Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (174 page)

“She’s the princess, you know,” his mother always said, taunting him, telling him little details of Eve’s perfect life as she’d sat at her sewing machine, clipping threads with her sharp teeth or cutting fine lines of cloth with her shiny pinking shears. They too had teeth. Many steel teeth.

“Oh yes, that Eve!” Mother had clucked her tongue. “She’s always had the best, you know, never wanted for a thing, her father being a doctor and all.” Mother’s brows arched emphatically over her reading glasses as she sat on her stool at her sewing machine, brightly colored fabric spilling onto the floor. “Fancy house, shiny cars, frilly dresses, the little princess. And she’s pretty too—oh, my, how pretty. Her mother loves her, her father adores her, and she’s pampered by that grandmother of hers! Nothing’s too good for little Eve.”

He’d tried to close his ears to her poison, but his mother, the poor, hard-working seamstress with her arthritic knuckles and ever-growing envy, had never let him forget. She always brought up Eve. Especially at night, when the entire house was asleep, his father snoring soundly in the room far down the hall, his younger siblings already long dreaming in their bunk beds.

Then she would come to him. In the early hours of the morning, creeping down the hallway, padding barefoot into his bedroom, clicking the lock behind her and bringing with her the smell of gin and smoke and sick desperation. It had always been just to “tuck him in” or “kiss him good night.”

But the soft little brush of lips against his cheek had been far from chaste, and the tucking of his bedsheets with her smooth hands had led to exploration of his body. “You’re a good boy, such a good, good boy,” she’d cooed, as if he were a dog who had just performed a difficult trick. “So much better than that nasty little Eve. She’s a whore, you know, in her designer dresses and expensive panties. Doesn’t matter how much they cost, the truth is, Eve’s underpants are always at her ankles. She’s a dirty little girl, believe me. Lying and panting and spreading her legs for anyone.”

He would lie upon his mattress, frozen, unmoving, sweating and nauseous, silently praying to God that she’d stop, that she wouldn’t lick away his tears and tell him everything was all right, that she wouldn’t slide under the covers and press her naked, bony body up to his. She’d told him displaying affection between a mother and a son was only natural.

But he’d known better.

Even then.

During those awful, debasing nights, he had called up Eve’s image. Bringing her, not Mother, to his bed. Eve the princess, Eve the beautiful, Eve the loved…

He’d tried to close his brain to the things that were happening to him, attempted to take himself to a faraway place safe from his mother’s sweaty, trembling hands as they caressed and fondled him. All the while he’d thought about Eve…How much better it would have been if she, the nasty little whore, had been in his bed.

And now, as he lay in bed, nervously biting his nails even though Mother no longer came to him, even though his nightmare of an adolescence was long over, he still thought about Eve. Constantly.

Eve the beautiful.

Eve the princess.

Eve the loved.

Eve the bitch.

CHAPTER 32

T
he Voice had come to him early in the night, while he’d been sleeping dreamlessly. It had been clear. Concise. Reverberated without interruption from the tinny little voices of white noise that often preceded Its arrival. As he’d lain in the bed, the Voice had told him precisely what he was to do.

God had forgiven him!

But there was a price to pay.

An atonement.

And this was it.

The Reviver wouldn’t blow it again. His nerves jangled. He realized he was being tested.

He’d driven for nearly eight hours and arrived in the predawn, the neighborhood not yet waking, the streetlights glowing as he’d found the address.

She was inside.

Only her car was parked in the driveway, as the Voice had told him.

Boldly, he backed his truck into the driveway, confident that the Florida license plate he’d ripped off at an all-night dinner outside of Mobile wouldn’t be missed for a while. The tags were current, and that was all that had mattered. The owners of the Dodge sedan might notice the missing front plate in the morning light, but by then it would be too late to identify him. His mission would be accomplished.

He drew his gun, complete with silencer, and slipped into the backyard. The sliding door to the patio was unlocked. With a smooth whoosh, the door opened.

