“I’ve already gone over what happened. It’s in my statement. Everything is in my statement.”
Moore paused. Reluctantly he pressed on. “There are things you didn’t tell Singer. Things you left out.”
She looked up, her cheeks stung red with anger. “I’ve left nothing out!”
He hated being forced to hound her with more questions, but he had no choice. “I reviewed Capra’s autopsy report,” he said. “It’s not consistent with the statement you gave the Savannah police.”
“I told Detective Singer exactly what happened.”
“You said you were lying with your body draped over the side of the bed. You reached under the bed for the gun. From that position you aimed at Capra and fired.”
“And that’s true. I swear it.”
“According to the autopsy, the bullet tracked upward through his abdomen and passed through his thoracic spine, paralyzing him. That part is consistent with your statement.”
“Then why are you saying I lied?”
Again Moore paused, almost too sick at heart to press on. To keep hurting her. “There’s the problem of the second bullet,” he said. “It was fired at close range, straight into his left eye. Yet you were lying on the floor.”
“He must have bent forward, and that’s when I fired—”
“Must have?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember firing the second bullet?”
“No. Yes. . . .”
“Which is the truth, Catherine?” He said it quietly, but he could not soften the sting of his words.
She shot to her feet. “I won’t be questioned this way. I’m the victim.”
“And I’m trying to keep you alive. I need to know the truth.”
“I’ve told you the truth! Now I think it’s time for you to leave.” She crossed to the door, yanked it open, and gave a startled gasp.
Peter Falco stood right outside, his hand poised to knock.
“Are you okay, Catherine?” asked Peter.
“Everything is fine,” she snapped.
Looking at Moore, Peter’s gaze sharpened. “What is this, police harassment?”
“I’m asking Dr. Cordell a few questions, that’s all.”
“That’s not what it sounded like in the hallway.” Peter looked at Catherine. “Do you want me to show him out?”
“I can deal with this myself.”
“You’re not obligated to answer any questions.”
“I’m well aware of that, thank you.”
“Okay. But if you need me, I’m out here.” Peter shot a last warning glance at Moore, then turned and went back to his own office. At the other end of the hallway, Helen and the billing clerk were staring at her. Flustered, she shut the door again. For a moment she stood with her back to Moore. Then her spine straightened, and she turned to him. Whether she answered him now or later, the questions would remain.
“I’ve kept nothing from you,” she said. “If I can’t tell you everything that happened that night, it’s because I don’t remember.”
“So your statement to the Savannah police was not entirely true.”
“I was still hospitalized when I gave that statement. Detective Singer talked me through what happened, helping me piece it together. I told him what I thought was correct at the time.”
“And now you’re not sure.”
She shook her head. “It’s hard to know which memories are real. There’s so much I can’t remember, because of the drug Capra gave me. The Rohypnol. Every so often, I’ll have a flashback. Something that may or may not be real.”
“And you still have these flashbacks?”
“I had one last night. It was the first one in months. I thought I was over them. I thought they’d gone away.” She walked to the window and stared out. It was a view darkened by the shadow of towering concrete. Her office faced the hospital, and one could see row upon row of patients’ windows. A glimpse into the private worlds of the sick and dying.
“Two years seems like a long time,” she said. “Time enough to forget. But really, two years is nothing. Nothing. After that night, I couldn’t go back to my own house. I couldn’t set foot in the place where it happened. My father had to pack up my things and move me into a new place. There I was, the chief resident, accustomed to the sight of blood and guts. Yet just the thought of walking up that hallway, and opening my old bedroom door—it made me break out in a cold sweat. My father tried to understand, but he’s an old military man. He doesn’t accept weakness. He thinks of it as just another war wound, something that heals, and then you get on with your life. He told me to grow up and get over it.” She shook her head and laughed. “Get over it. It sounds like such an easy thing. He had no idea how hard it was for me just to step outside every morning. To walk to my car. To be so exposed. After a while, I just stopped talking to him, because I knew he was disgusted by my weakness. I haven’t called him in months. . . .
“It’s taken me two years to finally get my fear under control. To live a reasonably normal life where I don’t feel as if something’s going to jump out from every bush. I had my life back.” She brushed her hand across her eyes, a swift and angry swipe at her tears. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And now I’ve lost it again. . . .”
She was shaking with the effort not to cry, hugging herself, her fingers digging into her own arms as she fought for control. He rose from the chair and crossed to her. Stood behind her, wondering what would happen if he touched her. Would she pull away? Would the mere contact of a man’s hand repulse her? He watched helplessly as she curled into herself, and he thought she might shatter before his eyes.
Gently he touched her shoulder. She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away. He turned her toward him, his arms encircling her, and drew her against his chest. The depth of her pain shocked him. He could feel her whole body vibrating with it, the way a storm batters a swaying bridge. Though she made no sound, he felt the shaky intake of her breath, the stifled sobs. He pressed his lips to her hair. He could not help himself; her need spoke to something deep inside him. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead, her brow.
She went very still in his arms, and he thought: I’ve crossed the line. Quickly he released her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That should not have happened.”
“No. It shouldn’t have.”
