The Sinner

by Tess Gerritsen

  Rizzoli nodded. “I know the way.”

  They left the harsh light of that room and continued down the hallway. Maura felt a draft here, a whisper of chill air, as though a ghost had just slipped past her. She did not believe in the afterlife, but when walking in the footsteps of those who had recently died, she sometimes wondered if their passing did not leave behind some imprint, some faint disturbance of energy that could be sensed by those who followed.

  Rizzoli knocked on the Abbess’s door, and a tremulous voice said: “Come in.”

  Stepping into the room, Maura smelled the aroma of coffee, as 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 we’ve started renovations. The slates on the roof are new, and we now have insulation in the attic. We plan to replace the furnace, next.” She glanced back at Maura. “Believe it or not, this building feels quite cozy, compared to a year ago.”

  The Abbess took a deep breath and resumed climbing the stairs, her rosary beads clattering. “There used to be forty-five of us here. When I first came to Graystones, we filled all these rooms. Both wings. But now we’re a maturing community.”

  “When did you come, Reverend Mother?” asked Maura.

  “I entered as a postulant when I was eighteen years old. I had a young gentleman who wanted to marry me. I’m afraid his pride was quite wounded when I turned him down for God.” She paused on the step and looked back. For the first time, Maura noticed the bulge of a hearing aid beneath her wimple. “You probably can’t imagine that, can you, Dr. Isles? That I was ever that young?”

  No, Maura couldn’t. She couldn’t imagine Mary Clement as anything but the wobbly relic she was now. Certainly never a desirable woman, pursued by men.

  They reached the top of the stairs, and a long hallway stretched before them. It was warmer up here, almost pleasant, the heat trapped by low dark ceilings. The exposed beams looked at least a century old. The Abbess moved to the second door and hesitated, her hand on the knob. At last she turned it, and the door swung open, gray light from within spilling onto her face. “This is Sister Ursula’s room,” she said softly.

  The room was scarcely large enough to fit all of them at once. Frost and Rizzoli stepped in, but Maura remained by the door, her gaze drifting past shelves lined with books, past flowerpots containing thriving African violets. With its mullioned window and low-beamed ceiling, the room looked medieval. A scholar’s tidy garret, furnished with a simple bed and dresser, a desk and chair.

  “Her bed’s been made,” said Rizzoli, looking down at the neatly tucked sheets.

  “That’s the way we found it this morning,” said Mary Clement.

  “Didn’t she go to sleep last night?”

  “It’s more likely she rose early. She usually does.”

  “How early?”

  “She’s often up hours before Lauds.”

  “Lauds?” asked Frost.

  “Our morning prayers, at seven. This past summer, she was always out early, in the garden. She loves to work in the garden.”

  “And in the winter?” asked Rizzoli. “What does she do so early in the morning?”

  “Whatever the season, there’s always work to be done, for those of us who can still manage it. But so many of the sisters are frail now. This year, we had to hire Mrs. Otis to help us prepare meals. Even with her help, we can scarcely keep up with the chores.”

  Rizzoli opened the closet door. Inside hung an austere collection of blacks and browns. Not a hint of color nor embellishment. It was the wardrobe of a woman for whom the Lord’s work was all-important, for whom the design of clothing was only in His service.

  “These are the only clothes she has? What I see in this closet?” asked Rizzoli.

  “We take a
vow of poverty when we join the order.”

  “Does that mean you give up everything you own?”

  Mary Clement responded with the patient smile one gives to a child who has just asked an absurd question. “It’s not such a hardship, Detective. We keep our books, a few personal mementoes. As you can see, Sister Ursula enjoys her African violets. But yes, we leave almost everything behind when we come here. This is a contemplative order, and we don’t welcome the distractions of the outside world.”

  “Excuse me, Reverend Mother,” said Frost. “I’m not Catholic, so I don’t understand what that word means. What’s a contemplative order?”

  His question had been quietly respectful, and Mary Clement favored him with a warmer smile than she had given Rizzoli. “A contemplative leads a reflective life. A life of prayer and private devotion and meditation. That’s why we retreat behind walls. Why we turn away visitors. Seclusion is a comfort to us.”

