Lisa Jackson's Bentz And Montoya Bundle Part 121

"His blood alcohol level is high," Montoya said, his gaze scanning the doc.u.ment. "Drugs? Alprazolam? A sedative?"

"Hmm. Brand name Xanax."

"He took it with booze?"

"Not a good combo."

"He was a psychiatrist, could have prescribed it himself."

Bentz nodded. "But we didn't find any bottles of the med at the house. I double-checked. No samples either."

"Could've used 'em all."

"Packets should have been found in the trash. Again, no dice."

Montoya scratched at his chin thoughtfully, sc.r.a.ping the bristles of his goatee. "So the doctor was out of it when he was attacked?"

"Uh-huh. The lab is all over it. They tested the bottle and, sure enough, plenty of Xanax mixed in with the Jack Daniels."

"So you're thinking the killer did this to him on purpose to sedate him, make him more malleable, easier to attack?"

"Looks like it to me."

"And no forced entry."

"Yes."

"He was visiting?"

"Only one gla.s.s at the scene. No evidence that Renner was entertaining."

Montoya pointed to the older file. "Kajak's tox screen came back clean, right? No booze. No drugs."

Bentz tossed the file to the younger detective. "Not even a trace of an antidepressant, and the guy had been under a psychiatrist's care for years."

"So you think our killer is evolving?"

Bentz shook his head. "Maybe." He stared at the grisly pictures of Roy Kajak. "I don't know." Frowning, he added, "I've already got a call from the Feds. They think there might be a link, a serial killer on the loose."

"So now we get to deal with the FBI."

"Looks like," Bentz nodded.

"Task force?"

"Probably. I've already got a partial list of everyone who knew Renner. Of course the neighbors heard nothing."

"The nearest one's pretty far away."

"Yeah, I know, but you'd think someone might notice a car parked in the drive, hear an argument, something, but no. I'm trying to chase down his sons. So far no one's returning my phone calls."

"Really?" Montoya said, surprised. "I did reach Kyle Renner's wife, Anna Maria. She's upset but couldn't tell me where her husband was. 'At work on a job out of town,' was her explanation."

"Thin."

"Very. As for the last person to see Renner alive, it might be the clerk at the liquor store where he bought a bottle of Jack Daniels."

"New bottle?"

Bentz nodded. "That's right. Purchased around four-thirty in the afternoon. Doctored after that."

"And no fingerprints?"

"None that shouldn't be there."

"Just like Royal Kajak's cabin."

"Yeah."

Montoya frowned. "You know, Eve Renner's right in the middle of this."

"Tell me something I don't know." Bentz stretched his arms over his head and rotated the kinks from his neck.

"Wish I could." Drinking from his cup, eyeing the b.l.o.o.d.y numbers smeared onto the walls and tattooed on the victims at both crime scenes, Montoya tried to figure out what the d.a.m.ned numbers meant. 212. 101.

Significant?

Or just a nutcase's idea of a joke, something to throw them off?

Time, he figured, would tell.

CHAPTER 17.

Eve locked the door then watched through the window as Cole walked across the overgrown yard to his Jeep. She couldn't help but notice the way his shirt pulled across his shoulders and the casual manner in which his ragged, faded jeans hung low on his hips. In her mind's eye she remembered his body, naked and hard, firm b.u.t.t muscles, legs so strong the skin stretched taut over his thighs and calves. And then there was his back.... Oh Lord, how she'd loved to trace a finger down his spine and experience his reaction. One slow, twisting movement of her index finger and his eyes would darken, his pupils wide. Eagerly his mouth would find hers, and he'd wrap those sinewy arms around her and pin her to the mattress, pushing her knees apart in one smooth motion...unless he rolled her onto her stomach first and, cupping her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, pushed into her from behind. She touched her lips and quivered inside at the memory.

What that man could do to her!

She watched as he opened the Jeep's door and found his sungla.s.ses, sliding them onto the bridge of his nose.

She thought of the kiss here in the kitchen and how easily it could have turned into more. Her mouth turned to sand at the thought of the s.e.x they could have had and might be having still.

Watching him slide into his rig, she called herself seven kinds of fool. What was she thinking, letting him kiss her?

Not smart, Eve, she thought, though she'd convinced herself that her memory of the night that Roy had died wasn't just faulty, it was flat-out wrong.

Cole wouldn't have tried to kill her. Of course not. She was missing something. The image in her mind was off somehow; that had to be it.

