Cold Blooded (19 page)

Olivia left a message, hung up the cordless phone, and in the porch light, saw the dog jumping crazily at the back door. "I'm coming," she said, reaching for the door handle and letting him inside. "Hungry?"

hairy danced at his dish. She poured some fresh kiblets into his bowl, then unpacked her groceries and threw a frozen dinner into the microwave.

"Turkey a 1' orange," she said to the dog. "Only six grams of fat."

Hairy, nose buried deep in his dish, made no indication he'd heard a word. What a day, she thought, as the microwave dinged and she gingerly took off the plastic wrap as orange-smelling steam wafted up. A can of diet cola and her meal was complete. She glanced at the photo of herself and Grannie Guy, the one she'd pointed out to Bentz. She'd been so carefree then, hadn't really needed a father. She hadn't yet been to school, hadn't suffered the embarrassment of not knowing him, hadn't borne the indignity of learning, compliments of Connie Earnhardt, that he was in prison in Mississippi.

Olivia had only vague images of the sperm donor and those, she was certain, were due to the few old snapshots she'd seen of a man in a sailor's uniform, a handsome, athletic man who had swept Bernadette Dubois off her seventeen-year-old feet. It had been a whirlwind romance and the details were sketchy. Virginia Dubois hadn't approved and Olivia, barely in high school, had caught snatches of conversation she wasn't supposed to hear. While lingering at the foot of the stairs, her ears straining, her fingers curled over the railing, she'd listened over the thudding of her heart.

' ' left you, don't you remember that?" Grannie Guy had demanded while frying bacon. The hickory-smoked scent wafted through the dining room as

the strips sizzled noisily in the pan. "And you were pregnant."

' ' didn't know ... " Bernadette had protested, sobbing.

"I didn't tell him."

"And that was a good thing. The truth came out early enough. I said it then and I'll say it now, Reginald Benchet is no-count and never will be." Grannie Guy had sighed heavily. "You've got one child left, Bernadette," Grannie had said and added a handful of onions into the hot grease.

Though Olivia couldn't see what was happening, she smelled the onions, had witnessed the ritual dozens of times. The slices hit the pan with a grease-splattering hiss. "You'd best tend to Liwie. Forget Reggie. He was bad from the day he was born. Branded by the devil, I tell ya. I knew his mother and his grandmother. Both loose women with the morals o f alley cats and his daddy ... pure evil."

"You don't know anything of the sort," Bernadette had argued, then blew her nose.

"I do. I've seen what that man can do."

"How ... oh, for the love of God, don't tell me you had one of your visions about him." There was a break in the conversation when all Olivia had heard was the sputter of the grease cooking and a woodpecker tapping on some part of the house. She'd bit her lower lip and watched the lace curtains in the dining room flutter with a breeze. "That's it, isn't it?" Bernadette had accused. "You think you've seen something when really you've just dreamt it up. That's crazy talk and we both know it. And it's bad for Liwie.

You're filling her head with all this nonsense and now she's started mumbling about seem' things ... like she saw her sister die before Chandra drowned. That's your fault, you know."

"The child might have the gift."

"The gift, the gift, forget the damned gift. It doesn't exist and I'm sick to death of hearing about it. And let's face it.

Liwie claimed she'd seen Chandra die because she killed her."

"Hush! That's nonsense."

"It is not. They were fighting, weren't they? Liwie was older. Bigger.

She pushed Chandra back in the wading pool and ... and ... my baby drowned. Right out there," she'd said, her voice elevating an octave.

Olivia, tears filling her eyes, had known her mother was pointing a long, accusing finger past the back porch to the yard. Even a few years later, the scene was as fresh as it had been on the day when the "accident" had happened and she could still see Chandra's face beneath the water. Grass and dead yellow jackets and crickets had floated on the surface and Chandra's wide blue eyes stared upward past the scum. She'd fallen into the pool, hitting her head and Olivia hadn't been able to save her.

"Enough!" Grannie said harshly. "It was an accident.

You remember that."

