The Surgeon: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel: With Bonus Content

attendant were assembling instruments on a tray. Across the table from Moore stood Jane Rizzoli, also from the Boston Homicide Unit. Thirty-three years old, Rizzoli was a small and square-jawed woman. Her untamable curls were hidden beneath the paper O.R. cap, and without her black hair to soften her features, her face seemed to be all hard angles, her dark eyes probing and intense. She had transferred to Homicide from Vice and Narcotics six months ago. She was the only woman in the homicide unit, and already there had been problems between her and another detective, charges of sexual harassment, countercharges of unrelenting bitchiness. Moore was not sure he liked Rizzoli, or she him. So far they had kept their interactions strictly business, and he thought she preferred it that way.
    Standing beside Rizzoli was her partner, Barry Frost, a relentlessly cheerful cop whose bland and beardless face made him seem much younger than his thirty years. Frost had worked with Rizzoli for two months now without complaint, the only man in the unit placid enough to endure her foul moods.
    As Moore approached the table, Rizzoli said, “We wondered when you’d show up.”
    “I was on the Maine Turnpike when you beeped me.”
    “We’ve been waiting here since five.”
    “And I’m just starting the internal exam,” Dr. Tierney said. “So I’d say Detective Moore got here right on time.” One man coming to the defense of another. He slammed the cabinet door shut, setting off a reverberating clang. It was one of the rare occasions he allowed his irritation to show. Dr. Tierney was a native Georgian, a courtly gentleman who believed ladies should behave like ladies. He did not enjoy working with the prickly Jane Rizzoli.
    The morgue attendant wheeled a tray of instruments to the table, and his gaze briefly met Moore’s with a look of,
Can you believe this bitch?
    “Sorry about your fishing trip,” Tierney said to Moore. “It looks like your vacation’s canceled.”
    “You’re sure it’s our boy again?”
    In answer, Tierney reached for the drape and pulled it back, revealing the corpse. “Her name is Elena Ortiz.”
    Though Moore had been braced for this sight, his first glimpse of the victim had the impact of a physical blow. The woman’s black hair, matted stiff with blood, stuck out like porcupine quills from a face the color of blue-veined marble. Her lips were parted, as though frozen in mid-utterance. The blood had already been washed off the body, and her wounds gaped in purplish rents on the gray canvas of skin. There were two visible wounds. One was a deep slash across the throat, extending from beneath the left ear, transecting the left carotid artery, and laying open the laryngeal cartilage. The coup de grace. The second slash was low on the abdomen. This wound had not been meant to kill; it had served an entirely different purpose.
    Moore swallowed hard. “I see why you called me back from vacation.”
    “I’m the lead on this one,” said Rizzoli.
    He heard the note of warning in her statement; she was protecting her turf. He understood where it came from, how the constant taunts and skepticism that women cops faced could make them quick to take offense. In truth he had no wish to challenge her. They would have to work together on this, and it was too early in the game to be battling for dominance.
    He was careful to maintain a respectful tone. “Could you fill me in on the circumstances?”
    Rizzoli gave a curt nod. “The victim was found at nine this morning, in her apartment on Worcester Street, in the South End. She usually gets to work around six A.M. at Celebration Florists, a few blocks from her residence. It’s a family business, owned by her parents. When she didn’t show up, they got worried. Her brother went to check on her. He found her in the bedroom. Dr. Tierney estimates the time of death was somewhere between midnight and four this morning. According to the family, she had no current boyfriend, and no one in her apartment building recalls seeing any male visitors. She’s just a hardworking Catholic girl.”
    Moore looked at the victim’s wrists. “She was immobilized.”
    “Yes. Duct tape on the wrists and ankles. She was found nude. Wearing only a few items of jewelry.”
    “What jewelry?”
    “A necklace. A ring. Ear studs. The jewelry box in the bedroom was untouched. Robbery was not the motive.”
    Moore looked at the horizontal band of bruising across the victim’s