The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel Read Free Page A

the perimeter of the room, hugging the wall. Only as she cleared the front row of pews did she see the nun’s body, lying faceup, the fabric of her habit a black pool blending into a larger lake of red. Both hands had already been bagged to preserve evidence. The victim’s youth took Maura by surprise. The nun who had let her in the gate, and those she had seen through the window, had all been elderly. This woman was far younger. It was an ethereal face, her pale blue eyes frozen in a look of eerie serenity. Her head was bare, the blond hair shorn to barely an inch long. Every terrible blow was recorded in the torn scalp, the misshapen crown.
    “Her name’s Camille Maginnes. Sister Camille. Hometown, Hyannisport,” said Rizzoli, sounding Dragnet-cool and businesslike. “She was the first novice they’ve had here in fifteen years. Planned to take her final vows in May.” She paused, then added: “She was only twenty,” and her anger cracked through the facade.
    “She’s so young.”
    “Yeah. Looks like he beat the shit out of her.”
    Maura pulled on gloves and crouched down to study the destruction. The death instrument had left raggedly linear lacerations on the scalp. Fragments of bone protruded through torn skin, and a clump of gray matter had oozed out. Though the facial skin was largely intact, it was suffused a dark purple.
    “She died facedown. Who turned her onto her back?”
    “The sisters who found her,” said Rizzoli. “They were looking for a pulse.”
    “What time were the victims discovered?”
    “About eight this morning.” Rizzoli glanced at her watch. “Nearly two hours ago.”
    “Do you know what happened? What did the sisters tell you?”
    “It’s been hard getting anything useful out of them. There are only fourteen nuns left now, and they’re all in a state of shock. Here they think they’re safe. Protected by God. And then some lunatic breaks in.”
    “There are signs of forced entry?”
    “No, but it wouldn’t be all that hard to get into the compound. There’s ivy growing all over the walls—you could hop right over without too much trouble. And there’s also a back gate, leading to a field, where they have their gardens. A perp could get in that way, too.”
    “Footprints?”
    “A few in here. But outside, they’d be pretty much buried under snow.”
    “So we don’t know that he actually broke in. He could have been admitted through that front gate.”
    “It’s a cloistered order, Doc. No one’s allowed inside the gates except for the parish priest, when he comes in to say Mass and hear confession. And there’s also a lady who works in the rectory. They let her bring her little girl when she can’t get child care. But that’s it. No one else comes in without the Abbess’s approval. And the sisters stay inside. They leave only for doctors’ appointments and family emergencies.”
    “Who have you spoken to so far?”
    “The Abbess, Mother Mary Clement. And the two nuns who found the victims.”
    “What did they tell you?”
    Rizzoli shook her head. “Saw nothing, heard nothing. I don’t think the others will be able to tell us much, either.”
    “Why not?”
    “Have you seen how old they are?”
    “It doesn’t mean they don’t have their wits about them.”
    “One of them’s gorked out by a stroke and two of them have Alzheimer’s. Most of them sleep in rooms facing away from the courtyard, so they wouldn’t have seen a thing.”
    At first Maura simply crouched over Camille’s body, not touching it. Granting the victim a last moment of dignity. Nothing can hurt you now, she thought. She began to palpate the scalp, and felt the crunch of shifting bone fragments beneath the skin. “Multiple blows. All of them landed on the crown or the back of the skull. . . .”
    “And the facial bruising? Is that just lividity?”
    “Yes. And it’s fixed.”
    “So the blows came from behind. And above.”
    “The attacker was probably taller.”
    “Or she