  “What if someone breaks the rules?” asked Rizzoli. “Do you kick her out?”

  Maura saw Frost wince at his partner’s bluntly worded question.

  “Our rules are voluntary,” said Mary Clement. “We abide by them because we wish to.”

  “But every so often, there’s got to be some nun who wakes up one morning and says, ‘I feel like going to the beach.’ ”

  “It doesn’t happen.”

  “It must happen. They’re human beings.”

  “It doesn’t happen.”

  “No one breaks the rules? No one jumps the wall?”

  “We have no need to leave the abbey. Mrs. Otis buys our groceries. Father Brophy attends to our spiritual needs.”

  “What about letters? Phone calls? Even in high security prisons, you get to make a phone call every so often.”

  Frost was shaking his head, his expression pained.

  “We have a telephone here, for emergencies,” said Mary Clement.

  “And anyone can use it?”

  “Why would they wish to?”

  “How about mail? Can you get letters?”

  “Some of us choose not to accept any mail.”

  “And if you want to send a letter?”

  “To whom?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Mary Clement’s face had frozen into a tight, lord-give-me-patience smile. “I can only repeat myself, Detective. We are not prisoners. We choose to live this way. Those who don’t agree with these rules may choose to leave.”

  “And what would they do, in the outside world?”

  “You seem to think we have no knowledge of that world. But some of the sisters have served in schools or in hospitals.”

  “I thought being cloistered meant you couldn’t leave the convent.”

  “Sometimes, God calls us to tasks outside the walls. A few years ago, Sister Ursula felt His call to serve abroad, and she was granted exclaustration—permission to live outside while keeping her vows.”

  “But she came back.”

  “Last year.”

  “She didn’t like it out there, in the world?”

  “Her mission in India wasn’t an easy one. And there was violence—a terrorist attack on her village. That’s when she returned to us. Here, she could feel safe again.”

  “She didn’t have family to go home to?”

  “Her closest relative was a brother, who died two years ago. We’re her family now, and Graystones is her home. When you’re tired of the world and in need of comfort, Detective,” the Abbess asked gently, “don’t you go home?”

  The answer seemed to unsettle Rizzoli. Her gaze shifted to the wall, where the crucifix hung. Just as quickly, it caromed away.

  “Reverend Mother?”

  The woman in the grease-stained blue jumper was standing in the hall, looking in at them with flat, incurious eyes. A few more strands of brown hair had come loose from her ponytail and hung limp about her bony face. “Father Brophy says he’s on his way over to deal with the reporters. But there are so many of them calling now that Sister Isabel’s just taken the phone off the hook. She doesn’t know what to tell them.”

  “I’ll be right there, Mrs. Otis.” The Abbess turned to Rizzoli. “As you can see, we’re overwhelmed. Please take as much time as you need here. I’ll be downstairs.”

  “Before you go,” said Rizzoli, “which room is Sister Camille’s?”

  “It’s the fourth door.”

  “And it’s not locked?”

  “There are no locks on these doors,” said Mary Clement. “There never have been.”

  The smell of bleach and Murphy’s Oil Soap was the first thing Maura registered as she stepped into Sister Camille’s room. Like Sister Ursula’s, this room had a mullioned window facing the courtyard and the same low, wood-beamed ceiling. But while Ursula’s room felt lived-in, Camille’s room had been so thoroughly scrubbed and sanitized it felt sterilized. The whitewashed walls were bare except for a wooden crucifix hanging opposite the bed. It would have been the first object Camille’s gaze would fix upon when she awakened each morning, a symbol of her focused existence. This was a chamber for a penitent.

  Maura gazed down at the floor and saw where areas of fierce scrubbing had worn down the finish, leaving patches of lighter wood. She pictured fragile young Camille down on her knees, clutching steel wool, trying to sand away . . . what? A century’s worth of stains? All traces of the women who had lived here before her?

  “Geez,” said Rizzoli. “If cleanliness is next to Godliness, this woman was a saint.”

