Lisa Jackson's Bentz And Montoya Bundle Part 133

"I don't know," she admitted.

"For right now, the only total connection is the hospital," he said, tapping his pen on the page. "That's the key.... So, what do these numbers mean? 212, where Roy died, 101 at your dad's, 323 on the nun, and 444 on the doll."

"What about the Mother Superior, Sister Rebecca?"

"We don't know yet. We can a.s.sume there must have been something written in blood and tattooed on her, but the police have that information." He set his chin on her shoulder and stared at the pages scattered on the table. "Do you have any idea what the numbers mean? Are they part of a social security number? Or some other kind of ID? Or an address? Or maybe a date? February twelfth for 212? January first at your dad's house?"

"Well, that won't work. Look at 444. It's not a two-digit date. There is no forty-fourth month or day.... It would have to be years, April 4, 2004, but that won't work because of the 101. No month or day is zero...." She stared at the notes, her head aching again, Cole's breath warm against the back of her neck.

"Maybe the 444 is the one that's off, because it was on a doll, not a real person? That whole thing: Charlotte posed and then the nun in the exact same manner, what's that all about?"

"I don't know." She was glad for the strength of his arm around her waist. "And why did he steal the files?"

"Because of something inside that cabinet? Patient records, right? Nothing else?"

"Nothing that I saw, but I didn't have time to go through every drawer or flip through all the files."

"So, what did you see?"

"Let me think...." She remembered some of the names that had jumped out at her. "Enid...um, Enid Waller, I mean Walcott. And John Stokes, Ronnie Le Mars and Merlin...Oh G.o.d, what was his last name? Not Merlin, Mer win win Anderson and Neva St. James.... There were others, but I can't remember." Anderson and Neva St. James.... There were others, but I can't remember."

He wrote down the names. "Do any of these connect with any of the victims?" he asked.

"Aside from being patients at the hospital and all treated by my father?"

"Were any of them close to Faith Chastain?"

She shook her head slowly. "I wouldn't know. I was just a kid for most of it. I wasn't paying much attention. It seems that they were all at the hospital at the same time, but then again, I can't be sure." She exhaled slowly. "I'm sorry. I just don't know."

He kissed her nape. "It's okay, but since we're getting nowhere, how about I take you to dinner?"

"Dinner?" she repeated. It sounded so normal. So welcome. "Yes, please." She glanced out the window and noticed that dusk was starting to creep across the backyard.

Cole pulled her to her feet. "Come on. I know this great little place that serves a mean bowl of dirty rice and mudbugs."

Eve smiled. "How romantic."

"Best I can do," he said, taking her hand. "Let's go."

"I'm just tellin' ya, it's not a smart move to quit your job and start poking around a homicide scene," Bentz said with forced patience, his cell phone plastered to his ear as Kristi tried to come up with every excuse under the sun why she should have "exclusive" access to the ongoing case. "Forget it."

"Dad, listen, please! I won't do anything to hinder the investigation. You have to trust me."

"The answer is 'no,' you got that? I'll call you later." He hung up, fuming. Why was she pus.h.i.+ng him on this? Why mess up her job, a good job? Why complicate her life?

Montoya sauntered into the room. "You need to go home and get laid," he said, observing Bentz's utter frustration.

Bentz shot him a look. "Like that's gonna help."

"It always helps me."

"Fine."

"Look, you don't smoke, you don't drink, but you've got one h.e.l.luva good-lookin' woman waiting for you at home."

Bentz stole a look at the picture of Olivia on his desk. Montoya was right. Pet.i.te, with gold curls falling down her shoulders, clear eyes, and a tight little b.u.t.t..."I'm meeting her for dinner in half an hour," Bentz admitted then decided the less Montoya knew about his love life the better. "You heard the information officer made a statement about the recent killings? He's asking for the public's help."

"Not much they can do. We don't even have a composite of the guy."

"Yeah, well, maybe someone saw something at Our Lady of Virtues or All Saints. Maybe we'll catch a break."

"Maybe," Montoya said, sounding unconvinced. Not that Bentz blamed him.

"What else is happening?"

"No DNA yet, but soon, I'm told."

"I'll believe that when I see it."

"Zaroster has a few leads with the tattoo ink and equipment, but nothing concrete yet. The plaster casts at the crime scene of footprints and tire marks haven't been a.n.a.lyzed completely, but the guess is we're looking for a guy who wears size twelve or twelve and a half."

"Big guy," Bentz said.

"So it would seem."

"What about Abby's picture?"

"Nothing yet, and again no one at either convent or the college noticed anything out of the ordinary."

"Two nuns killed and it's business as usual?" Bentz scowled and twisted a pencil in his fingers.

"We're not done yet," Montoya said, but he was irritated and anxious as well. "I'm still trying to put together a roster of the people who worked at the hospital when Faith was there, but the records, h.e.l.l, they're obsolete."

"The state must know, or the Feds. Tax records."

"FBI's supposed to be on it. So, did you meet with Eve Renner's brothers?"

"Both of 'em."

"And?"

Bentz leaned back in his chair. "I think Eve's lucky she only has two. They were here to try and get the body released, so they can, let's see"-he found his notes-"'get on with our lives,' which I take as Renner-speak for they can't wait to get their hands on whatever Daddy left them."

"You think they could have killed him?" Montoya asked.

"Anything's possible. I'm waiting to see who inherits. There's got to be a will, and we're already checking into life insurance benefits. Neither brother has an alibi. Seems as if they were both out driving around about the time dead old dad had his throat slit. Kyle claims he was on his way here from Atlanta, and Van says he was driving from Arizona. I figure we might get credit-card receipts to bear their stories out."

