Devious - Lisa Jackson [119]
“Excuse me?” Montoya said.
She closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them again, they were focused, clear behind the lenses of her glasses. She stared at him with the intensity of an entomologist dissecting a newfound species of insect. “Sometimes, Detective, when a sinner atones, she takes it upon herself to punish herself physically, for clarity and purification. Though this isn’t a practice I urge, I know it’s done here.”
“You don’t require or urge it, but you condone it?” Bentz said, his eyebrows slamming together.
“I believe that each individual must do what she feels is necessary as penance. It’s between her and the Holy Father.”
“Sister Camille practiced self-flagellation?”
“I don’t know for certain. As I said, there are some practices that might appear archaic such as corporal mortification, but I assure you, Detectives, it’s not something we practice as a whole, or even suggest. Do some practice it?” She nodded slowly. “I suppose. As I think I said before, Sister Camille was a tormented soul.”
She cleared her throat, scooped an excessively large key ring from a desk drawer, and said, “Now, please, if you come with me, there’s something I want to show you.” She waved them to their feet, and they followed her through a private door and along the quiet hallway to a staircase. Holding on to the rail, her steps quick, she led them to the third floor. Once there, she located a small doorway that opened to a musty attic. She snapped on a dim light, hiked up her skirts, and walked inside, passing by old desks and dusty lamps, candle holders and cots, artifacts and picture frames.
Mouse traps were scattered on the floor, and spiderwebs and dust covered the few small windows that let in a dim, watery light. At the end of the littered pathway was another door that reached to the sloping rafters. The reverend mother paused before it, ran her fingers over the grainy wood, then found a key on her enormous ring and inserted it into the lock. With a click and a jangle of the other keys on the ring, the lock sprang open and she pulled on the knob. Creaking as if in protest, the door swung open to reveal a dark empty space.
The reverend mother snapped on a light and stepped inside. Wooden dowels ran the length of the closet. Clothing sheathed in plastic hung on wire hangers from one rod.
To Montoya, it looked as if this was where all the old vestments—cassocks, albs, habits, robes, and items he couldn’t name—hung; all covered in plastic. The other rod was empty.
Sister Charity stared at the dowel from which nothing was suspended and shook her head. “But they can’t be gone. They just can’t be,” she whispered, crossing herself.
“What?” Montoya asked, trepidation plucking at the hairs on his nape.
“The bridal gowns. They’re missing. All of them.” She shook her head in worry, obviously distraught, then turned to the side of the closet holding the vestments and began rifling through the plastic bags. “I was afraid of this,” she admitted, pushing one plastic-encased robe after another to the side, the hangers’ hooks scraping along the rod. She peered between each separate sheathing, as if willing the dresses to appear, then shoved the offensive bag aside. Faster and faster. One heavy vestment after another whipping past.
“You’re talking about gowns like the ones the victims were wearing?” Bentz asked.
She sent him a glance that called him a fool. “Of course! They’re the wedding dresses that were worn in the ceremony for becoming the bride of Christ. We haven’t used these particular gowns for a long, long while. They’ve been stored up here for years. Forgotten, I’d thought.” She turned back to her search.
Zzzip!
Another plastic-covered cassock flew past her, nimble fingers on to the next.
Zip! One more cassock.
Zip! Zip!
Two habits flew by and then there was none.
“They were all in here.” She was at the end of the dowel and beginning to show signs of panic, a tic evident near the edge of her wimple, just under her eye.
Backing out of the closet, she pushed aside an