  Maura crossed to the desk by the window, where a book lay open. Saint Brigid of Ireland: A Biography. She imagined Camille reading at this pristine desk, the window light playing on her delicate features. She wondered if, on warm days, Camille ever removed her novice’s white veil and sat bareheaded, letting the breeze through the window blow across her cropped blond hair.

  “There’s blood here,” said Frost.

  Maura turned and saw that he was standing by the bed, staring down at the rumpled sheets.

  Rizzoli peeled back the covers, revealing bright red stains on the bottom sheet.

  “Menstrual blood,” said Maura, and saw Frost flush and turn away. Even married men were squeamish when it came to intimate details of women’s bodily functions.

  The clang of the bell drew Maura’s gaze back to the window. She watched as a nun emerged from the building to open the gate. Four visitors wearing yellow slickers entered the courtyard.

  “CSU’s arrived,” said Maura.

  “I’ll go down and meet them,” said Frost, and he left the room.

  Sleet was still falling, ticking against the glass, and a layer of rime distorted her view of the courtyard below. Maura caught a watery view of Frost stepping out to greet the crime-scene techs. Fresh invaders, violating the sanctity of the abbey. And beyond the wall, others were waiting to invade as well. She saw a TV news van creep past the gate, cameras no doubt rolling. How did they find their way here so quickly? Was the scent of death so powerful?

  She turned to look at Rizzoli. “You’re Catholic, Jane. Aren’t you?”

  Rizzoli snorted as she picked through Camille’s closet. “Me? Catechism dropout.”

  “When did you stop believing?”

  “About the same time I stopped believing in Santa Claus. Never did make it to my confirmation, which to this day still pisses off my dad. Jesus, what a boring closet. Let’s see, shall I wear the black or the brown habit today? Why would any girl in her right mind want to be a nun?”

  “Not all nuns wear habits. Not since Vatican II.”

  “Yeah, but that chastity thing, that hasn’t changed. Imagine no sex for the rest of your life.”

  “I don’t know,” said Maura. “It might be a relief to stop thinking about men.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible.” She shut the closet door and slowly scanned the room, looking for . . . what? Maura wondered. The key to Camille’s personality? The explanation for why her life had ended so young, so brutally? But there w
ere no clues here that Maura could see. This was a room swept clean of all traces of its occupant. That, perhaps, was the most telling clue of all to Camille’s personality. A young woman scrubbing, always scrubbing away at dirt. At sin.

  Rizzoli crossed to the bed and dropped down to her hands and knees to look underneath. “Geez, it’s so clean under here you can eat off the goddamn floor.”

  Wind shook the window and sleet clattered against the glass. Maura turned and watched Frost and the CSTs cross toward the chapel. One of the techs suddenly slid across the stones, arms flung out like a skater as he struggled to stay upright. We’re all struggling to stay upright, Maura thought. Resisting the pull of temptation, just as we fight the pull of gravity. And when we finally fall, it’s always such a surprise.

  The team stepped into the chapel, and she imagined them standing in a silent circle, staring down at Sister Ursula’s blood, their breaths marked by puffs of steam.

  Behind her there was a thud.

  She turned and was alarmed to see Rizzoli sitting on the floor next to the toppled chair. She had her head hanging between her knees.

  “Jane.” Maura knelt beside her. “Jane?”

  Rizzoli waved her away. “I’m okay. I’m okay. . . .”

  “What happened?”

  “I just . . . I think I got up too fast. I’m just a little dizzy. . . .” Rizzoli tried to straighten, then quickly dropped her head again.

  “You should lie down.”

  “I don’t need to lie down. Just give me a minute to clear my head.”

  Maura remembered that Rizzoli had not looked well in the chapel, her face too pale, her lips dusky. At the time she’d assumed it was because the detective was chilled. Now they were in a warm room, and Rizzoli looked just as drained.

  “Did you eat breakfast this morning?” Maura asked.

  “Uh . . .”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “Yeah, I guess I ate. Sort of.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “A piece of toast, okay?” Rizzoli shook off Maura’s hand, an impatient rejection of any help. It was that fierce pride that sometimes made her so difficult to work with. “I think I’m coming down with the flu.”