Malice

CHAPTER 35

Bentz was on the road when he got the call. Caller ID flashed the number and name of the So-Cal Inn. “Bentz.”

“Hi, this is Rebecca, the manager of the So-Cal. You asked me to call you if anything odd happened?”

Bentz’s free hand gripped the wheel. “Yeah.”

“We found a package with your name on it at the front door.”

“A package?” he repeated.

“Well, an envelope. You know one of those manila things. Around eight by eleven. I thought you might have dropped it when you left.”

“No.” He thought about the last manila envelope he’d received with pictures of Jennifer and a marred death certificate. He didn’t doubt for a second that whatever was in this one, too, had come from the same source. “Hold on to it. Don’t open it and I’ll be right there. Ten minutes, fifteen tops.” He searched for an exit, switched lanes, and sped to the next off-ramp, barely slowing as he left the freeway until he hit the red light at the cross street.

Another set of pictures? More documents? Oh, Jesus…please let this be about Jennifer, not Olivia.

His guts were grinding, his fingers tapping nervously on the steering wheel.

What now? Just what the hell now?

As soon as it turned green, he made a quick left turn under the freeway, swinging around to the southbound entrance of the 405. The light was with him and he gunned it.

He knew he hadn’t dropped an envelope or anything else at the motel.

So someone had left him a surprise, this time without mailing it. “Son of a bitch.”

Whoever was behind all this madness was getting bolder.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that this time the packet had something to do with Olivia. A ransom request? Or worse? His heart nosedived and he wasn’t able to drive fast enough to eat up the miles to the Culver City exit. Time seemed to stand still and dread burned a hole in his stomach but ten minutes after taking the call, he pulled into the familiar, pockmarked parking lot, cut the engine, and strode into the office.

Rebecca was waiting.

The envelope in question sat on the registration desk. Across the yellowish face was his name written in the same block letters that had addressed the envelope containing Jennifer’s death certificate and pictures.

“I found it when I walked in. I was out checking a room where the key wasn’t working and Tony was at the desk. He didn’t see who left it.”

Warily Bentz handled the thin package. She offered him a letter opener and he sliced the seal carefully. Rebecca watched as he tipped out the single sheet of paper within.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, her hand flying to her mouth as a picture of Olivia slid onto the desk’s Formica surface.

Bentz’s knees nearly gave way. His stomach turned over. He stared at the shot of Olivia, his beautiful Olivia, who eyed the camera dead-on with an expression of stark, cold fear. Pale as death, she was looking through bars, as if she were in some old western jail. Her hair was mussed; her eyes round and bloodshot, a red patch evident over her mouth where it seemed a gag had been taped. All of the life, the fire of her personality, had disappeared. Instead her expression was of pure terror.

“Goddamn it!” he said, his jaw tight, every muscle in his body clenched. If he ever found the psycho who did this, Bentz would personally tear him limb from limb.

But she’s alive, he reminded himself. That’s something!

Insides twisted, he checked the envelope further, expecting a letter or note, but there was nothing more. Just the devastating photograph.

You did this, Bentz. She’s been captured, maybe tortured, and held in this jail because of you and your insatiable need, your damned obsession to chase down your ex-wife.

Guilt and fear ripped through him.

“What…what is this?” Rebecca asked.

“This,” he said, his voice nearly cracking, “is my wife.”

“Oh, God…I’m so sorry.” She licked her lips nervously as she continued to stare in horror at the picture. “Where is she? What is happening to her? This could be a joke, right? A sick one, but a joke?” When she met his gaze, she knew the truth. “Oh, mother of God.” She blinked against a spate of tears.

“Is Tony around?” Bentz asked.

“Oh…yeah…Sorry.” She turned her head and yelled over her shoulder for her son. “Tony!”

“Do you know if Tony got a look at the person who left this?” he asked, motioning to the envelope.

“I don’t think so.” She cleared her throat and took a step closer to the door separating the lobby from the business office and staff quarters. “Tony!” she called again, more sharply. “He’s got a cold, that’s why he’s not in school.”

Yeah, right.

A few seconds later, Tony appeared plugged into an MP3 player, grooving out to music loud enough that Bentz heard the sharp cadence of a rap tune. Hands in his pockets, the kid shuffled into the office from the back as Bentz slid the picture into its heavy envelope. To the boy’s credit he did sniffle and snort a bit as if his nose was threatening to drip. A cold? Or maybe the results from snorting some drug? Coke? Meth? At the moment Bentz didn’t care.

Rebecca pulled one of the earbuds from her son’s ear. “Mr. Bentz wants to know if you saw anyone leave this?”

“Uh-uh.” Tony was looking down at his feet.

“You sure?” Bentz asked.

The kid shrugged. “Nah, I don’t think so.”

“But you’re not sure,” Bentz said, urging him to think of something, anything that would help him save his wife.

“I, uh, I heard something,” Tony said, clearing his throat. “You know, like a slap. Maybe when she dropped it?” He didn’t sound certain.

“She?” Bentz asked.

“Or him.” Tony frowned, concentrated, then acted as if he were afraid to give the wrong answer. “I dunno.”

