He decided to let her cool off a bit and went to find Bentz, whom, he was told, had gone to reinspect Sister Camille’s quarters. Sister Devota escorted him to the dormitory area of the convent, down a narrow, windowless corridor dimly lit by wall sconces that looked like they may have been stolen from a dungeon. Was the eerie atmosphere caused by the musty smell and shadows or the fact that a woman had lost her life at the hands of a still-unidentified assailant?

Sister Devota pointed him to Camille’s room, where he found Father Paul and Sister Edwina, the tall nun with Scandinavian features, standing guard in the hallway, keeping watch over Bentz.

Inside the cell-like room, darkness battled the meager light of a small lamp. All the charm of a tomb. The bedding had been stripped to be analyzed by the crime lab.

His partner moved the cot aside to check the floor underneath. “Thought I’d take another look,” Bentz told him as he flashed his cell phone on the floor for light. Even with the single lamp lit, the room was dark as a tomb.

“You didn’t happen to find a diary, did you?” Montoya asked, leaning close to Bentz so the others couldn’t hear.

“Oh, that’s how it works. We find a diary and it spells out who the perp is. Happens all the time,” he said sarcastically as he glanced up at the bare, cracked ceiling. “Haven’t come across that yet.”

“Yeah, I thought so.” Montoya straightened as his eyes moved over the blossoming clouds of fingerprint powder on the flat walls. His gut told him they weren’t going to find anything here. Nothing. Nada.

He stepped around the small, bony cot. Surely this tiny bed wasn’t where Camille and Frank O’Toole had made love? It seemed unlikely, but anything was possible. When passion ruled, all bets were off. Common sense had a tendency to fly straight out the window.

But as he studied the mattress, he noticed something. One of the buttons pinching the stuffing beneath it together was missing. No big deal. Hardly noticeable. Yet, he found an evidence glove and yanked it on, then felt near the tiny hole where the button’s threads had raveled.

The tip of his finger encountered a bump, the tiniest of imperfections in the ticking. “What’s this?” he said, and saw that the mattress had been mended with tiny little stitches. Carefully, so as to disturb as little as possible, he withdrew his Pomeroy 5000, a utility knife with several blades, and sliced through the hand-sewn seam.

He felt inside the slit, and his fingertip touched the edge of something made of paper. Carefully he retrieved a long, slim envelope, wrinkled slightly from being wedged beneath the sheath covering the mattress.

No address on the outside, but the envelope had been sealed, a red-brown stain over the flap where it was glued down.