The Sinner (3 page)

T
HREE

J
ANE
R
IZZOLI STOOD
at the bathroom
sink,
staring at herself in the mirror, and not liking what she saw. She could not
help
comparing herself to the elegant Dr. Isles, who always seemed regally serene and
in control, every black hair in place, her lipstick a glossy slash of red on
flawless
skin. The image Rizzoli saw in the mirror was neither serene nor flawless. Her
hair
was as wild as a banshee’s, the black coils overwhelming a face that was
pale
and strained. I’m not myself, she thought. I don’t recognize this
woman
looking back at me. When did I turn into this stranger?

Another wave of nausea suddenly washed through her and she closed
her
eyes, fighting it, resisting it as fiercely as though her life depended on it.
Sheer
willpower couldn’t hold back the inevitable. Clapping a hand to her mouth,
she
made a dash for the nearest toilet stall, getting there just in time. Even after
her stomach had emptied itself, she lingered there with her head hung over the
bowl,
not yet daring to leave the security of the stall. Thinking:
It’s got to
be
the flu. Please, let it be the flu.

When at last her nausea had passed, she felt so drained she sat
down
on the toilet and slumped sideways against the wall. She thought about the work
that
lay before her. All the interviews still to be done, the frustrations of trying
to
tease out any useful information from this community of stunned and silent
women.
And the standing around, worst of all, the exhaustion of just standing around
while
CSU performed its microscopic treasure hunt. Usually she was the one eagerly
sifting
for evidence, always more evidence, the one who fought for control of every
crime
scene. Now here she was, holed up in a toilet stall, reluctant to step back into
the thick of it, where she always strove to be. Wishing she could hide out here,
where it was blessedly silent, and where no one could glimpse the turmoil
written
on her face. She wondered how much Dr. Isles had already noticed; perhaps
nothing.
Isles had always seemed more interested in the dead than the living, and when
confronting
a homicide scene, it was the corpse who commanded her attention.

At last, Rizzoli straightened and stepped out of the stall. Her
head
felt clear now, her stomach settled. The ghost of the old Rizzoli, creeping back
into its skin. At the sink, she scooped icy water into her mouth to rinse out
the
sour taste, then splashed more water on her face. Buck up, girl. Don’t be a
wimp. Let the guys see a hole in your armor, and they’ll aim straight for
it.
They always do. She grabbed a paper towel, blotted her face dry, and was about
to
drop the paper into the trash can when she paused, remembering Sister
Camille’s
bed. The blood on the sheets.

The trash can was about half full. Among the mound of crumpled
paper
towels was a small bundle of toilet paper. Quelling her distaste, she unwrapped
the
bundle. Although she already knew what it contained, she was still jolted by the
sight of another woman’s menstrual blood. She dealt with blood all the
time,
and had just seen a lake of it beneath Camille’s corpse. Yet she was far
more
shaken by the mere glimpse of this sanitary pad. It was soaked, heavy. This was
why
you left your bed, she thought. The warmth seeping between your thighs, and the
dampness
of the sheets. You got up and came into the bathroom to change pads, depositing
this
soiled one in the trash can.

And then . . . what did you do then?

She left the bathroom and returned to Camille’s chamber. Dr.
Isles
had left, and Rizzoli was alone in the room, frowning at the bloodstained
sheets,
the one bright blot in this colorless room. She crossed to the window and looked
down, at the courtyard.

Multiple footprints now tracked across the frosting of sleet and
snow.
Beyond the gate, yet another TV news van had pulled up outside the wall, and was
setting up its satellite feed. The dead nun story, beamed straight into your
living
room. Sure to be a lead at five, she thought; we’re all curious about nuns.
Swear off sex, retreat behind walls, and everyone wonders what it is you’re
hiding underneath that habit. It’s the chastity that intrigues us; we
wonder
about any human being who girds herself against the most powerful of all urges,
who
turns her back on what nature intended us to fulfill. It’s their purity
that
makes them titillating.