“But you saw someone?”

“Not really, but there was a runner going by. You know, jogging.”

“And you thought it was a woman?” Bentz’s heart was beating double-time. He wanted to shake the words from the kid’s body. A jogger had been caught on the webcam at Santa Monica Pier the night Bentz had jumped into the water after Jennifer, and he thought he’d seen a runner on the street near Lorraine Newell’s house on the night she was killed. And now?

“Look she, he, was wearing sweats and a cap. I really couldn’t tell. Can I go now?”

“No,” Bentz said. Sweats and a cap on a warm morning…had to be a disguise. Had to. Bentz knew he was grasping at straws but he’d take anything, the tiniest shred of a clue that might lead to his wife. It was all he could do to appear calm, keep his voice even when he was screaming inside. “Look, Tony, I think I might want you to go to the police station and talk with a police artist.”

“Hey, no.” Tony shook his head as if a police station was the very bowels of hell. “The cops? Nuh-uh.”

“He’ll be there if you need him,” Rebecca said firmly.

“No, Mom. I didn’t see nothing, not really. I’m not even sure about the runner. She was crossing the street…I mean, I don’t think she came to the door.”

“But you don’t know.”

He shook his head, bit his lower lip.

“Tony has a tendency to watch TV or play video games when he’s supposed to be working.” Then as if realizing he was underage, she amended, “I give him his allowance if he watches the desk for me.”

Tony’s employment or lack thereof wasn’t any of Bentz’s concern. Not now. Though he was still reeling from the photo of Olivia, he now felt a grain of hope. A drop of adrenaline coursed through his blood. Here, finally, was something solid to go on. “Do you have a security tape?” Bentz asked and Rebecca nodded. “Of the parking lot and front door?”

“Sure, and of the lobby, too. Our security equipment is pretty cheap, but you’re welcome to a copy of the videotape.”

“Right now, can you play it back? So we can watch it?” he asked, suddenly on fire.

“Yeah, sure.” Rebecca was on board.

“I’ll need a copy for the police.”

“No problem.” She gave Tony instructions to watch the front desk and led Bentz to a small area with a TV monitor and tape machine. As Rebecca said, the security system was hardly state of the art, but Bentz didn’t care. He just wanted something, anything, that would help him find Olivia.

Rebecca sat at the tiny desk, pushed a few buttons, and rewound the black-and-white tape. Images reversed quickly on the monitor, people walking and running jerkily backward, cars in reverse. “There,” she said as a jogger appeared. She rewound the tape until the runner was caught in the camera’s eye.

Just as Tony had suspected, the jogger cut across the parking lot, slid the envelope from inside a jacket, and dropped it by the door.

But watching her on tape, Bentz didn’t think it was the woman who pretended to be Jennifer. He wasn’t even certain it was a woman, but it seemed that way. Her clothes were bulky, hiding her shape, but there was something about the chin and neck, no Adam’s apple visible, not a hint of peach fuzz or beard shadow, although it was hard to be sure considering the indistinct quality of the moving image.

Nonetheless, it was something.

“Ever seen this person before?” he asked Rebecca.

“I don’t think so, but it’s hard to tell with the baseball cap and dark glasses.”

“Tony!” Bentz called and the boy, looking bored as hell, returned. “You were right. This is the person you saw, right?”

“Yeah.” He lifted his shoulder again, as if it were his signature move. “I guess.”

“Did you notice anything else about the runner? Color of clothes or hair or car nearby?”

“Nah, but that’s the person. See there? She’s dropping the package.”

“She?”

“Yeah, I think. Hey, I don’t know, man.”

“Tony,” Rebecca said sharply. “This isn’t just Mr. Bentz. He’s a detective with the New Orleans Police Department and his wife is missing. Kidnapped. There’s a good chance this jogger,” she pointed to the monster, “is involved, so please think. Think real hard.”

“I am!” he said, throwing up his hands. “Holy crap, Mom, don’t you ever listen to me? Didn’t I tell you that was everything I knew? And there…there she is on the tape. I didn’t see any more than that.” He eyed Bentz suspiciously, as if he expected to be busted at any second.

“What about the color of her clothes?”

“Nah…” He snapped his fingers. “But I think I thought she was a woman because of her shoes. They…they don’t look like a guy’s.”

Bentz glanced back at the screen and saw a glimpse of a running shoe, not one he would necessarily describe as being made for a woman, but definitely small. A woman’s foot. Or that of a very small man. “Thanks, Tony.”

“Hey, no prob.” The kid shrugged and retreated through the doorway, trying to put as much distance between himself and the cop as possible.

Bentz turned to Rebecca. “You said you can make me a tape?”

“Yeah. No prob,” she said, mocking her son.

Rebecca copied the tape quickly and handed it to him. “Good luck,” she said. “I hope you find her. Soon.”

“You and me both.” Bentz hurried back to his car and didn’t add what they both were thinking: Find her before it’s too late.

“I checked the roster of recent parolees with a history of violent crimes. Looking for suspects who might fit the profile of the Twenty-one killer,” Bledsoe said as he approached Hayes’s desk.

