Malice (12 page)

Of course he would have loved to have talked to Father James about her—James, his own damned brother—but that was impossible. There would be no rising from the dead for James; Father James would not be pulling a Lazarus. Bentz was sure the priest was dead, the victim of a serial killer, and nearly certain he was rotting in hell.

With Jennifer?

That was a question he couldn’t answer.

His heartburn was acting up. He fished a half-used roll of Tums out of his pocket, popped a couple, and found the keys to his rental car.

He frowned at his cane propped against the wall, snatched the stick along with his jacket, and walked outside into the lingering heat of the day. After locking the unit he crossed the cement walkway to his Ford and passed the old man next door who was walking his dog. Spike looked up at Bentz, only to return to sniffing the potholes of the parking lot, either looking for discarded bits of food or a place to defecate. Bentz nodded at the man, then climbed into his rental.

He’d spent enough hours in the So-Cal motel with its four dingy walls closing in on him.

He twisted on the ignition, cranked up the air, and hit the gas. It was time to drive down to San Juan Capistrano. If he was lucky, he’d make it and still have a couple of hours before night fell.

Hayes squealed to a stop under the overpass of the Harbor Freeway. Roadblocks had been set up, changing the traffic pattern around the storage units. Flashing lights strobed the street and the sooty cement pilings holding up the cavernous structure of concrete and steel.

Onlookers, some with cell phones taking pictures, had gathered around the storage facility tucked beneath the on-ramp to the 110. Two officers directed traffic, waving vehicles into the open lane as gawking drivers slowed, threatening to create major congestion. Other uniformed cops guarded the entrance to the storage units strung with yellow crime-scene tape. Orange traffic cones and barricades effectively forced the curious out.

Still, people gathered as vehicles rushed overhead, tires singing, engines rumbling, causing a deafening noise. A KMOL news van emblazoned in blue and sporting several satellite dishes was parked half a block up, two wheels over the curb to allow other cars to pass. The slim blond reporter Joanna Quince and a stocky cameraman lugging a shoulder cam headed toward the underpass. A helicopter for another local television station hovered overhead, the whir of its rotors silenced by the din of the freeway.

Hayes double-parked near the crime scene van and wended his way through the police cars, passing the SID van. The investigators from the Scientific Investigative Division were already at work. They’d search for footprints, handprints, hairs, or any kind of trace evidence that might provide clues to the identity of the killer. Photographs were being snapped, a videographer was filming, measurements taken. Hayes looked upward, searching for a security camera, but the one that was mounted over the units was obviously broken, the camera hanging at an awkward position from a rusted pole.

So much for any film of the storage units.

Martinez, a petite woman with fiery red hair and a razor-sharp tongue, stood at the door of Unit 8 and waved Hayes inside.

“Take a look,” she said with the hint of a Hispanic accent. “But I gotta warn ya, it’s not pretty.”

Hayes braced himself, keeping his eyes away from the victims for a moment. He focused on the dusty cement floor, the jars of nails, and a broken lawn chair that had been pushed into the corner of the unit. After all this time, he still wasn’t comfortable around dead bodies. The scent and look of death bothered him, got under his skin, cut into his brain, lingering there for days. He usually managed to hide it.

Not tonight.

Looking down at the defiled bodies of twin girls who seemed barely out of their teens, he couldn’t mask the raw pain that cut him to the quick.

They had been laid out purposefully, bound and gagged, naked, curled into the fetal position. Bruises and ligature marks were visible on their necks. Facing each other, their eyes open under the glare of a single lightbulb, each girl stared sightlessly at her twin. Their skin was so pale it seemed blue. Each victim’s blond hair had been pulled away from her face and tied with a long red ribbon. The same ribbon bound them. Posed as they were, identical twins, they resembled two macabre wraiths gazing into a mirror.

Staged to look like they were still in the womb. Just like the Caldwell twins.

Hayes’s jaw tightened. “Any ID?”

