The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

happened to visit here that week? ‘Oh by the way, did you sleep with my stepdaughter?’ ”
    “We have the infant’s DNA. With your help, we might be able to identify the father.”
    Lauren shot to her feet. “I’d like you to leave now.”
    “Your stepdaughter’s dead. Don’t you want us to find her killer?”
    “You’re looking in the wrong place.” She walked to the doorway and called out: “Maria! Can you show these policemen out?”
    “DNA would give us the answer, Mrs. Maginnes. With just a few swabs, we could put all suspicions to rest.”
    Lauren turned and faced her. “Then start with the priests. And leave my family alone.”
             
     
    Rizzoli slid into the car and pulled the door shut. As Frost warmed the engine, she gazed at the house, and remembered how impressed she’d been when she’d caught her first glimpse of it.
    Before she had met the people inside.
    “Now I know why Camille left home,” she said. “Imagine growing up in that house. With those brothers. With that stepmother.”
    “They seemed a lot more upset about our questions than about the girl’s death.”
    As they drove through the granite pillars, Rizzoli took one last backward look at the house. Imagined a young girl, gliding like a wraith among those vast rooms. A girl derided by her stepbrothers, ignored by her stepmother. A girl whose hopes and dreams are ridiculed by those who are supposed to love her. Every day in that house would bring another punishing blow to your soul, more painful than the sting of frostbite as you walk barefoot in the snow. You want to be closer to God, to know the unconditional warmth of His love. For that they laugh at you, or pity you, or tell you that you’re a candidate for the psychiatrist’s couch.
    No wonder the walls of the convent had seemed so welcoming.
    Rizzoli sighed and turned to look at the road that stretched ahead. “Let’s go home,” she said.
             
     
    “This diagnosis has me stumped,” said Maura.
    She laid out a series of digital photographs on the conference room table. Her four colleagues did not so much as flinch at the images, for they had all seen far worse sights in the autopsy lab than these views of rat-bitten skin and angry nodules. They seemed far more focused on the box of fresh blueberry muffins that Louise had brought in that morning for case conference, an offering that the doctors were happily devouring, even as they stared at stomach-turning photos. Those who work with the dead learn to keep the sights and smells of their jobs from ruining their appetites, and among the pathologists now seated at the table was one known to be particularly fond of seared foie gras, a pleasure undimmed by the fact he dissected human livers by day. Judging by his ample belly, nothing ruined Dr. Abe Bristol’s appetite, and he happily munched on his third muffin as Maura set down the last of the images.
    “This is your Jane Doe?” asked Dr. Costas.
    Maura nodded. “Female, approximate age thirty to forty-five, with a gunshot wound to the chest. She was found about thirty-six hours after death inside an abandoned building. There was postmortem excision of the face, as well as amputations of the hands and the feet.”
    “Whoa. There’s a sick boy for you.”
    “It’s these skin lesions that stump me,” she said, gesturing to the array of photos. “The rodents did some damage, but there’s enough intact skin left to see the gross appearance of these underlying lesions.”
    Dr. Costas picked up one of the photos. “I’m no expert,” he said solemnly, “but I’d call this a classic case of red bumps.”
    Everyone laughed. Physicians flummoxed by skin lesions often resorted to simply describing the skin’s appearance, without knowing its cause. Red bumps could be caused by anything from a viral infection to autoimmune disease, and few skin lesions are unique enough to point to an immediate diagnosis.
    Dr. Bristol stopped chewing his muffin long enough to point to one of the photos and say, “You’ve got some ulcerations here.”
    “Yes, some of the nodules have shallow ulcerations with crust formation. And a few have the silvery scales you’d see in psoriasis.”
    “Bacterial cultures?”
    “Nothing unusual is growing out. Just
Staph. epidermidis
.”
    Staph epi was a common skin bacteria, and Bristol merely shrugged. “Contaminant.”
    “What about the skin biopsies?” asked Costas.
    “I looked at the slides