Malice

by Lisa Jackson

  Twenty minutes later, Hayes and Martinez were emerging from the house when Bentz’s phone rang. He picked it up, hoping to see Olivia’s number on the screen. Instead he saw Montoya’s.

  “Bentz.”

  “You were right,” Montoya said. “I pulled up some records on Yolanda Valdez in Los Angeles County, dug a little deeper, and it seems that she was married to an Erik Judd for a short period of time. Erik was a roofer and he had an accident; fell four stories and died before the divorce was final.”

  “They were getting a divorce?”

  “Had filed the papers.”

  “How do you know this?” Bentz said, looking outside to the night. No county offices would be open.

  “You just have to know what you’re doing, who to call, and how to work the Internet. Public records can be located.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do, and the kicker is this: He had a five hundred thousand dollar insurance policy on him. Half a million. The beneficiary, none other than his soon to be ex-wife.”

  “Anything fishy about the accident?”

  “The insurance company didn’t balk. According to bank records, Yolanda owns her house in Encino outright and still has eighty thou sand in the bank.” Montoya sounded pleased with himself. “No student loans for this girl.”

  “Thanks,” Bentz said. “Now, do me a favor. Find out what you can about the brother. Fernando Valdez. He’s been using the car that Jennifer was driving. I think he lives with his sister and brother-in law, but right now he’s MIA.”

  “I’ll see what I can find.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You owe me a beer… No, wait, I think the debt is more than that. You’re up to half a case already.”

  “I’m good for it,” Bentz said. “You haven’t heard from Olivia, have you?”

  “No. Why? Didn’t she show up?”

  “Nope. She landed at LAX. We talked on the phone. She was meeting Officer Petrocelli and I haven’t heard from her since.”

  “You’re sure she was on the plane? If she was on her cell, she could have been anywhere.”

  “Yeah. I checked with the airline.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Bentz admitted, refusing to be defeated. “But I’ll find her.”

  “Of course you will, man,” Montoya said but there was an undercurrent of worry in his voice, one that was echoed in Bentz’s own fears.

  I have to work quickly, and I’m getting a little rattled. I feel it and I don’t like it. It’s not that I’m not fast on my feet; it’s that I prefer to have everything worked out to the finest little detail. That’s why it’s taken twelve years to execute this plan. Twelve, long, torturous years.

  I can’t blow it now, I think, stripping off my clothes in a cabin on the boat and seeing my reflection in the slim mirror. I’m in good shape, better than anyone would guess or know, and I give myself credit. It’s taken years to hone my muscles, to look just how I want.

  Like so many things in my life, my strength and appearance took patience, timing, and determination. I didn’t give up cigarettes for nothing.

  Sometimes, unfortunately, it’s necessary to take chances, to react to the moment. It’s nerve-racking, I admit as I stuff my hair into a baseball cap. So after those risky moments, I just have to gain my equilibrium again, retain my focus, remember my ultimate goal.

  I pull on my running pants and zip up my jacket, then sneak off the craft. No one’s around at this hour, so I slip into the car unnoticed.

  In the backseat, Sherry is all ready to go. Her clothes, badge, and purse sit beside her. “It’s very quiet back there,” I tell her.

  Checking the rearview mirror, breathing slowly, I drive to a dead-end street about a mile from the restaurant where I met Sherry earlier. She and I go way back and it was a shame she had to be sacrificed, but the truth of the matter is that she always bothered me, a cop without any grit.

  I park in a back alley and wipe off the areas where I might have left prints when I drove her away from the restaurant. I drop the latex gloves onto the backseat, douse it all generously with gasoline, and strike a match.

  Hisssss!

  The little flame glows bright for a second and I toss it through the open window onto the gloves. Combustion! The backseat ignites, burning quickly, setting the entire vehicle aflame.

  Perfect, I think, starting to run when I see him. A guy on a motorcycle, cutting down the street behind me.

  Oh, hell. My pulse skyrockets. Sweat beads on my forehead and hands. What if he saw me at the car? What if he can describe me? What if…

  Calm down! He didn’t see you. He might find the burning car, but that’s what you want, remember? Just keep running.

