last few hours he had
made a nuisance of himself, demanding frequent progress
reports and hovering outside the cubicle.
Now, once again, he repeated the question he'd been
asking all morning: "Is she going to live?"
"All I can tell you is that her vital signs are stable."
"When can I talk to her?"
Catherine gave a tired sigh. "You don't seem to understand
how critical she was. She lost more than a third of her blood
volume before she even got here. Her brain may have been
deprived of crucial circulation. When and if she does regain
consciousness, there's a chance she won't remember
anything."

Crowe looked through the glass partition. "Then she's
useless to us."
Catherine stared at him with mounting dislike. Not once had
he expressed concern for Nina Peyton, except as a witness,
as someone he could use. Not once, all morning, had he
referred to her by name. He'd called her the victim or the
witness. What he saw, looking into the cubicle, wasn't a
woman at all but simply a means to an end.
"When will she be moved from ICU?" he asked.
"It's too early to ask that question."
"Could she be transferred to a private room? If we keep the
door closed, limit the personnel, then no one has to know she
can't talk."
Catherine knew exactly where this was going. "I won't have
my patient used as bait. She needs to stay here for round-the-
clock observation. You see those lines on the monitor? That's
the EKG, the central venous pressure, and the arterial
pressure. I need to stay on top of every change in her status.
This unit is the only place to do it."
"How many women could we save if we stop him now?
Have you thought about that? Of all people, Dr. Cordell, you
know what these women have gone through."