Lisa Jackson's Bentz And Montoya Bundle Part 117

"I doubt it. Van didn't say anything about it, and Kyle doesn't like to spend the night at other people's homes. He'd rather live in a hotel. He doesn't like to play by anyone else's house rules."

"Is that so?" Bentz asked.

Eve shrugged. "It's not like we were all one big happy family, okay? My dad adopted Kyle and Van when he married my mom. The boys were half grown when my parents adopted me."

Montoya's eyes turned dark as night. "So Terrence Renner isn't your biological father?"

"Right."

"Who is?" Bentz asked, leaning forward, his pencil unmoving.

"I don't know either of my biological parents. I asked a few times, got no answers, was told mine was a closed adoption, which I guess means my birth parents don't want to hear from me." Eve's mouth twisted. "It was a private thing, arranged by an attorney, and, well, Mom died before I got any real information from her, and Dad was always so vague. I always figured I'd try to locate my biological parents someday. What's the worst that could happen? I'd get a door slammed in my face?" She sighed. "I never got around to it."

Montoya scratched at his goatee as Bentz said, "We'll need the phone numbers of your brothers."

She gave them Kyle's house number in Atlanta, then said, "Just a sec" as she found her cell phone in her purse. Scrolling down the menu on the phone, she found the cell numbers for Kyle, Anna Maria, and Van. "I don't have Van's home number anymore. He moved to Mesa not long before I was injured, and I always just call his cell and leave messages."

"That's all right." Bentz was writing on his notepad. "What about enemies? Did your father have anyone who would want to harm him?"

In her mind's eye she saw Tracy Aliota's grieving parents and brother as they'd sat in the courtroom, hearing the verdict of "not guilty" ringing to the rafters. They'd fallen apart, Tracy's mother, Leona, nearly crumpling. If not for her husband's strong arm, she might have fallen to the floor. Tracy's older brother, J. D., had been red faced and seething, his eyes burning with the certainty that a dark injustice had been done. "I suppose," she said, giving the detectives a quick review of the Aliotas' grievances. "They were probably not the only patients who were unhappy, though none that I know of had gone so far as to sue him. But he did deal with people who were mentally ill."

"Psychotics?"

She nodded.

"What about personally?" Montoya asked.

She thought hard. "My brothers' father-their biological father, Ed Stern-didn't like him much. Blamed him for the divorce, as I understand it, but he ducked out of the picture early. When the boys were very young, he gave up all parental rights. I've never met him, and as far as I know, my brothers haven't seen him since he took off."

Bentz was still taking notes.

"Anyone else?"

She shook her head. "I think my father got into some legal thing about use of an access road that cut across the farm...with the neighbor, Hugh Something-or-other.... Hugh...Hugh Capp, I think, but I only heard Dad say something about it a couple of times, and that was five or six years ago. As far as I know they resolved whatever it was."

"What about professionally? Any enemies?" Bentz asked.

"I really don't know."

"Or patients or staff at Our Lady of Virtues-that's the last hospital where he was on staff. Afterward, while he was in private practice, he worked alone, right? And was just a.s.sociated with a small, private hospital"-Bentz flipped back a few pages in his notebook-"St. Andrews, not far from Slidell."

"That's right," she said, remembering the small hospital across Lake Pontchartrain.

"Do you know anyone who held a grudge against your father at either of the hospitals?"

"No. You'd have to ask someone who worked there," she said, feeling her headache toying with the edges of her brain again. "There must be records."

The detectives asked a few more questions before the interview wound down, and by that time Eve's headache was back in full force. Montoya escorted her through the department and down the stairs. When she was outside again, she finally felt like she could breathe.

Clouds had gathered in the sky, and shadows had lengthened over the city. The air was thick. Muggy. It pressed her clothes against her skin.

She walked to her Camry and looked over her shoulder. Once again she experienced the eerie feeling that someone was watching her, someone inherently evil. Unease crawled up her neck, breathing on her scalp, and she turned to slowly search the sidewalks and streets.

