SIX

Grace Otis sat at the convent dining table, shaking her head. “She’s only seven years old. You can’t trust anything she says. She lies to me all the time.”

“We’d like to talk to her anyway,” said Rizzoli. “With your permission, of course.”

“Talk to her about what?”

“What she was doing up in the crawl space.”

“Did she damage something, is that it?” Grace glanced nervously at Mother Mary Clement, who had been the one to summon Grace from the kitchen. “She’ll be punished, Reverend Mother. I’ve tried to keep track of her, but she’s always so quiet about her mischief. I never know where she’s gone off to …”

Mary Clement placed a gnarled hand on Grace’s shoulder. “Please. Just let the police speak to her.”

Grace sat for a moment, looking unsure. Evening cleanup in the kitchen had left her apron stained with grease and tomato sauce, and strands of dull brown hair had worked free from her ponytail and hung limp about her sweating face. It was a raw, worn face that had probably never been beautiful, and it was further marred by lines of bitterness. Now, while others awaited her decision, she was the one in control, the one who held power, and she seemed to relish it. To be drawing out the decision as long as possible while Rizzoli and Maura waited.

“What are you afraid of, Mrs. Otis?” Maura asked quietly.

The question seemed to antagonize Grace. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Then why don’t you want us to speak to your daughter?”

“Because she’s not reliable.”

“Yes, we understand that she’s only seven—”

“She lies.” The words shot out like the snap of a whip. Grace’s face, already unattractive, took on an even uglier cast. “She lies about everything. Even silly things. You can’t believe what she says—any of it.”

Maura glanced at the Abbess, who gave a bewildered shake of her head.

“The girl has usually been quiet and unobtrusive,” said Mary Clement. “That’s why we’ve allowed Grace to bring her into the abbey while she works.”

“I can’t afford a baby sitter,” cut in Grace. “I can’t afford anything, really. It’s the only way I can manage to work at all, if I keep her here after school.”

“And she just waits here for you?” asked Maura. “Until you’re done for the day?”

“What am I supposed to do with her? I have to work, you know. It’s not as if they let my husband stay there for free. These days, you can’t even die unless you have money.”

“Excuse me?”

“My husband. He’s a patient in St. Catherine’s Hospice. Lord knows how long he’ll have to be there.” Grace shot a glance at the Abbess, sharp as a poison dart. “I work here, as part of the arrangement.” Clearly not a happy arrangement, Maura thought. Grace could not be much older than her mid-thirties, but it must seem to her that her life was already over. She was trapped by obligations, to a daughter for whom she clearly had little affection; to a husband who took too long to die. For Grace Otis, Graystones Abbey was no sanctuary; it was her prison.

“Why is your husband in St. Catherine’s?” Maura asked gently.

“I told you. He’s dying.”

“Of what?”

“Lou Gehrig’s disease. ALS.” Grace said it without emotion, but Maura knew the terrible reality behind that name. As a medical student, she had examined a patient with amyotrophic lateralizing sclerosis. Though completely awake and aware and able to feel pain, he could not move because his muscles had wasted away, reducing him to little more than a brain trapped in a useless body. As she had examined his heart and lungs and palpated his abdomen, she had felt his gaze on her, and had not wanted to meet it, because she knew the despair she would see in his eyes. When she’d finally walked out of his hospital room, she had felt both relief as well as a twinge of guilt—but only a twinge. His tragedy was not hers. She was just a student, passing briefly through his life, under no obligation to share the burden of his misfortune. She was free to walk away, and she had.

Grace Otis could not. The result was etched in resentful lines in her face, and in the prematurely gray streaks in her hair. She said, “At least I’ve warned you. She’s not reliable. She tells stories. Sometimes they’re ridiculous stories.”

“We understand,” said Maura. “Children do that.”

“If you want to talk to her, I need to be in the room. Just to make sure she behaves.”

“Of course. It’s your right, as a parent.”

