The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

Detective Rizzoli’s decision to search the abbey.”
    “Without telling us why.”
    “Police investigations are usually played close to the vest.”
    “It’s because you didn’t trust us. Isn’t that right?”
    Maura looked into Mary Clement’s accusing gaze and found she could not respond with anything but the truth. “We had no choice but to proceed with caution.”
    Rather than make her angrier, that honest answer seemed to defuse the Abbess’s outrage. Looking suddenly drained, she leaned back in her chair, transforming into the frail and elderly woman she really was. “What a world it is, when even we cannot be trusted.”
    “Like everyone else, Reverend Mother.”
    “But that’s just it, Dr. Isles. We are not like everyone else.” She said this without any note of superiority. Rather, it was sadness that Maura heard in her voice, and bewilderment. “We would have helped you. We would have cooperated, if we’d known what you were looking for.”
    “You really had no idea that Camille was pregnant?”
    “How could we? When Detective Rizzoli told me this morning, I didn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it.”
    “I’m afraid the proof was in the pond.”
    The Abbess seemed to shrink even smaller into her chair. Her gaze fell on her arthritis-gnarled hands. She was silent, staring at those hands as though they did not belong to her. Softly she said: “How could we not have known?”
    “Pregnancies can be concealed. Teenage girls have been known to hide their condition from their own mothers. Some women deny it even to themselves, until the moment they give birth. Camille herself may have been in denial. I have to admit, I was completely taken aback at autopsy. It wasn’t at all what I expected to find in . . .”
    “A nun,” Mary Clement said. She looked straight at Maura.
    “That’s not to say nuns aren’t human.”
    A faint smile. “Thank for you acknowledging that.”
    “And she was so young—”
    “Do you think only the young struggle with temptation?”
    Maura thought of her restless night. Of Victor, sleeping right down the hall.
    “All our lives,” said Mary Clement, “we’re enticed by one thing or another. The temptations change, of course. When you’re young, it’s a handsome boy. Then it’s sweets or food. Or, when you get old and tired, just the chance to sleep an extra hour in the morning. So many petty desires, and we’re just as vulnerable to them as everyone else, only we’re not allowed to admit it. Our vows set us apart. Wearing the veil may be a joy, Dr. Isles. But perfection is a burden that none of us can live up to.”
    “Least of all, such a young woman.”
    “It gets no easier with age.”
    “Camille was only twenty. She must have had some doubts about taking her final vows.”
    Mary Clement did not answer at first. She stared out the window, which faced only a barren wall. A view that would remind her, every time she glanced out, that her world was enclosed by stone. She said, “I was twenty-one when I took my final vows.”
    “And did you have doubts?”
    “Not a single one.” She looked at Maura. “I knew.”
    “How?”
    “Because God spoke to me.”
    Maura said nothing.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” Mary Clement said. “That only psychotics hear voices. Only psychotics hear the angels speak to them. You’re a doctor, and you probably see everything with a scientist’s eye. You’ll tell me it was just a dream. Or a chemical imbalance. A temporary bout of schizophrenia. I know all the theories. I know what they say about Joan of Arc—that they burned a madwoman at the stake. It’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”
    “I’m afraid I’m not religious.”
    “But you were, once?”
    “I was raised Catholic. It’s what my adoptive parents believed.”
    “Then you’re familiar with the lives of the saints. Many of them heard God’s voice. How do you explain that?”
    Maura hesitated, knowing that what she said next would likely offend the Abbess. “Auditory hallucinations are often interpreted as religious experiences.”
    Mary Clement did not seem to take offense, as Maura had expected. She simply gazed back, her eyes steady. “Do I seem insane to you?”
    “Not at all.”
    “Yet here I am, telling you that I once heard the voice of God.” Her gaze wandered, once again, to the window. To the gray wall, its stones glistening with ice. “You’re only the second person I’ve told this to, because I know