“Understand what, Father?”
He paused. The wind flapped their coats and stung their faces.
“That faith isn’t something to be ridiculed,” he said.
And that was why Mary Clement did not want to talk to Rizzoli, who could not hide her skepticism, her disdain toward the church. Something as deeply personal as faith should not be subjected to another person’s contempt.
“This is important to her,” said Father Brophy. “Please.”
She followed him into the building, down the dim and drafty hallway, to the Abbess’s office. Mary Clement was seated behind her desk. She looked up as they walked in, and the eyes staring through those thick lenses were clearly angry.
“Sit down, Dr. Isles.”
Although Holy Innocents Academy was years behind Maura, the sight of an irate nun could still rattle her, and she quietly complied, sinking into the chair like a guilty schoolgirl. Father Brophy stood off to the side, a silent observer of this coming ordeal.
“We were never told the reason for this search,” said Mary Clement. “You’ve disrupted our lives. Violated our privacy. From the beginning, we’ve cooperated in every way, yet you’ve treated us as though we’re the enemy. You owed us the courtesy of at least telling us what you were searching for.”
“I do think that Detective Rizzoli is the one you should speak to about this.”
“But you’re the one who initiated the search.”
“I only told them what I found on autopsy. That Sister Camille recently gave birth. It was Detective Rizzoli’s decision to search the abbey.”
“Without telling us why.”
“Police investigations are usually played close to the vest.”
“It’s because you didn’t trust us. Isn’t that right?”
Maura looked into Mary Clement’s accusing gaze and found she could not respond with anything but the truth. “We had no choice but to proceed with caution.”
Rather than make her angrier, that honest answer seemed to defuse the Abbess’s outrage. Looking suddenly drained, she leaned back in her chair, transforming into the frail and elderly woman she really was. “What a world it is, when even we cannot be trusted.”
“Like everyone else, Reverend Mother.”
“But that’s just it, Dr. Isles. We are not like everyone else.” She said this without any note of superiority. Rather, it was sadness that Maura heard in her voice, and bewilderment. “We would have helped you. We would have cooperated, if we’d known what you were looking for.”
“You really had no idea that Camille was pregnant?”
“How could we? When Detective Rizzoli told me this morning, I didn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it.”
“I’m afraid the proof was in the pond.”
The Abbess seemed to shrink even smaller into her chair. Her gaze fell on her arthritis-gnarled hands. She was silent, staring at those hands as though they did not belong to her. Softly she said: “How could we not have known?”
“Pregnancies can be concealed. Teenage girls have been known to hide their condition from their own mothers. Some women deny it even to themselves, until the moment they give birth. Camille herself may have been in denial. I have to admit, I was completely taken aback at autopsy. It wasn’t at all what I expected to find in …”
“A nun,” Mary Clement said. She looked straight at Maura.
“That’s not to say nuns aren’t human.”
A faint smile. “Thank for you acknowledging that.”
“And she was so young—”
“Do you think only the young struggle with temptation?”
Maura thought of her restless night. Of Victor, sleeping right down the hall.
“All our lives,” said Mary Clement, “we’re enticed by one thing or another. The temptations change, of course. When you’re young, it’s a handsome boy. Then it’s sweets or food. Or, when you get old and tired, just the chance to sleep an extra hour in the morning. So many petty desires, and we’re just as vulnerable to them as everyone else, only we’re not allowed to admit it. Our vows set us apart. Wearing the veil may be a joy, Dr. Isles. But perfection is a burden that none of us can live up to.”
“Least of all, such a young woman.”
“It gets no easier with age.”
“Camille was only twenty. She must have had some doubts about taking her final vows.”
Mary Clement did not answer at first. She stared out the window, which faced only a barren wall. A view that would remind her, every time she glanced out, that her world was enclosed by stone. She said, “I was twenty-one when I took my final vows.”
“And did you have doubts?”
“Not a single one.” She looked at Maura. “I knew.”
“How?”
“Because God spoke to me.”
Maura said nothing.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Mary Clement said. “That only psychotics hear voices. Only psychotics hear the angels speak to them. You’re a doctor, and you probably see everything with a scientist’s eye. You’ll tell me it was just a dream. Or a chemical imbalance. A temporary bout of schizophrenia. I know all the theories. I know what they say about Joan of Arc—that they burned a madwoman at the stake. It’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid I’m not religious.”
“But you were, once?”
“I was raised Catholic. It’s what my adoptive parents believed.”
“Then you’re familiar with the lives of the saints. Many of them heard God’s voice. How do you explain that?”
Maura hesitated, knowing that what she said next would likely offend the Abbess. “Auditory hallucinations are often interpreted as religious experiences.”
Mary Clement did not seem to take offense, as Maura had expected. She simply gazed back, her eyes steady. “Do I seem insane to you?”
“Not at all.”
“Yet here I am, telling you that I once heard the voice of God.” Her gaze wandered, once again, to the window. To the gray wall, its stones glistening with ice. “You’re only the second person I’ve told this to, because I know what people think. I would not have believed it myself, if it hadn’t happened to me. When you’re only eighteen years old, and He calls you, what choice do you have, but to listen?”