“Yeah…their clothes and purses, even their jewelry and cell phones, all over there. Along with their birth certificates, times of birth highlighted in pink.” Martinez hitched her chin to a corner. There on the floor, the clothing and personal effects of the two girls sat in neatly folded stacks.

A tidy, fastidious crime scene, Hayes thought as he leaned over the folded clothes. This was all too familiar. On top of each pile was a copy of the birth certificates, the date and time of their births highlighted with pink marker. Probably the same pink ink that would be found on the girls’ bodies, Hayes suspected. Assuming, of course, this was the killer who’d torn through L.A. years ago.

“Lucille and Elaine Springer,” Martinez said. “I already called Missing Persons. They’re checking now.”

Jonas thought of his own kid. Twelve years old and going on thirty, as they said, but still an innocent. It would kill him to lose Maren, but to have someone intentionally take her life…Bile rose in his throat and he turned his attention away from his personal life to the situation at hand.

The photographs had been taken, body temperatures recorded; the victims were ready to be moved. But Jonas knew, with chilling certainty, what they would find when the bodies were rolled over onto their backs.

Oh, sweet mother.

“Remind you of anything?” a gravelly voice asked. Hayes looked over his shoulder to see Detective Andrew Bledsoe in the doorway.

Jonas straightened and nodded. “The Caldwell case.”

“And isn’t that a coincidence with our friend Bentz back in town?” Somehow Bledsoe managed a smug smile, as if the twin girls had never been more than corpses, just another case to solve.

Martinez scowled, her lips tight. She glared up at Bledsoe, her eyes dark with a seething rage. “Is there a reason you’re here?”

Though he was in his fifties, he was one of those guys who looked a decade younger. At five-ten and under two hundred pounds, Bledsoe cultivated a perpetual tan and kept his jet-black hair slicked back. His suits were usually tailor-made and his steely blue eyes didn’t miss much. He was a good cop. And a pain in the ass. “I was on my way back from a scene in Watts, heard it on the scanner.”

“Well, we’re busy here.” Martinez didn’t conceal her disdain for Bledsoe. The guy had always bugged her. Hayes knew it; everyone in the department did. Riva Martinez wasn’t one to hide her feelings.

Turning her back on Bledsoe, she knelt near one of the bodies while Hayes studied the other.

“Ligature marks around the neck,” Martinez noted, almost to herself, “and numbers and letters scrawled across each torso, just under their breasts.”

The message written heavily in neon pink on their torsos was clear. Each victim was marked with her time of birth twenty-one years ago, and her time of death this morning—which was exactly twenty-one-years later. To the minute. As if the killer found pleasure in snuffing out their lives the moment they became adults.

“Goddamn it.” Hayes felt cold inside despite the stifling, suffocating heat of the small enclosure. These girls had been born fourteen minutes apart, so they had died precisely fourteen minutes apart.

Hayes didn’t doubt that the younger of the two—Elaine, born at 1:01 AM—had witnessed the horror of Lucille being strangled at 12:47 AM. Probably strangled by the very ribbon that was now binding her hair, wrists, and ankles, as well as gagging her mouth. Hayes suspected that the ribbons in their hair would contain traces of skin from where the fabric had dug into the soft flesh of their throats. And he knew he would find other ligature marks on their necks. The victims were subdued by some kind of strap, then finally killed with a heavy ribbon woven with thin, sharp wire.

Each girl had lived exactly twenty-one years.

Just like the Caldwell twins, the last homicide Rick Bentz had worked here in L.A. That case had gone ice cold when he’d turned in his resignation.

Hayes hated to admit it, but this time Bledsoe had a point.

Why were these victims chosen to be killed now, only days after Rick Bentz had returned to Los Angeles?

“S
tupid!” Olivia glared at her cell phone. It was in her hand, but she hadn’t punched in Bentz’s number because she felt nervous about phoning him. Which was ridiculous! She’d never been one of those women who was timid or shy or the least bit lacking in confidence. Yet here she was seated in her living room, feet curled beneath her, a cup of tea long forgotten and cold on the coffee table, and she wasn’t sure what to do. Hairy S perched on the other end of the cozy couch while one of Bentz’s old Springsteen CDs played in the background, but the homey atmosphere was little comfort.

