The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

way deeper into their sanctuary. Their gazes swerved in unison, following her as she moved past.
    The entrance to the chapel was draped with a strand of yellow crime scene tape, which had sagged in the doorway and hung crusted with sleet. She lifted the tape to step beneath it and pushed open the door.
    A camera flash exploded in her eyes and she froze, the door slowly hissing shut behind her, blinking away the afterimage that had seared her retinas. As her vision cleared, she saw rows of wooden pews, whitewashed walls, and at the front of the chapel, an enormous crucifix hanging above the altar. It was a coldly austere room, its gloom deepened by the stained glass windows, which admitted only a murky smear of light.
    “Hold it right there. Be careful where you step,” said the photographer.
    Maura looked down at the stone floor and saw blood. And footprints—a confusing jumble of them, along with medical debris. Syringe caps and torn wrappings. The leavings of an ambulance crew. But no body.
    Her gaze moved in a wider circle, taking in the piece of trampled white cloth lying in the aisle, the splashes of red on the pews. She could see her own breath in this frigid room, and the temperature seemed to drop even colder, her chill deepening as she read the bloodstains, saw the successive splashes moving up the rows of benches, and understood what had happened here.
    The photographer began to click off more shots, each one a visual assault on Maura’s eyes.
    “Hey Doc?” At the front of the chapel, a mop of dark hair popped up as Detective Jane Rizzoli rose to her feet and waved. “The vic’s up here.”
    “What about this blood here, by the door?”
    “That’s from the other victim, Sister Ursula. Med-Q boys took her to St. Francis. There’s more blood along that center aisle, and some footprints we’re trying to preserve, so you’d better circle around to your left. Stick close to the wall.”
    Maura paused to pull on paper shoe-covers, then edged along the perimeter of the room, hugging the wall. Only as she cleared the front row of pews did she see the nun’s body, lying faceup, the fabric of her habit a black pool blending into a larger lake of red. Both hands had already been bagged to preserve evidence. The victim’s youth took Maura by surprise. The nun who had let her in the gate, and those she had seen through the window, had all been elderly. This woman was far younger. It was an ethereal face, her pale blue eyes frozen in a look of eerie serenity. Her head was bare, the blond hair shorn to barely an inch long. Every terrible blow was recorded in the torn scalp, the misshapen crown.
    “Her name’s Camille Maginnes. Sister Camille. Hometown, Hyannisport,” said Rizzoli, sounding Dragnet-cool and businesslike. “She was the first novice they’ve had here in fifteen years. Planned to take her final vows in May.” She paused, then added: “She was only twenty,” and her anger cracked through the facade.
    “She’s so young.”
    “Yeah. Looks like he beat the shit out of her.”
    Maura pulled on gloves and crouched down to study the destruction. The death instrument had left raggedly linear lacerations on the scalp. Fragments of bone protruded through torn skin, and a clump of gray matter had oozed out. Though the facial skin was largely intact, it was suffused a dark purple.
    “She died facedown. Who turned her onto her back?”
    “The sisters who found her,” said Rizzoli. “They were looking for a pulse.”
    “What time were the victims discovered?”
    “About eight this morning.” Rizzoli glanced at her watch. “Nearly two hours ago.”
    “Do you know what happened? What did the sisters tell you?”
    “It’s been hard getting anything useful out of them. There are only fourteen nuns left now, and they’re all in a state of shock. Here they think they’re safe. Protected by God. And then some lunatic breaks in.”
    “There are signs of forced entry?”
    “No, but it wouldn’t be all that hard to get into the compound. There’s ivy growing all over the walls—you could hop right over without too much trouble. And there’s also a back gate, leading to a field, where they have their gardens. A perp could get in that way, too.”
    “Footprints?”
    “A few in here. But outside, they’d be pretty much buried under snow.”
    “So we don’t know that he actually broke in. He could have been admitted through that front gate.”
    “It’s a cloistered order, Doc. No