“This boy fell while climbing a fence,” said O’Donnell. “He landed facedown, hitting his head on pavement. Look here, on this frontal view. You can see a tiny crack, running upward about the level of his left eyebrow. A fracture.”
“I see it,” said Rizzoli.
“Look at the patient’s name.”
Rizzoli focused on the small square at the edge of the film, containing identifying data. What she saw made her go very still.
“He was ten years old at the time of the injury,” said O’Donnell. “A normal, active boy growing up in a wealthy Houston suburb. At least, that’s what his pediatric records indicate, and what his elementary school reported. A healthy child, above-average intelligence. Played well with others.”
“Until he grew up and started killing them.”
“Yes, but why did Warren start killing?” O’Donnell pointed to the films. “This injury could be a factor.”
“Hey, I fell off a jungle gym when I was seven. Whacked my head against one of the bars. I’m not out there slicing people.”
“Yet you do hunt humans. Just as he does. You are, in fact, a professional hunter.”
Rage blasted Rizzoli’s face with heat. “How can you compare me to him?”
“I’m not, Detective. But consider what you’re feeling right now. You’d probably like to slap me, wouldn’t you? So what’s stopping you? What is it that holds you back? Is it morality? Good manners? Or is it just cool logic, informing you that there’ll be consequences? The certainty that you’ll be arrested? All these considerations together keep you from assaulting me. And it’s in your frontal lobes where this mental processing takes place. Thanks to those intact neurons, you’re able to control your destructive impulses.” O’Donnell paused. And added with a knowing look, “Most of the time.”
Those last words, aimed like a spear, found their mark. It was a tender point of vulnerability. Only a year ago, during the Surgeon investigation, Rizzoli had made a terrible mistake that would forever shame her. In the heat of a chase, she had shot and killed an unarmed man. She stared back at O’Donnell and saw the glint of satisfaction in the other woman’s eyes.
Dean broke the silence. “You told us Hoyt was the one who contacted you. What was he hoping to gain by all this? Attention? Sympathy?”
“How about plain human understanding?” said O’Donnell.
“Is that all he asked from you?”
“Warren is struggling for answers. He doesn’t know what drives him to kill. He does know he’s different. And he wants to know why.”
“He actually told you this?”
O’Donnell went to her desk and picked up a file folder. “I have his letters here. And the videotape of our interview.”
“You went to Souza-Baranowski?”
“Yes.”
“At whose suggestion?”
O’Donnell hesitated. “We both thought it would be helpful.”
“But who actually brought up the idea of a meeting?”
It was Rizzoli who answered the question for O’Donnell. “He did. Didn’t he? Hoyt asked for the meeting.”
“It may have been his suggestion. But we both wanted to do it.”
“You don’t have the faintest idea why he really asked you there,” said Rizzoli. “Do you?”
“We had to meet. I can’t evaluate a patient without seeing him face-to-face.”
“And while you were sitting there, face-to-face, what do you suppose he was thinking?”
O’Donnell’s expression was dismissive. “You would know?”
“Oh yeah. I know exactly what goes on in the Surgeon’s head.” Rizzoli had found her voice again, and the words came out cold and relentless. “He asked you to come because he wanted to scope you out. He does that with women. Smiles at us, talks nicely to us. It’s in his school records, isn’t it? ‘Polite young man,’ the teachers said. I bet he was polite when you met him, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was-”
“Just an ordinary, cooperative guy.”
“Detective, I’m not so naive as to think he’s a normal man. But he was cooperative. And he was troubled by his actions. He wants to understand the reasons for his behavior.”
“So you told him it was because of that bonk on the head.”
“I told him the head injury was a contributing factor.”
“He must have been happy to hear that. To have an excuse for what he did.”
“I gave him my honest opinion.”
“You know what else made him happy?”
“What?”
“Being in the same room with you. You did sit in the same room, didn’t you?”
“We met in the interview room. There was continuous video surveillance.”
“But there was no barrier between you. No protective window. No Plexiglas.”
“He never threatened me.”
“He could lean right up to you. Study your hair, smell your skin. He particularly likes to smell a woman’s scent. It turns him on. What really arouses him is the smell of fear. Dogs can smell fear, did you know that? When we get scared, we release hormones that animals can detect. Warren Hoyt can smell it, too. He’s like any other creature who hunts. He picks up the scent of fear, of vulnerability. It feeds his fantasies. And I can imagine what his fantasies were when he sat in that room with you. I’ve seen what those fantasies lead to.”
O’Donnell tried to laugh but couldn’t quite pull it off. “If you’re trying to scare me-”
“You have a long neck, Dr. O’Donnell. I guess some would call it a swan neck. He would have noticed that. Didn’t you catch him, just once, staring at your throat?”
“Oh, please.”
“Didn’t his eyes sort of glance down, every so often? Maybe you thought he was looking at your breasts, the way other men do. But not Warren. He doesn’t seem to care much about breasts. It’s throats he’s attracted to. He thinks of a woman’s throat as dessert. The part he can’t wait to slice into. After he finishes with another part of her anatomy.”
Flushing, O’Donnell turned to Dean. “Your partner’s way out of line here.”
“No,” said Dean quietly. “I think Detective Rizzoli’s right on target.”
“This is sheer intimidation.”
Rizzoli laughed. “You were in a room with Warren Hoyt. And you didn’t feel intimidated then?”
O’Donnell fixed her with a cold stare. “It was a clinical interview.”
“You thought it was. But he considered it something else.” Rizzoli moved toward her, a move of quiet aggression that was not lost on O’Donnell. Though O’Donnell was taller and more imposing in both stature and status, she could not match Rizzoli’s unrelenting fierceness, and she flushed even deeper as Rizzoli’s words continued to pummel her.
“He was polite, you said. Cooperative. Well, of course. He had exactly what he wanted: a woman in the room with him. A woman sitting close enough to get him excited. He hides it, though; he’s good at that. Good at holding a perfectly normal conversation, even as he’s thinking about cutting your throat.”
“You are out of control,” said O’Donnell.
“You think I’m just trying to scare you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Here’s something that should really scare the shit out of you. Warren Hoyt got a good whiff of you. He’s been turned on by you. Now he’s out, and he’s hunting again. And guess what? He never forgets a woman’s scent.”
O’Donnell stared back, fear at last registering in her eyes. Rizzoli could not help but derive some satisfaction from seeing that fear. She wanted O’Donnell to have a taste of what she herself had suffered this past year.
“Get used to being afraid,” said Rizzoli. “Because you need to be.”
“I’ve worked with men like him,” said O’Donnell. “I know when to be afraid.”
“Hoyt is different from anyone you’ve ever met.”
O’Donnell gave a laugh. Her bravado had returned, braced by pride. “They’re all different. All unique. And I never turn my back on any of them.”