The Sinner

by Tess Gerritsen

  The lucky one, thought Maura. Spared from slaughter, only to come home to Graystones Abbey and find that Death had not forgotten her. That even here, she could not escape his hand.

  Mary Clement’s gaze met Maura’s. “You’ll find nothing shameful in her past. Only a lifetime of service in God’s name. Leave our sister’s memory alone, Dr. Isles. Leave her at peace.”

  Maura and Rizzoli stood on the sidewalk outside what had once been Mama Cortina’s restaurant, and the wind sliced like an icy blade through their coats. It was the first time Maura had viewed this scene in daylight, and she saw a street of abandoned buildings, and windows that stared down like empty eye sockets.

  “Nice neighborhood you’ve brought me to,” said Rizzoli. She looked up at the faded sign for Mama Cortina’s. “Your Jane Doe was found in there?”

  “In the men’s bathroom. She’d been dead about thirty-six hours when I examined her.”

  “And you’ve got no leads on her ID?”

  Maura shook her head. “Considering her advanced stage of Hansen’s disease, there’s a good chance she was a recent immigrant. Possibly undocumented.”

  Rizzoli hugged her coat tighter. “Ben-Hur,” she murmured. “That’s what it makes me think of. The Valley of the Lepers.”

  “Ben-Hur was just a movie.”

  “But the disease is real. What it does to your face, your hands.”

  “It can be highly mutilating. That’s what terrified the ancients. Why just the sight of a leper could send people screaming in horror.”

  “Jesus. To think we have it right here in Boston.” Rizzoli shuddered. “It’s freezing. Let’s get inside.”

  They stepped into the alley, their shoes crunching along the icy trough that had formed from the footsteps of so many law enforcement officers. Here they might be protected from the wind, but the well of gloom between the buildings felt somehow colder, the air ominously still. Police tape lay across the threshold of the restaurant’s alley doorway.

  Maura took out the key and inserted it in the padlock, but it would not pop open. She crouched down, jiggling the key in the frozen lock.

  “Why do their fingers fall off?” asked Rizzoli.

  “What?”

  “When you catch leprosy. Why do you lose your fingers? Does it attack the skin, like flesh-eating bacteria?”

  “No, it does its damage in a different way. The leprosy bacillus attacks the peripheral nerves, so your fingers and toes go numb. You can’t feel any pain. Pain is our warning system, part of our defense mechanism against injury. Without it, you could accidentally stick your fingers in boiling hot water, and not sense that your skin’s being burned. Or you don’t feel that blister building on your foot. You can injure yourself again and again, leading to secondary infections. Gangrene.” Maura paused, frustrated by the stubborn lock.

  “Here. Let me try.”

  Maura stepped aside and gratefully slipped her gloved hands in her pockets while Rizzoli jiggled the key.

  “In poorer countries,” said Maura, “it’s the rats that do the actual damage to hands and feet.”

  Rizzoli looked up with a frown. “Rats?”

  “In the night, while you’re sleeping. They crawl onto your bed and gnaw on fingers and toes.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “And you don’t feel a thing, because leprosy has made your skin numb. When you wake up the next morning, you discover the tips of your fingers are gone. That all you’ve got left are bloody stumps.”

  Rizzoli stared at her, then gave the key a sharp twist.

  The padlock popped open. The door swung ajar, to reveal shades of gray blending into blackness.

  “Welcome to Mama Cortina’s,” said Maura.

  Rizzoli paused on the threshold, her Maglite beam cutting across the room. “Something’s moving inside,” she murmured.

  “Rats.”

  “Let’s not talk any more about rats.”

  Maura switched on her own flashlight and followed Rizzoli into a darkness that smelled of rancid grease.

  “He brought her through here, into the dining room,” said Maura, her flashlight playing across the floor. “They found some drag marks through the dust, probably left by the heels of her shoes. He must have grasped her under the arms and hauled her backwards.”

  “You’d think he wouldn’t even want to touch her.”