At last, Grace rose to her feet. “Noni’s hiding out in the kitchen. I’ll get her.”

It was several minutes before Grace reappeared, tugging a dark-haired girl by the hand. It was clear that Noni did not want to come out, and she resisted it all the way, every fiber of her little body straining against Grace’s relentless pull. Finally, Grace just picked up the girl under the arms and plopped her into a chair—not gently, either, but with the tired disgust of a woman who has reached the end of her rope. The girl sat still for a moment, looking stunned to find herself so swiftly conquered. She was a curly-haired sprite with a square jaw and lively dark eyes that quickly took in everyone in the room. She spared only a glance at Mary Clement, then her gaze lingered a little longer on Maura before it finally settled on Rizzoli. There it stayed, as though Rizzoli was the only one worth focusing on. Like a dog who chooses to annoy the only asthmatic in the room, Noni had settled her attentions on the one person who was least fond of children.

Grace gave her daughter a nudge. “You have to talk to them.”

Noni’s face scrunched up in protest. Out came two words, hoarse as a frog’s croak. “Don’t wanna.”

“I don’t care if you don’t want to. These are the police.”

Noni’s gaze remained on Rizzoli. “They don’t look like the police.”

“Well, they are,” Grace said. “And if you don’t tell the truth, they’ll put you in jail.”

This was exactly what cops hated to hear a parent say. It made children afraid of the very people they were supposed to trust.

Rizzoli quickly motioned to Grace to stop talking. She dropped to a crouch in front of Noni’s chair, so that she and the girl were eye to eye. They were so strikingly alike, both with curly dark hair and intense gazes, that Rizzoli could have been facing a young clone of herself. If Noni was equally stubborn, then there were fireworks ahead.

“Let’s get something clear right off, okay?” Rizzoli said to the girl, her voice brusque and matter-of-fact, as though she was speaking not to a child but to a miniature adult. “I won’t put you in jail. I don’t ever put kids in jail.”

The girl eyed her dubiously. “Even bad kids?” she challenged.

“Not even bad kids.”

“Even really, really bad kids?”

Rizzoli hesitated, a spark of irritation in her eyes. Noni was not about to let her off the hook. “Okay,” she conceded. “The really, really bad ones I send to juvenile hall.”

“That’s jail for kids.”

“Right.”

“So you do send kids to jail.”

Rizzoli shot Maura a can you believe this? look. “Okay,” she sighed. “You got me there. But I’m not gonna put you in jail. I just want to talk to you.”

“How come you don’t have a uniform?”

“Because I’m a detective. We don’t have to wear uniforms. But I really am a policeman.”

“But you’re a woman.”

“Yeah. Okay. Policewoman. So you wanna tell me what you were doing up there, in the attic?”

Noni hunched down in the chair and just stared like a gargoyle at her questioner. For a solid minute, they eyed each other, waiting for the other one to break the silence first.

Grace finally lost her patience and gave the girl a whack on the shoulder. “Go on! Tell her!”

“Please, Mrs. Otis,” said Rizzoli. “That’s not necessary.”

“But you see how she is? Nothing’s ever easy with her. Everything’s a struggle.”

“Let’s just relax, okay? I can wait.” I can wait as long as you can, kid, Rizzoli’s gaze told the girl. “So c’mon, Noni. Tell us where you got those dolls. The ones you were playing with up there.”

“I didn’t steal them.”

“I never said you did.”

“I found them. A whole box of them.”

“Where?”

“In the attic. There are other boxes up there, too.”

Grace said, “You weren’t supposed to be up there. You’re supposed to stay near the kitchen and not bother anyone.”

“I wasn’t bothering anyone. Even if I wanted to, there’s no one in this whole place to bother.”

“So you found the dolls in the attic,” Rizzoli said, directing the conversation back to the subject at hand.

“A whole box of them.”

Rizzoli turned a questioning look at Mary Clement, who answered: “They were part of a charity project some years ago. We sewed doll clothes, for donation to an orphanage in Mexico.”

