by Lisa Jackson
She shoved her old Ford Ranger into gear. With a rumble, the pickup shot forward, turning up gravel in its wake. The lane was long and wound through stands of cypress and palmettos, across a small bridge and onto the main road.
New Orleans was a good twenty-minute drive. She pushed the speed limit. But she didn’t want to bother with any other police officer, no other detective. No. She wanted Bentz. It was too early for him to be on duty. But she’d wait. As long as it took.
As the road turned south, she noticed a glimmer of light that grew into a faint glow on the horizon, an orange haze that was visible through the thick stands of cypress and live oak.
Her insides twisted.
The fire.
Dear God.
She knew before the firemen or the police that somewhere in that hellish inferno was the body of a woman; the woman she’d seen in her vision.
Chapter Three
“Uh-oh.” Reuben Montoya’s voice held the knell of doom.
Bentz looked up from his stack of paperwork as Montoya, carrying two paper cups of coffee, slipped through the open door of his office.
He handed Bentz one of the cups, then leaned a hip against the file cabinet of Rick Bentz’s office. In his trademark black leather jacket and black jeans, he let his gaze wander back through the half-open door, past the maze of cubicles and desks in the outer office, to the stairway.
“What?” Rick asked from behind the desk and a mountain of paperwork that never seemed to diminish. Crime was big business in New Orleans.
“Trouble.”
“There’s always trouble.”
“No, you don’t understand, the resident nutcase is here again.”
“Again?” Bentz repeated, looking out the door to see the object of Montoya’s interest, a petite woman with wild gold-colored curls, smooth white skin, and attitude written all over her. In faded jeans and a New Orleans Saints sweatshirt that had seen better days, she was charging straight toward Bentz’s office.
“She’s been calling Brinkman, claims she’s a psychic and that she sees murders before they take place,” Montoya explained.
“And Brinkman says?”
“What he always says. ‘Bullshit.’ He doesn’t believe in any of that crap.”
At that moment, she barreled into the room. Her cheeks were flushed, her pointed chin set in what Bentz took as angry determination. Her eyes, the color of fine malt whiskey, bored straight through him.
“Detective Bentz?” she asked without so much as a glance in Montoya’s direction.
“Yeah. I’m Bentz.”
“Good. I need to talk to you.”
By this time Bentz was half standing. He flipped a hand at Montoya. “And this is Detective Reuben Montoya, my partner.”
“Reuben D. Montoya. I go by Diego,” Montoya added.
Bentz lifted a brow. Diego? Since when? Oh … Since a beautiful female entered the room. Montoya might have referred to this woman as a nutcase but he was interested in her—of course he was—it was the younger man’s MO whenever a good-looking woman was nearby. Regardless, apparently, of her mental condition. And in spite of his talk the other night of being a one-woman man. Montoya’s male radar was always on alert.
She barely gave Montoya a second glance as Bentz offered his hand. “I read about you in the Times,” she said.
Great. Another citizen who thought he was a damned hero. To her credit, her gaze leveled straight at Bentz and she didn’t give Montoya’s flirtation a passing glance. Her grip was surprisingly strong as she gave his palm a hand shake then released her fingers. “You can’t believe everything you read.”
“Trust me, I don’t.”
He waved her into a chair. “So what’s on your mind?”
“A murder.”
At least she didn’t beat around the bush. He pulled a legal pad from beneath a pile of half-finished reports. “Whose?”
“A woman.” She fell into a chair and he noticed the smudges of exhaustion beneath her eyes, the little lines pinching the corners of her mouth. A faint scent of jasmine entered with her. “I don’t know. He called her Cecilia but she said that wasn’t her name and … and she never told him what her name was.”
“Told who?”
“The killer,” she said, staring at him as if he were as dense as granite.
“Wait a minute. Let’s start over,” he said. “You witnessed a woman being killed, right? You were there?” he asked.
She hesitated before answering. “No.”
“No?”
“But I saw it.”