She leaned back in her chair. Said, softly: “I had a sweetheart, you know. A man who wanted to marry me.”
“Yes,” said Maura. “You told me.”
“He didn’t understand. No one understood why a young woman would want to hide from life. That’s what he called it. Hiding, like a coward. Surrendering my will to God. Of course, he tried to change my mind. So did my mother. But I knew what I was doing. I knew it from the moment I was called. Standing in my backyard, listening to the crickets. I heard His voice, clear as a bell. And I knew.” She looked at Maura, who was shifting in her chair, anxious to break off this conversation. Uncomfortable with this talk of divine voices.
Maura looked at her watch. “Reverend Mother, I’m afraid I have to leave.”
“You wonder why I’m telling you this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’ve told this to only one other person. Do you know who that was?”
“No.”
“Sister Camille.”
Maura looked into the Abbess’s distorted blue eyes. “Why Camille?”
“Because she heard the voice, too. That’s why she came to us. She was raised in an extremely wealthy family. Grew up in a mansion in Hyannisport, not far from the Kennedys. But she was called to this life, just as I was. When you’re called, Dr. Isles, you know you’ve been blessed, and you answer with joy in your heart. She had no doubts about taking her vows. She was fully committed to this order.”
“Then how do we explain the pregnancy? How did that happen?”
“Detective Rizzoli has already asked that question. But all she wanted to know was names and dates. Which repairmen came to the compound? Which month did Camille leave to
visit her family? The police care only about concrete details, not about spiritual matters. Not about Camille’s calling.”
“She did become pregnant. Either it was a moment of temptation, or it was rape.”
The Abbess was silent for a moment, her gaze dropping to her hands. She said, quietly: “There is a third explanation, Dr. Isles.”
Maura frowned. “What would that be?”
“You’ll scoff at this, I know. You’re a doctor. You probably rely on your laboratory tests, on what you can see under the microscope. But haven’t there been times when you’ve seen the inexplicable? When a patient who should be dead suddenly revives? Haven’t you witnessed miracles?”
“Every physician has been surprised at least a few times in his career.”
“Not just surprised. I’m talking about something that astounds you. Something that science can’t explain.”
Maura thought back to her years as an intern at San Francisco General. “There was a woman, with pancreatic cancer.”
“That’s incurable, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s almost as good as a death sentence. She shouldn’t have lived. When I first saw her, she was considered terminal. Already confused and jaundiced. The doctors had decided to stop feeding her, because she was so close to death. I remember the orders on the chart, to simply keep her comfortable. That’s all you can do, at the end, is dull their pain. I thought her death was a matter of days.”
“But she surprised you.”
“She woke up one morning and told the nurse she was hungry. Four weeks later, she went home.”
The Abbess nodded. “A miracle.”
“No, Reverend Mother.” Maura met her gaze. “Spontaneous remission.”
“That’s just a way of saying you don’t know what happened.”
“Remissions do occur. Cancers shrink on their own. Or the diagnosis was wrong to begin with.”
“Or it was something else. Something science can’t explain.”
“You want me to say it was a miracle?”
“I want you to consider other possibilities. So many people who’ve recovered from near death report they saw a bright light. Or they saw their loved ones, telling them it’s not their time. How do you explain such universal visions?”
“The hallucinations of an oxygen-deprived brain.”
“Or evidence of the divine.”
“I would love to find such evidence. It would be a comfort to know there’s something beyond this physical life. But I can’t accept it on faith alone. That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it? That Camille’s pregnancy was some sort of miracle? Another example of the divine.”
“You say you don’t believe in miracles, but you can’t explain why your patient with pancreatic cancer lived.”
“There’s not always an easy explanation.”
“Because medical science doesn’t completely understand death. Isn’t that true?”
“But we do understand conception. We know it requires a sperm and an egg. That’s simple biology, Reverend Mother. I don’t believe in immaculate conception. What I do believe is that Camille had a sexual encounter. It may have been forced, or it may have been consensual. But her child was conceived in the usual way. And the father’s identity could well have a bearing on her murder.”
“What if no father is ever found?”
“We’ll have the child’s DNA. We only need the father’s name.”
“You have such confidence in your science, Dr. Isles. It’s the answer to everything!”
Maura rose from her chair. “But at least those answers, I can believe in.”
Father Brophy escorted Maura from the office, and walked with her, back up the dim corridor, their steps creaking on well-worn floorboards.
He said, “We might as well bring up the subject now, Dr. Isles.”
“Which subject is that?”
He stopped and looked at her. “Whether the child is mine.” He met her gaze without flinching; she was the one who wanted to turn away, to retreat from the intensity of his gaze.
“It’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it?” he said.
“You can understand why.”
“Yes. As you said just a moment ago, the unavoidable laws of biology require a sperm and an egg.”
“You’re the one man who has regular access to this abbey. You say Mass. You hear confession.”
