Malice

CHAPTER 25

“I already told all this to the Torrance police,” Bentz said as he drove Hayes back to Parker Center, where Hayes had left his SUV.

It was pushing 3 A.M. Bentz, tired as hell, drove along Sepulveda, then eased onto the 110 heading north. Despite the late hour the freeway was still busy, red taillights glowing on the gently sloping lanes ahead.

Hayes had come with Riva Martinez, who had joked that Hayes picked the absolute worst time to turn his cell phone off. “Better late than never,” Bentz had told the LAPD detectives, grateful that they’d responded at all. If they hadn’t shown up, Bentz would probably still be at the Torrance Police Station, shifting uncomfortably on the wooden chair in that damned interrogation room.

At least they hadn’t cuffed him. After handing over his gun to the first-responding officers, Bentz had been detained at the crime scene, where he watched as the cops had put up barriers, roped off Lorraine’s home, and interviewed the neighbors who had drifted onto the sidewalks.

Once the neighbors had emerged, the cul-de-sac’s glum mood had taken on a surreal note, a carnival atmosphere colorful enough to rival the amusements on the Santa Monica Pier. Gathered under a streetlight, decked in bathrobes and sweat suits, flip-flops, and fluffy slippers, residents gossiped among themselves. Smoking and shaking their heads, they eyed the emergency vehicles with wry speculation and offered to give statements to the cops.

Bentz had overheard many of their comments about Lorraine.

“A lovely woman,” an elderly woman had intoned.

“A good neighbor,” a man who lived next door had said. The Owl, Bentz dubbed him, with his round glasses, a thin beard, and a dour expression. “I just can’t believe that someone broke into her home. This is a nice neighborhood. Safe.” The Owl paused as the gurney and body bag rolled past. “I mean, it always has been.”

Another woman had put in her two cents’ worth. “Don’t know a lot about her. I think she was married once.” With a cloud of white hair and a matching bathrobe, she’d introduced herself as Gilda Mills, had lived in the neighborhood twenty-seven years. Nervously, she’d stared at Lorraine’s home as if it were the den of the devil. “But I’m not sure.” Gilda’s bony fingers were forever at the side of her mouth as she said, “No kids, at least none that she ever spoke of. She had a half sister. No, I think it was a stepsister who died. Committed suicide or something…oh, dear, I really can’t remember.” She had taken two steps away from the curb, seemingly afraid that whatever evil lurked within might ooze over the lawn and onto the toes of her pink slippers.

Bentz had inwardly groaned when the news van had arrived. Fortunately Hayes and Martinez had pulled onto the cul-de-sac a few seconds later. A lanky twenty-something reporter for the television station had taken notice, smelling a story as he recognized the cops from L.A. outside their regular jurisdiction. Watching as the reporter tried and failed to get a statement from Hayes, Bentz had realized he was just too damned tired and shell-shocked to find it amusing.

Soon thereafter Bentz had been escorted to the station in Torrance, where he’d spent three hours answering questions and waiting in the interrogation room. The lieutenant had explained that they needed to do a quick background check on Bentz, verify that he was an officer in good standing with NOPD and that he had permission to carry a firearm. Although the cops had treated him with respect and professionalism, Bentz had not liked spending time in the perp’s seat. Not even for one minute.

Hours later, the lieutenant finally had told Bentz he was free to go. About damned time, Bentz had thought as he holstered his firearm and signed the receipt for his possessions. By the time Bentz had climbed behind the wheel with Hayes in the passenger seat, it was after 2 A.M.

“Just humor me by going over it one more time,” Hayes said, bringing Bentz back to the here and now as they sped along the freeway in the darkness. Bentz had cracked the windows so that the night air rushed in, cool and bracing. Something to keep him awake. “Tell me what happened tonight. Start with the facts. Then your take on it.”

“First I got a call from Lorraine Newell, Jennifer’s stepsister.” Bentz was sick to death of going over the same information, but now that Hayes was ready to listen to him he would churn through it one more time. One more round to enlist Hayes’s help.

Staring through the bug-spattered windshield, Bentz recounted the night blow by blow, from the minute he got Lorraine’s call to the nightmare of finding her body on the kitchen floor. He even added in the fact that Olivia had been the victim of harassing phone calls since he’d traveled to the West Coast. “It’s a female caller and she refers to me,” Bentz said. “Calls me RJ just like Jennifer did. It’s meant to spook Olivia.”

“Does it?”

“Not much. Mainly pisses her off.”

“Sounds like your kind of woman.”

“She is,” Bentz agreed. “But it worries me. I’m going to call Montoya and have him keep an eye on her until I get home.”

“She probably won’t like having a keeper.”

“Doesn’t matter.” It was the best he could do for now, though it didn’t seem like enough. He’d never forgive himself if Olivia got dragged into this mess. He couldn’t have his wife in danger. Spying the sign for his exit, Bentz pulled into the right lane.