She was paralyzed.

Didn’t know whether to call Rick or not.

Even though she’d seen that he’d called earlier but hadn’t left a message.

“Oh, to hell with it,” she said and hit the speed dial number that would connect him to her.

He picked up before it rang twice. “Hey,” he said, and he did sound glad—or was it relieved?—to hear from her.

“Hey back at you.”

“What’s up?”

“Just checkin’ in,” she said.
Tell him. Tell him now. You don’t have to wait until he returns. Let him know that you’re going to have a baby. Insist that no matter what his reaction is, you’re thrilled with the pregnancy, that you’ve already started looking at baby clothes and thinking of where to put a bassinette.
“What’re you doing?”

“Driving down to San Juan Capistrano.”

“The mission? Why? Searching for swallows?” she teased, reminding him of the phenomenon of the swallows returning to Capistrano each year. “Didn’t know you were a bird-watcher.”

“Too late for the swallows, I think. They come in the spring.”

“Then?” she asked.

“I needed to get out of that fleabag of a motel.”

“To find Jennifer?”

A pause. “Maybe.”

“Seen her lately?” She couldn’t hide the sarcasm in her voice. Who was he kidding?

“I don’t know.”

She wanted to tell him he was being foolish. Instead she bit back a sharp reply and moved to safer territory. “How’re you feeling? Your leg.”

“It’s still attached.”

“Doing your exercises?”

“Every day.”

“Liar.” She laughed and she heard him chuckle.

“What’s new with you?”

She gathered her strength, told herself she was just going to blurt it out and let the chips fall where they may, when Harry S, hearing something outside, started barking like crazy. “Hey, you, hush!” she said and heard her husband laugh again.

“Great. You call me just to shut me up.”

“I think I’ve told you, I’m one fabulous wife.”

“I…know…Livvie…maybe a million times…” His voice was faint and spotty; she couldn’t catch all the words.

“Hey, I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up.” But she was too late with her message. The call was already lost and she said to the dead connection, “By the way, Hotshot, you’re going to be a father again.” But, of course, he wouldn’t be able to hear her and she decided, once again, giving Bentz that kind of news over a spotty wireless connection was a bad idea.

Lately it seemed she didn’t have any good ones. She carried her cup into the kitchen and left it in the sink while a quarter moon rose over the cypress and pine trees rimming the backyard. A few stars winked and when she cranked open the window she heard a chorus of bullfrogs loud enough to give the Boss a run for his money.

She fed Chia, talked to the bird, and then, still feeling antsy, decided to take a turn on the treadmill. She’d wait until Rick came back to Louisiana, or, if this wild goose chase of his took too long, she’d fly out there and give him the good word about her pregnancy face-to-face.

“Five days, Bentz,” she said, tapping a finger against her chin. “Five days. That’s all you’ve got. Then, California, here I come.”

“Who found the bodies?” Hayes asked. Glad to be out of the tiny claustrophobic closet of a storage unit, he breathed the fresher air of the freeway system during rush hour. So what if their gas and diesel exhaust collected under the overpass? At least the smell of death wasn’t filling his lungs.

“A college student.” Riva Martinez pointed to a cruiser where a young girl stared out the window of the backseat. Her eyes were round with fear, her face pale behind the glass. “Felicia Katz. Goes to USC, but keeps some of her stuff here. She came down here this afternoon intending to take something out of her unit—an old chair, I think. Her unit is number seven.” Martinez indicated the unit next to the one with the bodies. “She noticed the door of eight wasn’t latched, saw the lock was broken. She thought someone had probably broken into it and stolen whatever was inside, so she took a peek.”

“And got an eyeful,” Bledsoe cut in.

Hayes’s stomach twisted as he thought of the victims who were now being preliminarily examined before being hauled away in body bags to the morgue for autopsies. And twenty-four hours ago they were innocent young women, probably getting ready to celebrate their birthdays.