A woman pushed a stroller. Two teenagers were walking, holding hands and almost yelling at each other, each plugged into an iPod. An elderly man was walking his little dog, a terrier of some kind, and several people waited for a city bus. One guy in a silver sedan was studying a map and scowling as if he were horribly lost. A couple of twenty-something kids with spiked hair were skateboarding recklessly through the crowds, and a panhandler claiming to be a homeless vet was waiting for someone to drop money into his open guitar case as he strummed a tune from the eighties.

She saw no one hiding malevolently in the umbra of an awning, no one smoking a cigarette in a large, dark pickup with tinted windows, no one paying her the least bit of attention. The street preacher was still in full force, handing out literature, still pleading with anyone who would listen to accept Jesus as his or her savior.

But no luminous eyes stared at her from the shadowy alleyways, and the only dark truck that pa.s.sed by had a sign advertising a florist's shop and was driven by a girl who looked barely sixteen.

It's all in your mind, she told herself but couldn't shake the feeling that someone nearby was observing her every move. she told herself but couldn't shake the feeling that someone nearby was observing her every move.

"I know what you're thinking," Bentz said when Montoya returned. "That Eve Renner is Faith Chastain's missing daughter. But you're jumping the gun. Just because she's about the right age, was adopted, and someone stuffed a bunch of articles about the hospital and Faith Chastain in her car doesn't mean she's the missing kid."

"It's something to check out."

"Agreed." Bentz tapped the eraser end of his pencil on the desk.

"We could tell her about it. Ask for a DNA sample."

Bentz glanced out the window at the pigeons that had taken roost. "It isn't really a police matter," he said. "Not a crime if a woman has a baby and doesn't tell anyone."

"What about a woman who has a tattoo hidden in her hairline? A tattoo she probably got while she was a patient, for crying out loud?"

"Again, no crime that we know of. And the woman's dead. We know how she died and how she was abused. The tattoo happened more than twenty years ago. And we don't even know if it was forced upon her."

"A tattoo on her head, a head that had to be shaved...You think she wanted it?"

"She wasn't exactly stable."

"Oh come on. on. The woman was brutalized. We know that." Bentz scowled but couldn't argue. They'd found proof that Faith had endured unspeakable crimes while a patient at the hospital. The woman was brutalized. We know that." Bentz scowled but couldn't argue. They'd found proof that Faith had endured unspeakable crimes while a patient at the hospital.

"I know, but face it, this is a personal issue with you. Any crime that was committed is long over."

"Then what the h.e.l.l are these all about?" Montoya pointed to the clippings littering Bentz's desk. "Don't you think it's strange-one h.e.l.luva coincidence-that someone wants Eve Renner to know about Faith Chastain at the same time people who know Eve are being slaughtered?"

"d.a.m.ned strange." Bentz glowered at the newspaper clippings. All neatly clipped, with jagged, precise edges. All about Faith Chastain. Could it be that easy? That Faith Chastain's unknown child had just waltzed into the department carrying evidence linking her to the dead woman? Who would know about the adoption? Why bring it to the fore now, after thirty years? And how would Eve, being Faith's daughter, have anything to do with the murders?

Roy Kajak spent time at Our Lady of Virtues, not only as the son of one of the caretakers, but later, as a patient.

Terrence Renner was the head psychiatrist at the mental hospital before it closed.

Faith Chastain died at the old asylum.

Once again there were homicides and a mystery linked to the once-grand brick buildings now in decay.

"You're the one who doesn't believe in coincidence," Montoya reminded him.

"So what do you want to do?"

"Check it out. If Eve agrees. DNA test. Compare it to Abby's. If Eve is Faith's daughter, she should have enough matching markers to Abby."

"Don't need Abby's. We've got Faith's DNA on file, the lab took it when her body was exhumed. All we need is Eve's, if she goes for it," Bentz said. "She may not want to help us."

Montoya snorted. "She's holding back." He reached into his shirt pocket for a nonexistent pack of cigarettes then stuffed both fists into the pockets of his leather jacket.

"I think so too."

"Remember, she's still recovering from her attack, still has memory problems." Montoya made the statement as if he didn't believe it. "If you ask me, she's a nutcase."

"No argument there, but even so, someone's playing a head game with her." He reached into the drawer of his desk, found a bottle of antacids, and tossed a couple into his mouth. He wouldn't necessarily think the two incidents were related; a woman getting weird notes and two murders, but they all revolved around Eve Renner.