“You saw a jogger.” Hayes stared out the window to the lights of downtown Los Angeles, where skyscrapers rose into the blue-black sky. “Same guy you saw the night you jumped off the pier?”

“One was a man; the other a woman.”

“You sure? You said they were both slim and athletic. Both wore baseball caps, no hair showing.”

That much was true. And he had questioned the gender both nights. “Could go either way, I guess.”

“I got the tapes from the Santa Monica Pier webcam.”

Bentz, easing down the ramp, slid Hayes a glance. “You got them? And I didn’t? When I was the one who requested them?”

“The company that owns them wanted to go through the local police and the Santa Monica PD called me.”

Burned, Bentz asked, “See anything interesting?”

“No woman in a red dress, not for two hours before or after. No woman matching Jennifer’s description, but all the other players were in place. The old man smoking his cigar, the guy and the girl sucking tonsils, and a jogger. The runner didn’t just pass by, but stopped and stared the length of the pier about the time you were running along the boardwalk. That, in and of itself, isn’t a big deal. I didn’t make anything of it until you mentioned seeing a jogger tonight.”

“Could be a coincidence.”

“Could be, but something’s going on.”

“That’s the understatement of the year.”

“Okay. Something big’s going on. And I don’t put much stock in coincidence.”

“Me, neither.”

“So it all seems to be about you and your first wife.” Hayes rubbed at his jaw, pinching his lip as he thought. “Why now? Why would someone wait twelve damned years to get back at you?”

“I wish I knew.” Bentz slowed for a red light at the end of the ramp.

“I’ll want all the info you have. Everything.”

“It’s yours.”

“And you’ll have to stand down.”

“Don’t know if I can do that.”

“Look, let’s get real. The department’s still gonna consider you a person of interest and really, you can’t blame them. You can’t compromise our investigation, Bentz. You know that. No detective works his own case. And as it is Bledsoe wants to rip you a new one.”

“He’s always ready to rip someone a new one. May as well be me,” Bentz said philosophically, though there was an edge in his voice.

“Be that as it may, everyone in the department agrees that you showing up in L.A. triggered some of these homicides. We need to sort everything out.”

“It’s about time,” Bentz said, thinking that finally, with the help of the department, he’d get some answers. Hopefully before another person ended up dead.

“So you talked to Shana McIntyre and Lorraine Newell since you’ve been in town. Anyone else?”

Bentz nodded, one step ahead of him. “I also spoke with Tally White, an old friend of Jennifer’s. A schoolteacher. They met through the kids. Tally’s daughter Melody is the same age as Kristi. I also got in touch with Fortuna Esperanzo, who used to be Jennifer’s friend. They worked together in an art gallery in Venice. Fortuna is still employed there.”

“And that’s it?”

“Yeah,” Bentz said, fighting off a feeling of foreboding. “I’ve got information on them at the motel. We could swing by and I’ll give it to you.”

“Let’s do it.”

Bentz moved into the next lane so that he could take the 405 toward Culver City. Despite his exhaustion, adrenaline fired his blood and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Nor would he really stand down. He would continue to pursue his investigation, steady and low key. He wouldn’t impede the LAPD’s work, but he intended to stay abreast of their progress. It would be easy enough to do. He still had Montoya and a few other friends back in the New Orleans Police Department, people who were willing to check files and run facts for him, stay on top of what was happening here. Hell, Montoya lived and breathed for this kind of shit.

Hayes could tell him to back off all he wanted, but Bentz wasn’t stopping now. Not when the stakes were rising, lives were being brutally ended, all because of Bentz.

Two women were dead and now his wife had been harassed. Threatened. His grip clenched hard over the wheel. The truth of the matter was, Bentz was scared to death, and the only way he knew to shatter that fear was to cut to the source.

Find the killer.

But, for now, he’d at least appear to play by the rules. He turned onto the street that led to the So-Cal Inn. The lights of the motel blazed bright in the night, casting a glow over the cars parked in the lot. Bentz scanned the cars parked there, noting that all the regulars were present as he pulled into his slot and cut the engine. “So looks like you just caught a new case,” Bentz said, pocketing his keys. “What are you going to do first?”

“Eat some crow.” Hayes threw Bentz a dark look. “I hate to say it, but looks like you were right. I think the first step is to exhume your ex-wife’s body. Let’s see who’s in that casket.”

Fortuna Esperanzo was an insomniac. Sleep forever eluded her. Her mind would never slow down enough, was forever spinning. Even with a deluxe personalized mattress, the ambient sound of a tiny waterfall trying to soothe her, and heavy draperies that completely blocked out all traces of the Southern California sun, she never slept well. Tonight she’d given up the fight after a few hours of restlessness and taken the sleep medication her doctor had prescribed. Now she was drifting off at last, falling to a level of sleep so relaxing that she didn’t hear the sounds of her own snoring. But she felt her cat, Princess Kitty, move on the bed beside her.

