The Sinner

by Tess Gerritsen

  This year, Frankie was toast.

  She pushed her shopping cart through the crowds at the Target store, in search of a dried-toad equivalent. Christmas carols played over the store speakers and mechanical Santas greeted her with ho-ho-ho’s as she moved with grim determination up aisles festooned with tinsel garlands. For her dad, she bought fleece-lined moccasins. For her mom, a teapot from Ireland, decorated with tiny pink rosebuds. For her younger brother Michael, a plaid bathrobe, and for his new girlfriend Irene, dangly earrings of blood-red Austrian crystal. She even bought gifts for Irene’s little boys, matching snowsuits with racing stripes.

  But for Frankie, the jerk, she was coming up empty-handed.

  She cruised down the aisle for men’s underwear. Here there were possibilities. Frankie the macho Marine in pink thong underwear? No, too disgusting; even she would never stoop that low. She kept moving, past the jockey briefs, and slowed as she reached the boxer shorts, suddenly thinking not of Frankie, but of Gabriel, in his gray suits and boring ties. A man of quiet and conservative tastes, right down to his underwear. A man who could drive a woman crazy, because she’d never know where she stood with him; she’d never know if a real heart was beating under that gray suit.

  Abruptly she left the aisle and kept moving. Focus, damn it. Something for Frankie. A book? She could think of a few appropriate titles. The Miss Manners Guide to Not Being An Asshole. Too bad Miss Manners never wrote that one; there’d be a market for it. She cruised up the aisle, down the next, searching, searching.

  And then she came to a halt, her throat aching, her fingers numb as she clutched the cart handle.

  She was staring at an aisle of baby supplies. She saw little flannel sleepers embroidered with ducks. Doll-size mittens and booties and fuzzy caps topped with yarn balls. Stacks of pink and blue receiving blankets in which to swaddle newborns. It was the blankets she focused on, remembering the way Camille had swaddled her own dead infant in powder-blue wool, wrapping it with a mother’s love, a mother’s grief.

  It took several rings before the sound of her cell phone cut through her trance. She pulled it from her purse and answered with a dazed: “Rizzoli.”

  “Hey, Detective. It’s Walt DeGroot here.”

  DeGroot worked in the DNA section of the crime lab. Usually Rizzoli was the one who called him, trying to goad him into a quicker turnaround on test results. Today she responded to his call with dulled interest.

  “So what have you got for me?” she asked, her gaze moving back to the baby blankets.

  “We ran that maternal DNA against the infant you found in the pond.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The victim, Camille Maginnes, is definitely the mother of that child.”

  Rizzoli gave a tired sigh. “Thanks, Walt,” she murmured. “It’s what we expected.”

  “Wait. There’s more.”

  “More?”

  “This, I don’t think you expected. It’s about the baby’s father.”

  All at once she was focused completely on Walt’s voice. On what he was about to tell her.

  “What about the father?” she asked.

  “I know who he is.”

  EIGHTEEN

  RIZZOLI DROVE through the afternoon and into the gray of dusk, seeing the road ahead through a fog of rage. The gifts she’d just purchased were still piled on her backseat, along with rolls of wrapping paper and foil ribbon, but her mind was no longer on Christmas. It was on a young girl, walking barefoot through the snow. A girl who sought the pain of frostbite, if only to mask her deeper agony. But nothing could match the girl’s secret torment, no amount of prayer or self-flagellation could silence her private shrieks of pain.

  When at last she drove past the granite pillars, and into the driveway of Camille’s parents, it was nearly five P.M., and her shoulders were stiff from the tension of that long drive. She stepped out of the car and inhaled a stinging lungful of salt air. She walked up the steps and rang the bell.

  The dark-haired housekeeper Maria answered the door. “I’m sorry, Detective, but Mrs. Maginnes isn’t here. Was she expecting you?”

  “No. When will she be home?”