He braced himself.

No dog barked.

No alarm system began bleating.

But he heard voices…soft and low. Every muscle tensed, but he couldn’t give up, couldn’t flee. He looked down a dark hallway and saw the flickering blue light of a television showing through an open door.

Carefully he inched toward the master bedroom. A floorboard in the hallway creaked. He froze, expecting to hear someone shout or feet hit the floor, but there was no disturbance, just the voices from the television, dialogue from a movie. Cautiously he peered inside and saw the bed in the reflection of a mirror mounted on a wall.

She was lying on the mussed covers, her dark hair tangled over the pillow, her eyes closed, her mouth open. Soft little snoring sounds were nearly muted by the television. He pushed the door open a bit, slid inside. There were pill bottles on the table, next to a bottle of Vodka and a box of tissues. Wadded-up used Kleenex littered the floor and night table. Two of the pill bottles were open.

For an instant, he panicked.

What if she’d already tried to kill herself?

Oh no, that wouldn’t work, wasn’t part of the plan.

He couldn’t mess up again. God had been specific.

She had to be alive! Had to!

He stepped forward anxiously, and he nearly tripped over a shoe she’d kicked off at the end of the bed. His knee slammed into the footboard, and he bit back the urge to curse.

On the bed, she stirred. Lifted her head, pushed back her tangle of hair, and blinked. “Kyle?” she said, already reaching for the phone or bedside light. “Is that you, baby?”

He sprang.

His body landed over hers.

“Ooof!” The air blasted out of her lungs.

In an instant she was fully awake, writhing, wrestling, trying to throw him off her as she opened her mouth to scream. One gloved hand covered her mouth. With the other he shoved his Glock to her temple, the barrel pressing into the flesh next to her eye. “No, honey,” he rasped, enjoying the fear that he saw in her wide eyes, the terror he felt in her stiff body, the pure, wonderful horror that was evident in the rapid rise and fall of her chest, “I’m not Kyle.”

“Found him,” Zaroster said. She stepped into Bentz’s office holding a memo pad. A triumphant smile creased her pixielike face.

“Ronnie Le Mars?” Bentz asked.

“Father Paul Lavender Swanson.”

“Lavender?”

“No wonder he became a priest,” she said dryly. “If anyone in high school ever found out, the poor kid would have been laughed out of school.”

“Or become the toughest guy on the football squad.”

“Maybe so. He’s in a nursing facility not far from here. Just across Lake Pontchartrain, in Covington.” She flashed him another grin and stripped a piece of paper off the memo pad. “Here’s the address. Still working on Ronnie Le Mars.”

Bentz was out of his seat in a second. “Tell Montoya where I am. He can call me or catch up with me there.”

“You got it.”

She returned to her desk. Bentz grabbed his jacket then headed through the maze of cubicles where other detectives were talking on phones, staring at computer screens, taking statements, and shuffling papers. He nearly plowed into Arvin Noon, a junior detective hauling in a suspect who reeked of whiskey and vomit. The guy’s hair was stringy, his clothes filthy, and his wrists were cuffed behind his back.

“This is Herman Tessler. Got caught trying to rip off a convenience store.”

“And?” Bentz asked. There had to be a reason for Noon to haul the suspect’s ass up to the homicide department, though sometimes the big detective’s methods weren’t conventional. “Tessler claims he was at the Black Bird Restaurant the other night, combing through the dumpster, and he saw what went down between Officer Tiggs and a guy in a dark blue pickup. Says a bullet ricocheted off the truck, and that’s consistent with the shell casing found at the scene. Officer Tiggs’s gun had been fired.”

“But the bullet missed Tiggs’s attacker?” Bentz asked.

Tessler, the drunk, was nodding.

Too bad.

“I’m taking his statement then letting him sober up before I talk to him again. Show him some pictures, see if he can pick our guy out of one of our albums.”

“Why bother having him make a statement now?”