“So you found the dolls,” Rizzoli said to Noni. “And you played with them up there?”

“No one else was using them.”

“And how did you know how to get into the attic?”

“I saw the man go in there.”

The man? Rizzoli shot a glance at Maura. She leaned closer to Noni. “What man?”

“He had things on his belt.”

“Things?”

“A hammer and stuff.” She pointed to the Abbess. “She saw him too. She was talking to him.”

Mother Mary Clement gave a startled laugh. “Oh! I know who she means. We’ve had a number of renovations in the last few months. There’ve been men working in the attic, installing new insulation.”

“When was this?” asked Rizzoli.

“In October.”

“Do you have the names of all these men?”

“I can check the ledgers. We keep a record of all payments we’ve made to the contractors.”

So it was not such a startling revelation after all. The girl had spied workmen climbing into a hidden space she hadn’t known about. A mysterious space, reachable only through a secret door. To take a peek inside would be irresistible for any child—especially one this inquisitive.

“You didn’t mind the dark up there?” asked Rizzoli.

“I have a flashlight, you know.” What a stupid question, Noni’s tone of voice implied.

“You weren’t afraid? All by yourself?”

“Why?”

Why indeed? thought Maura. This little girl was fearless, intimidated by neither the dark nor the police. She sat with her gaze perfectly steady on her questioner, as though she, not Rizzoli, was directing this conversation. But self-possessed as she appeared, she was very much a child, and a ragged one at that. Her hair was a tangle of curls, powdery with attic dust. Her pink sweatshirt looked like a well-worn hand-me-down. It was a few sizes too large, and the rolled-back cuffs were soiled. Only her shoes looked new—brand new Keds with Velcro flaps. Her feet did not quite touch the floor, and she kept swinging them back and forth in a monotonous rhythm. A metronome of excess energy.

Grace said, “Believe me, I didn’t know she was up there. I can’t go chasing after her all the time. I have to get the meals on the table, and then I have to clean up afterwards. We don’t get out of here until nine o’clock, and I can’t get her into bed until ten.” Grace looked at Noni. “That’s part of the problem, you know. She’s tired and cranky all the time, so everything turns into an argument. Last year, she gave me an ulcer. Made me so stressed out my stomach started digesting itself. I could be doubled over in pain, and she wouldn’t care. She still puts up a fuss about going to bed, or taking a bath. No concern for anyone else. But that’s the way children are, completely selfish. The whole world revolves around her.”

While Grace vented her frustration, Maura was watching Noni’s reaction. The girl had gone perfectly still, her legs no longer swinging, her jaw clamped tight in an obstinate square. But the dark eyes briefly glistened with tears. Just as quickly, the tears were gone, erased by the furtive swipe of a dirty cuff. She’s not deaf and dumb, thought Maura. She hears the anger in her mother’s voice. Every day, in a dozen different ways, Grace surely conveys her disgust for this child. And the child understands. No wonder Noni is difficult; no wonder she makes Grace angry. It’s the only emotion she can wrest from her mother, the only proof that any feeling at all exists between them. Just seven years old, and already she knows she’s lost her futile bid for love. She knows more than adults realize, and what she sees and hears is surely painful.

Rizzoli had been crouched too long at the child’s level. Now she rose and stretched her legs. It was already eight o’clock, they had skipped supper, and Rizzoli’s energy appeared to be wearing thin. She stood eyeing the girl, both of them with equally disheveled hair, equally determined faces.

Rizzoli said, with weary patience, “So, Noni, have you been going up to the attic a lot?”

The dusty mop of curls bounced in a nod.

“What do you do up there?”

“Nothing.”

“You just said you play with your dolls.”

“I already told you that.”

“What else do you do?”

The girl shrugged.

Rizzoli pressed harder.”Come on, it’s gotta be boring up there. I can’t imagine why you’d want to hang around in that attic unless there’s something interesting to see.”

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.