Devious - Lisa Jackson [12]
He stepped inside, and a wave of nostalgia pushed him back to his youth, when his mother would take him and his siblings to Mass every Sunday. The smell of lingering incense and burning candles, their tiny flames offering a flickering, shadowed light, the hushed voices, the cavernous room with its narrow stained-glass windows.
He glanced up at the huge crucifix, and, more from habit than any lingering sense of conviction, Montoya sketched the sign of the cross over his chest.
Officers were talking in hushed tones to several people near the back of the chapel, but Montoya ignored them as he spied Rick Bentz, his partner for many of the years Montoya had been with the NOPD, standing near the altar.
Bentz was at least fifteen years older than Montoya, nearly another generation. Married to his second wife, he had a baby under a year old, and the lack of sleep showed in the lines on Bentz’s wide face and the flecks of gray in his hair. He still had a limp from a previous accident, but otherwise Bentz’s body was honed to that of a heavyweight boxer. Tonight Bentz wore jeans, a T-shirt, a jacket, and a dark expression, his gaze narrowed on the floor near the altar.
As Montoya hurried along a wide aisle, he saw the victim lying in front of the first row of pews. Her face was covered by an altar cloth, only tangles of dark hair showing on the stone floor. Her body seemed to be posed, arms folded over her chest, fingers twined in a wooden rosary. She was wearing a yellowed, nearly tattered wedding gown, her feet bare, a silver band around the ring finger of her left hand.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“One of the nuns here,” Bentz said. “Sister Camille.”
“Killed here? At the altar?”
Like a sacrificial lamb.
“Think so. There are some signs of a struggle, scrapes on her feet, a torn fingernail.” Bentz pointed to her right hand. “Hopefully she clawed her attacker and the son of a bitch’s skin is under her nails.”
Could they get so lucky as to have a sample of the killer’s DNA? Montoya doubted it.
“We haven’t found a secondary crime scene yet.” Bentz looked around the chapel, to the doors. “But, hell, this is a big place.”
And a helluva spot for a murder, Montoya thought, eyeing the massive crucifix towering above the Communion table.
“The cathedral, convent, and grounds take up more than a city block,” Bentz said, still scowling.
“Gated, right? Locked.”
“Everything’s locked at night, even the main doors to the cathedral. Either he snuck in before lockdown or he’s a part of the community.”
Montoya frowned at the draped body. The woman was slim, her arms crossed over her chest, her fingers twined around a rosary. “We got pictures of this?”
“Yeah.”
Montoya yanked on a pair of latex gloves, bent down, and lifted the long, thin altar cloth to see the fixed, beautiful stare of the dead woman.
A woman he knew.
Intimately.
Son of a bitch.
Sucker punched, he drew in a sharp breath. Blood congealed in his body. For a second, he thought he might be sick.
“You said she was Sister Camille?”
“Yeah. That’s what the mother superior called her. Her legal name is—”
“Camille Renard.” Montoya squeezed his eyes shut for a second. Trying to gain some equilibrium. How had this happened? Why? Jesus, he didn’t even know she was in the city. He had to force his eyes open again. Cammie’s pale visage and glassy eyes met his. “Bloody damned hell,” he whispered between clenched teeth.
“You know her?”
“Knew her. A long time ago.” A flash of memory, one he’d rather forget, sliced through his brain. Camille Renard. So full of life. So fun-loving. So . . . capricious. The most unlikely woman he’d ever know to take the vows to become a nun. “I went to high school with Camille Renard.”
“Oh, shi—for the love of God.” Bentz’s eyes darkened with concern. “Just don’t tell me you dated her.”
Montoya felt his jaw set even harder. “Okay, I won’t.”
“But you did.”
“In high school.”
Just long enough for him to get laid and for her to lose her virginity.