Wonderful. Just what he needed to start the day right. Bentz clicked his pen. “Where did the murder take place, Miss—?”
“Benchet. I’m Olivia Benchet, and I don’t know where it happened … but I saw someone, a woman about twenty-five, I’d guess, being killed.” Olivia’s face paled and she swallowed hard. “She … she had shoulder-length blond hair, blue eyes, a few freckles, and … and kind of a heart-shaped face. She was thin, but not skinny … in … good shape as if she worked out or … oh, God.” Olivia closed her eyes, took in a deep, shuddering breath, then slowly let it out. A second later her lids opened and she seemed calmer, in control. Again the scent of jasmine teased his nostrils.
“Wait a minute. We’d better back up. You heard him say her name and you saw him kill a woman, but you weren’t there?” Shit. Montoya had called this one, and the Cheshire cat smile beginning to stretch across his chin indicated he knew it.
“That’s right.”
“Was it on film?”
“No,” she said, then rushed on, “I think I should explain something.”
That would be a good start. She leaned forward in her chair, and then, as if trying to grasp something, anything, she opened and closed her hands. Here it comes, Bentz thought. The part where it all falls apart but she tries to convince us that this outrageous story is true. She was, no doubt as Montoya had explained, a bonafide nutcase.
“I’m able see some things right before or as they’re happening. In my mind. Even though I’m not there. I know it sounds bizarre, even crazy, but it’s true.”
“You’re a psychic.” Or a psychotic.
“I don’t know if you’d call me that. I think of myself as having a little bit of ESP.”
“A little bit?”
“It comes and goes. Last night, while I was sleeping, this was very real. I mean, I was there.”
Hell, this just got better and better. She’d been asleep. Great. “So you were dreaming.”
“It was more than that.”
“And all of your dreams, do they come true?”
“No. Of course not!” She threw her hands into the air. “I already told you I know this sounds nuts, but just hear me out, okay? And please, don’t make any judgment calls. I’m telling you these ‘dreams,’ if you want to call them that, are different. I can’t explain it. They’re beyond real. Beyond surreal.”
I’ll bet. Bentz rubbed the back of his neck as he studied her. She was so earnest. She wasn’t lying. Whatever it was she was peddling here, she believed every word of it.
“I woke up and I could still smell the smoke, feel the heat, hear her cries for help. I mean, I was there. Not physically, but …”
“Spiritually?” he offered.
Montoya suggested, “Mentally. Or telepathically.”
“However you want to explain it,” she said, starting to sound irritated.
“I can’t.”
“I know. Neither can I,” she admitted.
Because it’s inexplicable.
“I know … I mean, I understand that you’re used to working with facts. Cold, hard evidence. I don’t blame you, but surely you’ve worked with psychics or people who have a different level of sensitivity, or psychic prowess. I’ve read about police departments using psychics to help solve particularly difficult cases.”
“That’s when they run out of that hard evidence,” he said to her, “when they actually have a dead body or miss
ing person and have exhausted all other conventional avenues.”
“There’s nothing conventional about this.”
“Amen,” Montoya said and she tossed a sharp look over her shoulder.
“My grandmother, she had the same gift, but not my mother.” Her lips twisted into a wry, self-deprecating smile. “Lucky me,” she said. Her smooth forehead was suddenly lined, her eyebrows pulled together, and she leaned back in her chair as if exhausted.
“It’s genetic?”
“I don’t know how it works, okay? That’s just what happened in my family. And it’s not always at night, in dreams. Sometimes it can happen in the middle of the day, driving down the Interstate.”
“Could be dangerous.”
“That’s right, it is. And it’s … a royal pain telling people about it and trying to make them understand. To believe.”
“It’s a big leap for most of us mere mortals,” Bentz agreed.
Behind her Montoya tried to keep his expression bland, but there was a glimmer in his dark eyes as he took a sip of coffee. He didn’t say it, but I told you so was written all over him.