Hayes leaned back in his chair. Martinez perched on the edge of his desk. They were waiting for a call from Doug O’Leary, the forensic dentist who’d been called in to compare Jennifer Bentz’s dental records with the body that had been buried in her coffin.

Bledsoe continued, “These are the guys that have been locked up since the Caldwell twins were killed and before the Springer twins became homicide victims. There are only three who even remotely meet the profile.

“There’s Freddy Baxter. He got out last January, had pled down to Man-One for running over his girlfriend with his car. But he has an alibi, solid. Was with his brother in Vegas when the Springer girls were abducted.” Bledsoe was holding up three fingers on his right hand, his thumb holding his pinkie down. With the dismissal of Baxter as a suspect, the ring finger went down.

“Then we’ve got Mickey Eldridge, cut up his old lady during a fight and was released in December, just in time for Christmas. But that wife, who almost died because of his butcher job on her, swears he’s changed, found religion or some such lame excuse, and she was at his side on the night in question.” Bledsoe’s index finger curled into his fist, leaving his middle one poking straight to the heavens.

“Our last nut job with enough balls and rage to do the job is George St. Arnaux. He’s my personal favorite. Remember him? The whacko who systematically cut off his victims fingers and toes. How the hell did he get out, I ask ya? Because some legal eagle swears she found an eyewitness who claims the killer was a white guy, not a black, so our friend George was released, though the taxpayers are going to be paying for a new trial, I’ll bet. But George, he was with the lawyer, or so she claims. I think there’s something going on there, ya know what I mean?”

“Not everyone’s mind is in the gutter like yours,” Martinez said. “You already said she’s his lawyer.”

“And she’s boinking him, let me tell you.” His voice lowered, “Some women get off on all that crazy, dangerous stuff, know what I mean?”

“Boinking? Grow up, would ya? We’re not in the seventh grade.” Martinez was not one to hide her feelings. “And your point was…?”

“Yeah, right.” Bledsoe put his hand down and sent her a scowl meant to cut her to the quick, but she held her ground. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t intimidate her. “Anyway, I’ve got no parolee in the state of California I can hang this on. Shit.”

Hayes felt the weight of the investigation. It had been too many days since the coeds had been found dead. The trail was getting cold, not that it had been hot or even warm to begin with. The Springer twins’ murders had moved from page one to further back in the paper, but the killer was still out there. Justice was a long way from being served.

Bledsoe wasn’t finished. “I talked to everyone who knew the Springer twins, retraced their steps. We had officers questioning all the neighbors, friends, relatives. We tried to establish some kind of connection between them and the Caldwell twins, but came up with nada.” He rubbed his face with one hand. “Which brings me back to our ‘friend.’” He made air quotes with his fingers. “And I use the term loosely when I call him a detective. This can’t be random.”

“Even if it’s not random, it doesn’t mean he’s the perp,” Martinez said. “If you want to pin it on him, you’ve got to come up with some proof, Bledsoe. Do your job.”

Just then Hayes spotted Rick Bentz, who strode into the squad room and made a beeline for his desk. “Looks like you’ll get a chance to ask him about it yourself.” Hayes smiled for the first time that day. “Knock yourself out.”

“I will.” Bledsoe stepped away from Hayes’s desk, making way for the detective from New Orleans. “Bentz,” he said by way of greeting.

Bentz was having none of it. He sent Bledsoe a scathing glance as he brandished a large manila envelope. “I received this at the motel this morning,” he said and dumped the contents of the envelope onto Hayes’s blotter. A photograph of a terrified woman staring through bars settled near his calendar.

Every muscle in Hayes’s body constricted.

Bentz looked over his shoulder to Bledsoe and said, “My wife.”

Martinez didn’t say a word, just stared at the frightened, captive woman.

“And this is a tape from the So-Cal Inn, where the package was left. The security camera caught a runner who dropped the envelope at the door and took off. I’m hoping you can check the local traffic cameras, find out if they photographed her image anywhere. Maybe caught her getting into a car.”

“Her?” Bledsoe said, his eyebrows becoming one line.

“I think so. The tape is inconclusive, but I thought you might be able to enhance it, get a close-up of the face, though it’s mainly turned away from the camera.”

“Another jogger,” Hayes said.

“That’s right. You can compare the image to the photo taken by the webcam at Santa Monica.” He shook his head. “As for the runner I saw on the street at Lorraine Newell’s house the night she was killed, I don’t know. It was too dark. But I’m willing to bet my badge that she’s involved.”

“Is this the woman who you drove up above Devil’s Caldron?”

“No.” Bentz appeared sure of that fact. “But, trust me, they know each other.”

“Holy shit,” Bledsoe said.

“Come on, Jonas.” Bentz stared straight at Hayes. “Let’s nail this jogger. Let’s go find my wife.”

Hayes’s phone rang. He held a finger up to indicate for Bentz to wait a second, then answered. “Detective Hayes.”

“Hey, yeah, this is Dr. O’Leary,” the forensic dentist on the other end of the connection said. “I’ve got your results, detective. No big surprise here. We’ve got a match. The woman you exhumed this morning is definitely Jennifer Bentz.”