The Sinner (8 page)

Noni’s gaze dropped to her lap.

“You ever peek at the sisters? You know, just sort of watch
what
they’re doing?”

“I see them all the time.”

“How about when they’re in their rooms?”

“I’m not allowed to go up there.”

“But do you ever watch them when they’re not looking?
When
they don’t know it?”

Noni’s head was still bent. She said, into her sweatshirt,
“That’s
peeping
.”

“And you know better than to do that,” said Grace.
“It’s
an invasion of privacy. I’ve told you that.”

Noni crossed her arms and declared in a stentorian voice: “
’vasion
of
privacy
.” It sounded like a mocking of her mother. Grace reddened
and moved toward her daughter, as though to strike her.

Rizzoli halted Grace with a swift gesture. “Would you and
Mother
Mary Clement mind stepping out of the room for a minute, Mrs. Otis?”

“You said I could stay,” said Grace.

“I think Noni might need a little extra police persuasion. It
will work better if you’re not in the room.”

“Oh.” Grace nodded, an unpleasant gleam in her eye.
“Of
course.” Rizzoli had read this woman correctly; Grace was not interested in
protecting her daughter; rather, she wanted to see Noni disciplined. Cowed.
Grace
shot Noni a
now you’re in for it
look, and walked out of the room,
followed
by the Abbess.

For a moment, no one spoke. Noni sat with head ducked, hands in
her
lap. The picture of childish obedience. What an act.

Rizzoli pulled up a chair and sat down, facing the girl. There she
waited, not speaking. Letting the silence play out between them.

At last, from beneath a wayward curl of hair, Noni cast a sly
glance
at Rizzoli. “What’re you waiting for?” she said.

“For you to tell me what you saw in Camille’s room.
Because
I know you were peeking at her. I used to do the same thing when I was a kid.
Spy
on the grownups. See what kind of weird things they do.”

“It’s a ’vasion of privacy.”

“Yeah, but it’s fun, isn’t it?”

Noni’s head came up, her eyes focusing with dark intensity on
Rizzoli. “This is a trick.”

“I don’t play tricks, okay? I need you to help me. I
think
you’re a very smart girl. I bet you see things that grownups don’t
even
notice. What do you think?”

Noni gave a sullen shrug. “Maybe.”

“So tell me some of the things you see the nuns do.”

“Like the weird things?”

“Yeah.”

Noni leaned toward Rizzoli and said softly: “Sister Abigail
wears
a diaper. She pees in her pants because she’s really, really old.”

“How old, do you think?”

“Like, fifty.”

“Wow. That
is
old.”

“Sister Cornelia picks her nose.”

“Yuck.”

“And she shoots it on the floor when she thinks nobody’s
looking.”

“Double yuck.”

“And she tells me to wash my hands because I’m a dirty
little
girl. But she doesn’t wash her hands, and she’s got boogers on
hers.”

“You’re ruining my appetite, kid.”

“So I told her why didn’t she wash off the boogers, and
she
got mad at me. She said I talk too much. Sister Ursula said so too, because I
asked
her why that lady didn’t have any fingers, and she told me to be quiet. And
my mommy makes me apologize all the time. She says I’m ’barrassing to
her.
That’s because I’m out and about where I shouldn’t be.”

“Okay, okay,” said Rizzoli, looking as if she was
getting
a headache. “That’s a lot of really interesting stuff. But you know
what
I want to hear about?”

“What?”

“What you saw in Camille’s room. Through that peephole.
You
were looking, weren’t you?”

Noni’s gaze dropped to her lap. “Maybe.”

“Weren’t you?”

This time Noni gave a submissive nod. “I wanted to see . .
.”

“See what?”

“What they wear underneath their clothes.”

