Malice

by Lisa Jackson

  Once the door closed Bentz turned his attention back to the laptop and the issue at hand-Jennifer’s acquaintances. He’d have to play it by ear with them. He didn’t plan to tell any of Jennifer’s friends that he’d thought he’d seen her, not unless they volunteered some sort of information about fake “hauntings” first.

  But getting them to open up would be a trick.

  Anyone who knew anything about Jennifer’s death would have maintained silence for twelve years, keeping the truth not just from him but from his daughter and the police. Bentz, ex-cop and ex-husband, would be hard-pressed to pry anything from those who had known her.

  He’d already put together a short list of friends pared down from all her known acquaintances. These women had been the closest to Jennifer. They would most understand her, most likely to have been her confidantes.

  Shana Wynn, whose last married name he knew of was McIntyre, had been one of Jennifer’s best friends and, as Bentz recalled, a real bitch. Beautiful. Smart. Out for number one. She and Jennifer had been college roommates and they’d had a lot in common. If anyone knew that Jennifer had faked her own death, it would be Shana.

  Tally White also made the “must interview” list. Tally’s daughter Melody had been a friend of Kristi’s in elementary school. Jennifer and Tally had gotten close. Real close. Both women had been divorced.

  Fortuna Esperanzo had become a friend of Jennifer’s when they’d both worked briefly at an art gallery in Venice.

  Then there was Lorraine Newell, Jennifer’s stepsister, who hadn’t liked Bentz from the get-go. A dark-haired prima donna with a princess complex, Lorraine hadn’t been particularly close to Jennifer, either, and hadn’t bothered to keep in contact with Kristi since Jennifer’s death.

  There were others as well, but these four women were at the top of his list. He just had to find them. Which was easier said than done. So far his online searches had only turned up one plum: Shana McIntyre’s current address. He clicked open a file with information on her and jotted the street number and name on the envelope he used to carry his photos. Hopefully, Shana was in town and would be willing to see him when he paid her a visit.

  Bentz slid the photos out of the envelope and fanned them out on the desk. Tapping the photo of Jennifer looking out of the coffee shop, he did an online search of coffee shops on Colorado Avenue. Bingo! Plenty to choose from. A cup of coffee would be his first order of business in the morning.

  He worked late into the night, finally gave up, and flopped onto the thin mattress with a sinkhole in the center. Propping himself up with pillows, he turned on the television, watched some sports updates, and, with the latest scores flashing across the screen, drifted off.

  The remote was still in his hand when the bedside phone rang, jerking him awake. He picked up, knowing it couldn’t be good if someone was calling so late, phoning at the motel and not on his cell. “This is Bentz,” he said, cobwebs still in his mind, some kind of cage fighting on the TV screen. For a second he heard nothing. “Hello?”

  He hit the television’s mute button.

  Soft crying was barely audible.

  “Hello?” he said again. “Who is this? Are you okay?”

  More muffled sobbing as he pushed himself up in bed. “Who are you trying to reach?”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice raspy and raw. For a second he thought she was apologizing for calling the wrong person, but then she said, “Please forgive me, RJ. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  What? His heart nearly stopped. “Who is this?” he demanded, his pulse pounding in his ears.

  Click!

  The phone went dead in his hand. “Hello?” he said, and hit the button on the receiver’s cradle in rapid succession. “Hello?”

  Nothing.

  “Hello? Hello? Damn!”

  She’d hung up. With suddenly sweating hands, he replaced the receiver and felt as if a cold knife had sliced through his heart. The voice had been familiar. Or had it?

  Jennifer.

  She’d been the only one in his entire life to call him RJ. Holy crap. He swallowed hard. Told himself not to panic.

  It has to be someone impersonating her.

  What the hell was going on? He rolled out of bed, threw on a T-shirt and the pair of khakis he’d draped over the back of the desk chair. Zipping up, he walked barefoot to the office under the lone security lamp mounted high over the neon sign for the motel. Only a few cars rolled by and the night air was cool, felt good against his skin.