“Can you forget it did?”
“Can you?” she asked softly.
“Yes.” He straightened. And said it again, more firmly, as though to convince himself. “Yes.”
She looked down at his hand, and he knew what she was focusing on. His wedding ring. “I hope for your wife’s sake that you can,” she said. Her comment was meant to instill guilt, and it did.
He regarded his ring, a simple gold band that he had worn so long it seemed grafted to his flesh. “Her name was Mary,” he said. He knew what Catherine had assumed: that he was betraying his wife. Now he felt almost desperate to explain, to redeem himself in her eyes.
“It happened two years ago. A hemorrhage into her brain. It didn’t kill her, not right away. For six months, I kept hoping, waiting for her to wake up. . . .” He shook his head. “A chronic vegetative state was what the doctors called it. God, I hated that word, vegetative. As if she was a plant or some kind of tree. A mockery of the woman she used to be. By the time she died, I couldn’t recognize her. I couldn’t see anything left of Mary.”
Her touch took him by surprise, and he was the one who flinched at the contact. In silence they faced each other in the gray light through the window, and he thought: No kiss, no embrace, could bring two people any closer than we are right now. The most intimate emotion two people can share is neither love nor desire but pain.
The buzz of the intercom broke the spell. Catherine blinked, as though suddenly remembering where she was. She turned to her desk and pressed the intercom button.
“Yes?”
“Dr. Cordell, the SICU just called.
They need you upstairs STAT.”
Moore saw, from Catherine’s glance, that the same thought had occurred to them both: Something has happened to Nina Peyton.
“Is this about Bed Twelve?” asked Catherine.
“Yes. The patient just woke up.”
eleven
Nina Peyton’s eyes were wide and frantic. Four-point restraints held her wrists and ankles to the bedrails, and the tendons of her arms stood out in thick cords as she fought to free her hands.
“She regained consciousness about five minutes ago,” said Stephanie, the SICU nurse. “First I noticed her heart rate was up, and then I saw her eyes were open. I’ve been trying to calm her down, but she keeps fighting the restraints.”
Catherine looked at the cardiac monitor and saw a rapid heart rate but no arrhythmias. Nina’s breathing was rapid as well, occasionally punctuated by explosive wheezes that expelled blasts of phlegm out the endotracheal tube.
“It’s the ET tube,” said Catherine. “It’s making her panic.”
“Shall I give her some Valium?”
Moore said, from the doorway, “We need her conscious. If she’s sedated, we can’t get any answers.”
“She can’t talk to you anyway. Not with the ET tube in.” Catherine looked at Stephanie. “How were the last blood gases? Can we extubate?”
Stephanie flipped through her papers on the clipboard. “They’re borderline. P02’s sixty-five. PC02 thirty-two. That’s on the T-tube at forty percent oxygen.”
Catherine frowned, liking none of the options. She wanted Nina awake and able to talk just as much as the police did, but she was juggling several concerns at once. The sensation of a tube lodged in the throat can induce panic in anyone, and Nina was so agitated that her restrained wrists were already chafed raw. But removing the tube carried risks as well. Fluid had accumulated in her lungs after surgery, and even while she was breathing 40 percent oxygen—twice that of room air—her blood oxygen saturation was barely adequate. That’s why Catherine had left the tube in place. If they removed the tube, they would lose a margin of safety. If they left it in, the patient would continue to panic and thrash. If they sedated her, Moore’s questions would go unanswered.
Catherine looked at Stephanie. “I’m going to extubate.”
“Are you sure?”
“If there’s any deterioration I’ll re-intubate.” Easier said than done was what she saw in Stephanie’s eyes. After several days with a tube in place, the laryngeal tissues sometimes swelled, making re-intubation difficult. An emergency tracheotomy would be the only option.
Catherine circled around behind her patient’s head and gently cupped her face. “Nina, I’m Dr. Cordell. I’m going to take the tube out. Is that what you want?”
The patient nodded, a response that was sharp and desperate.
“I need you to be very still, okay? So we don’t injure your vocal cords.” Catherine glanced up. “Mask ready?”
Stephanie held up the plastic oxygen mask.
Catherine gave Nina’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. She peeled off the tape holding the tube in place and released air from the balloonlike inflator cuff. “Take a deep breath and exhale,” said Catherine. She watched the chest expand, and as Nina released the breath, Catherine eased out the tube.
It emerged in a spray of mucus as Nina coughed and wheezed. Catherine stroked her hair, murmuring gently as Stephanie fastened an oxygen mask in place.
“You’re doing fine,” said Catherine.
But the blips on the cardiac monitor continued to race by. Nina’s frightened gaze remained focused on Catherine, as though she was her lifeline and she dared not lose sight of her. Looking into her patient’s eyes, Catherine felt a disturbing flash of familiarity. This was me two years ago. Waking up in a Savannah hospital. Surfacing from one nightmare, into another . . .
She looked at the straps holding Nina’s wrists and ankles and remembered how terrifying it was to be tied down. The way she’d been tied down by Andrew Capra.
“Take off the restraints,” she said.
“But she might pull out her lines.”