  Spurred by my own pep talk, I head out, cutting down back alleys, jogging at my regular pace, fast enough, considering everything I’ve been through.

  I’m almost at the restaurant when I hear the sirens screaming. Fire trucks. Police cars. Probably a rescue vehicle. “Have at it,” I say as I spy my own car parked in an alley several blocks from the restaurant, as it has been for hours, patiently waiting.

  I drive home without a hitch. After stripping off my running clothes and tossing them into the washer, I take a long warm shower, giving myself a little time to think about Bentz and how he’s suffering now. He’s sick with worry about his precious little wife. He’s all messed up about his dead one.

  “Having fun yet, RJ?” I laugh while the steam rolls through the bathroom. As I shampoo my hair, then wash my body, my mind seizes on my next move, tomorrow’s plan. Bentz is in for a few more heart attacks before I’m done. Olivia is going to die…oh, yes, I think, running the loofah over my back and down my arms, inhaling the scented soap. But before she bites it, I want Bentz to twist in the wind until he nearly breaks.

  I scrub my feet, then let the warm water cascade over me, washing away all traces of dirt, grime, and sweat. Finally, I step out of the shower and towel off, thinking of Olivia rotting in the bowels of the boat, scared to death, probably screaming her lungs out to no avail.

  Didn’t I tell her not to waste her time? After grabbing my robe from the hook on the back of the bathroom door, I throw it on and cinch the waist.

  Now, time for the news. I walk to the living area with a quick pause at the refrigerator where I find a chilled pitcher of martinis waiting for me. I drop two olives in my stemmed glass, pour the cool concoction over them, and settle in the living area where I click on the television. There should be a lead in with “breaking news” about a car fire at Marina del Rey. I cross my legs and wait and see a familiar face on the screen.

  Donovan Caldwell, that whiner, is being interviewed about the most recent double homicide-the Springer twins. He and the reporter are seated in a studio, backdropped by a huge screen upon which pictures of the two sets of twins are displayed. Four girls, their eyes wide as puppies’.

  An obvious tug at the viewers’ heartstrings.

  The reporter, a young woman with dark hair, huge eyes, and a concerned expression asks, “Do you think the killer who murdered your sisters is also responsible for the latest double homicide?”

  “That’s exactly my contention,” he says fervently, an irate brother jabbing the air passionately. He’s a small, fit man in an Izod golf shirt and khaki pants. A perfect little goatee covers his chin and a faux-hawk of dirty blond hair keeps him “hip.” But he’s not out to impress anyone with his looks. No, he’s upset and flushed, all bristly anger. “I’m saying that if the LAPD had done its job right the first time and arrested the killer who murdered my sisters, two other lives wouldn’t have been lost.”

  The camera zooms in on the victims, pretty girls with smiles so full of life.

  “Oh, wah, wah, waah.” I take another cool, calming sip and search for another channel with my remote. Of course I realize that the dead twins are news, but they’re old news. Especially those Caldwell girls. They’ve been dead for over a decade…ancient histo
ry. And the little prick on the screen bugs the hell out of me. The nerve-grabbing my headlines. And that crack about the police department. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

  I stare at the television and take a swallow.

  Let’s get to the good stuff.

  Where in the hell is the reporter who should be covering the car fire on the streets of Marina del Rey?

  That’s the only story worth my time.

  CHAPTER 33

  “We need to find Fernando,” Bentz said as Hayes drove back to the Center to drop off Martinez before taking Bentz to pick up his rental car. “I put in a call to him, but he didn’t pick up.”

  “I thought I told you to back off.” Hayes was irritated. “This is my case.”

  “And my wife.” Bentz was equally upset, worried sick.

  “I know.” Hayes sighed, loosening the tie at his neck. “We’ll put a tail on Yolanda as well as watch the house for Fernando.”

  “I’ll check with his job and school,” Martinez said. “We’ll try to track what he did today,” she was saying when Hayes’s phone rang again and he took the call.

