The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen Read Free Book Online Page A

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.
    More reports sat in her in-box, a stack of transcribed dictations
needing
her review and signature. In cold storage, yet another new acquaintance waited
for
her: Camille Maginnes, whose autopsy was scheduled for nine o’clock the
next
morning, when both Rizzoli and Frost could attend. Even as Maura flipped through
reports, jotting corrections in the margins, her mind was still on Camille. The
chill
she’d felt in the chapel that morning had not left her, and she kept her
sweater
on as she worked at her desk, bundled against the memory of that visit.
    She rose from her chair to feel whether her wool slacks, which
she’d
left hanging over the radiator, were now