  “I would assume he was wearing gloves, because he left no fingerprints.”

  “Still, he was rubbing up against her clothes. Exposing himself to infection.”

  “You’re thinking of it the way the ancients did. As though one touch from a leper will turn you into a monster. It’s not as transmissible as you think.”

  “But you can catch it. You can get infected.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the next thing you know, your nose and fingers are falling off.”

  “It’s treatable. There are antibiotics.”

  “I don’t care if it’s treatable,” said Rizzoli, now moving slowly across the kitchen. “This is leprosy we’re talking about. Something straight out of the Bible.”

  They pushed through the swinging door, into the dining room. Rizzoli’s Maglite swept a circle, and stacked chairs gleamed at the periphery. Though they couldn’t see the infestation, they could hear the faint rustling. The darkness was alive.

  “Which way?” said Rizzoli. Her voice now a murmur, as though they had entered hostile territory.

  “Keep going. There’s a hallway to the right, at that end of the room.”

  Their lights played across the floor. The last traces of the drag marks had been obliterated by the passage of all the law enforcement personnel who had since tramped through. On the night Maura had come to this death scene, she had been flanked by Detectives Crowe and Sleeper, had known that an army of CSTs were already poised to move in with their scopes and cameras and fingerprint powders. That night, she had not been afraid.

  Now she found herself breathing hard. Found herself staying close behind Rizzoli, acutely conscious of the fact that she had no one to watch her own back. She felt her neck hairs rise, her attention focused with exquisite sensitivity on any sounds, any hint of movement behind her.

  Rizzoli halted, flashlight veering to the right. “This is the hallway?”

  “The bathroom’s at that end.”

  Rizzoli moved forward, light bouncing from one wall to the other. At the last doorway she paused, as though already knowing that what came next would be disturbing. She cast her light into the room and stood staring at smears of blood on the tile floor. Her light briefly slid across the walls, past the bathroom stall and porcelain urinals and rust-stained sinks. Then it returned, as though pulled by magnetic force, to the floor where the corpse had lain.

  A place of death has a power all its own. Long after the body is removed and the blood scrubbed away, such a place still retains the memory of what has happened there. It holds echoes of screams, the lingering scent of fear. And like a black hole, it sucks into its vortex the rapt attention of the living, who cannot turn away, cannot resist a glimpse into hell.

  Rizzoli crouched down to look at the blood-smeared tiles.

  “It was a clean shot, into her heart,” said Maura, squatting down beside her. “Pericardial tamponade, leading to rapid cardiac arrest. That’s why there’s so little blood on the floor. She had no heartbeat, no circulation. When he performed the amputations, he was cutting into a corpse.”

  They fell silent, their gazes on the brown stains. Here in this bathroom, there were no windows. A light shining in this room wouldn’t be visible from the street. Whoever wielded the knife could take his time, lingering undisturbed over the object of his butchery. There were no screams to muffle, no threat of discovery. He could cut at his leisure, through skin and joint, harvesting his prizes in flesh.

  And when he was done, he left the body in this place where vermin reigned, where rats and roaches would feast, obliterating whatever flesh remained.

 
Maura rose to her feet, breathing hard. Though the building was frigid, her hands were sweating inside her gloves, and she felt her heart pounding.

  “Can we go now?” she said.

  “Wait. Let me look around some more.”

  “There’s nothing more to see here.”

  “We just got here, Doc.”

  Maura glanced toward the dark hallway and shivered. She felt an odd shift in the air, a chill breath that raised the hairs on her neck. The door, she thought suddenly. We left the door to the alley unlocked.

  Rizzoli was still crouched over the bloodstains, her Maglite slowly skimming the floor, her attention focused only on the blood. She’s not rattled, thought Maura. Why should I be? Calm down, calm down.

  She edged toward the doorway. Wielded her light like a saber, slashing it swiftly into the dark hallway.

  Saw nothing.

  The hairs on the back of her neck were standing straight up.

