by Lisa Jackson
He was drained. His head pounded. The aching was with him more each day, it seemed, a dull thud that increased as the hours passed. A sacrifice always hyped him up before, during, and immediately after the rite, but later, after reliving it for hours, he was exhausted.
The WSLJ announcer was still blither-blathering on about a serial killer stalking the city. Two victims had been identified as coeds from Loyola and Tulane. So the police were beginning to discover that there had been earlier sacrifices … good, good … it had frustrated him that they hadn’t connected his earlier work.
Identification of the venerated dead had been bound to happen. The police knowing his method and the dates he would kill might make hunting more difficult … but he’d prepared for this. He’d already chosen his next victims … women who needed to be released from their earthly bonds. Twining his fingers in his braid, he walked to the altar, genuflected, and then gazed at the wall where he’d made his offering. It was a beautiful collage of pictures of those saints he’d chosen to be a part of his work. Each image of the saints, a picture of an old portrait of a beautiful young woman with a shimmering halo, would be covered with a newer picture, a photograph he’d taken … Several were already covered with a new image. St. Joan of Arc, beautiful little Philomena, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Cecilia, and now St. Catherine of Alexandria.
But there were so many more. Kristi Bentz would be a perfect St. Lucy, but what of St. Olivia? The feast day was too far away … certainly he could redeem Olivia Benchet by renaming her … that was it. He glanced at his large book, sitting upon a table with the pair of pinking shears he used to clip the pictures from the pages. Yes, that was it, he’d find another worthy daughter of God …
“Detective Rick Bentz of the New Orleans Police Department …”
The Chosen One’s head snapped up at the mention of Bentz’s name. He glared at his tiny radio and his lips curled. Bentz had robbed him of his pupil; the only person The Chosen One had trusted with his secret. Father John. Now presumed dead. At Bentz’s hand.
But Bentz would suffer and suffer well.
The Chosen One stood and let his robe slip to the floor. Slowly and delicately he slid the braid over his nakedness. Staring at his collage, he saw the faces of his victims as the plait slithered silently over his muscles.
They were all beautiful, all bright, all worthy of sainthood.
His breath was coming in uneven gasps. He was rock-hard, his cock throbbing. He tied the braid around it, imagined a dozen sets of hands and luscious lips upon his skin, teasing, taunting … promising sinful delights.
He grew light-headed, swallowing hard as he remembered their terror, how they’d begged. He conjured up Kristi Bentz’s face … oh, yes … she would be heaven, but no longer would she be enough. No … he had others to redeem. With a grim smile, he thought of Olivia Benchet.
She should thank him for her redemption.
Because she was a daughter of the whore.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Okay, so what have we got?” Melinda Jaskiel demanded of Bentz and Motoya. “The press is clamoring for more information, the chief is all over me, wondering what the hell we’ve got going with another serial killer, and I’m speaking with the head of the task force and the FBI in”—she checked her watch—“twenty-three minutes.”
“I’ve talked to the head of the task force and Tortorici with the FBI,” Bentz said. It was about two in the afternoon, he and Montoya were sitting in Jaskiel’s office, and he’d spent all morning working on the case, shutting his mind down whenever his thoughts strayed to last night with Olivia Benchet.
“Do we think there’s any chance this is the Rosary Killer?” Melinda asked. She stood in her crisp navy blue suit, hips and hands resting against the edge of her neat-as-a-pin goverment-issue desk. Bentz and Montoya were seated in front of her in the two visitors’ chairs. There were a couple of photos of her parents and two daughters displayed upon her credenza and a crystal vase of ever-changing fresh flowers sat on one corner of the desk. Aside from those little touches, her nameplate, and a few awards displayed on the wall behind her chair, the office could have belonged to anyone. Well, anyone who was a neat freak.
“I’ve talked to the FBI and Norm Stowell … who’s an ex-profiler.”
“Outside the department?” Behind her lenses, her eyes narrowed.