Rizzoli’s gaze swung back across the courtyard, to the
chapel.
Where I should be right now, she thought, shivering with the CSU crew. Not
lingering
up here in this room that smelled of Clorox. But only from this room could she
picture
the view that Camille must have seen, returning from her nocturnal trip to the
bathroom
on a dark winter’s morning. She would have seen light, shining through the
chapel’s
stained-glass windows.

A light that should not have been there.

Maura stood by as the two attendants laid out a clean sheet and
gently
transferred Sister Camille. She had watched transport teams remove other bodies
from
other sites. Sometimes they performed the task with perfunctory efficiency,
other
times with evident distaste. But every so often, she saw them move a victim with
special tenderness. Young children received this attention, their small heads
cradled
with care, their still forms caressed through the body pouch. Sister Camille was
treated with just such tenderness, just such sorrow.

She held open the chapel door as they wheeled out the stretcher,
and
followed it as it made its slow progress toward the gate. Beyond the walls, the
news
media swarmed, cameras ready to capture the classic image of tragedy: the body
on
the stretcher, the plastic shroud containing a clearly human shape. Though the
public
could not see the victim, they would hear that she was a young woman, and they
would
look at that bag and mentally dissect its contents. Their ruthless imaginations
would
violate Camille’s privacy in ways Maura’s scalpel never could.

As the stretcher rolled out the abbey gate, a ring of reporters
and
cameramen surged forward, ignoring the patrolman yelling at them to stand back.

It was the priest who finally managed to hold the pack at bay. An
imposing
figure in black, he strode out of the gate and swept into the crowd, his angry
voice
carrying over the sounds of chaos.

“This poor sister deserves your respect! Why don’t you
show
her some? Let her pass!”

Even reporters can sometimes be shamed, and a few of them stepped
back
to allow the transport team through. But the TV cameras kept rolling as the
stretcher
was loaded into the vehicle. Now those hungry cameras turned to their next prey:
Maura, who had just slipped out of the gate and was headed toward her car,
hugging
her coat tight, as though it would shield her from notice.

“Dr. Isles! Do you have a statement?”

“What was the cause of death?”

“—any evidence this was a sexual assault?”

With reporters bearing down on her, she fumbled in her purse for
the
keys and pressed the remote lock release. She’d just opened her car door
when
she heard her name shouted out. But this time, it was in alarm.

She looked back, and saw that a man was sprawled on the sidewalk,
and
several people were bending over him.

“We’ve got a cameraman down!” someone yelled.
“We
need an ambulance!”

Maura slammed her car door shut and hurried back toward the fallen
man. “What happened?” she asked. “Did he slip?”

“No, he was running—just kind of keeled over—”

She crouched down at his side. They had already rolled him onto
his
back, and she saw a heavyset man in his fifties, his face turning dusky. A TV
camera,
emblazoned with the letters WVSU, was lying in the snow beside him.

He wasn’t breathing.

She tilted his head backwards, extending the beefy neck to open
the
airway, and leaned forward to start resuscitation. The smell of stale coffee and
cigarettes almost made her gag. She thought of hepatitis and AIDS and all the
other
microscopic horrors one could catch from body fluids, and forced herself to seal
her mouth over his. She blew in a breath and saw the chest rise, the lungs
inflating
with air. Blew in two more breaths, then felt for a carotid pulse.

Nothing.

She was about to unzip the man’s jacket, but someone else was
already doing it for her. She looked up and saw the priest kneeling opposite
her,
large hands now probing the man’s chest for landmarks. He placed his palms
over
the sternum, then looked at her, to confirm he should begin chest compressions.
She
saw startling blue eyes. An expression of grim purpose.

“Start pumping,” she said. “Do it.”

He leaned into the task, counting aloud with each compression so
she
could time the breaths. “One one-thousand. Two one-thousand . . .” No
panic
in his voice, just the steady count of a man who knows what he’s doing. She
didn’t need to direct him; they worked together as though they had always
been
a team, twice switching positions to relieve each other.

By the time the ambulance arrived, the front of her slacks was
soaked
from kneeling in the snow, and she was sweating despite the cold. She rose
stiffly
to her feet and watched, exhausted, as the EMTs inserted IVs and an endotracheal
tube, as the stretcher was loaded into the ambulance.

