Lisa Jackson's Bentz And Montoya Bundle Part 140

But what about Anna Maria? Her first name was the same backward and forward. She knew no one close named Bob or Lil or Ava or Gig, or any other name that could be construed as reading both backward and forward. But what about someone called dad or mom? Cole and she had worked on a list of potential victims, and Cole had even thought that Sam Deeds-if you used just his first initial, as 'S. Deeds'-could be another person in the killer's sights.

It was twisted. Made no sense. But it must mean something, and it was somehow connected to Our Lady of Virtues and Faith Chastain.

Eve had called Anna's cell phone, but her message had been instantly sent to voice mail. Desperately wanting to know that her sister-in-law was alive and well, she'd next phoned Kyle, only to get a terse greetings, "Leave a message."

Great.

She was already sick with tension. Not being able to reach Anna Maria only ratcheted up her level of anxiety.

Cole sat cross-legged on his sleeping bag, leaning over his papers, T-shirt stretched tight over his shoulders, the waistband of his jeans pulling low enough to show a slice of his bare back. He glanced up and caught her eye on him. "Quit ogling me and get back to work."

"I'm not ogling."

He smiled infuriatingly. Eve looked away. She found herself shocked to realize her anger was dissipating. d.a.m.n it. She was way, way too susceptible to this man. And she was infuriated with herself for caring.

"Look at all these numbers and words backward and forward," he said, bringing her back from her self-flagellation. "I put the numbers by the names, the way I think the killer has them...see?

"I've seen this before," she said but sat down beside him, careful not to let her and his skin touch anywhere. She stared at the sheet again. Samson wandered over to her and settled into her lap. Idly, she petted his head and back, stroking his long fur as she read Cole's bold block letters.

[image]

"Just look more closely. I think the doll represents you. It was found up in the attic, in a place that hadn't been disturbed since you were a child, and then again in your bed."

"Oh great," she muttered.

"I know," he said, the muscles in the back of his neck tightening. "But he didn't go after you. Just did things to scare the h.e.l.l out of you."

"Mission accomplished," she whispered.

"Sick son of a b.i.t.c.h," Cole muttered harshly as he pointed at the numbers. "Do these mean anything to you?"

She stared at the list and shook her head. Samson rolled onto his back, purring. "I've thought about this a hundred times over, and the only thing that comes to me is the floors of the hospital."

"Meaning?"

"Well, both my dad and Sister Rebecca had offices on the first floor, and then, I think, when Roy was back at the hospital as a patient, he was on the second floor. The attic would be the fourth floor."

"What about Sister Vivian?"

Eve lifted her palms. "But she could have been a patient at one time."

He ran a finger down the numbers. "Okay...let's take it a step further. Did your father's office have a room number?"

"Yes. Number one. He liked that. I remember because he'd whisper to me, 'I'm number one.' You know, like every football team heading for a bowl game."

"And Sister Rebecca?"

"Not sure. Her office was down the hall from Dad's."

"Could it be room eleven?" he asked, reopening the cap of a half-drunk bottle of cranberry juice and talking a long swallow.

"Yesss..." Samson batted at her hands, as, lost in thought, she'd quit petting him. She absently began to stroke him again.

"Do you think it's possible that these are room numbers of the hospital?"

"Maybe. But what about the attic? There were no numbers up there."

He screwed on the cap and dropped the bottle onto the floor next to the open box of donuts. "Maybe I'm all wet...but, okay, think about it. If the attic were sectioned off into rooms like the floors below, what numbers would they be?"

"You're taxing my brain." Examining this so closely brought her fear bubbling to the surface.

"Come on, Eve," he urged. "The rooms on the second and third floor were stacked directly above each other, the composition the same, so imagine the floor beneath the spot where you made your little fort or whatever you want to call it. What room was that? Three forty-four?"

"Could be..." She fought back her urge to push this away and tried to remember the configuration of the halls.

"Maybe your little attic nest would be where room four forty-four would be if there were a set of rooms up there."

"That's a pretty big leap, isn't it?"

Cole inclined his head in agreement. "But it's something. The only thing we've really got."

"Which isn't much," she said, disheartened, then reached for her phone to call Anna Maria again. "Please answer," she whispered, but once again the call was sent directly to voice mail.

It was nearly five when the call came in from the lab. "I think it would be best if you all come on down here," Bonita Washington told Bentz. "See for yourself what we've got."

"I'm on my way." He turned to Montoya, who was cradling a phone to his ear while scribbling notes.

"Yeah...yeah...Okay...Got it!" He hung up and explained. "Another case...The knifing down at the waterfront. Got a snitch who's coming in later to say what went down. What's up?"

"Washington called. Wants us to come down to the lab ASAP."

Montoya grabbed his jacket. "Serious stuff."

"Sounds like it."

On their way past Lynn Zaroster's desk, Montoya dropped off his jotted notes. "I'll be gone for a while. If this guy calls in"-he tapped the note-"get the info, and I'll call him back. I'm not sure he knows anything, but he's making noise like he knows what went down the other night near the park."

"Got it," she nodded and placed his note near her phone. "I think I've got a lead on the priest, Father Paul, who used to work at Our Lady. Paul Swanson. He's retired. Might be in a nursing home or a.s.sisted-care facility. I'll let you know if and when I locate him."

"Good. And Le Mars?"

"No luck yet." She twirled a pen in her fingers. "I'm checking with all his known contacts, friends, family, old girlfriends. So far, zilch. But I'm still working on it."

As they all were. Bentz and Montoya each had spent hours running down leads on Ronnie Le Mars. They'd all ended up going nowhere. Zaroster's phone started ringing again. "This might be it," she teased. "The call that breaks the case."