“Yeah, and—”
“Hold on, Rambo. We’re playing this one by the book.”
“Of course we are,” Bentz said, giving her the acknowledgment she needed should there be a problem. “It doesn’t look like this is the Rosary Killer. His signature, the way he displays the bodies, is too different. He’s more brutal. Violent. Not the same guy.”
“But you think this has to do with saints being killed?”
“Martyred female saints,” Bentz said and shifted in his chair. The more he considered the fact that women were being butchered in the manner in which saints had been killed, the more nervous he felt. Some of the women had gone to college and his own daughter attended All Saints—with a name like that it was bound to attract the attention of the killer, even if it was in Baton Rouge.
“All martyrs?”
“Yeah. That narrows the list a little. There are hundreds of Catholic saints and we don’t know which ones he’ll choose, but they seem to be the ones with bizarre, violent deaths.”
“I assume there were a lot of those.”
“Amen,” Montoya muttered and fanned a list of pages he’d taken off the Internet. “We know about St. Cecilia; Stephanie Jane Keller was killed the same way—beheading with three strokes of a sword, after torture, and we know about St. Joan of Arc and the Jane Doe found at her statue around May thirtieth, the feast day for St. Joan, though we don’t know where the victim was burned at the stake; Cathy Adams was different, we think she was portrayed as Mary Magdalene as she was killed on the feast day of July twenty-second.” Montoya handed a few of the pages to Jaskiel.
As she skimmed the material, her expression tightened with each page. “This is worse than the last one.”
Bentz had to agree. “We think there might be other deaths, two for certain.”
“Because?” Jaskiel asked, and when Bentz hesitated, she nodded. “Oh, I get it … because Olivia Benchet has ‘seen’ “—Jaskiel made air quotes with her fingers—“the deaths.”
“She’s been right on so far.” Montoya was still scanning the pages in his hand.
“We’re checking missing persons all across the state, especially at the campuses here in town. Stephanie Jane Keller and Cathy Adams went to school part time, one at Tulane, the other at Loyola.” Bentz hated the connection. He reminded himself that the killer was stalking coeds here in New Orleans, not in Baton Rouge where Kristi was attending school. But didn’t most serial killers move? Find new hunting grounds? “Olivia Benchet is in the master’s program at Tulane. We’ve contacted the local schools, not just the college campuses but the local school districts and private schools, parochial schools, boarding schools, just to put the administrators on alert. They’re advising the students to be aware, be extra careful, stay in groups, double-lock doors, stay in at night, the whole nine yards.”
“Do you think that Olivia Benchet, our star witness if you can call her that, is connected to the victims because she’s going to grad school?” Jaskiel’s eyebrows drew into a thin continuous line.
“Maybe, but she didn’t know either of the victims,” Bentz said.
Montoya nodded. “And we’re checking out Oscar Cantrell, he was a stepfather, one in a long line, to Benchet. His company, Benchmark Realty, is the management company for the duplex that burned down … he had access.”
“Did he know the victim?”
“Not that we can establish.”
“We still need to interview him,” Bentz said and glanced at the clock. “He was out of town for the holiday, tried to pull a disappearing act, but we got hold of him through his secretary, and rather than deal with the polic
e in Dade County, he’s elected to return for an interview.”
“Any chance he’ll skip out?”
“We’ve got a man making sure he’s on the plane. I’ll meet him at the airport,” Bentz said.
“What about witnesses? Anyone see anything? I mean, witnesses other than the psychic.”
“Nothing that makes any sense.” Bentz shook his head. “And the last person to see Stephanie Jane Keller alive was the mechanic where she dropped off the car. He’s clean, as is her boyfriend. Townsend’s got an alibi we can’t break, willingly took a lie detector test, and passed with flying colors. He’s not our guy. As for her car—so far no clues.”