Maura had to catch herself from bursting out in laughter. She
remembered
her years at Holy Innocents, when she, too, had wondered what the sisters wore
beneath
their habits. Nuns had seemed like such mysterious creatures, their bodies
disguised
and shapeless, black robes fending off the gazes of the curious. What did a
bride
of Christ wear against her bare skin? She had imagined ugly white pantaloons
that
pulled all the way up over the navel, and cotton bras designed to disguise and
diminish,
and thick stockings like sausage casings over legs with bulging blue veins. She
had
imagined bodies imprisoned by layers and layers of bland cotton. Then one day,
she
had seen pinch-lipped Sister Lawrencia lift her skirt as she climbed the stairs,
and had caught a startling glimpse of scarlet beneath the nun’s raised hem.
It was not just a red slip, but a red
satin
slip. She had never again
looked
at Sister Lawrencia, or at any nun, in quite the same way.

“You know,” said Rizzoli, leaning toward the girl,
“I
always wondered what they wear under their habits, too. Did you see?”

Gravely, Noni shook her head. “She never took off her
clothes.”

“Not even to go to bed?”

“I have to go home before they go to bed. I never saw.”

“Well, what did you see? What did Camille do up there, all
alone
in her room?”

Noni rolled her eyes, as though the answer was almost too boring
to
mention. “She cleaned. All the time. She was the
cleanest
lady.”

Maura remembered the scrubbed floor, the varnish rubbed down to
bare
wood.

“What else did she do?” asked Rizzoli.

“She read her book.”

“What else?”

Noni paused. “She cried a lot.”

“Do you know why she was crying?”

The girl chewed on her bottom lip as she thought about it.
Suddenly
she brightened as the answer came to her. “Because she was sorry about
Jesus.”

“Why do you think that?”

The girl gave an exasperated sigh. “Don’t you know? He
died
on the cross.”

“Maybe she was crying about something else.”

“But she kept looking at him. He’s hanging on her
wall.”

Maura thought of the crucifix, mounted across from him
Camille’s
bed. And she imagined the young novice, prostrated before that cross, praying
for
. . . what? Forgiveness for her sins? Deliverance from the consequences? But
every
month, the child would be growing inside her, and she would begin to feel it
moving.
Kicking. No amount of prayer or frantic scrubbing could wash away that guilt.

“Am I done?” asked Noni.

Rizzoli sank back in her chair with a sigh. “Yeah, kid.
We’re
all done. You can go join your mom.”

The girl hopped off the chair, landing with a noisy clomp that
made
her curls bounce. “She was sad about the ducks, too.”

“Man, that sounds good for dinner,” said Rizzoli.
“Roast
duck.”

“She used to feed them, but then they all flew away for the
winter.
My mommy says some of them won’t come back, because they get eaten up down
south.”

“Yeah, well, that’s life.” Rizzoli waved her off.
“Go
on, your Mom’s waiting.”

The girl was almost at the kitchen door when Maura called out:
“Noni?
Where were these ducks that was Camille feeding?”

“The ones in the pond.”

“Which pond?”

“You know, in the back. Even when they flew away, she kept
going
out to look for them, but my mommy said she was wasting her time because
they’re
probably in Florida. That’s where Disney World is,” she added, and
skipped
out of the room.

There was a long silence.

Slowly Rizzoli turned and looked at Maura. “Did you just hear
what I heard?”

“Yes.”

“Are you thinking . . .”

Maura nodded. “You have to search the duck pond.”

It was nearly ten when Maura pulled into her driveway. The lights
were on in her living room, giving the illusion that someone was at home,
waiting
for her, but she knew the house was empty. It was always an empty house that
greeted
her, the lights turned on not by human hands but by a trio of $5.99 automatic
timers
bought in the local Wal-Mart. During the short days of winter, she set them for
five
o’clock, ensuring that she would not come home to a dark house. She had
chosen
this suburb of Brookline, just west of Boston, because of the sense of security
she
felt in its quiet, tree-lined streets. Most of her neighbors were urban
professionals
who, like her, worked in the city and fled every evening to this suburban haven.
Her neighbor on one side, Mr. Telushkin, was a robotics engineer from Israel.
Her
neighbors on the other side, Lily and Susan, were civil rights attorneys. In the
summertime, everyone kept their gardens neat and their cars waxed—an
updated
version of the American dream, where lesbians and immigrant professionals
happily
waved to each other across clipped hedges. It was as safe a neighborhood as one
could
find this close to the city, but Maura knew how illusory notions of safety were.
Roads into the suburbs can be traveled by both victims and predators. Her
autopsy
table was a democratic destination; it did not discriminate against suburban
housewives.