Her gaze was still on him as he yanked the door closed, then rolled down the driver's side window of the battered Jeep and, as if sensing her stare, looked up suddenly, catching her. d.a.m.n the man, if one side of his mouth didn't lift into a knowing, amused grin. Her silly heart fluttered, and she couldn't believe her reaction to him. "He's just a man," she told Samson as he hopped from a chair to the counter, then sat, tail twitching, defying her to scold him and shoo him off his perch.

However, she knew she was lying to herself.

Cole Dennis was not just another man. Which was just plain bad news.

Disgusted with herself, she tried to pluck Samson from his spot by the sink and only succeeded in brushing his back as he leapt from the counter. After landing softly on the battered linoleum, he slunk, ears backward, belly nearly sweeping the floor, down the hallway. Eve looked back to see the taillights of Cole's Jeep as he braked at the corner. She was a d.a.m.ned fool where he was concerned. Her feelings for him were, and always had been, a problem.

"One among many," she said as she hurried to the stairs and raced upward, not bothering to stop on the second floor. Tennis shoes pounding the steps, she climbed to the turret and headed straight for the old secretary desk her grandmother had used eons before.

Her grandmother had given the secretary to her, and Eve, delighted, had promptly stored all her precious nothings in the locked section. After all these years, she still had the key, and now she fished it off her key ring.

With a click, the lock sprang and the top of the secretary folded downward to become a writing desk. Inside were tiny drawers and cubbyholes meant for stamps and writing paper, sealing wax and pens. Behind the slots for envelopes was a false back and a small drawer that, if you pressed just right, sprang open. As a girl, Eve had hidden her most secret treasures in the tiny cache, but now the s.p.a.ce was empty save for a small leather key holder and the three keys inside, keys her father had given her long ago. Keys, she now hoped, that would open some very old doors.

What were the chances?

She palmed the smooth, worn leather and slipped the keys into her pocket. She couldn't sit around and do nothing.

When Sister Rebecca hadn't returned her call by early afternoon, Eve decided to seek the Reverend Mother out. Of course she was busy, of course she had a schedule, but d.a.m.n it, two people close to Eve were dead, two people who had connections to Our Lady of Virtues. Then there was the matter of Faith Chastain's pregnancy. If she gave birth at Our Lady of Virtues, wouldn't there be a record of it? Eve had already called the state offices and gotten nowhere, so she'd tried the Internet. Again to no end. If Faith Chastain had borne a third child, there seemed to be no record of it.

As for her own birth certificate, her biological mother and father were listed as "unknown." The story she'd heard was that she, as a newborn, had been left at an orphanage a.s.sociated with the order of nuns at Our Lady of Virtues. Word had gotten back to the mental hospital, and Dr. Renner had examined the baby. Since he and his wife had been thinking seriously of adoption, they'd made the necessary arrangements through a local lawyer, who, when Eve had checked, had died nearly twenty years earlier, the records of his business locked away in some storage unit that his only heir, a nephew living out of state, saw no reason to disturb. Short of a court order, those records were lost to her.

So it was time to do some digging on her own.

No telling what she'd find, she thought as she pocketed the small leather key case and returned downstairs to the kitchen, where, digging through a drawer next to the mudroom, she found a heavy flashlight. She clicked it on and, surprisingly, the beam, though weak, was visible. "Good enough."

Lastly she found an ancient, dusty backpack and loaded it with a few of her grandfather's forgotten tools: the flashlight, a roll of duct tape, a pair of gloves, and a small hand towel.

Half a second later, she was out the door.

The interview with the police was going to h.e.l.l in short order.

Deeds had set it up, and Cole had done his part. He'd admitted that he'd been at Terrence Renner's house on the night of his murder, had discovered the body and called in the homicide. He believed phone records would bear out his story and admitted he was wrong in not waiting for the police to arrive or in identifying himself. He also admitted to taking the briefcase with the laptop inside. The cops wanted to cuff him right then and there, but Deeds calmed them down, pointing out that Cole had come clean when it might have served his purposes to keep his mouth shut.

Montoya had been incensed, blistering in his condemnation that Cole had tampered with evidence. Deeds had suggested the department's computer techies check it out. He a.s.sured them that if the techs were any good, they would see nothing had been changed or deleted.

