The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

“Don’t wanna.”
    “I don’t care if you don’t want to. These are the police.”
    Noni’s gaze remained on Rizzoli. “They don’t look like the police.”
    “Well, they are,” Grace said. “And if you don’t tell the truth, they’ll put you in jail.”
    This was exactly what cops hated to hear a parent say. It made children afraid of the very people they were supposed to trust.
    Rizzoli quickly motioned to Grace to stop talking. She dropped to a crouch in front of Noni’s chair, so that she and the girl were eye to eye. They were so strikingly alike, both with curly dark hair and intense gazes, that Rizzoli could have been facing a young clone of herself. If Noni was equally stubborn, then there were fireworks ahead.
    “Let’s get something clear right off, okay?” Rizzoli said to the girl, her voice brusque and matter-of-fact, as though she was speaking not to a child but to a miniature adult. “I won’t put you in jail. I don’t ever put kids in jail.”
    The girl eyed her dubiously. “Even bad kids?” she challenged.
    “Not even bad kids.”
    “Even really, really bad kids?”
    Rizzoli hesitated, a spark of irritation in her eyes. Noni was not about to let her off the hook. “Okay,” she conceded. “The really,
really
bad ones I send to juvenile hall.”
    “That’s jail for kids.”
    “Right.”
    “So you do send kids to jail.”
    Rizzoli shot Maura a
can you believe this
? look. “Okay,” she sighed. “You got me there. But I’m not gonna put
you
in jail. I just want to talk to you.”
    “How come you don’t have a uniform?”
    “Because I’m a detective. We don’t have to wear uniforms. But I really am a policeman.”
    “But you’re a woman.”
    “Yeah. Okay. Policewoman. So you wanna tell me what you were doing up there, in the attic?”
    Noni hunched down in the chair and just stared like a gargoyle at her questioner. For a solid minute, they eyed each other, waiting for the other one to break the silence first.
    Grace finally lost her patience and gave the girl a whack on the shoulder. “Go on! Tell her!”
    “Please, Mrs. Otis,” said Rizzoli. “That’s not necessary.”
    “But you see how she is? Nothing’s ever easy with her. Everything’s a struggle.”
    “Let’s just relax, okay? I can wait.”
I can wait as long as you can, kid,
Rizzoli’s gaze told the girl. “So c’mon, Noni. Tell us where you got those dolls. The ones you were playing with up there.”
    “I didn’t steal them.”
    “I never said you did.”
    “I found them. A whole box of them.”
    “Where?”
    “In the attic. There are other boxes up there, too.”
    Grace said, “You weren’t supposed to be up there. You’re supposed to stay near the kitchen and not bother anyone.”
    “I wasn’t bothering anyone. Even if I wanted to, there’s no one in this whole
place
to bother.”
    “So you found the dolls in the attic,” Rizzoli said, directing the conversation back to the subject at hand.
    “A whole box of them.”
    Rizzoli turned a questioning look at Mary Clement, who answered: “They were part of a charity project some years ago. We sewed doll clothes, for donation to an orphanage in Mexico.”
    “So you found the dolls,” Rizzoli said to Noni. “And you played with them up there?”
    “No one else was using them.”
    “And how did you know how to get into the attic?”
    “I saw the man go in there.”
    The man?
Rizzoli shot a glance at Maura. She leaned closer to Noni. “What man?”
    “He had things on his belt.”
    “Things?”
    “A hammer and stuff.” She pointed to the Abbess. “She saw him too. She was talking to him.”
    Mother Mary Clement gave a startled laugh. “Oh! I know who she means. We’ve had a number of renovations in the last few months. There’ve been men working in the attic, installing new insulation.”
    “When was this?” asked Rizzoli.
    “In October.”
    “Do you have the names of all these men?”
    “I can check the ledgers. We keep a record of all payments we’ve made to the contractors.”
    So it was not such a startling revelation after all. The girl had spied workmen climbing into a hidden space she hadn’t known about. A mysterious space, reachable only through a secret door. To take a peek inside would be irresistible for any child—especially one this inquisitive.
    “You didn’t mind the dark up there?” asked Rizzoli.
    “I have a flashlight, you know.”
What a stupid question,
Noni’s tone of voice