  Inside the reception area the lights were on-dimmed, but on. Less than a cup of coffee sat like oil in the bottom of the glass pot in the coffeemaker. No one was behind the desk. Following instructions inscribed into a metal plate on the counter, he rang the small bell. After waiting half a minute, he rang it again, just as Rebecca slipped through a locked door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

  Devoid of makeup, her lipstick faded, her hair falling past her shoulders, she looked much younger than she had earlier. And crankier. “Can I help you?” she asked, then glanced pointedly at the clock. “Is something wrong?” She was already reaching for another key to his room, assuming that he’d locked himself out.

  “I just need to know if you have a record of incoming phone calls to the rooms.”

  “What?” She stifled a yawn, trying not to sound cross but failing. Obviously the staff at the So-Cal was stretched thin.

  “Someone called me and didn’t identify herself. I need to know where the call came from.”

  “Now?” Looking at him as if he were certifiably crazy, she opened a drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “I know. It’s important.” Reaching into his pants pocket, he withdrew his wallet and showed her his badge.

  “What?” She was suddenly wide awake. “You’re a cop?” Worry slid through her eyes as she slapped the cigarettes onto the counter.

  “New Orleans Police Department.”

  “Oh, Jesus, look, I don’t need any trouble here.”

  “There won’t be any.” He second-guessed flashing the badge, but at least it was getting her attention.

  “Look,” she said, licking her lips nervously as if she did have something to hide. “This…this isn’t a big operation. We’re not, like, the Hilton, you know.”

  “But you have a central switchboard that calls come through, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah…we do.” She was thinking hard.

  “I assume there’s some sort of caller ID on it.” She was nodding. “So, I need to see origin of the calls that have come to my room.”

  She pressed two fingers against one temple. “Can’t this wait until morning?”

  “If it could, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Okay.” With a tired sigh, she nodded. “Just give me a sec, okay?” She disappeared behind the door again. Bentz paced through the lobby past brochures of fishing trips, movie studio visits, and museums. He could only hope the badge had made an impression. Nervously jangling the change in his pocket, he walked to the large plate-glass window and peered out. He saw only a few cars parked between faded stripes in the parking lot.

  “Okay, here ya go.” Rebecca returned to the lobby with a business card. Handing him the card, she said, “Only one call.”

  “Only had one. Thanks.” He scanned the number jotted in her neat handwriting. A local number.

  “Anytime,” she said without the slightest bit of enthusiasm. “Anything else?”

  “This’ll do.”

  “Good.” She scraped her pack of Marlboro Lights and her lighter from the counter, then followed Bentz outside.

  He heard her lighter click as he reached his room.

  Inside, using his cell phone, he dialed the single number listed on the printout. It rang ten times. He hung up; hit redial. Twelve more rings, no answering machine, no voice mail. He hung up and tried one last time, counting off the rings. On the eighth, a male voice said, “Yeah?”

  “
Who is this?” Bentz demanded.

  “Paul. Who is this?” Indignant.

  “I’m returning a call.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Someone called me from this phone.”

  “Big surprise,” the guy said, his speech slightly slurred. “Duh. It’s a pay phone.”

  A pay phone? Probably only a handful of those dinosaurs left in the country and you get a crank call from one. “Where?”

  “What?” the stranger, Paul, demanded.

  “The phone you’re on right now. Where is it?”

  “I dunno…uh…in L.A. What do you think? Here on Wilshire. Yeah…there’s a bank on the corner. California Something, I think.”

  “What’s the cross street?”

  “Who the hell knows? It’s around Sixth or Seventh, I think…hey, look, I gotta use the phone, okay?”

  Bentz wasn’t going to let the guy go. Not yet. “Just a sec. Did you see a woman using this phone, say, twenty minutes ago?”

  “What is this?” The guy on the other end was getting pissed.