Though the lamps in her living room offered a welcoming glow, the
house
felt chilly. Or perhaps she had simply brought winter inside with her, like one
of
those cartoon characters over whom storm clouds always hang. She turned up the
thermostat
and lit the flame in the gas fireplace—a convenience that once struck her
as
appallingly fake, but which she had since come to appreciate. Fire was fire,
whether
it was lit with the flick of a switch, or by fussing over wood and kindling.
Tonight,
she craved its warmth, its cheery light, and was glad to be so quickly
gratified.

She poured a glass of sherry and settled into a chair beside the
hearth.
Through the window, she could see Christmas lights adorning the house across the
street, like twinkling icicles drooping from the eaves—a nagging reminder
of
how out-of-touch she was with the holiday spirit. She had not yet bought a tree,
or shopped for gifts, or even picked up a box of holiday cards. This was the
second
year in a row that she’d played Mrs. Grinch. Last winter, she had just
moved
to Boston, and in the midst of unpacking and settling into her job, she had
scarcely
noticed Christmas whizzing by. And what’s your excuse this year? she
thought.
She had only a week left to buy that tree and hang the lights and make eggnog.
At
the very least, she should play a few carols on her piano, as she used to do
when
she was a child. The book of holiday songs should still be in the piano bench,
where
it had been stored since . . .

Since my last Christmas with Victor.

She looked at the phone on the end table. Already, she could feel
the
effects of the sherry, and she knew that any decision she made now would be
tainted
by alcohol. By recklessness.

Yet she picked up the phone. As the hotel operator rang his room,
she
stared at the fireplace, thinking: This is a mistake. This is only going to
break
my heart.

He answered: “Maura?” Without her saying a word, he had
known
she was the one calling.

“I know it’s late,” she said.

“It’s only ten thirty.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have called.”

“So why did you?” he asked softly.

She paused and closed her eyes. Even then, she could still see the
glow of the flames.
Even if you don’t look at them, even if you pretend
they
aren’t there, the flames are still burning. Whether or not you see them,
they
burn.

“I thought it was time to stop avoiding you,” she said.
“Or
I’ll never get on with my life.”

“Well, that’s a flattering reason for you to call.”

She sighed. “It’s not coming out right.”

“I don’t think there’s any way to say it kindly,
what
you want to tell me. The least you can do is say it to me in person. Not over
the
phone.”

“Would that be kinder?”

“It’d be a hell of a lot braver.” A dare. An attack
on her courage.

She sat up straighter, her gaze back on the fire. “Why would
it
make a difference to you?”

“Because let’s face it, we both need to move on.
We’re
stuck in place, since neither of us really understands what went wrong. I loved
you,
and I think you loved me, yet look where we ended up. We can’t even be
friends.
Tell me why that is. Why can’t two people, who just happened to be married
to
each other, have a civilized conversation? The way we would with anyone
else?”

“Because you’re not anyone else.”
Because I loved
you.

“We can do that, can’t we? Just talk, face to face. Bury
the ghosts. I won’t be in town long. It’s now or never. Either we go
on
hiding from each other, or we bring this out in the open and talk about what
happened.
Put the blame on me, if you want to. I admit, I deserve a lot of it. But
let’s
stop pretending the other one doesn’t exist.”

She looked down at her empty sherry glass. “When do you want
to
meet?”

“I could come over now.”

Through the window, she saw the decorative lights across the
street
suddenly go dark, the twinkling icicles vanishing into a snowy night. A week
before
Christmas, and in all her life, she had never felt so lonely.

