by Lisa Jackson
“Everything’s locked at night, even the main doors to the cathedral. Either he snuck in before lockdown or he’s a part of the community.”
Montoya frowned at the draped body. The woman was slim, her arms crossed over her chest, her fingers twined around a rosary. “We got pictures of this?”
“Yeah.”
Montoya yanked on a pair of latex gloves, bent down, and lifted the long, thin altar cloth to see the fixed, beautiful stare of the dead woman.
A woman he knew.
Intimately.
Son of a bitch.
Sucker punched, he drew in a sharp breath. Blood congealed in his body. For a second, he thought he might be sick.
“You said she was Sister Camille?”
“Yeah. That’s what the mother superior called her. Her legal name is—”
“Camille Renard.” Montoya squeezed his eyes shut for a second. Trying to gain some equilibrium. How had this happened? Why? Jesus, he didn’t even know she was in the city. He had to force his eyes open again. Cammie’s pale visage and glassy eyes met his. “Bloody damned hell,” he whispered between clenched teeth.
“You know her?”
“Knew her. A long time ago.” A flash of memory, one he’d rather forget, sliced through his brain. Camille Renard. So full of life. So fun-loving. So . . . capricious. The most unlikely woman he’d ever know to take the vows to become a nun. “I went to high school with Camille Renard.”
“Oh, shi—for the love of God.” Bentz’s eyes darkened with concern. “Just don’t tell me you dated her.”
Montoya felt his jaw set even harder. “Okay, I won’t.”
“But you did.”
“In high school.”
Just long enough for him to get laid and for her to lose her virginity.
CHAPTER 6
Sister Maura slid between the sheets of her single bed and set her glasses on the tiny side table, nearly knocking over the stack of books she had positioned under the wall sconce. Her mattress, as stiff and old as the hills, creaked with her weight. She fingered her prayer book, the one she kept under the bedclothes, nestled close to her thigh, but she didn’t close her eyes.
Through the small window, lights were flashing blue and red, strobing from the police cruisers parked outside and washing against the wall by the door. The white walls were now tinged with pulsing colors, the small crucifix mounted over the door in stark relief.
Her heart seemed to beat in counterpoint to the flashing lights.
Good.
She smiled in the darkness, her fingers ruffling the worn pages of the prayer book, but she didn’t pray, didn’t offer up one psalm or hymn. Not now; not when there was so much going on, so much excitement.
Muted voices whispered along the ancient corridors and under her door.
She was excited and couldn’t help herself.
Telling herself to stay in bed, to feign sleep, or if someone had seen her, say that she’d been in the restroom, she fought the urge to get up again. She could even say it was her period that had caused her to wake; no one would know.
Or would they?
She sometimes wondered if the reverend mother, that old hag straight out of the Middle Ages, kept track of all the girls’ menstrual cycles. It wouldn’t surprise Maura. After all, this place was rigid with a capital R, and Sister Charity was tied to her regimen as if it were truly God’s word.
Seriously?
God cared about what time a person got up in the morning? Ate breakfast? Fasted? Maura didn’t buy it. Nor did she believe that he cared what kind of books she read, or how she dressed, or if she cleaned her chamber spotlessly. She just didn’t see God as a time keeper or a jailor.
But the reverend mother did.
It was just such a pain.
But not for Maura; not forever.
Saint Marguerite’s was just a dark stepping stone to her goal, one she would soon pass. She just had to be patient and pretend obedience for a little while longer.
Angrily she tossed back the stiff white sheets. She flipped her unruly braid over her shoulder and slid out of the bed. The floor was cool and smooth against her soles. With a glance at the unlocked door, Maura tiptoed to the window to look outside. Her room had a corner window, and if she stood on tiptoe, she could look over the roof of the cloister into the garden in one direction and, if she craned her neck, to the side of the convent and over the thick walls to the street where she saw a news van rolling down the street, its headlights reflecting on the wet pavement.
She smiled in the darkness as the bells began to toll again.