  “I thought you might have been waiting for the phone and seen someone. A woman.”

  “Shit, dude, I said no! Oh, for Christ’s sake!” He hung up, severing the connection.

  Bentz clicked off his cell phone, gathered his keys, and slipped into his shoes. He didn’t know what good driving around L.A. in the dead of night would do, but he sure as hell wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep any time soon. Rebecca was just crushing her cigarette into the large ash can by the front door. The night air was still tinged with the faint smell of smoke as she watched him climb into the Ford.

  Familiar with the area, he drove to Wilshire and cruised down the wide near-empty boulevard. A cop car screamed by, lights flashing. He kept his eyes on the street-level storefronts of buildings rising to ward the night sky. In the blocks around Sixth and Seventh his gaze swept over the sidewalks and plazas of the massive buildings of steel and glass, searching for a damned pay phone. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but he knew he wouldn’t spot the woman who had called him. Unless she was an idiot. His gut told him that she’d be long gone by now. Still he felt the need to view the pay phone for himself.

  He missed it on the first pass, but then, spotting California Palisades Bank, he wheeled around in their empty lot…and there it was. His tires squealed slightly as he tore from the parking lot and steered straight to the modern booth. Three sheets of dirty, graffiti-covered Plexiglas on a pole, in front of an edifice with a Korean market on the first floor.

  Few people were on the street, but he parked and walked around the pay phone as a city bus sat idling at a bus stop.

  Who was she?

  Why had she called him? What was the purpose? To get him to track her down here? He scanned the area, dubious. No point in getting him here among these office buildings sitting like sleeping giants in the night, security lights casting eerie beams beyond tinted glass. On the avenue only a smattering of cars passed. Traffic lights glowed green and red down the broad boulevard while tall streetlamps rained down a fluorescent lonely atmosphere.

  He saw nothing unusual.

  Only that someone was seriously messing with his brain.

  Who the hell was doing this to him?

  And, more importantly, why?

  CHAPTER 8

  “I just don’t know why you didn’t tell me,” Kristi fumed on the other end of the wireless call.

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Yeah. Eight in the morning.”

  “There. It’s barely six here,” Bentz grumbled, eyeing the digital clock as he rolled to the side of the uneven mattress. He’d barely slept since falling into bed after his late-night drive down Wilshire Boulevard. “Two hours difference, remember?” His back ached and he hadn’t gone to bed until nearly 2 A.M. and now his kid was calling at dawn.

  “Okay. Sorry.” She didn’t sound it. “But come on, Dad, what’s this all about? I asked Olivia about it, but she was kinda secretive. You know how she gets, all ‘this is between you and your father,’ which is just such BS.” Kristi must’ve been standing outside, maybe outside the apartment she rented in Baton Rouge while attending All Saints College. Bentz could hear the sounds of traffic and the soft call of a mockingbird in the background.

  “I just need to work things out.”

  “So this is like…what? A separation?”

  “What? No.” He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw and walked to the window to crack open the blinds. Immediately bright sunlight streamed through the dusty glass. “I just have some things to do.”

  “What things?” Kristi demanded.

  “Just catching up on some old cases. I’m meeting with one of the guys I worked with tonight.”

  “Why? I thought you hated L.A. The way I remember it you couldn’t get out of the place fast enough.”

  “I was going stir crazy.”

  “So suddenly, after all these years, you hop on a plane and head west? Save me, Dad,” she said with a theatrical sigh. “Just tell me this doesn’t have anything to do with Mom, okay?”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “And you’re a bad liar. A real bad liar.”

  He remained silent, wondering what had tipped her off. Of course…he’d told Kristi he’d seen Jennifer in his hospital room after he’d woken from his coma. Though they’d never discussed it since, Kristi was bright enough to put two and two together. She was also on the verge of being paranoid now that she possessed her own little bit of ESP. Ever since an accident that nearly took her life, Kristi claimed she knew when a person was about to die, that the victim would “bleed from color to black-and-white.” That had to be scary for her, and Bentz didn’t want to add to her worries.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be planning a wedding or something?” he asked.