“I live in Brookline,” she said.

S
EVEN

S
HE SAW HIS HEADLIGHTS
through the falling
snowflakes.
He drove slowly, in search of her house, and came to a stop at the end of her
driveway.
Are you having doubts too, Victor? she thought. Are you wondering if this is a
mistake,
that you should turn around and go back to the city?

The car pulled over to the curb and parked.

She stepped away from the window and stood in the living room,
aware
that her heart was pounding, her hands sweating. The sound of the doorbell made
her
draw in a startled breath. She was unprepared to face him, but he was here now,
and
she couldn’t very well leave him standing outside in the cold.

The bell rang again.

She opened the door and snowflakes whirled in. They sparkled on
his
jacket, glittered in his hair, his beard. It was a classic Hallmark moment, the
old
lover standing on her doorstep, his hungry gaze searching her face, and she
couldn’t
think of anything to say except, “Come in.” No kiss, no hug, not even
a
brushing of hands.

He stepped inside and shrugged off his jacket. As she hung it up,
the
familiar smell of leather, of Victor, brought an ache to her throat. She shut
the
closet and turned to look at him. “Would you like a drink?”

“How about some coffee?”

“The real stuff?”

“It’s only been three years, Maura. You have to
ask?”

No, she didn’t have to ask. High-octane and black was the way
he always drank it. She felt an unsettling sense of familiarity as she led him
into
the kitchen, as she took the bag of Mt. Sutro Roasters coffee beans from the
freezer.
It had been their favorite brand in San Francisco, and she still had a fresh bag
of it shipped to her from the shop every two weeks. Marriages may end, but some
things
one simply couldn’t give up. She ground the beans and started the
coffeemaker,
aware that he was slowly surveying her kitchen, taking in the stainless steel
Sub-Zero
refrigerator, the Viking stove, and the black granite countertops. She had
remodeled
the kitchen soon after she’d bought the house, and she felt a sense of
pride
that he was standing in
her
territory, that she had earned everything he
was
now looking at, with her own hard work. In that regard, their divorce had been
relatively
simple; they had asked for nothing from each other. After only two years of
marriage,
they’d simply reclaimed their separate assets, and gone their own ways.
This
home was hers alone, and each evening, when she walked in the door, she knew
that
everything would be where she had left it. That every stick of furniture had
been
her purchase, her choice.

“Looks like you finally got the kitchen of your dreams,”
he said.

“I’m happy with it.”

“So tell me, do meals really taste better when they’re
cooked
on a fancy six-burner stove?”

She didn’t appreciate his undertone of sarcasm, and she shot
back:
“As a matter of fact, they do. And they taste better on Richard Ginori
china,
too.”

“What happened to good old Crate and Barrel?”

“I’ve decided to indulge myself, Victor. I’ve
stopped
feeling guilty about having money and spending money. Life’s too short to
keep
living like a hippie.”

“Oh come on, Maura. Is that what it felt like, living with
me?”

“You made me feel as if splurging on a few luxuries was a
betrayal
of the cause.”

“What cause?”

“For you, everything was a cause. There are people starving
in
Angola, so it’s a sin to buy nice linens. Or eat a steak. Or own a
Mercedes.”

“I thought you believed it, too.”

“You know what, Victor? Idealism becomes exhausting. I’m
not ashamed of having money, and I won’t feel guilty about spending
it.”

She poured his coffee, wondering if he was conscious of the ironic
little detail that he, an addict of Mt. Sutro coffee beans, was drinking a brew
made
from beans shipped across the country (wasted jet fuel!) Or that the cup in
which
she served it was emblazoned with the logo of a pharmaceutical company
(corporate
bribery!) But he was silent as he took the cup. Strangely subdued, for a man
who’d
always been so driven by his idealism.