Why?

And how the h.e.l.l was Faith Chastain, a woman dead over twenty years, the mother of Montoya's fiancee, involved?

Montoya was restless, pacing in front of the desk, nervously rubbing the diamond stud in one ear. "Remember last fall and the siege at the old hospital, when we nailed the son of a b.i.t.c.h who was terrorizing Abby?"

Bentz knew where this was going. In the last case involving Our Lady of Virtues, the killer had warned Montoya, No matter what else happens, tonight is just the beginning. No matter what else happens, tonight is just the beginning.

Over half a year had slipped by. Montoya had started to believe that the killer had been rambling, shouting a dire prophecy that was little more than a bluff, but now he wasn't so certain.

Because of these clippings with their saw-toothed edges, left in Eve Renner's car. If they could believe her story.

"Let's not jump the gun," Bentz said. "We'll send these down to the lab, have them fingerprinted and checked for any kind of trace, and go from there."

"I've got to tell Abby." Montoya was already out the door. He spun on the other side of the threshold. "Be sure that I get copies of those."

Bentz nodded. "You got it." Through the open door, he watched as Montoya cut through the desks to the stairway then disappeared from sight. Bentz was left with the strange newspaper articles.

What was the connection?

He made a note to find out about Eve's brothers, her dead mother, and, if possible, her birth parents. Like it or not, he knew he'd have to make a visit to the convent at Our Lady of Virtues and talk to the Mother Superior.

Bentz turned to his computer, clicked open an old file, and found a clear photograph of Faith Chastain, noting her haunted beauty, the high cheekbones, straight nose, gold eyes, and wild ma.s.s of un-tamed dark curls. Abby Chastain was nearly a carbon copy of her mother, but Eve Renner? There could be a slight resemblance, but certainly not enough to make that kind of call.

He tapped his pencil on the desk again, then, using gloves, placed the clippings back into their envelope to take them to the lab. He didn't understand what was going on yet, but he knew, whatever it was, he didn't like it.

CHAPTER 15.

Deeds was late.

He was also p.i.s.sed as h.e.l.l.

"Tell me you're not s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up," he insisted as he ordered a beer from the bartender. O'Callahan's was dark and cool, filled with timeworn mahogany and leather, smelling of cigars, aged whiskey, and Cajun spices.

"I'm not s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up."

Deeds didn't accuse him of the lie, just accepted the frosty mug of beer and took a long sip, then glanced toward a couple of guys hanging out at the bar, where they watched a television mounted near the ceiling. Only a few patrons were seated around the scattered tables. Smooth jazz filtered from hidden speakers. One guy was shooting darts near the back by the restrooms. All in all, the place was quiet. Low-key.

"So you're minding your p's and q's?" Deeds was skeptical as he reached for some of the mixed nuts the bartender had placed between them.

"Yep."

"Then tell me Eve Renner's not back in town and you haven't seen her." He popped a couple of peanuts into his mouth.

"Can't do it."

"I knew it! Cole, are you out of your f.u.c.king mind?"

"Probably."

"This is no time for jokes," Deeds said furiously. He took a long pull from his gla.s.s, glanced at his reflection over the mirror, and said tightly, "So tell me what's going on."

Cole did.

For the most part anyway. He explained about Terrence Renner calling him and about visiting the farm, finishing with, "Renner was dead when I got there, but he hadn't been for long. I checked for a pulse. None. Nor was he breathing." Cole's voice lowered as he remembered the crime scene. "There were numbers written in blood on the wall and tattooed on his forehead."

"Like Kajak." Deeds tossed another couple of nuts into his mouth.

"Except instead of 212, the number was 101."

"You think it was the same killer?"

"Had to be."

"Then why change the numbers?"

"I don't know." Cole shook his head then took a long swallow from his draft. "Maybe the guy messed up, or maybe they were meant to be different. Who knows?"

"Just our killer."

"I've been wracking my brain, but I can't come up with a thing."

"You have to make a statement to the police."

"They'll try to pin this on me."

"Why would you kill Renner? And on the first day you're free? It doesn't make any sense." Deeds dusted his hands then drained his beer. "So, you haven't exactly been keeping your nose clean since you got out."