by Lisa Jackson
At the top of his list of suspects was Marc Duvall, her boyfriend/pimp who’d been known to knock her around and blacken her eyes upon occasion. He’d skipped town and probably the country. Just disappeared into thin air. Or was dead himself.
The other case was even more sketchy. Another Jane Doe. Her body burned beyond recognition and left at the statue of Joan of Arc in the Quarter. So far no one had been able to identify the charred remains found on the last day of May. He flipped the images on the screen, and as hardened as he was, the sight of the blackened, disfigured body laid at the feet of the magnificent statue of St. Joan astride her horse bothered him.
He wouldn’t have thought that the two were connected except for one single piece of evidence linking them: the small chain with a saint’s medal dangling from it. Left at the scene.
Three dead women.
All killed differently.
But all left with a saint’s medal near their bodies.
A coincidence?
Bentz didn’t think so. He hadn’t linked the two murders this summer. They hadn’t matched the signature of the Rosary Killer and there wasn’t much that connected them … He hadn’t thought about the medals because he’d thought they were personal items; they didn’t match. But he’d blown it. The link had been there all the time. And now there was a third. Much as it sickened him, he was certain a serial killer was stalking the streets of New Orleans again.
The press would eat it up, but the public had to be warned and the FBI notified, its computer records searched for other murders, not just localized in the New Orleans area, that were similar.
He knew the question that would be on everyone’s mind.
Was the Rosary Killer resurrected?
Or was the city being stalked by a whole new sicko? One connected in some strange way to Olivia Benchet?
Chapter Seventeen
The evidence report and Medical Examiner’s report were waiting on Bentz’s desk Monday morning. Sipping from a cup of coffee hot enough to scald his lips, he sifted through the pages as carefully as the crime scene team had combed the scene. What he read didn’t surprise him. Basically, after he sorted through the medical terms, he concluded that the victim had died because someone had tried to hack her head off. The ME had decided, because of the way the bone had been cut, that there had been more than one blow to the back of the neck with some kind of long-bladed knife, machete, or sword.
Just like Olivia Benchet had maintained. Which, he supposed, squinting, shouldn’t surprise him.
What kind of monster was on the loose? He’d seen violence in his days with the LAPD, even more so here just this past summer. The Rosary Killer had his own special brand of cruelty and he certainly had ties to the Catholic Church … but he was dead. Bentz had taken care of that himself.
Or so he’d thought.
The body had never been recovered from the swamp where he’d been shot. Maybe the bastard had resurrected himself somehow.
“Son of a bitch.” The thought of “Father John,” as he’d called himself, resurrecting himself wasn’t pretty. But what was happening here wasn’t “Father John’s” MO. This was different.
And what about Olivia’s far-fetched story of a woman entombed, then beheaded? Another nightmare? He didn’t think so. He’d even copied the page of notes Olivia had given him and along with people within the department had, against rules, shown the weird notations to a friend of his who’d once worked for the CIA and who loved codes, puzzles, cryptograms, crossword puzzles, any word game imaginable. Bud Dell was as likely as anyone to crack it although guys in the force were working on it as well.
So far, Bud and the others had come up with nothing.
The phone rang. He answered on the second ring. “Detective Bentz.”
“It’s Olivia,” she said and he couldn’t help but smile. “You called last night.”
“Yeah. Just checkin’ on you. Everything okay?” Leaning back in his chair, he stretched the phone cord taut. “No more visions?”
“Not last night.”
“Good.”
“I was afraid you’d found another victim.”
“No,” he said and conjured up Olivia’s face.
“Good. So you were just checking up on me?”
“You’ve been pretty spooked lately. And yeah, I just wanted to see that you were all right.”
“Oh …” She hesitated. “Thanks.”
“You call if there’s anything, anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, okay?”
“I will,” she promised, still obviously taken aback by his concern, then recovering, managed a quick “Take care,” and rang off. Bentz looked at the receiver in his hand. What the hell was going on with him? He’d called her yesterday because he’d felt compelled to talk to her, to make certain she was all right. He didn’t like her living alone in the middle of the damned bayou with only that silly excuse of a dog for protection. She was seeing some very weird shit and he was afraid that somehow, some way her life might be in danger.
Maybe Kristi was right. Maybe he was just another paranoid cop, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Olivia, because of her connection with the killer, was in the crosshairs of peril.
And what the devil was that connection, he wondered for the dozenth time as the phones rang in the outer office. Cops, suspects, and witnesses talked while keyboards clicked as information was entered into computers. How did Olivia know the killer—she had to know him, didn’t she? He scratched his chin thoughtfully. She’d sworn another person was being hunted, but hadn’t seen another killing. But there were clues—the damned martini glass sign in the bar still nagged at him. How did it all piece together?
Maybe it didn’t. Maybe his sudden faith in her visions wasn’t founded. Oh, hell, what did he know? This case was getting to him. The phone call to Olivia Bentz was proof enough of that. It had been above and beyond the call of duty and certainly out of the normal set of rules he’d established for himself.
Hell, he was getting personally involved with her and that was sure to be a mistake.