It was that very passion that had first drawn her to him. They had
met at a San Francisco conference on third world medicine. She had presented a
paper
on overseas autopsy rates; he had delivered the keynote address about the many
human
tragedies encountered by One Earth’s medical teams abroad. Standing before
the
smartly dressed audience, Victor had looked more like a tired and unshaven
backpacker
than a physician. He had, in fact, just stepped off the plane from Guatemala
City,
and had not even had the chance to iron his shirt. He’d walked into the
room
carrying only a box of slides. He’d brought no written speech, no notes,
just
that precious collection of images, which played across the screen in tragic
progression.
The young Ethiopian mother, dying of tetanus. The Peruvian baby with the cleft
palate,
abandoned at the roadside. The Kazakh girl, dead of pneumonia, wrapped in her
burial
shroud. Every one of them was a preventable death, he’d emphasized. These
were
the innocent victims of war an d poverty and ignorance that his organization,
One
Earth, could have saved. But there would never be enough money, or enough
volunteers,
to meet the needs of every humanitarian crisis.

Even halfway back in that dark room, Maura had been moved by his
words,
by how passionately he spoke of tent clinics and feeding stations, of the
forgotten
poor who died unnoticed every day.

When the lights came up, she no longer saw just a rumpled doctor
standing
behind the podium. She saw a man whose sense of purpose made him larger than
life.
She, who insisted on order and reason in her own life, found herself attracted
to
this man of almost frightening intensity, whose job took him to the most chaotic
places on earth.

And what had he seen in her? Certainly not a sister crusader.
Instead,
she’d brought stability and calm to his life. She was the one who balanced
their
checkbook and organized the household, the one who waited at home while he
traveled
from crisis to crisis, continent to continent. His life was lived out of a
suitcase,
and was rich with adrenaline.

Has that life been so much happier without me? she wondered. He
did
not look particularly happy, sitting here at her kitchen table, sipping coffee.
In
many ways, he was still the same Victor. His hair was a little shaggy, his shirt
in need of a good pressing, and the edges of the collar were frayed—all
evidence
of his disdain for the superficial. But in other ways he was different. An
older,
wearier Victor who seemed quiet, even sad, his fire dampened by maturity.

She sat down with her own cup of coffee and they looked at each
other
across the table.

“We should have had this talk three years ago,” he said.

“Three years ago, you wouldn’t have listened to
me.”

“Did you try? Did you ever once come out and tell me that you
were sick of being the activist’s wife?”

She looked down at her coffee. No, she had not told him. She had
held
it in, the way she held in emotions that disturbed her. Anger, resentment,
despair—they
all made her feel out of control, and that she could not abide. When she’d
finally
signed the divorce papers, she’d felt eerily detached.

“I never knew how hard it was for you,” he said.

“Would it have changed anything if I’d told you?”

“You could have tried.”

“And what would you have done? Resigned from One Earth? There
was no way to compromise. You get too much of a thrill from playing Saint
Victor.
All the awards, all the praise. No one gets on the cover of
People
just
for
being a good husband.”

“You think that’s why I do it? For the attention, the
publicity?
Jesus, Maura. You know how important this is! Give me some credit, at
least.”

She sighed. “You’re right, that wasn’t fair of me.
But
we both know you’d miss it.”

“Yes, I would,” he admitted. Then added, quietly:
“But
I didn’t know how much I’d miss
you
.”

She let those last words slip past without a response. Let the
silence
hang between them. In truth, she didn’t know what to say, his admission had
so taken her aback.

“You look great,” he said. “And you seem content.
Are
you?”

“Yes.” Her answer was too quick, too automatic. She felt
herself flush.

“The new job’s working out?” he asked.

“It keeps me challenged.”

“More fun than terrorizing medical students at U.C.?”

She gave a laugh. “I did not terrorize medical
students.”

“They might beg to differ.”

“I held them to higher standards, that’s all. And they
almost
always met them.”

“You were a good teacher, Maura. I’m sure the university
would love to have you back.”

“Well, we all move on, don’t we?” She could feel
his
gaze on her face, and she purposefully kept her expression unreadable.

“I saw you on TV yesterday,” he said. “The evening
news.
About the attack on those nuns.”