  “She and the boys went out shopping. She should be back for dinner. Another hour, I think.”

  “Then I’ll wait for her.”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “I’ll just keep Mr. Maginnes company. If that’s all right.”

  Reluctantly, Maria admitted her into the house. A woman accustomed to deferring to others was not about to bar the door against law enforcement.

  Rizzoli did not need Maria to show her the way; she walked across the same polished floors, past the same marine paintings, and stepped into the Sea Room. The view across Nantucket Sound was ominous, the wind-roiled water flecked by whitecaps. Randall Maginnes lay on his right side in the hospital bed, his face turned to the windows so he could see the gathering storm. A front-row seat to nature’s turbulence.

  The private-duty nurse sitting beside him noticed the visitor, and rose from her chair. “Hello?”

  “I’m Detective Rizzoli, Boston P.D. I’m just waiting for Mrs. Maginnes to get home. Thought I’d look in on Mr. Maginnes. See how he’s doing.”

  “He’s about the same.”

  “How’s his progress since the stroke?”

  “We’ve been doing physical therapy for months now. But the deficits are pretty severe.”

  “Are they permanent?”

  The nurse glanced at her patient, then made a gesture for Rizzoli to follow her out of the room.

  In the hallway, the nurse said: “I don’t like to talk about him where he can hear us. I know he understands.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “It’s the way he looks at me. The way he reacts to things. Even though he can’t talk, he does have a functioning mind. I played a CD of his favorite opera this afternoon—La Boheme. And I saw tears in his eyes.”

  “It may not be the music. It may be just frustration.”

  “He certainly has a right to feel frustrated. After eight months, he’s had almost no recovery. That’s a very grim prognosis. He’ll almost certainly never walk again. He’ll always be paralyzed on one side. And as for speech, well—” She gave a sad shake of the head. “It was a massive stroke.”

  Rizzoli turned to the Sea Room. “If you’d like to take a coffee break or something, I’ll be happy to sit with him for a while.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Unless he needs some kind of special care.”

  “No, you don’t need to do a thing. Just talk to him. He’ll appreciate that.”

  “Yeah. I will.”

  Rizzoli walked back into the Sea Room and pulled a chair close to the bedside. She sat down where she could see Randall Maginnes’s eyes. Where he could not avoid seeing hers.

  “Hi, Randall,” she said. “Remember me? Detective Rizzoli. I’m the cop investigating your daughter’s murder. You do know Camille is dead, don’t you?”

  She saw a flicker of sadness in his gray eyes. An acknowledgment that he understood. That he mourned.

  “She was beautiful, your girl Camille. But you know that, don’t you? How could you not? Every day in this house, you were watching her. You saw her grow up and change into a young woman.” She paused. “And you saw her fall apart.”

  The eyes were still staring at her, still taking in every word she said.

  “So when did you start fucking her, Randall?”

  Outside the window, gusts whipped across Nantucket Sound. Even in the fading daylight, the whitecaps glowed, bright pinpoints of turbulence in the dark sea.

  Randall Maginnes was no longer looking at her. His gaze had shifted and he was staring downward, desperately avoiding her eyes.

  “She’s only eight years old when her mother kills herself. And suddenly, Camille doesn’t have anyone but her daddy. She needs you. She trusts you. And what did you do?” Rizzoli shook her head in disgust. “You knew how fragile she was. You knew
why she went walking barefoot in the snow. Why she locked herself in her room. Why she ran off to the convent. She was running away from you.”

  Rizzoli leaned closer. Close enough to catch a whiff of the urine soaking his adult diaper.

  “The one time she came home for a visit, she probably thought you wouldn’t touch her. That for once, you’d leave her alone. You had a house full of relatives here for the funeral. But that didn’t stop you. Did it?”

  The eyes were still avoiding hers, still staring downward. She crouched beside the bed. Moved so close to him that no matter which way he looked, she was right there, in his face.

