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

didn’t bother to voice it. With a dramatic sigh, Singer reached into his desk for the keys and stood up. “I guess you want it right now, don’t you?”
    From the storage room, Singer took out the cart with the VCR and TV and rolled it into the room where Moore had been working. He plugged in the cords, pressed the power buttons, and grunted in satisfaction when everything came on.
    “Thanks,” said Moore. “I’ll probably need it for a few days.”
    “You come up with any big-time revelations yet?” There was no mistaking the note of sarcasm in his voice.
    “I’m just getting started.”
    “I see you got the Capra video.” Singer shook his head. “Man, was there weird shit in that house.”
    “I drove past the address last night. There’s only an empty lot.”
    “Building burned down ’bout a year ago. After Capra, the landlady couldn’t rent out the upstairs apartment. So she started chargin’ for tours, and believe it or not, she got herself a lot of takers. Y’know, the sick as shit Anne Rice crowd, come to worship at the monster’s den. Hell, landlady herself was somethin’ weird.”
    “I’ll need to speak to her.”
    “Not unless you can talk to the dead.”
    “The fire?”
    “Crispy critter.” Singer laughed. “Smokin’ is bad for your health. She sure proved it.”
    Moore waited until Singer walked out. Then he inserted the “Capra Residence” tape into the VCR slot.
    The first images were exterior, daylight, a view of the front of the house where Capra had lived. Moore recognized the tree in the front yard with the Spanish moss. The house itself was charmless, a two-story box in need of paint. The voice-over of the cameraman gave the date, time, and location. He identified himself as Savannah detective Spiro Pataki. Judging by the quality of daylight, Moore guessed the video had been shot in the early morning. The camera panned the street, and he saw a jogger run past, face turned toward the lens in curiosity. Traffic was heavy (the morning commute hour?) and a few neighbors stood on the sidewalk, staring at the cameraman.
    Now the view swung back to the house and approached the front door with handheld jerkiness. Once inside, Detective Pataki briefly panned the first floor, where the landlady, Mrs. Poole, lived. Moore glimpsed faded carpets, dark furniture, an ashtray overflowing with cigarettes. The fatal habit of a future crispy critter. The camera moved up some narrow stairs, and through a door with a heavy dead bolt installed, into the upstairs apartment of Andrew Capra.
    Moore felt claustrophobic just looking at it. The second floor had been cut into small rooms, and whoever had done this “renovation” must have gotten a special deal on wood paneling. Every wall was covered in dark veneer. The camera moved up a hallway so narrow it seemed to be burrowing through a tunnel. “Bedroom on the right,” said Pataki on camera, swinging the lens through the doorway to catch a view of a twin bed, neatly made up, a nightstand, a dresser. All the furniture that would fit in that dim little cave.
    “Moving toward the rear living area,” said Pataki as the camera jerked once again into the tunnel. It emerged in a larger room where other people stood around, looking grim. Moore spotted Singer by a closet door. Here’s where the action was.
    The camera focused on Singer. “This door was padlocked,” Singer said, pointing to the broken lock. “We had to pry off the hinges. Inside we found this.” He opened the closet door and yanked on the light chain.
    The camera went briefly out of focus, then abruptly sharpened again, the image filling the screen with startling clarity. It was a black-and-white photograph of a woman’s face, eyes wide and lifeless, the neck slashed so deeply the tracheal cartilage was laid open.
    “I believe this is Dora Ciccone,” said Singer. “Okay, focus on this one now.”
    The camera moved to the right. Another photograph, another woman.
    “These appear to be postmortem photos, taken of four different victims. I believe we are looking at the death images of Dora Ciccone, Lisa Fox, Ruth Voorhees, and Jennifer Torregrossa.”
    It was Andrew Capra’s private photo gallery. A retreat in which to relive the pleasure of his slaughters. What Moore found more disturbing than the images themselves was the remaining blank space on the walls, and the little package of thumbtacks sitting on a shelf. Plenty of room for more.
    The camera shifted dizzingly