Lisa Jackson's Bentz And Montoya Bundle Part 55

"I don't know. I'm not sure that anyone does. It's one of the great mysteries surrounding the hospital. But Faith is with G.o.d now. She's no longer plagued and tormented by the demons in her mind. That's all that matters."

"Except that Courtney LaBelle and Luke Gierman were murdered and the obvious link between them is that they each had family members who were a.s.sociated with the hospital."

"Luke Gierman? The radio disk jockey? He had family here?" She frowned, thinking hard.

"Not him. His ex-wife is Abby Chastain. Faith's youngest daughter."

"Oh . . . I didn't realize." She looked off into s.p.a.ce. "That poor girl. What she saw that day . . ."

"You see why I need your help."

She glanced at him, touched his cheek with her cool hand. "I appreciate what you're doing. I know your job is difficult. You often see the gruesome and gritty side of life, but I don't know anything more that would help you." She smiled. "I'm sorry, Pedro." She glanced at her watch and stood. "I have kitchen duty in a few minutes, but it's been so good to see you again. Give my best to your mother."

"I will."

"And here." She reached into her deep pockets and came up with a rosary, the decades made up of blood-red beads. "Take this."

"I can't," he said.

She folded the rosary into his hand. "Of course you can. Use it, Pedro. Remember the saint you were named for. Capture his strength, his conviction." She wrapped her hand around his. "You'll be surprised at the power of G.o.d."

"'The power of G.o.d'?" he repeated. "Wait a minute, Maria, you're starting to sound like one of those born-again preachers. You know, like what's his name?" He snapped his fingers. "Billy Ray Furlough. Isn't 'the power of G.o.d be with you' his catchphrase?"

She looked away. "Is it?"

"I think so. You're scarin' me, Tia. Tia. I'd hate to think that you were straying from the order and starting to watch one of those fire-and-brimstone televangelists." I'd hate to think that you were straying from the order and starting to watch one of those fire-and-brimstone televangelists."

"That's highly unlikely." But she didn't laugh as he'd expected and the lines of worry around her eyes seemed to grow deeper rather than lessen as they walked out of the courtyard.

Montoya left the cloister and, with his aunt as his usher, wended his way through the dark, hushed hallways to the parking area. He drove through the gates of the convent but, rather than continue to the main road, turned at the fork in the road and onto what was left of the driveway that had been the entrance to the hospital.

He could get no farther than the fence. The old iron gates were closed, reinforced with a rusted chain and padlock, but he let the cruiser idle as he climbed out. With the d.a.m.ned alarm dinging a gentle reminder that he hadn't bothered to close the door, he walked to the barricade to peer through the iron bars and toward the decrepit building beyond.

The cement driveway was buckled, weeds growing through the cracks. The lawn was knee high and above it all the brick building rose a full three stories. The roof was missing some tiles and many of the windows had been boarded over. In the center of the edifice, squarely over the front door and above the broken fountain, a dormer with a round, colorful window jutted out from the otherwise unbroken roof line. What had once been a wide veranda with short stone walls flanked one side of the building. It was now covered with vines and brambles, and on the other end antiquated, rusted fire escape stairs began creaking as a gust of wind rattled through.

This was the link between the murder victims?

This tired, dilapidated building?

He thought of Abby as a young girl coming here to visit a mother who was out of touch with reality, a "troubled" woman fighting her own inner "demons," if Maria's estimation was to be believed. He considered his own family: poor, but united and, for the most part, happy. Five h.e.l.lions of brothers and two sisters. His family had struggled against poverty and all the temptations and frustrations lack of money caused, but the family unit had been strong, his parents firm in their faith and determined to make the most of their lives. He'd been encouraged to become an athlete, and his soccer skills and street-smarts had helped him get through college.

All of the cla.s.s struggles and racial barriers that he'd overcome seemed small in comparison with dealing with a weak-minded mother who had ended up flinging herself from an upper-story window to land on the cement in front of her daughter. What a h.e.l.luva thing for a kid to witness.

No one was paying attention.

The police were running around like rats in a maze.