  “It was your baby, Randall,” she said. “We didn’t even need a sample of your DNA to prove it. The baby’s too close a match to its mother. It’s written there, in the baby’s DNA. A child of incest. Did you know you made her pregnant? Did you know you destroyed your own daughter?”

  She just sat in the chair for a moment, gazing at him. In the silence, she could hear his breathing quicken, the noisy gasps of a man who is desperate to flee, but cannot.

  “You know, Randall, I’m not a big believer in God. But you make me think that maybe I’ve been wrong about that. Because look what happened to you. In March, you fuck your daughter. In April, you get a stroke. You won’t ever move again. Or talk again. You’re just a brain in a dead body, Randall. If that’s not divine justice, I don’t know what is.”

  He was whimpering now, struggling to make his useless limbs move.

  She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “Can you smell yourself rotting? While you lie here, peeing in your diaper, what do you suppose your wife Lauren’s up to? Probably having a very good time. Probably finding someone else to keep her company. Think about that. You don’t have to die to go to hell.”

  With a sigh of satisfaction, she rose to her feet. “Have a nice life, Randall,” she said, and walked out of the room.

  As she headed for the front door, she heard Maria call to her: “Are you leaving already, Detective?”

  “Yeah. I’ve decided not to wait for Mrs. Maginnes.”

  “What shall I tell her?”

  “Just that I dropped by.” Rizzoli glanced back, toward the Sea Room. “Oh, and tell her this.”

  “Yes?”

  “I think Randall misses Camille. Why don’t you put her photo where he can see it, all the time.” She smiled as she opened the front door to leave. “He’ll appreciate that.”

  Christmas lights were twinkling in her living room.

  The garage door cranked open, and Maura saw that Victor’s rental car was parked inside, taking up the right side of the garage, as though it belonged there. As though this was now his house, as well. She pulled in beside it and turned off the engine with an angry twist of the key. Waited for a moment as the door closed again, trying to calm herself for what came next.

  She grabbed her briefcase and stepped out of the car.

  In the house, she took her time hanging up her coat, setting down her purse. Still carrying the briefcase, she walked into the kitchen.

  Victor smiled at her as he dropped ice into a cocktail shaker. “Hey. I’m just mixing your favorite drink for you. Dinner’s already in the oven. I’m trying to prove to you that a man really can be useful around the house.”

  She watched as he rattled ice in the shaker and poured the liquid into a martini glass. He handed her the drink.

  “For the hardworking lady of the house,” he said, and pressed a kiss to her lips.

  She stood perfectly still.

  Slowly he pulled away, his gaze searching her face. “What’s the matter?”

  She set down the glass. “It’s time for you to be honest with me.”

  “Do you think I haven’t been?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If we’re talking about what went wrong three years ago—the mistakes I made—”

  “This isn’t about what happened then. This is about now. Whether you’re being honest with me now.”

  He gave a bewildered laugh. “What did I do wrong this time? What am I supposed to apologize for? Because I’ll be happy to do it, if that’s what you want. Hell, I’ll even apologize for things I haven’t done.”

  “I’m not asking for an apology, Victor.” She reached into her briefcase for the file that Gabriel Dean had lent her, and held it out to him. “I just want you to tell me about this.”

  “What is this?”

  “It’s a police file, transmitted from Interpol. Concerning a mass slaughter last year, in India. In a small village, outside Hyderabad.”

  He opened the folder to the first photograph, and winced at the image. Without a word, he turned to the next one, and the next.

  “Victor?”

  He closed the file and looked at her. “What am I supposed to say about this?”

  “You knew about this massacre, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I knew. That was a One Earth clinic they attacked. We lost two volunteers there. Two nurses. It’s my job to know about it.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “It happened a year ago. Why should I?”

  “Because it’s relevant to our investigation. One of the nuns attacked at Graystones Abbey worked in that same One Earth clinic. You knew that, didn’t you?”