Martinez continued, “Anyway, Katz saw the vics, texted her boyfriend, then called 9-1-1.”

Hayes glanced back at the car holding the witness. “Why the boyfriend first?”

“She claims she freaked.”

“I’ll bet,” Bledsoe interjected.

“Who’s the boyfriend?”

“Robert Finley. Goes by Robbie. Coffee barista by day, grunge band drummer by night. He showed up just after the first officer—that would be Rohrs—got here. We’ve got Finley in another squad car. Trying to keep him and Katz separate until we get each of their stories and compare them.”

“You think they had anything to do with it?”

“Nah. You?”

“Probably not.” Hayes shook his head.

“It’s the Twenty-one killer,” Bledsoe interrupted. He’d stuck around and was eyeing the scene.

“Who?” Riva asked. She was relatively new to the department and hadn’t heard some of the old stories.

“That’s what we called him. He killed another set of twins, Delta and Diana Caldwell, on their twenty-first birthday. They were reported missing two days earlier, so we figured he nabbed ’em, held ’em, and then killed ’em at the exact minute they turned twenty-one.”

“So he knew them?” Riva guessed, her eyes narrowing.

“Or
of
them. But he was never caught.” Bledsoe’s expression turned hard. “The Caldwell parents called us every week for nearly six years. After that, I heard they split up.”

“And no other cases like the Caldwell killings until now?” Riva asked, glancing back at the storage unit. “So this could be a copycat?”

Bledsoe shook his head. “Some of the details were never released to the press or the public. The red ribbon, the pink marker. The fact that their clothing was neatly folded, as if Mommy or the maid had taken care of them.” Bledsoe glanced over Hayes’s shoulder. “Speaking of the press.”

Hayes turned to find Joanna Quince, the determined news reporter he’d seen earlier, talking with one of the uniforms guarding the barricade. He grimaced and turned away, but not before Quince caught sight of the detectives and recognized Bledsoe.

“Detective,” she shouted. “Could I ask you a few questions? Is it true this is a double homicide? That two girls were found in one of the storage units?”

“I’ll handle this,” Bledsoe said. Bledsoe liked the press, that much was true, but he wouldn’t give too much away. He would refer Joanna Quince to the public information officer, who would issue a statement and field questions once the next of kin were notified.

That job—telling the family—fell on Hayes’s shoulders, and as far as he was concerned, talking to overwrought loved ones was almost as difficult as discovering the bodies.

Bentz pushed the speed limit as he drove south on “the Five,” the interstate freeway that stretched from Canada to Mexico. The sun was low on the horizon and the traffic was thick and swift, a faster pace than he ever experienced in Louisiana. Bentz had expected to return to Los Angeles and feel at home, if not with the police, then with the area itself. He’d spent so many years of his life here.

But, no, he was a fish out of water now.

The phone call from Olivia had bothered him and he wondered, not for the first time, if he’d made a big mistake coming to L.A. Not only had he upset his wife, but if his boss in New Orleans found out that he was on the West Coast chasing after a dead woman, Jaskiel would have him back in psych evaluations in no time. Or she could put him out to pasture for good, thinking he’d gone round the bend. His career as a cop could be over.

So what? It’s not like the NOPD isn’t functioning without you. Who knows when or if you’ll be allowed back on active duty.

His fingers tightened over the wheel as he switched lanes and a moving van roared past his Ford Escape as if he were standing still. He looked at his speedometer. He was going seventy.

His cell phone rang. He clicked off the radio and glanced at the LED screen. Montoya’s number.

Good. Bentz had been brooding about Olivia ever since their last conversation. He needed a distraction.

He clicked on. “About time you called. You got something for me?”

“Not much. No fingerprints on the envelope or the death certificate, other than yours and mine.”

Bentz swore under his breath.

“You didn’t really expect any.”

“No, but I thought maybe we’d get lucky. That maybe the guy was sloppy.”