  In the backseat, Bentz was quietly going out of his mind, trying to piece together the disjointed case. Though it had started out with him being lured to Los Angeles in search of his first wife, it now involved Olivia, he was certain of it. And now finding her was his number one priority. But with no leads to go on he figured the best way he could find her was through working this case, tracking down the person who obviously had a vendetta against him.

  If he could pull his emotions out of it and study what was happening with a cool, cop’s eye rather than his own passionate ardor, he could see that he was at the center of the case in the eye of a murderous hurricane. The person behind it all, the mastermind of the operation, was targeting Bentz.

  From the ongoing investigations, the LAPD could find no reason for either Lorraine Newell or Shana McIntyre to be murdered individually; the link was Bentz. Though it was too early for the police to connect Fortuna Esperanzo, Bentz knew the deal. She wasn’t left in the ocean in clothes identical to those that “Jennifer” had been wearing because she’d decided to go swimming. No, she’d been murdered, and the killer wanted to make certain that Bentz knew Fortuna had been a target, linked to this mess with Jennifer.

  However if the woman who looked so much like his ex-wife were behind it all, then why hadn’t it all come to a head earlier today, before she’d leapt into the ocean? Why risk her life? And how could she have been at the airport at the same time Fortuna had been dumped into the ocean?

  Everything that had happened had taken calculation. Patience. Long-term planning.

  Someone who held a very personal grudge was playing him, had spent years creating the perfect scenario. He discounted anyone he’d sent to prison. Most of those guys, if they had escaped or been released, would have run in the opposite direction as far and as fast as they could go. If they wanted to satisfy a grudge, they would have killed him and been done with it. Whoever was behind this string of horrifying events was getting off on his torture, watching him take the bait of Jennifer over and over again.

  And that fact made his blood congeal. Yolanda Salazar?

  Did she have the burning hatred to serve up her revenge ice cold? It didn’t seem so. She seemed too much of a hothead, as witnessed by her act of spitting on him. She’d been scared and angry, but that wasn’t the reaction Bentz expected from the killer.

  So if not Yolanda, who?

  What about someone close to the Caldwell twins?

  Maybe this is the old “eye for an eye” thing.

  Again, he was stopped by the killer’s intimate knowledge of his ex-wife, of his relationship with her.

  And now…Olivia was missing. Someone had the balls to call her and taunt her until she felt compelled to fly to L.A. That took confidence. Knowledge. And pure damned luck. How did the killer know Olivia would hop a plane?

  Because whoever is behind this knows everything about you, about your life, about your wife. Damn it all, Bentz, this is your fault. Yours.

  Absently he rubbed his leg as it had been aching since the chase down Devil’s Caldron. He felt like a fool, following some woman down the ridge. Chasing an elusive truth while his wife had felt obligated to fly to California to reconnect with him, her ever-distant husband. Hadn’t she mentioned they needed to talk? Hadn’t he, too, felt the rift in their marriage?

  Guilt tore a hole in his heart and all their arguments now seemed petty. Stupid! Even the one about kids. Hell, if she wanted kids, he’d give her a whole passel of them.

  If he got the chance.

  Hayes hung up. “We’re not going back to the Center yet.”

  “What’s up?” Martinez asked.

  Hayes frowned, searching for the next exit. “Someone torched Sherry Petrocelli’s car.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Martinez pressed her face in her hands.

  “It gets worse. Looks like they found a body in the backseat.”

  “What? No!” Bentz shouted, coming up in his seat so fast, his seat belt clenched around him. Sick inside, rage and fear burning through him, he thought of Olivia. Beautiful, fun-loving, wickedly smart Olivia. Oh, God, please, no! He could hardly draw a breath. “Swear to God, Hayes, if something’s happened to Olivia, if she’s the person in that car-” He couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t think. Dread tore at his soul as the miles sped by and Hayes, breaking every speed limit, sped toward Marina del Rey, where the fire had been reported.

  Bentz tried to calm himself. It’s not Olivia. It’s not Olivia. She’s alive and well. Somewhere. It’s not Olivia!

  But he was frantic, fear eating him from the inside out.