In the end, though deeply suspicious of his motives, the cops apparently believed that Cole hadn't killed Renner. Either that, or they didn't have enough to hold him. More than likely, they didn't want to arrest the wrong guy again and end up looking like idiots in the press.

Cole was nervous throughout the ordeal but tried not to show it. He sat in the straight-backed chair in the small, stuffy room with Montoya's near-black eyes glittering with suspicion and Rick Bentz pencil-tapping as he asked questions. Montoya, that p.r.i.c.k with his signature leather jacket and ridiculous diamond stud, was itching for a fight; it was written all over him. His expression was tense, his skin stretched tight over his face, his lips flat against his teeth as he spat out question after question around a wad of gum that he chewed furiously, as if his life depended on it. Cords showed on the sides of his neck above his collar, and one of his hands kept curling into a fist.

Cool, he was not.

As for Bentz, the older cop was methodical, slower, more even keeled, but, Cole sensed, as eager to pin the murder on Cole Dennis as his hothead of a partner. There was no game playing, none of the good-cop/bad-cop c.r.a.p you saw on TV, just two d.a.m.ned determined detectives.

"You broke the terms of your bail," Montoya pointed out, stuffing his fist into his pocket.

Deeds shook his head. "The charge was dropped. There is no bail to worry about."

"But there's still the matter of the marijuana found in his possession," Bentz said.

Deeds looked over the tops of his reading gla.s.ses. Disappointment was written all over his face. "We all know what that was about," he said, "and we're dealing with it. Someone set him up." Montoya opened his mouth to argue, and Deeds held up a hand. "Another time, another place, Detective. My client came in here voluntarily. He's committed no crime, and so, if there aren't any other questions, we're leaving."

"Theft is a crime," Montoya said, taking a step forward, but the accusation was without teeth, considering the laptop was now in the authorities' possession. Catching a glance from Bentz, Montoya checked himself but said tightly, "We may have more questions, Dennis. You're not off the hook on this."

Deeds got to his feet. "When you have enough to charge him, call me."

Cole sc.r.a.ped back his chair. The metal legs screamed against the old tile floor. He'd answered all their questions, told his story, and it was all he could do. Being in the small, airless room, pent up with detectives who were looking to trip him up, knowing that his every word and movement were being taped and that other cops were standing on the other side of the two-way gla.s.s, waiting for him to mess up, had nearly been more than he could bear.

Kristi Bentz thought she might puke if she had to take another phone call from one more cretin-client for one more insurance claim. How many dented b.u.mpers, broken windshields, bent axles, and smashed quarter panels was she supposed to hear about and pretend like she cared while the client raved on and on about the "idiot" who'd been "driving up my a.s.s" and rear-ended them, or the "moron" who stupidly had backed into the client at his local grocery, or the "a.s.s" who had been driving like a bat out of h.e.l.l while the client decided to switch lanes?

Now, seated at the small desk in her cubicle, her computer monitor showing off all of the "products" Gulf Auto and Life had to offer, she was talking to the mother of a fifteen-year-old who, despite the fact he had no driver's license, had taken the family's minivan out for a spin and ended up in the ditch. Now the woman was wondering if Gulf Auto would pay for the damages on the near-totaled vehicle.

Kristi had referred the woman to her agent and told her that she'd call an adjuster, but that wasn't good enough. Client/Mother-of-an-Imbecile wanted Kristi's promise that she was covered.

Holy Mother of G.o.d.

"I'll have Ms. Osgoode call you," Kristi said and finally was able to hang up.

She had a few more hours of paperwork before she could go home.

Home.

A studio apartment in the University District that was furnished with hand-me-downs and pieces she'd picked up at the local thrift stores. It was cozy enough, she decided, but not exactly where she'd thought she'd be now that she'd graduated from college. Nor was this dead-end job the height of her aspirations.

No way.

Not when there were true-crime cases to write about and she had an insider's view on some of the most interesting homicides in this town. And the most interesting one at the moment was right under her nose, the victim being Dr. Terrence Renner, the suspects all connected to that spooky old mental hospital located not too far out of town. What could be more perfect?

Who cared if her father didn't want her involved?

She could do a little digging on her own, start her own file. From writing for crime magazines and being cheap, cheap, cheap with herself, she'd already managed to save enough money that she could quit this job. She could work nights as a waitress or bartender to survive while researching and writing her book during the day.

So her social life was a big fat zero.

Big deal.

She'd kind of struck out with the boyfriend thing long ago.