The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

delicious as perfume. She saw dark wood paneling and a simple crucifix mounted on the wall above an oak desk. Behind that desk sat a stooped nun whose eyes were magnified to enormous blue pools by her glasses. She appeared every bit as old as her frail sisters seated around the rectory table, and her glasses looked so heavy they might pitch her face-forward onto her desk. But the eyes gazing through those thick lenses were alert and bright with intelligence.
    Rizzoli’s partner, Barry Frost, at once set down his coffee cup and rose to his feet out of politeness. Frost was the equivalent of everybody’s kid brother, the one cop in the homicide unit who could walk into an interrogation room and make a suspect believe Frost was his best friend. He was also the one cop in the unit who never seemed to mind working with the mercurial Rizzoli, who even now was scowling at his cup of coffee, no doubt registering the fact that while she had been shivering in the chapel, her partner was sitting comfortably in this heated room.
    “Reverend Mother,” said Frost, “This is Dr. Isles, from the Medical Examiner’s office. Doc, this is Mother Mary Clement.”
    Maura reached for the Abbess’s hand. It was gnarled, the skin like dry paper over bones. As she shook it, Maura spotted a beige cuff peeking out from under the black sleeve. So this was how the nuns tolerated such a cold building. Beneath her woollen habit, the Abbess was wearing long underwear.
    Distorted blue eyes gazed at her through thick lenses. “The Medical Examiner’s office? Does that mean you’re a physician?”
    “Yes. A pathologist.”
    “You study causes of death?”
    “That’s right.”
    The Abbess paused, as though gathering the courage to ask the next question. “Have you already been inside the chapel? Have you seen . . .”
    Maura nodded. She wanted to cut off the question she knew was coming, but she was incapable of rudeness to a nun. Even at the age of forty, she was still unnerved by the sight of a black habit.
    “Did she . . .” Mary Clement’s voice slipped to a whisper. “Did Sister Camille suffer greatly?”
    “I’m afraid I have no answers yet. Not until I complete the . . . examination.”
Autopsy
was what she meant, but the word seemed too cold, too clinical, for Mary Clement’s sheltered ears. Nor did she want to reveal the terrible truth: That in fact, she had a very good idea of what had happened to Camille. Someone had confronted the young woman in the chapel. Someone had pursued her as she fled in terror up the aisle, wrenching off her white novice’s veil. As his blows avulsed her scalp, her blood had splashed the pews, yet she had staggered onward, until at last she stumbled to her knees, conquered at his feet. Even then her attacker did not stop. Even then, he had kept swinging, crushing her skull like an egg.
    Avoiding Mary Clement’s eyes, Maura briefly lifted her gaze to the wooden cross mounted on the wall behind the desk, but that imposing symbol was no more comfortable for her to confront.
    Rizzoli cut in, “We haven’t seen their bedrooms yet.” As usual, she was all business, focusing only on what needed to be done next.
    Mary Clement blinked back tears. “Yes. I was about to take Detective Frost upstairs to their chambers.”
    Rizzoli nodded. “We’re ready when you are.”
             
     
    The Abbess led the way up a stairway illuminated only by the glow of daylight through a stained glass window. On bright days, the sun would have painted the walls with a rich palette of colors, but on this wintry morning, the walls were murky with shades of gray.
    “The upstairs rooms are mostly empty now. Over the years, we’ve had to move the sisters downstairs, one by one,” said Mary Clement, climbing slowly, grasping the handrail as though hauling herself up, step by step. Maura half expected her to tumble backwards, and she stayed right behind her, tensing every time the Abbess paused, wobbling. “Sister Jacinta’s knee is bothering her these days, so she’ll take a room downstairs, too. And now Sister Helen has trouble catching her breath. There are so few of us left. . . .”
    “It’s quite a large building to maintain,” said Maura.
    “And old.” The Abbess paused to catch her breath. She added, with a sad laugh, “Old like us. And so expensive to keep up. We thought we might have to sell, but God found a way for us to hold onto it.”
    “How?”
    “A donor came forward last year. Now