  “How many volunteers do you think work for One Earth? We have thousands of medical personnel, in over eighty countries.”

  “Just tell me, Victor. Did you know Sister Ursula worked for One Earth?”

  He turned and paced over to the sink. There he stood staring out the window, although there was nothing to see, only darkness beyond.

  “It’s interesting,” she said. “After the divorce, I never heard from you. Not one word.”

  “Do I need to point out that you never bothered to contact me, either?”

  “Not a letter, not a phone call. If I wanted the latest news about you, I had to read it in People magazine. Victor Banks, the saint of humanitarian causes.”

  “I didn’t anoint myself, Maura. You can’t hold that against me.”

  “And then suddenly, out of the blue, you show up here in Boston, anxious to see me. Just as I start work on this homicide case.”

  He turned to look at her. “You don’t think I wanted to see you?”

  “You waited three years.”

  “Yes. Three years too long.”

  “Why now?”

  He searched her face, as though hoping to see some trace of understanding. “I’ve missed you, Maura. I really have.”

  “But that’s not the original reason you came to see me. Is it?”

  A long pause. “No. It wasn’t.”

  Suddenly exhausted, she sank into a chair at the kitchen table and gazed down at the folder containing the damning photograph. “Then why did you?”

  “I was in my hotel room, getting dressed, and the TV was on. I heard the news about the attack on the convent. I saw you there, on camera. At the crime scene.”

  “That was the day you left the first message with my secretary. That same afternoon.”

  He nodded. “God, you were stunning on TV. All wrapped up in that black coat. I’d forgotten how beautiful you are.”

  “But that’s not why you called me, is it? It was the murder you were interested in. You called because I’m the ME on that case.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You knew one of the victims used to work for One Earth. You wanted to find out what the police knew. What I knew.”

  Still there was no answer.

  “Why didn’t you just ask me about it? What are you trying to hide?”

  He straightened, his gaze suddenly challenging hers. “Do you have any idea how many lives we save every year?”

  “You’re not answering my question.”

  “How many children we immunize? How many pregnant women get their only prenatal care from our clinics? They depend on us, because they have no alternatives. And One Earth survives only because of the goodwill of its b
enefactors. Our reputation has to be spotless. One whisper of bad press, and our grant money dries up like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “What does that have to do with this investigation?”

  “I’ve spent the last twenty years building One Earth from nothing, but it’s never been about me. It’s always been about them—the people no one else cares about. They’re the ones who matter. That’s why I can’t let anything endanger our funding.”

  Money, she thought. It’s all about money.

  She stared at him. “Your corporate donor.”

  “What?”

  “You told me about it. That you got a huge grant last year, from a corporate donor.”

  “We get grants from a lot of sources—”

  “Was it Octagon Chemicals?”

  The look of shock on his face answered her question. She heard his sudden intake of breath, as though he was preparing to deny it, but then he exhaled without saying a word, the futility of argument leaving him silent.

  “It’s not hard to confirm,” said Maura. “Why don’t you just tell me the truth?”

  He looked down. Gave a tired nod. “Octagon is one of our major donors.”

  “And what do they expect from you? What does One Earth have to do in return for that money?”

  “Why do you think we have to do anything? Our work speaks for itself. Why do you think we’re welcomed in so many countries? Because people trust us. We don’t proselytize, and we don’t muck around in local politics. We’re just there to help them. That’s all that matters in the end, isn’t it? Saving lives?”

  “And Sister Ursula’s life? Does that matter to you?”

  “Of course it does!”

  “She’s now on full life support. One more EEG, and they’ll probably pull the plug. Who wants her dead, Victor?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You seem to know a lot that you never bothered to tell me. You knew one of the victims worked for you.”

  “I didn’t think that was relevant.”

  “You should have let me decide that.”

  “You said you were focusing on the other nun. The young one. She was the only victim you talked about. I assumed the attack had nothing to do with Ursula.”