The reporters had found other stories to keep them busy, and though there were occasional mentions of the "bizarre double murder" involving Luke Gierman and a coed, the story had slipped off page one and was beginning to go unnoticed.

Which was just not not right. right.

Didn't they understand that this was a matter of importance? That finally, retribution was being had?

He slid through the corridors of the old asylum, for that's what it had been no matter what fancy, kind, reverent, or even lofty name the building had been christened. He walked swiftly, running his gloved fingers intimately over the walls, trying to find some peace of mind. But even here, in his sanctuary, as he crept silently through the dark hallways, he felt no comfort, no calm. And the high that he'd experienced, the rush of blood and adrenalin that had come with the killings, was fading.

He moved onward, easing through rooms few remembered and those who did would rather forget. The smell of dust and misuse clung to the walls and settled upon the chipped tile floors. The ceilings leaked but he didn't care.

This was where he would work.

This would be his home.

This was the place he had always remembered.

This was where he would make things right.

Setting a lantern in the corner of one of the private windowless rooms, he viewed the old equipment that was still hung on hooks in the walls or packed away and forgotten on tilted shelves. Slowly he ran a finger over a strait jacket, its straps dangling almost to the floor as it hung suspended from a rusted hook. The jacket had once been white but had turned gray and smelled of mold. Standing alone in a corner where it had been tucked over a decade before was an electric prod; an instrument of torture that had been outlawed for use on humans, he thought, but used it had once been. He walked to a metal cart parked against the wall. The top was stainless steel, the drawers shallow. He opened the top drawer and spied surgical instruments, no longer shiny and razor sharp, dulled with the pa.s.sage of time, but organized by size and shape.

He swallowed hard. Remembered. Oh, yes, he remembered.

With a gloved hand he picked up a scalpel and held the slim blade close to his face, so that he could see his own reflection in the slender reflective surface. His eyes narrowed in the dim light and he thought for a moment that he could hear the horrible, tortured screams of those who had once been brought to this room, a place where practices and surgeries no longer deemed ethical had occurred.

He'd seen so many, the out-of-control and loud, all sedated and quietly wheeled into this very room.

Remembered each and every patient who had lived through the archaic, Machiavellian practices as well as those who had not.

He slipped the scalpel and a few other surgical tools into his backpack.

No one knew that he had survived.

No one knew that he was alive.

And no one cared.

But they would, he thought, feeling a warmth of antic.i.p.ation steal through him, oh, they would.

CHAPTER 10.

The afternoon sky darkened as Montoya made his way back to his cruiser and climbed inside. He executed a quick U-turn to leave the decaying old hospital behind. As he headed toward New Orleans, his cell phone rang.

"Montoya," he said, flipping on his headlights while Bonita Washington updated him on the Gierman-LaBelle murders. The upshot of the conversation was that there were no skin sc.r.a.pings under Courtney LaBelle's fingernails, no DNA evidence whatsoever. None of the fingerprints they'd pulled from the scene came up with any matches using AFIS, so either the killer hadn't left prints or he wasn't in the database. Courtney LaBelle's backpack had been recovered, but it was empty and pretty much a bust. No evidence collected from it.

Washington went on to say that the autopsy report showed nothing unexpected. Both victims had died from single gunshot wounds at close range. Both looked as if they'd been bound and gagged, most likely abducted.

"So," Montoya said as he accelerated onto the freeway and the d.a.m.ned rain started up again. "Aside from the size twelve shoe prints and one short dark hair on the wedding dress, we don't have a lot to go on."

"At least it's something."

"I guess. The hair's at the DNA lab now. I'll let you know when we get the report back. There is one other thing," she added as he flipped on his wipers. "The wedding dress that the female victim was wearing had all the tags cut from it but it looks d.a.m.ned expensive to me. The fabric's imported silk and there's intricate beadwork along the sleeves and neckline. I'd bet that it's a designer gown, not that I'm an expert, but I know someone who is. Maybe she can give us a clue as to where it was purchased or who designed it."

"Somehow I don't see our killer visiting bridal shows or meeting with dress designers."