"Or prove them wrong."

"Kyle, he's big. I'd guess the size twelve shoes would be about right, but the other guy is smaller in stature."

"So what reason would either of them have to kill the nuns?"

"What reason would anyone?" Bentz pushed himself closer to the desk again, studying his notes.

"What you got there?" Montoya asked, nodding at Bentz's desk.

"Just me trying to sort things out. Those are their tattoos."

Montoya spun the paper around and read Bentz's block letters.

[image]

"So, what do you make of it?" Montoya said.

"First off, I'm not certain whoever tattooed Faith Chastain is our killer. Her tattoo was a word, not a number. And we can't really count the doll. We're not even certain it exists. But there's something weird about the numbers.

"Which is?"

"They read the same way backward as forward."

"So?" Montoya said, his forehead wrinkling.

"Well, it doesn't mean too much, but when you read the tattoo on Faith Chastain's head backward, what do you get?"

Montoya looked at the letters, and his c.o.c.ky smile faded. "Evil."

Bentz dropped his notes on the desk as he stood.

"Jesus." Montoya's eyes narrowed. "Okay...but so what? Maybe it's just a coincidence. I mean, Faith was tattooed over two decades ago."

"Thought you didn't believe in coincidence."

"I don't, but..."

"It's just a thought. Means nothing."

"It means enough for you to bring it up." Montoya rested a hip against Bentz's desk, apparently waiting for an explanation.

"It's just something to explore," Bentz said, but he felt that he was on the edge of something. Something that might be important. He just hadn't sorted it out, wasn't sure what it was quite yet. Throwing his pencil on the desk, he said, "I've got to run."

"I'm thinking you're gonna get lucky tonight." Montoya's grin was absolutely wicked.

"I'm always lucky."

"An old fat guy like you? Huh."

Bentz laughed despite himself. With Montoya in tow, he snapped out the lights and tried to shake off the feeling that he was missing something major about Faith Chastain. There was a reason she'd been tattooed twenty-odd years ago. He just had to figure out what it was.

CHAPTER 25.

"This is where you live?" Eve looked around the small camelback house wedged tightly onto a poorly lit street. To say it needed work would be the understatement of the year, and when compared to the roomy Italianate home Cole had once owned, it was a dump. Pure and simple. Barely more than a roof over his head.

"I've really come up in the world," Cole said with a quick smile. He'd stopped by his place, grabbed a quick shower, a bag of clothes and personal items on the way to the restaurant. It was odd, really; in all the time that they'd talked about marriage, they'd never lived together, just stayed overnight at each other's places. But now, it seemed, Cole was moving in, at least for the time being, and it seemed like the right course of action.

Quite a turnaround from just a few days ago when you still thought him capable of murder.

"All set?" Cole walked out of the bedroom dressed in a pair of khakis and an open-collared dress s.h.i.+rt with the sleeves rolled up. "My wardrobe's pretty limited," he admitted when he noticed her eyeing him. "I think I have a ton of suits somewhere, but I'm not sure. Deeds could have sold them too. He certainly didn't leave me with a key to any storage unit, so..." He spread his arms wide and shrugged. "What you see is what you get."

"And I like," she admitted, walking into his open arms and kissing him soundly.

"Careful, darlin', you keep this up and we'll never get to those mudbugs."

"Can't miss that." She kissed him again, took his hand, and led him outside to the narrow little driveway where his Jeep was parked. There were kids hanging out, plugged into iPods and practicing jumps on their skateboards, an older man smoking on the stoop of an apartment building, and a couple of men in their twenties working on a car in a garage a couple of doors down the street.

On the corner of the next block, a sizzling sign for the local bar glowed neon green in the night. Farther south, past cross streets and old buildings, was the waterfront, where the Mississippi slowly moved toward the Gulf of Mexico. The night was clear, and somewhere above the streetlights there were stars, but Eve couldn't catch a glimpse of many as she climbed into Cole's Jeep and he drove her into the French Quarter. He located a parking spot three blocks from Chez Mich.e.l.le then walked her inside, where the cozy wood-paneled interior was packed with patrons. The scents of tomato sauce, cayenne pepper, and sa.s.safras made her mouth water the minute she walked through the door.

A thin, friendly waitress led them past an open kitchen where chefs in white coats worked their craft, braising meat, broiling fish and sausage, and creating sauces.

At a private table tucked in a back corner, Cole ordered the special mudbug appetizer and a pitcher of beer. "You'll love them, I promise," he said over the buzz of conversation and strains of jazz piped in from hidden speakers.

"You don't scare me, Counselor. I grew up on crawdads."

"Did you, now?" he said, a bit of the devil in his eyes. Oh, it was so easy to fall back into this routine with him, and despite the holes in her memory, she remembered clearly how much she'd loved him.

Frosty mugs of beer and a bucket of bright red, spicy mudbugs were served, and they both dug in, cracking the sh.e.l.ls of the crayfish and dipping the tails into a succulent hot-pepper sauce. Eve ordered a spicy gumbo filled with seafood, sausage, and okra, while Cole chose the signature jambalaya.

For the first time all day, Eve relaxed, and the headache she'd been fighting for weeks retreated. She and Cole talked about inconsequential things, neither wanting to tread too close to the brutal murders, his life in prison, or the complicated layers of their relations.h.i.+p.

For now, they were able to push the rest of the world and the nightmare surrounding them into the darkest corners of the night. She wondered where they'd be now. What twists and turns would their love affair have taken if that one night had been different?

What if Roy hadn't called her?