Montoya added, “I’ve had a picture of the one guy we can’t identify who was caught on video at the scene, but even with computer enhancement, we can’t place him. At least not yet. We’ve already checked out the whereabouts of the owners of the house that burned, the brother and sister who inherited the place. Looks like they’re clean, alibis are strong. The brother is probably doing cartwheels for the insurance money. He was working late that night; got the company records and surveillance cameras to prove it. The other owner, his sister, is devastated—loved the place where she grew up. She was home with the husband and kids the night of the murder.”
“Somehow the killer had access,” Melinda said.
“We’re still trying to track down Reggie Benchet.” Bentz’s thoughts were dark when it came to Olivia’s father. “He’s connected to Olivia Benchet, who somehow sees the crimes; he’s done time for murder, he’s on the streets again, and he found religion while he was doing time.”
“And probably a few more tricks of the trade. You know those guys,” Montoya said. “Send ‘em to prison and they learn all the latest scams from the population.” He snorted. “Rehabilitation, my ass.”
“Have you spoken to his parole officer?” Melinda asked.
Bentz nodded. “So far Reggie’s been minding his Ps and Qs.”
“My ass,” Montoya muttered again.
“The Lafayette Police have interviewed him. I thought I’d stop by today as I’m heading up to Baton Rouge and it’s not too far out of the way. Reggie Benchet has recently tried to get into contact with his daughter …” Bentz hesitated, thought about what Olivia had confided and figured what the hell. Jaskiel deserved to know all the information. “Olivia called me last night.” He explained in detail about what she’d seen, how overwrought she’d been. “It upset her so badly she broke the mirror and cut her hand. She was certain that the killer she saw in the vision knew her name. She somehow knew he was thinking of her and he called her St. Olivia.”
“Damn it,” Jaskiel muttered.
“You sure she’s not making some of this up?” Montoya wasn’t buying this new wrinkle in the case.
“She was terrified. Believe me.”
Frustrated, Jaskiel slapped the papers she’d been holding on the edge of the desk. “Okay, check out the father. And see that Olivia Benchet has someone watching her and her house round the clock.”
“Already done. The FBI authorized it,” Bentz said, expecting her to give him a tongue-lashing for not going through the proper channels. Instead she nodded.
“What about the other two killings that you think might have happened?” Melinda asked. “The ones that Olivia Benchet has seen.”
“Last night was the feast day of St. Catherine of Alexandria. She was put on a spiked wheel, it broke, and she was beheaded.”
Jaskiel’s jaw hardened. “Like the last one.”
“Yeah.”
“The same killer?”
“We assume.”
“So now you’re a believer?” Melinda asked, a thin eyebrow rising over the tops of her rimless glasses.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I guess I am. She claims she saw another murder. A woman entombed and tortured, left to starve to death. Take a look at this.” He handed her a page on St. Philomena, complete with the notes Olivia Benchet had taken. “Now, either she’s a scholar of the martyred saints and is jerking our chains, adding extra cases to mess us up, or she’s the real thing.” An image of Olivia’s terrorized expression as she’d flung herself into his arms last night flashed through Bentz’s mind. “I’m betting that she’s for real.”
“All right.” Creases furrowed Jaskiel’s brow as she checked her watch again. “So you’re working with the task force and the FBI.”
“Yeah. It’s tough with the differing juristictions, but we’ve got to think that maybe our guy did the same thing in another state. A guy on the force is attempting to cross-reference violent, unsolved cases, committed around the time of some of the saints’ feasts days, but even with the FBI and their computers, it’ll take time.”
“Which we don’t have.”
“And luck,” Bentz added. “So far that’s been in short supply, too.”
Montoya snorted. “I’m checking with the sword manufacturers. We’ve got the weapon from the fire at Bayou St. John, no prints, of course, but it’s not that common of a sword. My guess is that it was bought secondhand at one of those gun/ammo/weapon shows. Probably not traceable. But we’re checking with the local dealers.”
“What about the priest connection?”