Montoya snorted. "From your lips to G.o.d's ears."

"Yeah, that's right. G.o.d and I are real tight. He answers all my prayers p.r.o.nto." She reached for the phone. As they headed downstairs, they heard her answer, "Homicide. Detective Zaroster..."

They found Bonita Washington in the photo lab, talking with Inez Santiago. "Montoya...glad you came along. Come over here and take a look at this." She guided them to a long counter and switched on undercabinet lights. "Here's the original photo that Abby Chastain took of the hospital. There's definitely a shadow of a man in the window. Now, I could give you the long and boring speech about how we enlarged, sharpened, and enhanced the image, but it doesn't matter. What does is this." She pointed to the last in a series of about twenty prints. "It's the clearest image we have."

"Pretty good," Bentz observed. The image was definitely a man, a big man, his features a little muddy but distinct enough to be recognizable.

"Not pretty good, Detective. It's d.a.m.ned good. Got it? d.a.m.ned good. Now...take a look at this."

She handed him a mug shot of Ronnie Le Mars, the same picture Bentz had already viewed when he'd checked the computer records. "I'd say this could very well be your guy."

Montoya, who had been silent so far, nodded. "It's him."

"Maybe." Bentz wasn't completely convinced.

"Good chance," Santiago piped up. In a lab coat, her red hair twisted onto her head, she added, "We've got more good news."

"That we do," Washington agreed. "Blood work." She led them around a corner and along a well-lit corridor to an area dedicated to examining bodies and body parts. "We've got company," she announced to A. J. Tennet, who was seated on a rolling stool and staring into a microscope.

He looked up. "Good." Sliding his chair along a counter, he stopped sharply and picked out some papers from a basket. "First of all, the blood found at the Eve Renner house was porcine, not human."

Bentz felt a wave of relief. "I think we found the pig."

Tennet nodded. "We're double-checking that now and looking for any other stains or epithelials in the coffin."

"The coffin's old," Washington explained. "We figure it might have been used before. We're taking soil samples from the area around Our Lady of Virtues, from the pig's hooves, and from the coffin, just to see that they match. Any other trace evidence, including the sheet, will be a.n.a.lyzed."

"Good."

"Montoya, why don't you go over the lab work here with A. J. in more detail," Washington suggested. "Detective Bentz, I'd like to show you something else. In private."

Montoya lifted a dark eyebrow, obviously curious, but didn't follow as Washington led Bentz into her office.

"What's going on?" he asked as she closed the door behind them.

"Something I thought you should find out about alone. Then you can handle it any way you see fit."

"Okay." Bentz felt more than a little apprehension. Bonita Washington had always been a straight shooter. Never pulled any punches. Not into high drama in the least. "So what's up?"

"The DNA report came in on Eve Renner."

"She's not related to Faith Chastain," Bentz guessed. "We already know that Faith had a son who died at birth, the baby who was supposed to be in that coffin."

"Then you got your information wrong." She handed him the report. "Not only does Eve have enough identical genetic markers to make it clear that she is Faith's daughter, she also has markers that match another person."

"Who is that?" Bentz asked. "Ronnie Le Mars?"

"No."

"Not Roy Kajak?"

"No." She was staring at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Then I don't know. Who else?"

Washington looked him squarely in the eye. "You, Detective," she said, watching his reaction. "According to our tests, and I ran them three times to make certain of the data, you're related to Eve Renner."

CHAPTER 30.

"There's got to be a mistake," Bentz declared, disbelieving. He was holding his hands up and shaking his head emphatically as the wheels whirled in his mind. "I never met Faith Chastain. Never."

"Well, someone related to you did. And it was a whole lot more than just meeting her."

"Wait." There had to be something wrong! But the first dark worm of understanding was boring through his brain. "Jacques Chastain was her husband. He could have...There's a mistake," he repeated.

"You're not listening to me, Detective," she said determinedly. "This is Bonita. I don't do anything half-a.s.sed. I checked your daughter's DNA as well. We still had a sample on file from that case a few years back, you remember, with that psychopath who called himself the Chosen One?"

Bentz nodded. Both Kristi and Olivia had nearly lost their lives because of that twisted maniac.

"So I ran the sample...and sure enough, bingo, Kristi's an instant winner too. Related to Eve Renner."

"Through Eve's biological father." Bentz felt the need to sit down, but he stayed on his feet by sheer will.

"I knew there was a reason you were promoted so quickly." She slapped the reports into his hand and let him scan them for himself. Some of her bad-a.s.s att.i.tude fell away, and her intense green eyes appeared surprisingly compa.s.sionate. Pushing a hank of kinky hair from those eyes, she said, "Look, Bentz, I don't know what this means, other than you and Eve are related, but I figured you might want to process this yourself and decide how you're going to tell the rest of the department. Anyone working on this case will be privy to this information."

He shook his head to clear it. How could this be? Who in his family had even met Faith Chastain. For a second, he questioned his own legitimacy.

With a kindness he hadn't thought her capable of, she added lightly, "I figure you owe me big-time."

"Diamonds. I know."

"You got that right." She patted his shoulder. "Remember: big ones."

Report in hand, Bentz connected with Montoya, who was on his phone pacing through the labyrinth of hallways, deep in conversation. "Uh-huh...I'll check it out. Yeah, that's fine....We're done here now. Okay, we'll meet you there. Thanks." Montoya fell into step with Bentz. Together they headed out of the building. "That was Eve Renner," he explained. "She and Cole Dennis have cooked up this theory. Kind of out there, and I wouldn't buy into it all, but it's a lot like yours."

"How so?"