  “Rizzoli,” she whispered. “Can we get out of here now?”

  Only then did Rizzoli hear the tension in Maura’s voice. She asked, just as quietly: “What is it?”

  “I want to leave.”

  “Why?”

  Maura stared into the dark hallway. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”

  Rizzoli rose to her feet. Said, softly: “Okay.” She stepped past Maura into the hallway. Paused, as though sniffing the air for any hint of a threat. Fearless Rizzoli, always in the lead, thought Maura, as she followed the detective back up the hallway and through the dining room. They stepped into the kitchen, flashlights beaming. Perfect targets, she realized. And here we come, creaking across the floor, our beams like two bull’s-eyes.

  Maura felt a whoosh of cold air and stared at the silhouette of a man, standing in the open doorway. She froze, a stunned observer, as voices suddenly exploded in the shadows.

  Rizzoli, already in a combat crouch, screamed: “Freeze!”

  “Drop your weapon!”

  “I said freeze, asshole!” Rizzoli commanded.

  “Boston PD! I’m Boston PD!”

  “Who the hell . . .”

  Rizzoli’s flashlight suddenly lit on the intruder’s face. He raised his arm against the glare, his eyes narrowed. There was a long silence.

  Rizzoli gave a snort of disgust. “Oh shit.”

  “Yeah, nice to see you, too,” said Detective Crowe. “I guess this must be where all the action is.”

  “I could’ve blown off your fucking head,” said Rizzoli. “You should have warned us you were coming in . . .” Her voice trailed off. She went very still as another silhouette appeared. A tall man moved with catlike grace past Crowe, and into the circle of Rizzoli’s flashlight beam. The light suddenly wavered, her hand shaking too much to hold it steady.

  “Hello Jane,” said Gabriel Dean.

  The darkness only seemed to magnify the long silence.

  When Rizzoli finally managed to respond, her tone was strangely flat. Businesslike.

  “I didn’t know you were in town.”

  “I just flew in this morning.”

  She reholstered her weapon. Drew herself up straight. “What are you doing here?”

  “The same thing you are. Detective Crowe is walking me through the scene.”

  “The FBI’s coming in on this? Why?”

  Dean glanced around their shadowy surroundings. “We should talk about this somewhere else. Somewhere warm, at least. I’d like to hear how your case intersects with this one, Jane.”

  “If we talk, the info has to go both ways,” said Rizzoli.

  “Of course.”

  “All cards on the table.”

  Dean nodded. “You’ll know everything that I know.”

  “Look,” said Crowe, “Let me finish walking Agent Dean through here. We’ll meet you back at the conference room. At least we’ll have enough light to see each other. And we won’t be standing around, freezing our asses off.”

  Rizzoli nodded. “The conference room, two o’clock. We’ll see you there.”

  FOURTEEN

  RIZZOLI FUMBLED for her car keys and dropped them in the snow. Cursed as she squatted down to retrieve them.

  “Are you okay?” asked Maura.

  “He took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting . . .” She stood up and huffed out a cloud of steam. “Jesus, what is he doing here? What the hell is he doing here?”

  “His job, I imagine.”

  “I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready to work with him again.”

  “You may not have a choice.”

  “I know. And that’s what pisses me off, that I don’t have a choice.” Rizzoli unlocked her car and they both slid inside, onto icy seats.

  “Are you going to tell him?”asked Maura.

  Grimly Rizzoli started the engine. “No.”

  “He’d want to know.”

  “I’m not sure he would. I’m not sure any man would.”

  “So you’re just writing off the happy ending? Not even giving it a chance?”

  Rizzoli sighed. “Maybe, if we were different people, there would be a chance.”

  “The affair didn’t happen to other people. It happened to you two.”

  “Right. What a surprise, huh?”

  “Why?”

  For a moment Rizzoli was silent, her gaze fixed on the road ahead. “You know what my two brothers used to call me when we were growing up?” she said softly. “The frog. They said no prince would ever want to kiss a frog. Much less marry me.”