"And you blame me. Because I was asleep. God, Mama, don't you think I know that you've blamed me? I see it every time I look into your eyes."

"You weren't just asleep. You were passed out. Olivia tried to wake you ... Oh, well ... what's the use? It's over and done. Just don't blame Liwie, whatever you do. And if she claims she has the sight, then I believe her."

"She just says it to please you. It's crazy talk and I don't want her to hear any more about it, do you hear me?"

Bernadette insisted. "Do you know how awful it was growing up being called the daughter of the crazy woman? Do you? The kid whose mother could tell the future for a lousy two bucks? People think you're a lunatic, and I don't want my daughter exposed to it. You quit fillin' her head with all these foolish notions, y'hear."

"Then you start actin' like a mother. Take care of her.

Quit runnin' around with every man who looks your way."

"I'm not gonna listen to any more of this."

"And keep your pants up and your legs crossed."

"Mama!"

There was a pause. Olivia's fingers had ached from clutching the banister so hard. "Just protect Olivia," Grannie had said as the scrape of her cooking fork sounded against the cast-iron pan. "Keep her away from Reggie. Don't let him come ' here."

"He won't. We're divorced."

"And you're engaged to another man; you'd best not forget it." Olivia imagined her grandmother pointing the blackened tines of her bone-handled fork at her daughter.

"I'll do what I think is best for Livvie. Until you prove that you're a decent mother."

Silently swiping at her tears with the back of her hand, Olivia had crept up the stairs and buried herself deep in the covers of her bed.

She'd never seen her father after that. Nor much of Bernadette after she'd remarried.

So why the visit today, she wondered now.

After cleaning the few dishes, she whistled to hairy and headed up the stairs to the second bedroom, the one she'd slept in growing up. The single bed with its saggy mattress was still in place, tucked under the sloped ceiling, and the fold-out couch her mother used when she stayed was on the opposite side of the room. A bureau with a round mirror stood between the hallway door and the closet and a desk was pushed beneath the single window near a bookcase.

It was the desk she'd used growing up, and with the addition of a file cabinet, it now was home to her laptop computer and printer.

She sat at the computer and intended to study; she had two classes in

the morning, the last until after Thanksgiving, but as she pulled one of her textbooks from the small bookcase, she felt a chill, deep in the marrow of her bones, the same horrid coldness she'd experienced the night the girl had died. And the other night.

Oh, God, was he doing it again? So soon? She swallowed back her fear and glanced out the window to the dark night.

A tiny sliver of moon, visible through the leafless branches of the trees, hung low in the sky. Maybe she was mistaken ... she didn't actually "see" anything, no, this was just a feeling, a dark sensation that crawled across her skin.

Movement. That was it. She felt him. He was moving.

And hunting again.

The darkness closed in on him and like a creature of the night, his senses became sharper. Keener. The Chosen One heard his own heartbeat, smeued the scents of perfume and stale smoke lingering in the damp air, felt the sharp pang of blood lust coursing through his veins.

Find her. Take her ... it's time.

Running on silent footsteps he loped across the wet grass of the campus and heard the strains of jazz emanating from an open window in one of the dorms. Knots of students tarried together and the sweet smell of marijuana settled in the dark alleys. He rounded a corner to a more secluded part of the campus, a back alley that was sometimes used by students rushing into the city.

He felt inside his pocket, assured himself that his weapon was at his fingertips and a smile slid over his mouth. A stun gun. Silent. Quick.

But not deadly. So perfect for abduction.

He knew she should be coming this way. Had overheard her conversation in

class.

But the killing couldn't be here ... no ... He needed privacy, time to create the ritual. His mouth went dry at the thought and his crotch tightened, a hard-on swelling even as he ran. Just the thought of it ... watching her beg for mercy, pleading with him when he knew that her fate was sealed.

He saw her in the distance.

Alone.

Head bent against the rain and wind.

His fingers surrounded his little weapon as he crept through the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment. He licked his lips and reminded himself to be patient. He couldn't make a mistake. Not tonight.

Not ever.