Tessler was obviously drunk.

The younger cop’s blue eyes flashed with a bit of defiance. “I just want to compare what he has to say. Sometimes inebriation helps bring out true feelings.”

“Sometimes it just brings out bullshit.”

“I’ll do this my way. All right with you?”

Bentz gave the younger man a long look. “Handle it however you want. Just let me know the outcome.” He didn’t have time to get into a pissing match with the junior detective. Let him work it out with Tessler. The drunk would sober up, make his statement, and that would be that. So Noon was a bully, so what?

He grabbed his sidearm, jacket, and keys, then patted his pockets to make certain he had his wallet as he hurried downstairs.

Once in the department parking lot, he unlocked the door of his assigned Crown Vic and was getting inside when he spied Montoya’s Mustang wheeling into the lot. Bentz flagged him down.

Montoya, his mood obviously as black as his goatee, jogged up to the cruiser. “Somethin’ up?”

“Father Paul’s in the St. Agnes Nursing Home in Covington.”

“Let’s go.” Montoya slid into the passenger side, and Bentz nosed the Crown Vic toward the freeway. Though the day was overcast, the interior of the car was warm. Bentz hit the AC as he blended into the thick of afternoon traffic. He headed north toward Metairie and the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, a twenty-four-mile bridge that spanned the vast estuary and ended up not far from Covington.

“I just came back from the hospital,” Montoya said, slouching down in his seat. “Tiggs has been upgraded from critical to serious.”

“That’s good.”

“Well, maybe. Part of his face is missing, and there could be brain damage. He’s lookin’ at tons of plastic surgery, physical therapy, and God knows what else.” Montoya glowered out the window, staring at the endless stretch of water as Bentz drove onto the causeway.

Pelicans skimmed the lake’s surface, and gulls, calling noisily, floated higher in the air. The sky had taken on the ominous hue of an approaching storm.

“Shit, man, Tiggs has a wife and two-month-old little girl. Two months! She’s so little, she probably doesn’t even recognize him. Now he’ll never be the same. Lose his job. Be on disability. Who knows if he’ll ever…Oh hell! It’s all just bullshit, I’m telling ya. Bullshit!”

Bentz didn’t say anything, just let him rant. Everyone on the force had been in the grim spot Montoya was now occupying. It was part of the job. But it never set well. Never. From the console, the police radio crackled and sputtered, officers talking back and forth, cutting out over the static while the cruiser’s engine rumbled smoothly. Neither of them spoke for a while. Then finally Bentz said, “Sometimes this job can be a real bitch.”

“Yeah,” Montoya agreed. “And that’s on a good day.”

On the north side of the causeway, Bentz drove through Mandeville and along Highway 190 until they reached the outskirts of Covington. Once inside the city limits, it was only a matter of a few blocks before they found the parklike setting of the care facility, a newer two-story building that housed individual apartments and could only be entered by means of a code punched into a keypad or a buzzer that called an attendant.

They buzzed, showed their badges to a woman who appeared on the other side of the glass door, and were allowed inside the cheery edifice. She took them to meet the on-duty manager, Alyce Smith, a robust African-American woman with neatly cropped hair and half-glasses perched on her nose. She occupied a meticulous office filled with bookshelves, cabinets, and a huge desk. A Bible lay open on a stand, a crucifix dominated one wall, and windows overlooking a courtyard allowed some natural light to filter through the blinds and diaphanous panels. The room smelled of jasmine, compliments of an air freshener plugged into a wall socket.

Again, upon Mrs. Smith’s insistence, they showed their IDs and explained that they wanted to see Father Paul Swanson on police business.

“Just be cognizant that Father Paul is frail and tires easily. He also suffers from dementia, so I’m not certain how much he can help you.”

“We need to talk to him,” Bentz insisted.