“Just take them off.”
Stephanie flushed at the rebuke. Without a word she untied the straps. She did not understand; no one could understand but Catherine, who, even two years after Savannah, could not abide sleeves with tight cuffs. As the last restraint fell free, she saw Nina’s lips move in a silent message.
Thank you.
Gradually the beep of the EKG slowed. Against the steady rhythm of that heartbeat, the two women gazed at each other. If Catherine had recognized a part of herself in Nina’s eyes, so, too, did Nina seem to recognize herself in Catherine’s. The silent sisterhood of victims.
There are more of us than anyone will ever know.
“You can come in now, Detectives,” the nurse said.
Moore and Frost stepped into the cubicle and found Catherine seated at the bedside, holding Nina’s hand.
“She asked me to stay,” said Catherine.
“I can call in a female officer,” said Moore.
“No, she wants me,” said Catherine. “I’m not leaving.”
She looked straight at Moore, her gaze unyielding, and he realized this was not the same woman he had held in his arms only a few hours ago; this was a different side of her, fierce and protective, and on this matter she would not back down.
He nodded and sat down at the bedside. Frost set up the cassette recorder and took an unobtrusive position at the foot of the bed. It was Frost’s blandness, his quiet civility, that made Moore choose him to sit in on this interview. The last thing Nina Peyton needed to face was an over-aggressive cop.
Her oxygen mask had been removed and replaced with nasal prongs, and air hissed from the tube into her nostrils. Her gaze darted between the two men, eyes alert to any threats, any sudden gestures. Moore was careful to keep his voice soft as he introduced himself and Barry Frost. He guided her through the preliminaries, confirming her name and age and address. This information they already knew, but by asking her to state it on tape they established her mental status and demonstrated she was alert and competent to make a statement. She answered his questions in a hoarse, flat voice, eerily devoid of emotion. Her remoteness unnverved him; he felt as though he were listening to a dead woman.
“I didn’t hear him come into my house,” she said. “I didn’t wake up until he was standing over my bed. I shouldn’t have left the windows open. I shouldn’t have taken the pills. . . .”
“What pills?” Moore asked gently.
“I was having trouble sleeping, because of . . .” Her voice faded.
“The rape?”
She looked away, avoiding his gaze. “I was having nightmares. At the clinic, they gave me pills. To help me sleep.”
And a nightmare, a real nightmare, walked right into her bedroom.
“Did you see his face?” he asked.
“It was dark. I could hear him breathing, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream.”
“You were already tied down?”
“I don’t remember him doing it. I don’t remember how it happened.”
Chloroform, thought Moore, to subdue her first. Before she was fully awake.
“What happened then, Nina?”
Her breathing accelerated. On the monitor above her bed, the heart tracing blipped faster.
“He sat in a chair by my bed. I could see his shadow.”
“And what did he do?”
“He—he talked to me.”
“What did he say?”
“He said . . .” She swallowed. “He said that I was dirty. Contaminated. He said I should be disgusted by my own filth. And that he—he was going to cut out the part that was tainted and make me pure again.” She paused. And said, in a whisper: “That’s when I knew I was going to die.”
Though Catherine’s face had turned white, the victim herself looked eerily composed, as though she were talking about another woman’s nightmare, not her own.
She was no longer looking at Moore but staring at some point beyond him, seeing from afar a woman tied to a bed. And in a chair, hidden in the darkness, a man quietly describing the horrors he planned next. For the Surgeon, thought Moore, this is foreplay. This is what excites him. The smell of a woman’s fear. He feeds on it. He sits by her bed and fills her mind with images of death. Sweat blooms on her skin, sweat that exudes the sour scent of terror. An exotic perfume he craves. He breathes it in, and he is excited.
“What happened next?” said Moore.
No answer.
“Nina?”
“He turned the lamp on my face. He put it right in my eyes, so I couldn’t see him. All I could see was that bright light. And he took my picture.”
“And then?”
She looked at him. “Then he was gone.”
“He left you alone in the house?”
“Not alone. I could hear him, walking around. And the TV—all night, I heard the TV.”
The pattern has changed, thought Moore, and he and Frost exchanged stunned looks. The Surgeon was now more confident. More daring. Instead of completing his kill within a few hours, he had delayed. All night, and the next day, he had left his prey tied to her bed, to contemplate her coming ordeal. Heedless of the risks, he had drawn out her terror. Drawn out his pleasure.
The heartbeats on the monitor had sped up again. Though her voice sounded flat and lifeless, beneath the calm facade the fear remained.
“What happened then, Nina?” he asked.
“Sometime in the afternoon, I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up, it was dark again. I was so thirsty. It was all I could think about, how much I wanted water. . . .”
“Did he leave you at any time? Were you ever alone in the house?”
“I don’t know. All I could hear was the TV. When he turned it off, I knew. I knew he was coming back into my room.”
“And when he did, did he turn on the light?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see his face?”
“Just his eyes. He was wearing a mask. The kind that doctors wear.”
“But you did see his eyes.”
“Yes.”
“Did you recognize him? Had you ever seen this man before in your life?”