“I already admitted that I know it sounds crazy,” she said, as if she, too, felt the skepticism in the small room. She seemed so small and out of place in the station where, though it was barely eight in the morning, the place was a beehive of activity. The door to Bentz’s office was ajar and through the opening he caught glimpses of officers and civilians, heard snatches of conversation and muffled laughter, watched as more than one suspect was dragged to a desk for a statement. But this woman didn’t belong here. Whatever she was, it wasn’t a cop, a criminal, or, he suspected, a valid witness.
Slumping down in the chair, she rubbed her shoulders as if she were cold to her bones though the room was stuffy, hot enough that he’d cracked the window open. The sounds of the city waking up wafted inside—pedestrians walking and talking, the tires from passing cars whirring, engines rumbling, and pigeons cooing and flapping their wings from an upper ledge. She ran long fingers along her jaw. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said as if to herself. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me … but I had to try.”
“Detective Montoya, maybe you could scour up some coffee for Ms. Benchet?”
“I’m fine—” she protested, but Montoya was already out the door.
Olivia leaned forward, as if now that they were alone she could confide in him. “You have to believe me, Detective Bentz. A woman was murdered early this morning. Brutally. I saw it.”
“But you weren’t there.”
“No, no, in my mind’s eye.”
“While you were sleeping,” he pointed out.
“It wasn’t a dream!” she said emphatically, not so much angry as desperate. “I know the difference.” Montoya, carrying a paper coffee cup, slipped into the room again. “The priest tortured her and—”
“Priest?” Montoya repeated as he handed her the cup. Some of his cocksure bravado slipped. “A priest was the killer?”
“Yes. He was dressed in robes. Vestments.”
Bentz scowled as he understood why she’d singled him out. He set the pen on his notepad and leaned back in his chair. “Let me guess. You read about Montoya and me solving the other case this past summer, so you thought that we’d be able to help out. Because we’re kind of experts on the whole Catholic-homicide thing and you’ve seen a priest.” He tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“I hoped so,” she admitted, and she looked so guileless he had the unexpected urge to believe her. But he knew better. “Oh, I get it,” she said, and those amber eyes sparked as the light dawned. “You actually think I read about the serial killer last summer, and because I didn’t have anything better to do, I just bopped down here with a wild story about a priest to try and stir things up, right? To gain some attention, my ‘fifteen minutes or seconds of fame'?”
He didn’t reply.
“Oh, give me a break. Who would do that? Come on!”
“Ms. Benchet—”
“Don’t patronize me, okay, and it’s Olivia. Let’s get that straight, right now. I realize my story sounds hideous, and believe me it was, but I witnessed the murder, as surely as if I was in that tiny bathroom.”
“A bathroom?” Montoya interjected again.
“That’s where it happened. Where a priest, a man who was supposed to have dedicated his life to God, killed a woman he had chained to a sink.”
Montoya arched a brow. “So, Ms. Benchet—Olivia—you’d recognize the killer?”
“No.” She shook her head and bit down hard on her lip. “He was wearing a mask—like a black ski mask that covered his entire head.”
“Now we’ve got a priest in a mask,” Bentz repeated.
“Yes!” Her eyes flashed angrily.
“And this murder that you witnessed though you weren’t there, happened in a bathroom?”
“I told you the woman was chained to the sink and—” She shuddered. “God, it was awful. The flames were coming in through the vent and he didn’t seem to care; it was like he expected the fire somehow, but that wasn’t enough.”
“Not enough?” Bentz asked, dreading what was to follow.
“No. He had a sword,” she whispered, visibly shaking and squeezing her eyes shut as if to close off the memory. “He swung down three times at her bowed head.”
“Jesus!” Montoya muttered.
Tears formed in Olivia Benchet’s eyes and she blinked several times. Either she was one hell of an actress, or she really believed her own lies. “It—it was horrible. Horrible.”