Maybe now the sins of St. Marguerite’s would be exposed.
Montoya’s throat tightened as he stared at Camille Renard’s bloodless face. Still beautiful, even in death, her skin was smooth, unmarred, her big eyes staring upward and fixed, seeing nothing. Never again.
His insides churned and his jaw hardened as he thought of how he’d known her in high school.
Vibrant.
Flirty.
Smart.
And hot as hell.
“Damn it,” he whispered under his breath. What happened here?
He tried to focus, to stay in the here and now, to ignore the images of Camille as a teenager that ran through his brain.
“Hey!” Bentz was staring at him. “You okay?”
“Fine,” he lied. “What the hell happened here?” He let his gaze fall from her face, to the bloodstained neckline of the tattered gown. Deep crimson drops in a jewel-like pattern.
“Don’t know yet,” Bentz said, his eyes still hard and assessing. “Look, Montoya, if you knew her, you shouldn’t be involved in this investigation.”
He ignored Bentz’s suggestion. For now, he was on the case. Until he heard from the captain or the DA or someone higher up than his partner, he wasn’t budging. “It’s hard for me to think of her as a nun.” He raked unsteady fingers through his hair.
“You hear what I said?”
“Yeah, yeah, but I’m not going to do anything to compromise the case.” Montoya’s gaze was trained on Cammie’s still form, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she’d known her assailant. Had she seen the attack coming? Or had her killer been a stranger?
It wasn’t the first time he’d been at a crime scene where a member of the convent had been killed; his aunt had suffered and died at the hands of a maniac during an earlier case Montoya had investigated, the very case in which he’d met his wife.
A cold finger of déjà vu slid down his spine. He glanced at Bentz, who scowled darkly, the way he always did when he was lost in thought.
The church bells tolled.
One in the morning.
Montoya crouched beside the victim and stared at her still-beautiful face, then glanced at the bloodied lace of her gown. “What’s with the wedding dress?”
“Don’t know yet.”
He motioned to the tiny drops of red that discolored the neckline of the old lace.
“The vic’s blood? He took the time to drop her blood on the dress?”
“My guess,” Bentz said.
“What kind of freak are we dealing with?”
“Sick. Twisted.” Bentz’s eyes looked tired, the crow’s-feet near his eyes pronounced. “Aren’t they all?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks like our guy made some kind of necklace with her blood.”
“Or his,” Montoya thought aloud as his gaze ran over the tattered folds of the gown.
“Nah. We couldn’t get that lucky that he left anything.”
“She raped?”
“Don’t know yet.” Bentz frowned. “I think most nuns who haven’t been married are virgins.”
Montoya’s guts tightened. He closed his mind to the memory of he and Camille on the short sofa in her parents’ home when they were away, wouldn’t think of her beautiful breasts, firm, with dark, aroused nipples. He studied the yellowed gauze of the wedding dress and shook his head. “So where are her other clothes, the ones she was
wearing before she put on this dress?” He frowned. “Or did the killer dress her after the attack?”
“Doesn’t look like it was done after she was dead. As for her clothes, I’ve got a couple of guys looking. Best guess is that she would have been in her nightgown. The convent’s schedule is pretty strict. Lights-out and in bed at ten. We’re not sure on time of death, but the body was discovered around midnight. The woman who found her heard the parish church bells striking off the hours.”
Montoya glanced beyond the pews at the small group of witnesses gathered near the back of the chapel. The priest and one nun were fully dressed, while a younger woman shivered beneath an oversized cape. Her hair was wet, and her eyes had that hollow, glazed look of a person in shock. Something about her was vaguely familiar, and Montoya felt his nerves tighten with dread.
What the hell was this?
“The younger one, Sister Lucia, is the one who found the vic. Claimed she heard ‘something,’ but it was nothing she could really explain. The upshot was she got out of bed to check and found Sister Camille.”
Sister Lucia.
Sister Camille.
Son of a bitch, this is getting worse and worse.