“Don’t think so. DNA’s not back, but I’ll bet a year’s salary that the perp didn’t lick the flap of the envelope. These days everyone knows that shit if they watch any truTV or
CSI,
or
NCIS,
or
Law & Order,
or you name it.”

“It was a long shot,” Bentz admitted, spotting his exit.

“I’ve got the lab analyzing the type of ink on the doc, but it probably won’t be something that will help.”

“Doesn’t hurt to try.” Bentz eased up on the gas, flipped on his blinker, and slid into the exit lane.

“You know, this thing you’re doing, you should just give it up.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I know you’re going out of your mind not working, but hell, can’t you do something else?”

“You mean something a little less insane?”

“Yeah. Golf would be good. Or fishing. Hell, we’ve got great fishing down in the Gulf.”

“I’ll think about it. I could buy me a new fancy pole and set of clubs in between my calligraphy and yoga classes.”

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

“Then you, too. Sign us both up. And add in ballroom dancing. You’d look fantastic in one of those sparkly gowns.”

Montoya didn’t so much as chuckle. “You think you’re funny?”

“I know I’m funny.”

Montoya wasn’t laughing. He asked, “You see your ex-wife again?” Bentz hesitated as he drove onto the ramp. “Maybe,” he admitted, slowing for a red light. “Not sure.”

“Really?”

“Really. She phoned, too. Called me by the pet name she’d given me.”

“Right.”

“I’m just telling ya.”

“So what’re you doing about it?”

Should he tell the skeptic? Hell, why not? “I talked with one of Jennifer’s friends. She said James and Jennifer met in San Juan Capistrano, so I thought I’d drive down.”

“Are you kidding me? What does that have to do with anything? You think your dead brother is involved?” Montoya muttered some oath in Spanish, before adding, “This is sounding crazier by the second. I’ve been to San Juan Capistrano. A couple of times. There’s a history to it, man. The whole town is supposed to be rife with ghosts.”

“Kinda like New Orleans.”

“I mean it. That so-called friend of Jennifer is messin’ with ya. San Juan Capistrano? Come
on.
You tell this friend you’ve been seeing ghosts and she sends you to Capistrano. Give me an effin’ break.”

“She’s
not
a ghost,” he said, though in truth he was feeling haunted. Exactly what whoever was behind this wanted.

“Look I gotta go.” Bentz’s ridicule capacity was on overflow.

“Great. Walk about the hallowed grounds, talk to the white lady or the faceless monk or the dead guy in his rocking chair. Or Jennifer, since you obviously think she’s hanging out with them. Listen, if you ever get close enough to talk to her, give her my love.”

“Screw you, Montoya,” he said as the light turned green and he eased ahead toward the mission.

“You should get so lucky.” His partner hung up and Bentz felt his lips twist upward a bit. He missed that cocky son of a bitch, just as he missed his job, but not quite as much as he missed Olivia.

“Check the cell phone records, include the texts and read what they say if anything,” Hayes said as he and Martinez left the crime scene and walked toward their cars. “They should give us a window of time when the girls were abducted. If this is like the Caldwell case, then we can assume the vics were killed somewhere else and brought here to be staged and discovered. We need to find out who owns the facility and who rents units here, not just Unit 8 but all of them. See if there’s any connection to the Springer twins. Or if anyone saw anything suspicious.”

“I’ll have all the traffic cameras checked as well, and some of the security cameras in nearby businesses.”

They would canvass the area using uniformed police and detectives to try and locate anyone who had seen anything. A convenience store and gas station were in clear sight of the underpass and storage units. Maybe someone, an employee or customer, saw something that would give them a lead. Anything to go on. If the times of death on the bodies were accurate, the victims had already been dead over twelve hours, and each minute that passed was critical to the investigation.

“And we should contact those groups dedicated to twins in the area. The killer knows they’re twins. He had to know when they were born to abduct them just before their birthday. That takes planning.”

“Online groups, too,” Martinez suggested, and the scope of the investigation just got a whole lot wider.

“Right.”

“Our doer is organized,” Martinez observed as she took in the scene. “Meticulous. Probably a neat freak.”