“Yes.”
“You know their most intimate secrets.”
“Only what they choose to tell me.”
“You’re a symbol of authority.”
“Some view priests that way.”
“To a young novice, you certainly would be.”
“And that makes me automatically suspect?”
“You wouldn’t be the first priest to break your vows.”
He sighed, and for the first time his gaze dropped from hers. Not in avoidance, but a sad nod of acknowledgment. “It’s not easy, these days. The looks people give us, the jokes behind our backs. When I say Mass, I look at the faces in my church, and I know what they’re thinking. They wonder whether I touch little boys, or covet young girls. They’re all wondering, just as you are. And you assume the worst.”
“Is the child yours, Father Brophy?”
The blue eyes were once more focused on her. His gaze was absolutely steady. “No, it’s not. I have never broken my vows.”
“You understand, don’t you, that we can’t just take your word for it?”
“No, I could be lying, couldn’t I?” Though he didn’t raise his voice, she heard the note of anger. He drew closer, and she stood very still, resisting the urge to retreat. “I could be compounding one sin with another, and yet another. Where do you see that spiral, that chain of sins, leading to? Lying. Abuse of a nun. Murder?”
“The police have to look at all motives. Even yours.”
“And you’ll want my DNA, I suppose.”
“It would eliminate you as the baby’s father.”
“Or it would point to me as a prime murder suspect.”
“It could work either way, depending on the results.”
“What do you think it will show?”
“I have no idea.”
“But you must have a hunch. You’re standing here, looking at me. Do you see a murderer?”
“I trust only the evidence.”
“Numbers and facts. That’s all you believe in.”
“Yes.”
“And if I told you that I’m perfectly willing to submit my DNA? That I’ll give you a blood sample right here and now, if you’re ready to take it?”
“It doesn’t require a blood sample. Just a swab from the mouth.”
“A swab, then. I just want to be clear that I’m volunteering for this.”
“I’ll tell Detective Rizzoli. She’ll collect it.”
“Will that change your mind? About whether I’m guilty?”
“As I said, I’ll know when I see the results.” She opened the door and walked out.
He followed her into the courtyard. He was not wearing a coat, yet he seemed impervious to the cold, his attention focused only on her.
“You said you were raised Catholic,” he said.
“I went to a Catholic high school. Holy Innocents, in San Francisco.”
“Yet you believe only in your blood tests. In your science.”
“What should I rely on instead?”
“Instincts? Faith?”
“In you? Just because you’re a priest?”
“Just because?” He shook his head and gave a sad laugh, his breath white in the chill air. “I guess that answers my question.”
“I don’t make guesses. I don’t assume anything about other human beings, because too often, they surprise you.”
They reached the front gate. He opened it for her, and she stepped out. The gate swung shut between them, suddenly separating his world from hers.
“You know that man who collapsed on the sidewalk?” he said. “The one we did CPR on?”
“Yes.”
“He’s alive. I went to visit him this morning. He’s awake and talking.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“You didn’t think he’d make it.”
“The odds were against him.”
“So you see? Sometimes the numbers, the statistics, are wrong.”
She turned to leave.
“Dr. Isles!” he called. “You grew up in the church. Isn’t there anything left of your faith?”
She looked back at him. “Faith requires no proof,” she said. “But I do.”
The autopsy of a child was a task every pathologist dreaded. As Maura pulled on gloves and readied her instruments, she avoided looking at the tiny bundle on the table, trying to distance herself, as long as possible, from the sad reality of what she was about to confront. Except for the clang of instruments, the room was silent. None of the participants standing around the table felt like saying a word.
Maura had always set a respectful tone in her lab. As a medical student, she’d observed the autopsies of patients who had died under her care, and although the pathologists performing those postmortems regarded the subjects as anonymous strangers, she had known those patients while they were alive, and could not look at them, laid out on the table, without hearing their voices or remembering how awareness had lit up their eyes. The autopsy lab was not the place to crack jokes or discuss last night’s date, and she didn’t tolerate such behavior. One stern look from her could subdue even the most disrespectful cop. She knew that they were not heartless, that humor was how they coped with the darkness of their jobs, but she expected them to check their humor at the door, or they could count on sharp words from her.
Such words were never needed when a child lay on the table.
She looked across at the two detectives. Barry Frost, as usual, had a sickly pallor to his face, and he stood slightly back from the table, as though poised to make an escape. Today, it was not foul smells that would make this postmortem difficult; it was the age of the victim. Rizzoli stood beside him, her expression resolute, her petite frame almost lost in a surgical gown that was several sizes too large. She stood right up against the table, a position that announced: I’m ready. I can deal with anything. The same attitude Maura had seen among women surgical residents. Men might call them bitches, but she recognized them for what they were: embattled women who’d worked so hard to prove themselves in a man’s profession that they actually take on a masculine swagger. Rizzoli had the swagger down pat, but her face did not quite match the fearless posture. It was white and tense, the skin beneath her eyes smudged with fatigue.
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