He didn’t say it; instead he pointed out the obvious. “The older nun’s wearing a habit.”
Bentz nodded. “Not the most progressive parish.”
Montoya, still crouched, took a last look at the victim. Around Camille’s long, pale neck were a series of contusions and deep bruises, as if she’d been garrotted. Unbidden came the memory of nuzzling that neck, kissing the hollow behind her ear. His stomach knotted.
What kind of monster had done this?
And why? Who had Camille pissed off? Or had she been a random target?
Straightening, he shifted his attention back to the tight group of people sequestered behind the last pew. A uniformed cop was talking to the older woman in the nun’s habit as Sister Lucia listened in, huddled under the cloak. The sixtyish priest with thinning gray hair and rimless glasses had a rumpled look, and even in the dim light, wrinkles were visible upon his high forehead.
“So Sister Lucia found the body. That must’ve been a shock.” Montoya studied the shivering girl, a waif with a pale face and wet ringlets. Yep, he recognized her, too. Lucia Costa. This was damned surreal. The knot in his gut tightened.
“After Sister Lucia yelled for help,” Bentz said, “the mother superior, Sister Charity—that’s the older woman—she responded.” Bentz hitched his chin toward the bigger nun, a mound of black fabric accented by white coif secured by a wimple. “Charity Varisco.” Again Bentz double-checked the notes on his small pad. “She heard Sister Lucia screaming and came running. When she got here, she tried to revive the victim and sent the younger one to call the police and get the parish priest.”
“Who put the altar cloth over the vic?”
“The reverend mother,” Bentz said, and when Montoya opened his mouth to protest any alteration of the crime scene, he held up a hand. “I know, I know. Already discussed. She claims she didn’t think about contaminating or altering the crime scene. She just wanted to be respectful of the vic.”
Montoya cast another glance at the woman in question. Tall and big-boned, mouth set, eyes glaring at the police. “What’s the reverend mother’s relationship to the victim?”
“Just what it seems. She met Sister Camille two years ago when Camille entered the convent.”
“What about the priest?”
“Priests, plural. The older one’s Father Paul Neland. He’s the senior priest and lives here on the grounds in an apartment next to the younger one—Father Francis O’Toole.”
Montoya’s head snapped up at the name. “Father O’Toole? Frank—where is he?”
“Already separated out for his statement. Doing the same with the rest of them.”
Two officers were, in fact, starting to force the tight little knot apart. Sister Lucia looked at him pleadingly, then hurried off while the mother superior was ushered in a different direction.
Montoya felt a headache starting to throb at the base of his skull. Too many familiar faces here. First Camille, then Lucia, and now Frank O’Toole? What were the chances of that? “What do you know about the priests?”
“The older guy, Father Paul Neland, has been here about ten years, second only to the mother superior, who’s been in charge for nearly twenty years. Before that, she and Neland worked in the same parish once before, up north—Boston, I think. O’Toole’s the short-timer. Less than five years.”
“I need to speak to him. Frank O’Toole,” Montoya said.
Bentz let out a long whistle and stared at his partner, as if reading Montoya’s mind. “Oh, Christ, Montoya. Don’t tell me you know him, too?”
“Oh, yeah,” Montoya admitted, not liking the turn of his thoughts. “I know him.”
Sitting cross-legged on her rumpled bed, Valerie tried to turn on her stubborn computer one last time. “Come on, come on,” she ordered the struggling laptop. It made grinding noises that caused her to wince as she waited for the screen to flicker to life.
It was nearly one-thirty in the morning. The rain had stopped, and moonlight filtering through high clouds cast an eerie glow on the damp bushes outside her window.
Her body was tired, but her mind was still spinning. Wired. She wanted to check her e-mail one last time before shutting off the lights and hoping sleep would come. Though it probably wouldn’t. Wretched insomnia. Ever since she was a teenager, sleep eluded her if she was troubled. She’d tried everything from sleeping pills to working out to the point of exhaustion, but nothing seemed to allow her sleep for more than a night or two.