Bentz glanced at Montoya as he found a box of tissues and handed it to Olivia. She pulled out a couple and looked embarrassed as she wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t even think about it,” he said. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but one way or another, Olivia Benchet was at the end of her decidedly frayed rope. He decided to go by the book and take her statement formally. Just in case. Crackpot or not, she was scared to death. “Let’s start over. I’ll tape this if that’s all right with you.”
“Please … fine … whatever.” She waved her fingers as if she didn’t care what he did, then sipped her coffee as Bentz found his recorder, put in a fresh tape, and pressed the record button. “November twenty-second, this is an interview with Olivia Benchet. Detective Rick Bentz and Detective Reuben Montoya are with the witness.” Angling the microphone so that she could speak into it easily, he said, “Now, Ms. Benchet, please spell your name for me and give me your address….”
As the tape whirred and he took notes, Olivia cradled a cup of coffee and spoke in soft, calmer tones. She told him she lived out of the city, in bayou country, gave him her address and phone number along with the name of the shop where she worked—the Third Eye, just off Jackson Square. Before moving to Louisiana a few months back to care for her ailing grandmother, she’d lived in Tucson.
With Bentz’s prodding she repeated much of what she’d already said, and as Montoya watched, Bentz scribbled notes, listening as she explained her “vision” only hours earlier, that she was certain she’d “seen” a priest who had chained a naked woman to a sink in a smoky room and that the woman had repeatedly begged for mercy.
Olivia’s voice was a low whisper, nearly a drone, almost as if she was in some kind of trance, detached from Bentz’s small office with its piles of files, overflowing wastebasket, and dying Boston fern littering the floor with dried, curled fronds.
“… after he was certain that the radio was playing the right song, some kind of hymn, then he used the sword,” she said, describing again that he’d swung three times. “I sensed he was in a hurry, probably because of the fire or a fear of being caught, but after he was finished, while the flames were beginning to come up from the vent, he took the time to dig into his pocket. He pulled a chain or a necklace of some kind and hung it over the shower head. The radio was playing some weird music and the smoke was so thick I could barely see, but I think he stripped o
ff his robes and left them there.”
“So he was naked?” Montoya interjected. He was leaning against the door frame, his arms folded over his chest, his forgotten cup of coffee in one hand. “You could see identifying marks. Like tattoos or birthmarks or moles …”
“He wasn’t naked. He was wearing something like a wet suit or one of those tight biking suits, all black.”
“And a ski mask that covered his entire head.”
“And gloves?” Montoya asked.
“Yes.” A muscle worked in her jaw and she glanced through the open window. “I think … I mean I got this eerie feeling … that somehow he knew, or he sensed, that I was watching him.”
Chapter Four
A nutcase. Pure and simple. He hated to think it of her because she seemed so convinced of what she’d seen, but Bentz decided Montoya was right. Intriguing as she was, Olivia Benchet was certifiable. Pretty—with her wild light brown hair and full lips—but certifiable. Sitting across from him, alternately seeming small and vulnerable, then angry and tough, always animated, she was desperate for him to buy into her story.
So far he wasn’t.
“This priest-slash-killer. How did he know you were watching him? Did he see you?” Reuben asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it, but I swear he looked at me.”
Montoya persisted. “How could he see you? You weren’t there, right? You were at your grandmother’s house … this was kind of like a foggy dream.”
“There was smoke but I could see through it. I felt like I was staring through glass or clear plastic, a window, maybe …” Letting out a discouraged sigh, she set her unfinished cup of coffee on the desk, then pushed her unruly hair from her eyes. “I realize you don’t want to believe me, that it would be easier if I just disappeared, but I know this happened.” She leveled her gaze at Bentz. “I’d bet my life on it.”
Bentz glanced down at the legal pad in front of him. He heard the sounds of phones ringing, conversations buzzing, keyboards clicking from the outer office and felt like he was wasting his time, but decided to hear her out. “Okay. So go on. You said the priest took off his clothes. What happened then? Where did he go?”