Read Online The Surgeon: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel: With Bonus Content by Tess Gerritsen - Free Book Online Page B

next victim. But so far, he’s always managed to complete the ritual. And each killing has been satisfying enough to tide him over for long periods of time.” Zucker looked around the room. “This is the worst kind of unsub we can face. He went a whole year between attacks—that’s extremely rare. It means he can go months between hunts. We could run ourselves ragged looking for him, while he sits patiently waiting for the next kill. He is careful. He is organized. He will leave few, if any, clues behind.” He glanced at Moore, seeking confirmation.
    “We have no fingerprints, no DNA, at either crime scene,” Moore said. “All we have is a single strand of hair, collected from Ortiz’s wound. And a few dark polyester fibers from the window frame.”
    “I take it you’ve found no witnesses, either.”
    “We had thirteen hundred interviews on the Sterling case. One hundred eighty interviews so far on the Ortiz case. No one saw the intruder. No one was aware of any stalker.”
    “But we have had three confessions,” said Crowe. “They all walked in off the street. We took their statements and sent them on their way.” He laughed. “Wackos.”
    “This unsub is not insane,” said Zucker. “I would guess he appears perfectly normal. I believe he’s a white male in his late twenties or early thirties. Neatly groomed, of above-average intelligence. He is almost certainly a high school graduate, perhaps with a college education or even more. The two crime scenes are over a mile apart, and the murders were committed at a time of day when there was little public transportation running. So he drives a car. It will be neat and well maintained. He probably has no history of mental health problems, but he may have a juvenile record of burglary or voyeurism. If he’s employed, it will be a job that requires both intelligence and meticulousness. We know he is a planner, as demonstrated by the fact he carries his murder kit with him—scalpel, suture, duct tape, chloroform. Plus a container of some kind in which to bring his souvenir home. It could be as simple as a Ziploc bag. He works in a field that requires attention to detail. Since he obviously has anatomical knowledge, and surgical skills, we could be dealing with a medical professional.”
    Rizzoli met Moore’s gaze, both struck by the same thought: There were probably more doctors per capita in the city of Boston than anywhere else in the world.
    “Because he is intelligent,” said Zucker, “he knows we’re staking out the crime scenes. And he will resist the temptation to return. But the temptation
is
there, so it’s worth continuing the stakeout of Ortiz’s residence, at least for the near future.
    “He is also intelligent enough to avoid choosing a victim in his immediate neighborhood. He’s what we call a ‘commuter,’ rather than a ‘marauder.’ He goes outside his neighborhood to hunt. Until we have more data points to work with, I can’t really do a geographical profile. I can’t pinpoint which areas of the city you should focus on.”
    “How many data points do you need?” asked Rizzoli.
    “A minimum of five.”
    “Meaning, we need five murders?”
    “The criminal geographic targeting program I use requires five to have any validity. I’ve run the CGT program with as few as four data points, and sometimes you can get an offender residence prediction with that, but it’s not accurate. We need to know more about his movements. What his activity space is, where his anchor points are. Every killer works inside a certain comfort zone. They’re like carnivores hunting. They have their territory, their fishing holes, where they find their prey.” Zucker looked around the table at the detectives’ unimpressed faces. “We don’t know enough about this unsub yet to make any predictions. So we need to focus on the victims. Who they were, and why he chose them.”
    Zucker reached into his briefcase and took out two folders, one