“You know,” Bentz said to Montoya as he scratched at the beard stubble beginning to appear on his jaw, “convents and chapels and cathedrals, they’re all good places. You know, where people go to gather and worship and . . .” He shook his head. “A few bad apples, okay, I grant you that, but for the most part, the people involved are well intentioned and God-fearing,” he said, then slid a look at his partner.

“For the most part,” Montoya agreed, but they’d both seen religion and faith twisted into the very embodiment of evil. “But the hell of it is, organized religion is made up of people. That’s the problem.”

“I interviewed Father Paul Neland last night.”

“Yeah?”

“Shaken up, of course, but I got the feeling that he wasn’t a fan of the younger guy. Nothing he said so much as what he didn’t say. Wonder if he knew about the affair?”

“Maybe he’s the guy O’Toole went to for his own confession.”

“How’s that for fucked up? My guess is when the news breaks that O’Toole was having sex with one of the nuns, the church will want to cut him loose. Too much bad press as it is. The archdiocese won’t want to start defending another bad seed, a priest who’s messing with the novices.” Bentz glowered through the windshield.

His phone rang and he answered, then listened. “Okay, got it.” He clicked off and glanced at Montoya. “That was Zaroster just letting us know that the story’s broken. WKAM’s running it at noon. It’s already on the all-news channel, and the department’s getting a lot of calls.”

“Sheeit. That didn’t take long. We just notified the next of kin.”

“I know,” Bentz muttered, frowning, “but a murdered nun is news. Real big news.”

Sister Lucia pushed open the swinging doors to the kitchen and realized she was late. Really late. Thoughts of Cruz faded as she walked into the cavernous room.

Several of her peers were already hard at work, preparing the noon meal. Along with the warm aroma of baking bread, she caught a glare from Regina, the lay cook who never seemed to smile. Standing at the massive iron stove where she was sprinkling herbs into a boiling pot, she managed to wordlessly convey her displeasure.

A big woman with stringy gray hair always braided and wrapped around the back of her head, she wore oversized glasses with transitional lenses that were supposed to become clear inside but always remained slightly gray. The result was to make her eyes seem shaded and dead behind the bulbous lenses.

Not far from her, Sister Irene was slicing strawberries at the sink, her knife moving quickly, its sharp little blade catching in the light.