The Sinner Read Free

herself
back
to her feet, she felt icy water trickle down her calves from the soaked hem of
her
coat, which had fallen into the slush. For a few seconds she just stood there,
sleet
stinging her face, shocked by how quickly it had all happened.
    She glanced across the street at the patrolman sitting in his
cruiser,
and saw that he was watching her, and had surely seen her slip. Her pride stung,
she grabbed her kit from the front seat, swung the door shut, and made her way,
with
as much dignity as she could muster, across the rime-slicked road.
    “You okay, Doc?” the patrolman called out through his
car
window, a concerned inquiry she really did not welcome.
    “I’m fine.”
    “Watch yourself in those shoes. It’s even more slippery
in
the courtyard.”
    “Where’s Detective Rizzoli?”
    “They’re in the chapel.”
    “And where’s that?”
    “Can’t miss it. It’s the door with the big cross on
it.”
    She continued to the front gate, but found it locked. An iron bell
hung on the wall; she tugged on the pull rope, and the medieval clang slowly
faded
into the softer tick, tick of falling sleet. Just beneath the bell was a bronze
plaque,
its inscription partially obscured by a strand of brown ivy.
    Graystones Abbey
The Sisters of Our Lady of Divine Light
    “The harvest is indeed great, but the laborers are few.
    Pray, therefore, to send laborers
    Into the harvest.”
    On the other side of the gate, a woman swathed in black
suddenly
appeared, her approach so silent that Maura gave a start when she saw the face
staring
at her through the bars. It was an ancient face, so deeply lined it seemed to be
collapsing in on itself, but the eyes were bright and sharp as a bird’s.
The
nun did not speak, posing her question with only her gaze.
    “I’m Dr. Isles from the Medical Examiner’s
office,”
said Maura. “The police called me here.”
    The gate squealed open.
    Maura stepped into the courtyard. “I’m looking for
Detective
Rizzoli. I believe she’s in the chapel.”
    The nun pointed directly across the courtyard. Then she turned and
shuffled slowly into the nearest doorway, abandoning Maura to make her own way
to
the chapel.
    Snowflakes whirled and danced amid needles of sleet, like white
butterflies
circling their lead-footed cousins. The most direct route was to cross the
courtyard,
but the stones were glazed with ice, and Maura’s shoes, with their gripless
soles, had already proven no match for such a surface. She ducked instead
beneath
the narrow covered walkway that ran along the courtyard’s perimeter. Though
protected from the sleet, she found little shelter here from the wind, which
sliced
through her coat. She was shocked by the cold, reminded yet again of how cruel
December
in Boston could be. For most of her life, she had lived in San Francisco, where
a
glimpse of snowflakes was a rare delight, not a torment, like these stinging
nettles
that swirled under the overhang to nip her face. She veered closer to the
building
and hugged her coat tighter as she passed darkened windows. From beyond the gate
came the faint swish of traffic on Jamaica Riverway. But here, within these
walls,
she heard only silence. Excep t for the elderly nun who had admitted her, the
compound
seemed abandoned.
    So it was a shock when she saw three faces staring at her from one
of the windows. The nuns stood in a silent tableau, like dark-robed ghosts
behind
glass, watching the intruder make her way deeper into their sanctuary. Their
gazes
swerved in unison, following her as she moved past.
    The entrance to the chapel was draped with a strand of yellow
crime
scene tape, which had sagged in the doorway and hung crusted with sleet. She
lifted
the tape to step beneath it and pushed open the door.
    A camera flash exploded in her eyes and she froze, the door slowly
hissing shut behind her, blinking away the afterimage that had seared her
retinas.
As her vision cleared, she saw rows of wooden pews, whitewashed walls, and