  “Don’t deflect, Dad. It doesn’t work with me.”

  “So why did you call? Obviously not just to tell me to have a nice trip.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Thought so,” he said as he moved to the bathroom where a single-cup coffeepot was wedged onto a slice of countertop. Tearing open the packet of coffee, he listened as Kristi kept firing questions at him: Why was he in L.A.? When was he coming back? Were there problems with Olivia? How worried should she be? He plopped the packet of “fine roast” into a basket, added a cup of water to the pot, and pressed the on button.

  “I’m fine. Olivia’s fine. Nothing to worry about,” Bentz insisted as the coffeepot gurgled and hissed. He needed to take a leak, but decided not to freak his daughter out any further and waited until she hung up.

  It took another five minutes, but she finally told him “to keep in touch,” before taking another call. He relieved himself, hopped in the shower, and dressed. With his cup of coffee in hand, he decided to hunt up breakfast. He figured a coffee shop on Colorado Avenue might be a good place to start.

  After breakfast he would continue trying to locate the women on his list. First up: Shana McIntyre…well, after some digging last night he discovered that her name had changed a couple of times. She’d been Wynn before she married her first husband and became Mrs. George Philpot. After that divorce she’d become Mrs. Hamilton Flavel, and now, she’d taken the name of her current husband, Leland McIntyre. Bentz recognized her type-a serial wife.

  Last night he’d found a number for her and had tried it, only to get her lofty voice on the answering machine. “You’ve reached Leland and Shana. Leave a message. We’ll get back to you…sometime.”

  Nice, he’d thought and didn’t bother leaving his name or number. His cell would show up as “restricted call” and he wanted to catch her off guard. Didn’t want to give her time to make up answers or avoid him.

  By the time he walked outside, the sun was already rising in the sky, glare bouncing off the pavement. His car was warm, its interior collecting heat more quickly than a solar panel in the middle of the Sahara. He rolled out of the
parking lot and headed toward Santa Monica and Colorado Avenue, which he’d tentatively identified in one photo of Jennifer.

  He’d already done some Internet research. An online map had shown three coffee shops in a twelve-block stretch.

  Within twenty minutes he spotted it-a cafe on a corner that matched the photo. The Local Buzz, it was called. Two newspaper boxes stood by the front door, and tall café tables were positioned near the windows.

  This was too easy, he thought. Whoever had taken the picture had lured him here without too much finesse.

  He parked on a side street and made his way inside, where the smell of ground roast was overpowering. Jazz competed with the hiss of the steamer and the gentle din of conversation. The booths were full and several patrons had their laptops open, taking advantage of the free wi-fi connection. Bentz ordered a black coffee and waited while a surge of customers ordered lattes and mochas, everything from macchiatos and soy caramel lattes to plain coffee. Once the crowd dissipated, he approached the baristas again, this time showing them his pictures of Jennifer.

  Neither coffee server claimed to have ever seen her. They were certain. The tall girl in frumpy suede boots and shorts barely glanced at the photos as she wiped off the hot milk nozzle and shook her head. But her partner, a shorter, rounder woman of around fifty, studied the shots thoughtfully. Above her rimless glasses her eyebrows drew together. “She could have come in when we were busy or when someone else was working, but she’s not a regular. At least not a morning regular. I would know her.” She went on to explain that there were six or seven servers on staff, so someone else might have helped the woman in the picture.

  He glanced at the table where “Jennifer” had sat in the photo, went to the window and stared out at the street. To the left, a dozen or so blocks from here, the streets ended at the Pacific Ocean. He and Jennifer had spent some lazy afternoons there, walking the Santa Monica Pier and the path that cut alongside the beach. Long ago he’d considered Santa Monica their special place, a spot where, near the jutting pier, he and Jennifer had first made love in the sand.