Groggily, not even bothering to check the clock, Fortuna rolled over, unconcerned by the white Angora’s antics. Nocturnal by nature, Princess Kitty had been skittish ever since Fortuna had found her wandering the streets of Venice, her long hair matted, her tiny body thin as a rail. That had been twenty-one years ago and the cat was still going strong, jittery and nervous as ever.

Suddenly Princess Kitty hissed.

What? Fortuna pulled herself from the thick veil of sleep.

A growl and another hiss.

“Shh,” Fortuna said, forcing one eye open just as the cat jumped off the bed. What the hell was the matter with Princess? “I’m not letting you out.”

She caught a whiff of something sweet and cloying, and her skin goose-pimpled.

“Kitty?” she said, her voice trembling, fear clutching her heart.

That awful smell! What was it? Gas? Oh, Lord, was there a gas leak in the house?

Was there someone in the room with her? Oh, God no! She strained to see, but she wasn’t wearing her contacts and the room was nearly stygian, pitch black. She couldn’t make out anything but darkness, black on inky black.

Did something move by the closet?

The hairs on the back of her arms lifted. She reached for her cell phone, which sat charging on the night table.

At that second, she felt rather than saw movement. Whatever was there leapt across the short span of tiled floor to the bed.

Fortuna started to scream. To move.

But she was pinned face up on her bed, a body in black holding her down, a cloth that reeked of that horrid smell forced over her nose and eyes. She gasped, dragging more of the foul stuff in.

Ether!

Panicked, she flailed her arms and legs, trying to rid herself of the weight straddling her. Her heart was racing, beating a thousand times a minute as terror gripped her entire body. She had to fight this! But the hand over her face wouldn’t budge and Fortuna was out of breath, the insidious gas flowing into her lungs with every gasp. Scared out of her mind, she dragged in a long breath of the sickly sweet fumes and, oh…It made her mind swim, made her limbs feel so heavy.

She couldn’t black out now. Wouldn’t!

Frantic, she kept fighting, trying to roll away from her assailant’s viselike grip. To no avail. The person, strong and lean, didn’t budge, just kept applying pressure.

The fumes were horrible, burning down her windpipe and into her lungs, searing her throat.

Why? Fortuna wanted to scream. Why are you doing this to me? But she knew deep down this attack had to do with Rick Bentz’s visit and all his questions about Jennifer. Nothing good ever came from that woman, even though she was long dead.

Supposed to be dead.

Fortuna had known she shouldn’t confide in Bentz. Some secrets are better left unspoken. Fool! Fortuna’s arms moved more sluggishly. Her legs felt like lead, and blackness pulled at the corners of her subconscious.

Move! Fight! Don’t give in! her brain screamed at her, but her muscles refused to listen, her arms barely twitched. It was all she could do to keep her damned eyes open despite the terror that invaded her body and soul.

“Nighty-night, bitch,” her attacker whispered.

Fortuna felt the sting of a needle pierce her bare arm. Oh, God, please…no…

But it was too late.

Fortuna sensed her body sink into the mattress as her attacker sighed. A sigh of contentment. Fortuna imagined her assailant was smiling, though she couldn’t see anything, her eyelids were so heavy, so damned heavy.

Her languid mind swirled slowly with bits of thoughts, fragments of fear as she stared up in the darkness, trying to get a glimpse of this person pinning her to the mattress.

But it was too dark. Too hard to stay awake. She needed to sleep. Fortuna gave in to the overwhelming desire and let her eyelids ease shut as her assailant slid off the bed.

Fortuna tried to move.

Couldn’t.

Not even when she felt her skimpy nightgown being slid over her head. Oh God, I’m going to be raped, she thought, but found she really didn’t care. Her pulse was slowing…the drug oozing through her blood. The prayers of her youth came to her, prayers she hadn’t uttered in twenty years…

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed-

And then she felt herself being dressed. As if God had already responded.

From the red pain in her eyelids she knew there was light in the room now as the intruder slid a garment over her head, pulled her arms through sleeve holes.

Why?

This is crazy.

Or maybe she was hallucinating, feeling the effects of the drugs flowing through her bloodstream.

She felt a slim ray of hope pierce her heart. Perhaps there was a chance she wouldn’t die after all, she thought, fighting to stay awake. Her attacker might not want to do her ill. Surely this person who was lifting her off the bed and carrying her through the house was an angel of mercy.

Yes, that had to be it.

Surely she wasn’t going to be trussed like this if the intent was to kill her. If death were the objective, certainly she’d already be dead.

There are worse fates than a quick death, her mind warned, but the thought was fleeting.

In a heartbeat she slid completely under the welcoming blanket of unconsciousness.