It’s the divorce.
And your worries about Cammie.
As she waited for the screen to flicker on, she caught a glimpse of the single picture of Slade she’d kept, one of him riding his favorite horse, a rangy gray gelding named Stormy, their scruffy hound dog Bo trailing behind. Silhouetted against a sun that bled purple and orange along the ridge, Slade Houston looked every bit the part of a lonesome Texas cowboy. She’d taken the picture herself and had decided to keep it to remember her marriage. While she’d burned the rest—snapshots and professional photographs taken at their small wedding—she hadn’t been able to destroy this one. She’d told herself it was because it was the only picture she had of Bo.
But deep down, she knew better.
“Masochist,” she muttered, reaching out and slapping the photograph facedown onto the stack of bills that reminded her of the rocky financial condition of the bed-and-breakfast. She didn’t want to think about her sorry bank account right now, no more than she wanted to consider her disintegrated marriage. She glanced again at the facedown picture frame. Tomorrow she’d toss the photo into the trash.
Maybe.
Her computer screen flickered to life, and she quickly went about opening her e-mail, searching through the spam until she saw it, a single posting from SisCam1. “Thank the gods of the Internet,” Val said under her breath as she clicked on the e-mail to open it.
“Okay, Cammie, what’s up?” Val said as the short message appeared:
Having second thoughts. Can’t take it anymore. Am leaving St. Marg’s. You know why.
“Oh, Cammie,” Val said, her heart heavy. Of course she knew why her sister was leaving the convent: Camille was pregnant.
CHAPTER 7
“You know Frank O’Toole and Camille Renard?” Bentz asked, his eyes narrowing on Montoya.
“Yeah. High school.” Montoya still couldn’t believe it. How did so many people he recognized from a small high school end up here at St. Marguerite’s, with the girl he’d dated for over six months dead at his feet? He swallowed hard as he glanced to the floor, where someone from the ME’s office was bending over the body. Montoya’s gaze found Bentz’s again. “And that isn’t all of it,” he admitted, not liking the turn of his thoughts. “That nun over there.” With one finger, he indicated the shivering Lucia Costa. “I
didn’t really know her, but for a while she dated my brother, Cruz. He’s a couple of years younger than me. She was a few years behind him, I think. I was out of high school before she started her freshman year.”
“So it’s old home week?” Bentz’s eyes thinned speculatively.
“Beats me.” Scowling, stepping away from the body, he asked, “Who was the first officer to arrive?”
“Amos took the call,” Bentz said.
Montoya spotted the officer talking to the shivering girl. New to the force, Joe Amos was a six-foot black man with a wide girth and mocha-colored skin accentuated by a shotgun blast of darker freckles across his face. Montoya walked in front of the first pew to a pillar where Amos was listening to Sister Lucia.
“. . . and so Father Paul and Father Frank and I ran back here, to the chapel and—” she was saying, but her gaze strayed to Montoya and her chain of thought was interrupted. “And . . . Oh, dear God.” Her eyes rounded and she took a step back.
“And what?” Amos asked.
Lucia blinked, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “You’re Cruz’s brother,” she whispered, appearing as if she might faint.
“That’s right.”
Even more lines of worry showed between her eyebrows. “Raymond or . . .”
“Reuben. I’m with the local police department now. Detective.”
Amos pinned Montoya with a glare. “You two know each other?”
Montoya shook his head. “Went to the same high school. Years ago. She dated my brother.”
“You look a lot like him,” Lucia said, fingers pulling the cape closer around her body. “Like Cruz.”
“So I’ve heard.” Montoya couldn’t deny the obvious, having heard it for years—the family resemblance ran strong.
Amos held up a hand. “Okay, so let’s get back to your statement. Let’s see, you ‘heard something,’ you said. What was it?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” She swallowed hard. “Something sharp. It woke me and I felt troubled, like I needed to pray.”
“A scream?” Montoya asked. “Or a call for help?”