  “Brothers can be cruel.”

  “But sometimes they just tell you the brutal truth.”

  “When Agent Dean looks at you, I don’t think he sees a frog.”

  Rizzoli shrugged. “Who knows what he sees?”

  “An intelligent woman?”

  “Yeah, that’s really sexy.”

  “To some men, it is.”

  “Or so they claim. But you know what? I have a hard time believing it. Given the choice, men always go for the tits and ass.”

  Rizzoli focused with angry intensity on the road as they drove down streets where dirty snow crusted sidewalks and the windows of parked cars were frosted white.

  “He saw something in you, Jane. Enough to want you.”

  “It was the case we were working. The excitement of the hunt. It makes you feel alive, you know? When you start to close in, the adrenaline gets pumping and everything looks different, feels different. You’re working with someone around the clock, working so close to him that you know his scent. You know how he drinks his coffee and how he ties his tie. Then the case turns hairy, you get angry together and scared together. And pretty soon it starts to feel like love. But it isn’t. It’s just two people, working in a situation so intense that they can’t tell the difference between lust and the thrill of the chase. That’s what I think happened. We met over a few dead bodies. And after a while, even I started to look good to him.”

  “Is that all he was to you? Someone who started to look good?”

  “Well, shit. He does look good.”

  “Because if you don’t love him—if you don’t even care about him—then seeing him now shouldn’t be all that painful. Should it?”

  “I don’t know!” was Rizzoli’s exasperated response. “I don’t know what I feel about him!”

  “Does it depend on whether he loves you?”

  “I’m sure not going to ask him.”

  “It’s one way to get a straight answer.”

  “How does that old saying go? If you don’t want to hear the answer, then you shouldn’t ask the question?”

  “You never know. The answer might surprise you.”

  At Schroeder Plaza, they stopped in the cafeteria to pick up coffee and carried their cups upstairs, to the conference room. While waiting for Crowe and Dean to arrive, Maura watched Rizzoli rustle through papers and search through files as though they held some secret s
he was desperate to uncover. At two fifteen, they finally heard the faint chime of the elevator bell, and then Crowe’s laughter in the hall. Rizzoli’s spine went rigid. As the men’s voices drew nearer, her gaze remained fixed on the papers. When Dean appeared in the doorway, she did not immediately look up, as though refusing to acknowledge his power over her.

  Maura had first met Special Agent Gabriel Dean in late August, when he had joined the homicide team investigating the slayings of wealthy couples in the Boston area. A man of imposing stature and quiet intelligence, he had quickly come to dominate that team, and his conflict with Rizzoli, the lead investigating officer, was almost guaranteed from the start. Maura had been the first to watch that conflict transform into attraction. She had noticed the first sparks of their affair, had seen their gazes meet over the bodies of victims. She had taken note of Rizzoli’s blushes, her uncertainty. The first stages of love were always fraught with confusion.

  As were the last stages of love.

  Dean came into the room, and his gaze immediately fixed on Rizzoli. He was dressed in a suit and tie, his crisp appearance a contrast to Rizzoli’s wrinkled blouse and unruly hair. When at last she looked up at him, it was almost with an air of defiance. So here I am. Take it or leave it.

  Crowe swaggered to the head of the table. “Okay, the gang’s all here. It’s time for show and tell.” He looked at Rizzoli.

  “Let’s hear from the FBI first,” she said.

  Dean opened the briefcase he’d carried into the room. He took out a folder and slid it across the table to Rizzoli.

  “That photograph was taken ten days ago, in Providence, Rhode Island,” he said

  Rizzoli opened the folder. Maura, sitting beside her, had a full view of the photograph. It was a death scene photo, taken of a man curled into a fetal position inside the trunk of a car. Blood was splattered across the fawn-colored carpet. The face of the victim was surprisingly intact, the eyes open, the dependent skin suffused purple from lividity.