“Please don’t upset him,” she said, flashing a smile that showed off a tiny gap between her teeth but did nothing to reveal any real warmth. She meant business. She hit a buzzer, and a girl of about eighteen appeared. “Sherry, please show Detective Bentz and Detective Montoya to Father Paul’s room.”

They followed Sherry along a hallway, trying not to notice the stares from the nursing staff and patients, some in wheelchairs, others with walkers or canes, as they approached an elevator. They silently ascended to the second floor then turned down a short hallway, passing a single window that overlooked the same courtyard they’d viewed from Alyce Smith’s office.

“He’s not always clear,” Sherry said. “It kind of depends on what kind of day he’s having.”

Montoya was accepting no excuses. “We still need to talk to him.”

“Of course.”

The studio apartment was furnished sparsely with a twin bed, dresser, television, and recliner. A large crucifix, identical to Alyce Smith’s, decorated one wall; a calendar with pictures of the saints, another. And again, the air freshener, to help disguise the smells of a body slowly dying.

The occupant, a tall, excruciatingly gaunt man with sunken features, was sprawled upon the recliner. He was dressed in a plaid shirt and cardigan sweater, slacks and slippers, no sign of a clerical collar. His eyes were closed, his mouth agape, and he was snoring softly over the muted tones of an announcer for a golf match playing on the televison. “Father Paul?” Sherry said loudly.

The priest snorted and opened one eye.

“Father Paul? You have visitors.”

“What?”

“Visitors. These men are with the police,” she nearly shouted as he fumbled with his hearing aid.

“I don’t know any policemen.”

“No, they’re here to ask you some questions.”

“Questions?” he repeated. Blinking from behind glasses that made his eyes appear owlish, he scrabbled with one hand for the handle of his recliner, pushing the footrest down with some difficulty in order to force the chair and himself into a sitting position.

“Detectives Montoya and Bentz,” the aide said, pointing to each of the cops in turn.

“We need to talk to you about Faith Chastain,” Bentz said loudly. When Father Paul didn’t respond, didn’t seem to understand, he added, “She was a patient at Our Lady of Virtues when you were the priest there.”

“Faith,” he repeated dully. Something clicked, and his eyes cleared a bit. “Oh, Faith. Yes. Lovely but confused, very…Ah, well, she died. Fell from a window…I think. A pity.”

“Yes.”

“It was a long while ago, wasn’t it?” He blinked up at Bentz as if he really didn’t know. Then he swiped at the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Yes.”

“Sad…Faith? Yes…yes…”

“But she had a baby while she was at Our Lady of Virtues, by a Cesarean section.”

“And Sister Rebecca, she died too,” he said, his face twisting with sudden agony. “Someone killed her. I read about it. A terrible thing, that. A pity.”

“Yes.”

“But she is with God now,” Father Paul went on, running a hand over his head and smoothing some wayward gray hairs over his bald pate.

“What can you tell us about Faith Chastain and the baby she gave birth to about twenty-eight years ago?” Bentz decided it best not to bring up the name “Adam,” the still-birth issue, or the fact that Eve Renner’s DNA said she was Faith Chastain’s daughter. Even though Sherry had warned them that Father Paul was in and out of lucidity, and that much was evident, Bentz wanted to see what the priest could remember without being given every prompt.

“The child,” Father Paul said softly and gazed so long at the floor Bentz thought he was memorizing the pattern of the carpet. Finally he said with more clarity than Bentz would have expected, “I suppose it’s time someone knew the truth. Before anyone else is hurt.”

“Or killed,” Montoya put in. “Who was the baby’s father? And what happened to it? We found the coffin in the cemetery. Someone had dug it up, put a pig’s carcass inside.”

Father Paul winced. “So it’s come to this.” He rubbed his large hands on his knees. Guilt settled on his narrow shoulders, stooping them even more. “Faith was confused and active…. She had men to whom she bestowed favors.”

“She was abused by members of your staff and other patients,” Bentz corrected.

“But she wanted the attention.” He glanced out the window, where a wren was flying toward the roof.