“I was hoping the cameras would miss me.”

“I spotted you right away. They showed you walking out the
gate.”

“It’s one of the job hazards. You’re always in the
public
eye.”

“Especially that particular case, I imagine. It was on every
TV
station.”

“What are they saying about it?”

“That the police have no suspects. That the motive remains
unknown.”
He shook his head. “It does sound completely irrational, attacking nuns.
Unless
there was some kind of sexual assault.”

“That makes it rational?”

“You know what I mean.”

Yes, she did know, and she knew Victor well enough not to be
offended
by his comment. There was indeed a difference between the coldly calculating
sexual
predator and the psychotic who had no grip on reality.

“I did the autopsy this morning,” she said.
“Multiple
skull fractures. Torn middle meningeal artery. He hit her again and again,
probably
with a hammer. I’m not sure you could classify this attack as
rational.”

He shook his head. “How do you deal with it, Maura? You went
from
performing autopsies on nice, neat hospital deaths to something like this.”

“Hospital deaths aren’t exactly nice and neat.”

“But a postmortem on a homicide victim? And she was young,
wasn’t
she?”

“Only twenty.” She paused, on the verge of telling him
what
else she’d found at autopsy. When they were married, they’d always
shared
medical gossip, trusting each other to keep such information confidential. But
this
subject was too grim, and she didn’t want to invite Death any deeper into
the
conversation.

She rose to refill their cups. When she returned to the table with
the coffeepot, she said: “Now tell me about you. What’s Saint Victor
been
up to?”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“You used to think it was funny.”

“Now I think it’s ominous. When the press starts calling
you a saint, you know they’re just waiting for the chance to knock you off
the
pedestal.”

“I’ve noticed you and One Earth have been popping up
quite
a bit in the news.”

He sighed. “Unfortunately.”

“Why unfortunately?”

“It’s been a bad year for international charities. So
many
new conflicts, so many refugees on the move now. That’s the only reason
we’re
in the news. Because we’re the ones who have to step in. We’re just
lucky
we got a huge grant this year.”

“A result of all that good press?”

He shrugged. “Every so often, some big corporation develops a
conscience and decides to write a check.”

“I’m sure the tax deduction doesn’t hurt them,
either.”

“But that money goes so fast. All it takes is some new maniac
launching a war, and suddenly we’re dealing with a million more refugees. A
hundred thousand more kids dying of typhoid or cholera. That’s what keeps
me
up at night, Maura. Thinking about the kids.” He took a sip of coffee, then
put it down, as though he could no longer stomach its taste.

She watched him sitting so quietly, and noticed the new threads of
gray in his tawny hair. He might be getting older, she thought, but he’d
lost
none of his idealism. It was that very idealism that had first drawn her to
him—and
what had eventually driven them apart. She could not compete with the
world’s
needs for Victor’s attention, and she never should have tried. His affair
with
the French nurse had not, in the end, been surprising. It was his act of
defiance,
his way of asserting his independence from her.

They were silent, their gazes not meeting, two people who had once
loved each other, and now could think of nothing to say. She heard him rise to
his
feet, and watched as he stood at the sink to rinse out his cup.

“So how is Dominique these days?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Does she still work for One Earth?”

“No. She left. It wasn’t comfortable for either one of
us,
after . . .” He shrugged.

“You two don’t keep in touch?”

“She wasn’t important to me, Maura. You know that.”

“Funny. But she became very important to me.”

He turned to face her. “Do you think you’ll ever get
over
being angry about her?”

“It’s been three years. I suppose I should.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

She looked down. “You had an affair. I needed to be angry. It
was the only way.”

“The only way?”

“That I could leave you. That I could get over you.”

He walked toward her. Placed his hands on her shoulders, his touch
warm and intimate. “I don’t want you to get over me,” he said.
“Even
if it means you hate me. At least you’d feel
something
. That’s
what
bothered me the most, that you could just walk away. That you seemed so cold
about
it all.”