After all, he had a pact with God.

She looked up as he approached. Smiled in recognition.

Started to speak as he pulled the gun from his pocket and shot. She gasped. Her purse dropped to the ground. He grabbed it and caught her before she fell. Her hood slid off and her black hair framed her ghost-white face. "What--?" she whispered hoarsely. "No-" She could barely catch her breath.

He grinned as he swept her easily into his arms and carried her to his older car. "Be quiet, Catherine," he whispered, "or I'll have to punish you again."

"No--I'm not--"

He set her down and gave her another long, hard jolt. She cried out, but he picked her up again. "I mean it. Behave."

She was whimpering now. Scared. Would probably piss all over his trunk.

He opened the latch and the lid sprang open. She was fighting him with what little strength she had and it only served to make him harder. He thought that just this once he could allow himself the pleasure of her, but knew that God would disapprove.

He had to remember his mission.

"Don't," she cried and he zapped her one final time, lusting after her as her body convulsed, showing off her white neck. She would make the perfect sacrifice. He slammed down the lid of the trunk.

God would be pleased.

"Hey, man, don't you ever go home?" Montoya asked, slipping his arms through the sleeves of his black leather jacket as he passed by Bentz's office. "It's Sunday night."

"Don't you?" Rick leaned back in his desk chair and it creaked in protest. He had the window cracked open. The sounds of the city, horns blaring, voices filtering skyward and a mournful tune from a saxophone slipped inside.

Montoya flashed his knock-'em-dead smile and strolled into the room. He set a hip on the corner of Rick's desk.

"Not unless I have to. I'm a player."

"You'd like to think so."

"Hey, I know it."

Cocky son of a bitch. Make that young, cocky son of a bitch. He'd learn.

Montoya was a good cop, but he was still green enough to think that he could change the world, that what he did mattered, that justice would always be served.

He was clever enough, downright smart. The problem was Montoya still ha d more balls than brains. "If you say so. I thought you had a steady these days." ' ' do," Montoya said with a grin.' ' that doesn't mean I can't look, does it?" He glanced at his watch. "Why don't you call it a night? I'll buy you a beer. Even the alcohol free shit, though I don't know why you bother."

"And make you keep the ladies waiting?" Bentz arched a knowing eyebrow.

"I'll take a rain check."

Montoya clucked his tongue as he headed for the stairs.

"You're missin' out," he called over his shoulder as he disappeared.

"So be it." Rick glanced at the computer screen glowing on his desk. He had several cases he was working on, one where a battered woman had grabbed her husband's hunting rifle and opened up on him rather than subject herself to another beating and another arson case where one of the owners died in the blaze. Then there was the knifing, a fight between gang members that left one dead, the other barely hanging on.

But Bentz had put those cases out of his mind for the moment. Because as he'd skimmed the evidence report on the Jane Doe in the fire one more time, something had clicked. A sharp little spark in his brain. He remembered what it was that had been nagging at him.

The saint's medals.

This wasn't the first homicide scene where a chain with a medal had been left. There had been two others that he remembered, perhaps more that he didn't yet know about.

He typed in a case file on his keyboard and within seconds crime scene photos of the recent victim flickered on the monitor. His jaw tightened as he stared at the nude body of a woman not much older than his own daughter. The victim had been found in her apartment in the Garden District.

Her date of death July twenty-second. Her name had been Catherine Adams,

if you went by the DMV or Social Security Administration, but she'd also been known as Cassie Alexa or Princess Alexandra. It all depended if you knew her as a pretty, part-time student at Tulane, or a sexy exotic dancer down on Bourbon Street, or as a hooker. No matter what the name, she'd been murdered. Strangled. And posed. Lying facedown on an area rug, her arms stretched outward, her head placed near a wall that was decorated with a picture of Christ, her toes pointed to an opposing wall where a portrait of Martin Luther King hung. Her head had been shaved, a skein of her own hair wound through her fingers, her mocha-colored naked body reeking of patchouli.

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 Unking 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."

' '. 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' ' 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 Sunday 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.