The TV camera the man had dropped was now being wielded by another
WVSU employee. The show must go on, she thought, watching the reporters mill
about
the ambulance, even if the story is now about your own colleague’s
collapse.

She turned to the priest standing beside her, the knees of his
pants
soaked with melted snow. “Thank you for the help,” she said. “I
take
it you’ve done CPR before.”

He gave a smile, a shrug. “Only on a plastic dummy. I
didn’t
think I’d ever have to actually use it.” He reached out to shake her
hand.
“I’m Daniel Brophy. You’re the medical examiner?”

“Maura Isles. This is your parish, Father Brophy?”

He nodded. “My church is three blocks from here.”

“Yes, I’ve seen it.”

“Do you think we saved that man?”

She shook her head. “When CPR goes on that long, without a
pulse,
it’s not a very good prognosis.”

“But there’s a chance he’ll live?”

“Not a good one.”

“Even so, I’d like to think we made a difference.”
He
glanced at the TV reporters, still fixated on the ambulance. “Let me walk
you
to your car, so you can get out of here without having a camera shoved in your
face.”

“They’ll go after you next. I hope you’re ready for
them.”

“I’ve already promised to make a statement. Though I
don’t
really know what they want to hear from me.”

“They’re cannibals, Father Brophy. They want nothing
less
than a pound of your flesh. Ten pounds, if they can get it.”

He laughed. “Then I should warn them, it’s going to be
pretty
stringy meat.”

He walked with her to her car. Her wet slacks were clinging to her
legs, the fabric already stiffening in the chill wind. She would have to change
into
a scrub suit when she returned to the morgue, and hang the slacks to dry.

“If I’m to make a statement,” he said, “is
there
anything I should know? Anything you can tell me?”

“You’ll have to speak to Detective Rizzoli. She’s
the
lead investigator.”

“Do you think this was an isolated attack? Should other
parishes
be concerned?”

“I only examine the victims, not the attackers. I can’t
tell
you his motives.”

“These are elderly women. They can’t fight back.”

“I know.”

“So what do we tell them? All the sisters living in religious
communities? That they’re not safe even behind walls?”

“None of us is entirely safe.”

“That’s not the answer I want to give them.”

“But it’s the one they have to hear.” She opened
her
car door. “I was raised Catholic, Father. I used to think nuns were
untouchable.
But I’ve just seen what was done to Sister Camille. If that can happen to a
nun, then no one is untouchable.” She slid into her car. “Good luck
with
the press. You have my sympathies.”

He closed her car door and stood looking at her through the
window.
As striking as his face was, it was that clerical collar that drew her gaze.
Such
a narrow band of white, yet it set him apart from all others. It made him
unattainable.

He raised his hand in a wave. Then he looked toward the pack of
reporters,
who were even now closing in on him. She saw him straighten and take a deep
breath.
Then he strode forward to meet them.

“In light of the gross anatomical findings, as well as the
subject’s
known history of hypertension, it is my opinion that this death was from natural
causes. The most likely sequence of events was an acute myocardial infarction,
occurring
within the twenty-four hours prior to death, followed by a ventricular
arrhythmia,
which was the terminal event. Presumptive cause of death: fatal arrhythmia
secondary
to acute myocardial infarction. Dictated by Maura Isles, M.D., Office of the
Medical
Examiner, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

Maura turned off the Dictaphone and stared down at the preprinted
diagrams
on which she had earlier recorded the landmarks of Mr. Samuel Knight’s
body.
The old appendectomy scar. The blotches of lividity on his buttocks and the
underside
of his thighs, where blood had pooled during the hours he had sat, lifeless, on
his
bed. There had been no witnesses to Mr. Knight’s final moments in his hotel
room, but she could imagine what went through his mind. A sudden fluttering in
his
chest. Perhaps a few seconds’ panic, when he realizes that the fluttering
is
his heart. And then, a gradual fadeout to black. You were one of the easy ones,
she
thought. A swift dictation, and Mr. Knight could be set aside. Their brief
acquaintance
would end with the scrawl of her name on his autopsy report.