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for
it.
They always do. She grabbed a paper towel, blotted her face dry, and was about
to
drop the paper into the trash can when she paused, remembering Sister
Camille’s
bed. The blood on the sheets.
    The trash can was about half full. Among the mound of crumpled
paper
towels was a small bundle of toilet paper. Quelling her distaste, she unwrapped
the
bundle. Although she already knew what it contained, she was still jolted by the
sight of another woman’s menstrual blood. She dealt with blood all the
time,
and had just seen a lake of it beneath Camille’s corpse. Yet she was far
more
shaken by the mere glimpse of this sanitary pad. It was soaked, heavy. This was
why
you left your bed, she thought. The warmth seeping between your thighs, and the
dampness
of the sheets. You got up and came into the bathroom to change pads, depositing
this
soiled one in the trash can.
    And then . . . what did you do then?
    She left the bathroom and returned to Camille’s chamber. Dr.
Isles
had left, and Rizzoli was alone in the room, frowning at the bloodstained
sheets,
the one bright blot in this colorless room. She crossed to the window and looked
down, at the courtyard.
    Multiple footprints now tracked across the frosting of sleet and
snow.
Beyond the gate, yet another TV news van had pulled up outside the wall, and was
setting up its satellite feed. The dead nun story, beamed straight into your
living
room. Sure to be a lead at five, she thought; we’re all curious about nuns.
Swear off sex, retreat behind walls, and everyone wonders what it is you’re
hiding underneath that habit. It’s the chastity that intrigues us; we
wonder
about any human being who girds herself against the most powerful of all urges,
who
turns her back on what nature intended us to fulfill. It’s their purity
that
makes them titillating.
    Rizzoli’s gaze swung back across the courtyard, to the
chapel.
Where I should be right now, she thought, shivering with the CSU crew. Not
lingering
up here in this room that smelled of Clorox. But only from this room could she
picture
the view that Camille must have seen, returning from her nocturnal trip to the
bathroom
on a dark winter’s morning. She would have seen light, shining through the
chapel’s
stained-glass windows.
    A light that should not have been there.
     
    Maura stood by as the two attendants laid out a clean sheet and
gently
transferred Sister Camille. She had watched transport teams remove other bodies
from
other sites. Sometimes they performed the task with perfunctory efficiency,
other
times with evident distaste. But every so often, she saw them move a victim with
special tenderness. Young children received this attention, their small heads
cradled
with care, their still forms caressed through the body pouch. Sister Camille was
treated with just such tenderness, just such sorrow.
    She held open the chapel door as they wheeled out the stretcher,
and
followed it as it made its slow progress toward the gate. Beyond the walls, the
news
media swarmed, cameras ready to capture the classic image of tragedy: the body
on
the stretcher, the plastic shroud containing a clearly human shape. Though the
public
could not see the victim, they would hear that she was a young woman, and they
would
look at that bag and mentally dissect its contents. Their ruthless imaginations
would
violate Camille’s privacy in ways Maura’s scalpel never could.
    As the stretcher rolled out the abbey gate, a ring of reporters
and
cameramen surged forward, ignoring the patrolman yelling at them to stand back.
    It was the priest who finally managed to hold the pack at bay. An
imposing
figure in black, he strode out of the gate and swept into the crowd, his angry
voice
carrying over the sounds of chaos.
    “This poor sister deserves your respect! Why don’t you
show
her some? Let her pass!”
    Even reporters can sometimes be shamed, and a few of them stepped
back
to allow the transport team through. But the TV cameras kept rolling