Free The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen Page B

it?”
    “Let me check.”
    Rizzoli waited, tapping her pencil on the desk. The water bottle was right there in front of her, but she steadfastly ignored it. Her anger had given way to excitement. To the exhilaration of the hunt.
    “Detective Rizzoli?”
    “Still here.”
    “The personal effects were claimed by the family. A pair of gold stud earrings, a necklace, and a ring.”
    “Who signed for them?”
    “Anna Garcia, the victim’s sister.”
    “Thank you.” Rizzoli hung up and glanced at her watch. Anna Garcia lived all the way out in Danvers. It meant a drive through rush hour traffic. . . .
    “Do you know where Frost is?” asked Moore.
    Rizzoli glanced up, startled, to see him standing beside her desk. “No, I don’t.”
    “He hasn’t been around?”
    “I don’t keep the boy on a leash.”
    There was a pause. Then he asked, “What’s this?”
    “Ortiz crime scene photos.”
    “No. The thing in the bottle.”
    She looked up again and saw a frown on his face. “What does it look like? It’s a fucking tampon.
Someone
around here has a real sophisticated sense of humor.” She glanced pointedly at Darren Crowe, who suppressed a snicker and turned away.
    “I’ll take care of this,” Moore said and picked up the bottle.
    “Hey.
Hey!
” she snapped. “Goddamnit, Moore. Forget it!”
    He walked into Lieutenant Marquette’s office. Through the glass partition she saw Moore set the bottle with the tampon on Marquette’s desk. Marquette turned and stared in Rizzoli’s direction.
    Here we go again. Now they’ll be saying the bitch can’t take a practical joke.
    She grabbed her purse, gathered up the photos, and walked out of the unit.
    She was already at the elevators when Moore called out: “Rizzoli?”
    “Don’t fight my fucking battles for me, okay?” she snapped.
    “You weren’t fighting. You were just sitting there with that . . . thing on your desk.”
    “Tampon. Can you say the word nice and loud?”
    “Why are you angry with me? I’m trying to stick up for you.”
    “Look,
Saint
Thomas, this is how it works in the real world for women. I file a complaint, I’m the one who gets the shaft. A note goes in my personnel record.
Does not play well with boys.
If I complain again, my reputation’s sealed. Rizzoli the whiner. Rizzoli the wuss.”
    “You’re letting them win if you
don’t
complain.”
    “I tried it your way. It doesn’t work. So don’t do me any favors, okay?” She slung her purse over her shoulder and stepped onto the elevator.
    The instant the door closed between them, she wanted to take back those words. Moore didn’t deserve such a rebuke. He had always been polite, always the gentleman, and in her anger she had flung the unit’s nickname for him in his face.
Saint Thomas.
The cop who never stepped over the line, never swore, never lost his cool.
    And then there were the sad circumstances of his personal life. Two years ago, his wife, Mary, had collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage. For six months she’d hung on in the twilight zone of a coma, but until the day she actually died Moore had refused to give up hope that she’d recover. Even now, a year and a half after Mary’s death, he did not seem to accept it. He still wore his wedding ring, still kept her photo on his desk. Rizzoli had watched the marriages of too many other cops disintegrate, had watched the changing gallery of women’s photos on her colleagues’ desks. On Moore’s desk, the image of Mary remained, her smiling face a permanent fixture.
    Saint Thomas?
Rizzoli gave a cynical shake of the head. If there were any real saints in the world, they sure as hell wouldn’t be cops.
     
    One wanted him to live, the other wanted him to die, and both claimed to love him more. The son and daughter of Herman Gwadowski faced each other across their father’s bed, and neither was willing to give in.
    “You weren’t the one who had to take care of Dad,” Marilyn said. “I cooked his meals. I