He read through the evidence report again and stopped midway down the page where a chain was listed, a small chain, not the large one used to tether the victim, but a tiny linkage with a medal swinging from it. The saint’s medal. The lab had worked on it and determined that it was of St. Cecilia. It had been left at the scene, charred and swinging from the showerhead, just as Olivia had said it had been. Cecilia. As in the woman’s name, according to Olivia Benchet.
He double-checked. Sure enough, the saint’s medal found on the victim near the statue was of St. Joan of Arc, that made sense, but the one found with Cathy Adams in the Garden District was of St. Mary Magdalene. Different. What was that all about? He also noted something he’d missed before: that each woman seemed to have one spot on their heads shaved. He hadn’t made the connection as Cathy Adam’s entire head had been shaved, but now, in reexamining the ME’s report, it seemed odd that both women had lost nearly a square inch of their hair before their bodies had been burned. Either the murderer had done it himself, taking a trophy, or they both belonged to some weird cult, which was unlikely.
Something niggled at the back of Bentz’s mind, something important, though he couldn’t quite retrieve it. It had to do with the rosary killings … what the devil was it?
The phone rang and he lost the thought, caught up in a conversation with an assistant D.A. about a knifing down by Canal, not far from the casino. What had happened to Cecilia would have to wait.
Kristi dropped her backpack onto the floor. She’d already gone to her early-morning swim—earlier than usual—and she needed the next half-hour to get ready to see Brian again in Zaroster’s class, then she had to study. She had a test in Psych tomorrow, and a paper due in English, no doubt a quiz in bonehead math and a paper due in Philosophy all before she left for Thanksgiving.
And … more importantly … she was supposed to meet Brian again. He’d been very adamant that they spend Sunda
y studying as he wanted to see her tonight before she left for home.
She couldn’t believe how they’d clicked the other night—well, after she’d gotten over being pissed and beaten him royally at darts. She wondered if he’d let her win and she should’ve insisted he be her slave or something for the payoff. Instead she’d settled for an expensive dinner and told him that he still owed her … At that point he’d suggested “double or nothing” and she’d leapt at the chance to best him. That was the problem with her—the athlete within loved to compete. Besides … double or nothing with no rules, that sounded pretty interesting … even dangerous.
He was different from any of the boys she’d dated. Lots more mature, deep, even pensive. They’d spent most of Saturday night together, talking, drinking, and making out. She’d found out that he’d grown up somewhere around Chicago, had gotten his undergraduate degree at Notre Dame, and had come to All Saints for graduate work. He was a complex man, not a simple boy whose only aspiration was to get married, have some kids, preferably boys who could play football, and someday own his father’s roofing business.
She’d outgrown Jay; that much was obvious.
But she doubted she’d ever outgrow Brian. He was so … mature … so … experienced. She tingled at the thought of how he’d kissed, like it would be the last one he’d ever experience.
Kristi smiled at the thought as she pulled off her T-shirt and caught a glimpse of her torso, clad only in a black bra, in her mirror. Not too bad, she thought, swinging around for a full view.
She’d like to have bigger boobs, of course, but then she wasn’t into plastic surgery or hormones, so for now, she’d content herself that she had a tiny waist and a flat abdomen. Though her shoulders were wider than most girls', probably from years of swimming, and she weighed a few pounds more than the average in her sorority house, she looked pretty damned good. All muscle. No fat. Athletic. Besides, she thought, the whole waif-like anorexic look was overrated and the way some of the girls attained it through cigarettes, uppers, and cocaine wasn’t for her. Not that she didn’t like a drink or two and had been known to smoke weed once and again, but she just didn’t want to get into that whole drug scene. She’d experimented enough in high school and given her dad a good bunch of his gray hair while trying ecstasy and hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Well, what could you expect, when you’re a teenager and you find out that your dad’s not really your dad and your mom … Don’t even go there. It’s over and done. Rick’s a good guy. A real good guy and you know it now. He is your dad. He’s always been there for you. Always. Even though he knew you weren’t really his kid. Frowning at the path of her thoughts, she concentrated on her image in the glass and liked what she saw. She tossed her head, letting a sweep of red-brown hair fall over one side of her face as she’d seen models do in the shampoo commercials on TV.
Again she smiled. Her hair was long, layered and a thick burnished mahogany. She’d sprung for highlights this fall so the strands gleamed red in the sunlight and Brian loved it. He’d buried his face in it several times when they were making out Saturday night and he’d told her how beautiful it was. She’d let him take off her top and his fingers had caressed her breasts in a way that made her hot when she thought of it. Feather-light touches that created all sorts of conflicting emotions … She wanted to do it with him, but she hadn’t. Knew better.
Good old Catholic upbringing, she thought. Though her father had been lax about taking her to church, when her mother had been alive, Kristi had been enrolled in parochial schools and never missed mass or Catechism or youth instruction. And yet Jennifer herself hadn’t adhered to the sacrament of marriage, now, had she?
At least not according to Rick Bentz, who had decided, when she’d graduated from high school that she needed to know the truth. So he’d laid it out to her, explained why the marriage had gone sour, that her mother had been involved with the man who had sired her. Not just once. Oh, no. Jennifer had slept with the guy way back when Kristi had been conceived, broken off the affair, then started up again, nearly fifteen years later, just prior to her death.