“So far nothing, just Olivia Benchet’s word on that. We’re sifting through all the evidence left at the scene, but since everything was burned, it’ll take time. We don’t have fiber samples. Nor anything under the victim’s fingernails. I’m afraid our guy got away clean,” Bentz admitted.
Lines of frustration tugged at the corners of Jaskiel’s mouth. Her fingernails drummed against the lip of her desk. “He’ll slip up. He’s got to. When he does, we’ll nail his hide. In the meantime, how do I explain that to the press?” Jaskiel asked, then answered her own question. “I don’t… Not yet, not about the connections to the saints, otherwise we’ll have a copycat and every religious nut in the surrounding parishes coming up with new and innovative ways to torture women making his mark. We’ll just keep the same profile. We’ve got a serial killer, be careful … nothing specific.”
“Maybe he’ll tip his hand if we play it cool,” Bentz suggested. “Sometimes when a serial killer doesn’t get enough attention, he becomes bolder. Contacts the police. Is frustrated by the lack of attention.”
Melinda straightened. “Just as long as the lack of attention doesn’t push him into killing again. That would be damned hard to explain to the public.”
“So what’re you going to do for Thanksgiving?” Kristi asked as she sat in the commons, sipping a Coke while trying to decide if she wanted to “do it” with Brian Thomas. God, he was hot. Dark hair, intense blue eyes, and that secretive air that she found dangerously exciting.
“You mean besides giving thanks?” He shoved his tray aside and leaned his elbows on the scarred table. His class ring glinted under the overhead lights.
“Yeah, besides that.”
He was teasing, she saw it in his eyes.
“I think I’ll really celebrate by grading papers.”
Kristi groaned. “Doesn’t sound like much fun.”
“No? You wouldn’t get turned on by essays discussing the philosophical and political implications of the Catholic Church in Rome during the—”
“Oh, save me,” she said, rolling her eyes. “No, that wouldn’t turn me on.”
“Then what would?” He reached across the table and grabbed her wrist, his fingertips grazing the inside of her arm. He rubbed gently and Kristi’s heart jolted. “Why don’t we find out?”
“Now?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’ve got class in half an hour, but later… I’ve got a bottle of wine. It’s cheap, but effective. Or we could head over to The Dive.”
Kristi sighed. “I think I’ll have to take a rain check. I’ve got to meet my dad later. He’s picking me up after my last class.”
His smile was wicked. “Can’t you call and tell him to postpone it a day? Make up some excuse, like you have to study.”
“He knows me better than that,” she said as he slowly let go of her wrist and the warmth that had invaded her blood and tingled deep between her legs subsided a bit. She chewed on the red and white straw. “He lived with me for eighteen years, remember.”
“Maybe you’ve turned over a new leaf.”
“He wouldn’t believe it. He’s a cop. A detective,” she admitted, something she was loath to do. Most boys who heard her dad was on the force, split. Without a second glance. They didn’t want to get involved with the daughter of a cop and risk that kind of trouble. It didn’t matter if they were into booze, dope, or shoplifting, any little thing and they found a way to leave Kristi behind.
Brian, however, didn’t so much as flinch. “Your dad doesn’t trust you.”
“He doesn’t trust anyone, and it’s only going to get worse now. I read in the papers that they think there’s another serial killer in New Orleans. Dad’s gonna freak. Just watch. He’ll want me to move home, or install a security system in my room, or carry a gallon drum of mace around.”
Brian laughed, though his smile didn’t quite touch his eyes. “He’s paranoid.”
“Yeah, he is. He sees all the bad stuff on the streets and it makes him crazy.” She mashed the straw between her teeth. “Lucky me, huh? What about your mom and dad? You never talk about them.”
His smile seeped away. “Not much to say.”
“You’re not going home for Thanksgiving.”
“No home to go to.”
“Oh, come on,” she said, thinking he was teasing before she noticed the tightening in the cords at the back of his neck. “Are your folks divorced?”
A muscle worked in his jaw. “Just from me.”
“What do you mean?”