The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel Read Online Free PDF

everything behind when we come here. This is a contemplative order, and we don’t welcome the distractions of the outside world.”
    “Excuse me, Reverend Mother,” said Frost. “I’m not Catholic, so I don’t understand what that word means. What’s a contemplative order?”
    His question had been quietly respectful, and Mary Clement favored him with a warmer smile than she had given Rizzoli. “A contemplative leads a reflective life. A life of prayer and private devotion and meditation. That’s why we retreat behind walls. Why we turn away visitors. Seclusion is a comfort to us.”
    “What if someone breaks the rules?” asked Rizzoli. “Do you kick her out?”
    Maura saw Frost wince at his partner’s bluntly worded question.
    “Our rules are voluntary,” said Mary Clement. “We abide by them because we wish to.”
    “But every so often, there’s got to be some nun who wakes up one morning and says, ‘I feel like going to the beach.’ ”
    “It doesn’t happen.”
    “It must happen. They’re human beings.”
    “It doesn’t happen.”
    “No one breaks the rules? No one jumps the wall?”
    “We have no need to leave the abbey. Mrs. Otis buys our groceries. Father Brophy attends to our spiritual needs.”
    “What about letters? Phone calls? Even in high security prisons, you get to make a phone call every so often.”
    Frost was shaking his head, his expression pained.
    “We have a telephone here, for emergencies,” said Mary Clement.
    “And anyone can use it?”
    “Why would they wish to?”
    “How about mail? Can you get letters?”
    “Some of us choose not to accept any mail.”
    “And if you want to send a letter?”
    “To whom?”
    “Does it matter?”
    Mary Clement’s face had frozen into a tight, lord-give-me-patience smile. “I can only repeat myself, Detective. We are not prisoners. We choose to live this way. Those who don’t agree with these rules may choose to leave.”
    “And what would they do, in the outside world?”
    “You seem to think we have no knowledge of that world. But some of the sisters have served in schools or in hospitals.”
    “I thought being cloistered meant you couldn’t leave the convent.”
    “Sometimes, God calls us to tasks outside the walls. A few years ago, Sister Ursula felt His call to serve abroad, and she was granted exclaustration—permission to live outside while keeping her vows.”
    “But she came back.”
    “Last year.”
    “She didn’t like it out there, in the world?”
    “Her mission in India wasn’t an easy one. And there was violence—a terrorist attack on her village. That’s when she returned to us. Here, she could feel safe again.”
    “She didn’t have family to go home to?”
    “Her closest relative was a brother, who died two years ago. We’re her family now, and Graystones is her home. When you’re tired of the world and in need of comfort, Detective,” the Abbess asked gently, “don’t
you
go home?”
    The answer seemed to unsettle Rizzoli. Her gaze shifted to the wall, where the crucifix hung. Just as quickly, it caromed away.
    “Reverend Mother?”
    The woman in the grease-stained blue jumper was standing in the hall, looking in at them with flat, incurious eyes. A few more strands of brown hair had come loose from her ponytail and hung limp about her bony face. “Father Brophy says he’s on his way over to deal with the reporters. But there are so many of them calling now that Sister Isabel’s just taken the phone off the hook. She doesn’t know what to tell them.”
    “I’ll be right there, Mrs. Otis.” The Abbess turned to Rizzoli. “As you can see, we’re overwhelmed. Please take as much time as you need here. I’ll be downstairs.”
    “Before you go,” said Rizzoli, “which room is Sister Camille’s?”
    “It’s the fourth door.”
    “And it’s not locked?”
    “There are no locks on these doors,” said Mary Clement. “There never have been.”
             
     
    The smell