Kristi hadn’t wanted to believe that Rick Bentz wasn’t her father. But once she’d seen the evidence herself, in the form of a letter Jennifer had written two days before driving off the road and into a tree, she’d been convinced. The letter had been addressed to Kristi, but Bentz had decided his daughter should be spared the truth until she graduated from high school, so he’d hidden it away for over four years.
Bastard, she thought, angry all over again.
Swiping tears from her eyes, she remembered every word on the single yellowed piece of paper. The lines that burned in her mind still brought tears to her eyes.
I’m so sorry, honey. Believe me when I tell you that I love you more than life itself. But I’ve been involved with the man who is really your father again and I’m afraid it’s going to ruin my marriage and break Rick’s heart…
“Thanks, Mom. Thanks a lot.” Kristi sniffed loudly. Wouldn’t break down. She was convinced Jennifer had committed suicide. She’d loaded herself up on pills and driven off the road two days after her husband had caught her in bed with another man. In Kristi’s estimation Jennifer had taken the coward’s way out by writing the damned letter and getting behind the wheel.
Ever since she’d found out the truth at the beginning of last summer, Kristi had been mad as hell at her mother, at the man who had raised her and at the goddamned son of a bitch who couldn’t keep his hands off of Jennifer, the man who had spawned her. Pathetic, that’s what it was. Pathetic.
Kristi didn’t want to think about it right now. Well, really, not ever. She’d taken enough psychology already this term to recognize that she was in denial big time, but she didn’t care. She’d rather concentrate on Saturday night and Brian. After a bad start, the date had been wonderful, she thought.
Yanking a sweater over her head she wished she wasn’t going home to New Orleans for Thanksgiving. Not that she wouldn’t have an okay time with her dad, but their relationship had been rocky for years and now she had someone new. A real boyfriend. An older man.
Wouldn’t her overprotective father flip when he found out? She pulled her hair through the neck hole of the sweater and couldn’t help but grin. She still liked jerking the old man’s chain.
So what would happen if when he came to pick her up, she’d have him meet Brian and then blithely announce she’d invited Brian for Thanksgiving? He didn’t seem to have anywhere to go; at least she thought he didn’t. But then she didn’t know much about him other than he taught at the college and was working on his doctorate.
So dinner tonight with Brian, and later … who knew? A naughty smile caressed her lips. She couldn’t wait!
“Check this out,” Montoya said as he swaggered into Bentz’s office just before ten. His Cheshire cat smile was stretched wide, his earring winked in the fluorescent lights suspended overhead, and his black leather jacket gleamed as if it were brand new.
“What?” Bentz was on his second cup of coffee waiting for a callback from the Covington Police. A secretary for an insurance company was missing. Her boyfriend, Dustin Townsend, had called earlier; no one had seen Stephanie Jane Keller since Friday afternoon when he’d driven her into town. According the Townsend, Stephanie was five foot six inches, about a hundred and twenty pounds, and played tennis regularly. Blue eyes, blond hair. He’d sounded upset on the telephone, frantic with worry, and reluctantly given Bentz the name of Stephanie’s dentist. The department had formally asked for the dental records, which had been faxed and were now being matched. Townsend himself was on his way, agreeing to bring pictures of Stephanie with him.
“I’ve got some interesting information on Ms. Benchet,” Montoya announced, swinging a leg over the corner of Bentz’s desk. The muscles in the back of Rick’s neck tightened. “Well, really on her old lady. Bernadette Dubois … She’s been married five times and that doesn’t count a misstep or two with engagements that
didn’t pan out. Not too shabby for a woman who’s barely in her fifties. There was Olivia’s father, Reggie Benchet.”
“The felon.”
“Ex-con.”
“Still a felon in my book,” Bentz said.
“Yep. Assault. Resisting arrest. Murder two. A few other things. A helluva guy. Anyway, Bernadette had the good sense to divorce him after a couple of kids. But he’s just the first. She has a string of husbands. She left every one of them. And she’s working on her most recent. According to court records, she’s already filed papers against the current Mr. Bernadette, a guy by the name of Jeb Martin. He works for an oil company in Houston. They got married about four years ago and apparently wedded bliss didn’t last long. Martin’s got a nasty temper when he drinks—been arrested several times.”
“Sounds like a pattern.” Bentz knew his partner was leading up to something.
“Well, number one and number five are alike and the third husband, Bill Yates, the trucker, I think he was a rebound thing. Only lasted eighteen months. Number four was Scott Lafever, a musician who didn’t live through his last OD. But here’s the kicker. Guess who was the second husband?”
“The one right after Reggie Benchet?”
Montoya nodded, then dropped the bomb. “Our good friend, Oscar Cantrell.”
“The owner of Benchmark Realty?” Bentz asked.
“One and the same.” Montoya, obviously pleased with himself, stroked his goatee. “I don’t know about you, but I think there might be a connection there, seeing as Oscar’s management company rented the house where one of our Jane Does was killed.”