Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles 03 - The Sinner

by Tess Gerritsen

  The Glaser bullet had punctured the thorax and then exploded, sending its deadly shrapnel throughout the chest. Metal had ripped through arteries and veins, punctured heart and lungs. And blood had poured into the sac that surrounded the heart, compressing it so that it could not expand, could not pump. A pericardial tamponade.

  Death had been relatively swift.

  The intercom buzzed. "Dr. Isles?"

  Maura turned toward the speaker. "Yes, Louise?"

  "Detective Rizzoli is on line one. Can you answer?"

  Maura stripped off her gloves and crossed to the phone. "Rizzoli?" she said.

  "Hey, Doc. It looks like we need you here."

  "What is it?"

  "We're at the pond. It took us a while to scoop off all the ice."

  "You've finished dragging it?"

  "Yeah. We found something."

  NINE

  WIND SLICED ACROSS THE OPEN FIELD, whipping Maura's coat and wool scarf as she walked out the rear cloister gate and started toward the somber gathering of cops who waited for her at the pond's edge. A layer of ice had formed over the fallen snow, and it cracked beneath her boots like a sugar crust. She felt everyone's gaze marking her progress across the field, the nuns watching from the gate behind her, and the police awaiting her approach. She was the lone figure moving across that white world, and in the stillness of that afternoon, every sound seemed magnified, from the crunch of her boots, to the rush of her own breath.

  Rizzoli emerged from the knot of personnel and came forward to greet her. "Thanks for getting here so quick."

  "So Noni was right about the duck pond."

  "Yeah. Since Camille spent a lot of time out here, it's not too surprising she thought of using the pond. The ice was still pretty thin. Probably froze over only in the last day or two." Rizzoli looked at the water. "We snagged it on the third pass."

  It was a small pond, a flat black oval that in the summertime would reflect clouds and blue sky and the passage of birds. At one end, cattails protruded, like ice-encrusted stalagmites. All around the perimeter, the snow was thoroughly trampled, its whiteness churned with mud.

  At the water's edge, a small form lay covered by a disposable sheet. Maura crouched down beside it, and a grim-faced Detective Frost peeled back the sheet to reveal the swaddling, caked in wet mud.

  "It felt like it was weighed down with rocks," said Frost. "That's why it's been sitting on the bottom. We haven't unwrapped it yet. Thought we'd wait for you."

  Maura pulled off her wool gloves and pulled on latex ones. They offered no protection against the cold, and her fingers quickly chilled as she peeled back the outer layer of muslin. Two fist-sized stones dropped out. The next layer was equally soaked, but not muddy. It was a woolen blanket of powder blue. A color one would swaddle an infant in, she thought. A blanket to keep him safe and warm.

  By now her fingers were numb and clumsy. She peeled back a corner of the blanket, just enough to catch a glimpse of a foot. Tiny, almost doll-like, the skin a dusky and marbled blue.

  That was all she needed to see.

  She covered it again, with the sheet. Rising to her feet, she looked at Rizzoli. "Let's move it directly to the morgue. We'll finish unwrapping it there."

  Rizzoli merely nodded, and gazed down in silence at the tiny bundle. The wet wrappings were already starting to crust over in the icy wind.

  It was Frost who spoke. "How could she do it? Just toss her baby in the water like that?"

  Maura stripped off the latex gloves and thrust numb fingers into the woolen ones. She thought of the light blue blanket wrapped around the infant. Warm wool, like her gloves. Camille could have wrapped the baby in anything—newspapers, old sheets, rags—but she had chosen to wrap it in a blanket, as though to protect it, to insulate it from the frigid water of the pond.

  "I mean, drowning her own kid," said Frost. "She'd have to be out of her mind."

  "The infant may already have been dead."

  "Okay, so she killed it first. She'd still have to be crazy."

  "We can't assume anything. Not until the autopsy." Maura glanced toward the abbey. Three nuns stood like dark-robed wraiths beneath the archway, watching them. She said to Rizzoli: "Have you told Mary Clement yet?"

  Rizzoli didn't answer. Her gaze was still fixed on what the pond had yielded up to them. It took only one pair of hands to slip the bundle into the oversize body bag, to seal it with an efficient tug of the zipper. She winced at the sound.

  Maura asked, "Do the sisters know?"

  At last Rizzoli looked at her. "They've been told what we found."

  "They must have an idea who the father is."

  "They deny it's even possible she was pregnant."

  "But the evidence is right here."

  Rizzoli gave a snort. "Faith is stronger than evidence."

  Faith in what? Maura wondered. A young woman's virtue? Was there any house of cards more rickety than the belief in human chastity?

  They fell silent as the body bag was carried away. There was no need to bring a stretcher through the snow; the attendant had scooped the bag into his arms as tenderly as though he was lifting his own child, and now he walked with grim purpose across the windy field, toward the abbey.

  Maura's cell phone rang, violating the mournful silence. She flipped it open and answered quietly: "Dr. Isles."

  "I'm sorry I had to leave without saying goodbye this morning."

  She felt her face flush and her heartbeat go into double time. "Victor."

  "I had to get to my meeting in Cambridge. I didn't want to wake you. I hope you didn't think I was running out on you."

  "Actually, I did."

  "Can we meet later, for dinner?"

  She paused, suddenly aware that Rizzoli was watching her. Aware, too, of her own physical reaction to Victor's voice. The quickened pulse, the happy anticipation. Already he's worked his way back into my life, she thought. Already, I'm thinking of the possibilities.

  She turned from Rizzoli's gaze, and her voice dropped to a murmur. "I don't know when I'll be free. There's so much going on right now."

  "You can tell me all about your day over dinner."

  "It's already turning into a doozy."

  "You have to eat sometime, Maura. Can I take you out? Your favorite restaurant?"

  She answered too quickly, too eagerly. "No, I'll meet you at my house. I'll try to be home by seven."

  "I don't expect you to cook for me."

  "Then I'll let you do the cooking."

  He laughed. "Brave woman."

  "If I'm late, you can get in through the side door to the garage. You probably know where the key is."

  "Don't tell me you're still hiding it in that old shoe."

  "No one's found it yet. I'll see you tonight."

  She hung up, and turned to find that now both Rizzoli and Frost were watching her.

  "Hot date?" asked Rizzoli.

  "At my age, I'm lucky to have any date," she said, and slipped the phone in her purse. "I'll see you both in the morgue."

  As she tramped back across the field, following the trail of broken snow, she felt their gazes on her back. It was a relief to finally push through the rear gate and retreat behind abbey walls. But only a few steps into the courtyard, she heard her name called.

  She turned to see Father Brophy emerge from a doorway. He walked toward her, a solemn figure in black. Against the gray and dreary sky, his eyes were a startling shade of blue.

  "Mother Mary Clement would like to speak to you," he said.

  "Detective Rizzoli is the person she should probably talk to."

  "She'd prefer to speak to you."

  "Why?"

  "Because you're not a policeman. At least you seem willing to listen to her concerns. To understand."

  "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 Mar
y 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 be
en 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."