  The street was cordoned off, police barricades in place. Two fire trucks idled, their hoses snaking over the wet pavement, water running in sooty rivulets to the gutters. The blackened shell of a car still smoldered while the horrid stench of burnt rubber, melted plastic, and, worse, charred flesh filled the air.

  Bentz flew out of Hayes’s 4Runner the minute it stopped. Ignoring the barrier, he found a policeman in charge and demanded, “The body inside the vehicle. Who is it?” he demanded, frantic. Oh, dear God…

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Bentz pulled out his badge just as Hayes and Martinez showed up and identified themselves. Satisfied, the officer said, “We don’t know. The body’s already been taken to the morgue, but I gotta tell ya, it’ll be hard to make an ID.”

  Bentz thought he might be sick. “A woman?” he asked.

  “We think so. There was ID with her, most of it consumed in the fire, but she had a badge with her. It’s pretty blackened, but I already checked the numbers. It belongs to the owner of the car, Officer Sherry Petrocelli. I’m thinking it’s her body we found in the backseat.”

  Bentz nearly sank to the ground in relief. He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, trying to get a grip on his own sanity. Desperately he clung to a thread of hope that Olivia hadn’t met such a horrible, grisly end.

  Yet, with that relief came an onslaught of guilt. Someone had died tonight. If not Sherry Petrocelli, then some other woman who had parents, possibly children, a husband, or friends who loved her. And he knew, deep down, that the victim was dead because of him. Because of his ego, his obsession with his first wife. His tunnel vision about Jennifer had brought death to several women and thrust his wife into harm’s way. Someone had personally damned him to a living hell.

  “I have to see,” he said to Hayes, his voice rough, his teeth clenched.

  “What?”

  “I have to see the body.”

  “You’re sure about this?” Hayes obviously disagreed. Shook his head.

  “I need to know, Jonas. You understand.”

  “No I don’t. For the love of God, Bentz, this ain’t gonna be pretty.” Hayes was still shaking his head, then seemed to realize he wasn’t going to dissuade his mule-headed friend. “All right, I’ll take you. But, for the re
cord, I think this is a big mistake. Shit man. Oh, hell. We’ll do it and afterward, then we’ll pick up the rental and you can go back to the motel and get some sleep. You look like hell.”

  At the morgue, the Assistant Coroner tried to warn them. Her preliminary examination indicated that the Jane Doe’s fingerprints had been burned beyond recognition. Eighty percent of the body had been charred, and there were no visible scars or tattoos. “We’ll probably use dental records to confirm her ID,” she said.

  Still, Bentz had to see for himself.

  The attendant, a different one from the person who’d pulled back the sheet on Fortuna Esperanzo hours before, waited for a sign from Hayes.

  Bentz braced himself as a thunderous sound like a train in a tunnel roared through his brain. Powered by dread, it clamored down his spine and caused the back of his throat to turn to dust. What if he were wrong? What if the stiff, blackened body hidden by the thin sheet was actually Olivia? Oh God, no! He nearly backed down, but clenched his fists and set his jaw.

  With a nod from Hayes, the attendant drew back the cover.

  “Oh, shit,” Martinez said and turned away.

  Hayes winced.

  Bentz’s stomach roiled at the sight of burned flesh and white, staring eyes. Singed hair surrounded a nearly unrecognizable face. Teeth visible through blackened burned lips.

  “Not Olivia,” Bentz said, swallowing back the bile rising in his throat. He was certain. Felt relief tinged with guilt. Thank God she hadn’t suffered the fear and pain this poor woman had endured.

  “It’s Petrocelli,” Hayes said. “Officer Sherry Petrocelli. Oh, man, I wasn’t expecting that.” He was shaken, his lips flat against his teeth as he motioned for the attendant to cover the scorched remains again. “I know they found her ID, but somehow I didn’t believe it.” Hayes wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of one hand. “Her husband needs to know. I guess I’d better make the notification.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Martinez offered, casting a horrified glance at the draped gurney as it was rolled away. “What a friggin’ nightmare. I hope to holy hell she was already dead when that car was ignited.”