"Me neither. It was probably stolen. Maybe bought at a secondhand shop, or on eBay. But it wasn't Courtney's. Aside from the whole 'giving herself to G.o.d' thing, the wedding dress is a couple of sizes too big. Courtney was a four or possibly a six, maybe, pretty small. The dress is an eight, I'd guess, and made for a taller woman. The hem's dirty where Courtney stepped on it."

"She wasn't wearing shoes. A bride would be in heels."

"Yeah, but probably not six-inch heels . . . this dress looks like it was made to order, especially designed, but not for Courtney LaBelle or anyone her size."

"So we need to know for whom."

"That would help. As I said, I'm talking to my expert, and if we find out where that fabric or the beads came from, we might find our dressmaker. It's not much," she admitted, "but at least it's a start."

"Hey, right now, I'll take anything. Thanks."

He hung up, drove for about three miles, then dialed Brinkman.

"Yeah?"

"Have we come up with the last people to see our vics alive?"

"Yeah . . . well, we think so . . . let me see . . . yeah, okay, I got my notes right here. Let's start with the Virgin Mary, okay? I followed her steps that night as well as I could, and the last people to see her alive were two girls who were going into the library about the time she was coming out, around nine-thirty. They're pretty certain and they know it was Mary. One of the girls, Jenny Ray, had her in the same communications cla.s.s. Jenny, too, caught Gierman's act at All Saints."

So did a lot of other students.

"So these two, they spied her, dressed in her running gear with her backpack. She was headed across campus toward the dorm."

"Her usual routine."

"According to the freakoid roommate, yes."

Montoya switched lanes. "What about Gierman?"

"We haven't found anyone who saw him after he left the radio station. But someone picked up his mail from the box and put it on the kitchen counter of his town house. I found it on the day we searched his place, so I figure he left the station, went home, hung out, maybe ate-as the autopsy report shows he had the remnants of lasagna in his stomach and I found the empty box of frozen lasagna in the trash. Then, I'm thinking he must've headed for the gym. But he was low on cash so he stopped at the ATM first.

"Now, before you ask, yes, I saw the bank's videotape from the ATM. Got him front and center in his workout clothes as he withdrew the cash. It's Gierman, all right. No one with him. I even checked the people who stopped at that ATM the hours before and after Gierman. Nothin' out of place. All legit."

"So we've got nothing?"

"Not much."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," Montoya grumbled, glaring at the minivan in front of him. A b.u.mper sticker was slapped onto the back bragging about the owner's kid. "What about word on the street? Anybody see anything? Hear about something big going down?"

"Not from the regular snitches . . . whoever did this is keeping his mouth shut. Or hers."

"I agree with Zaroster-not a woman's crime," Montoya said, irritated that Brinkman, as good a cop as he was, was still keeping Abby Chastain in the pool of suspects.

"Yeah, well, time will tell."

Frustrated, Montoya hung up. He drove toward the heart of the city, watching the New Orleans skyline come into view, tall buildings knifing into the gray day. But his thoughts were elsewhere, on the d.a.m.ned case. He felt the hours slipping away, as if some unseen clock was ticking, and he realized it was because of Abby with her seductive smile, intelligent eyes, and body that wouldn't quit. d.a.m.n the woman, she was getting to him, something that hadn't happened in a long, long while. There had been a time when any beautiful woman had caught his eye, but now . . . oh, h.e.l.l. His fingers tightened over the steering wheel and he swore under his breath. It was imperative that he remain completely clear-headed and impartial, but Ms. Chastain, the ex-Mrs. Gierman, was definitely clouding his judgment.

He hadn't liked how Brinkman had pushed her in the interview. For the first time ever, Montoya had considered the interrogation brashness out of line, which was d.a.m.ned ludicrous. He'd hate to count how many times he himself had done his own share of leaning on a witness, shaken 'em up a bit, waited for the truth to sift out. In Abby's case, it had been all Montoya could do to hold his tongue, to not step in, to G.o.dd.a.m.ned defend her. And yet, he'd forced himself to go along with Brinkman's tactics and hated every minute if it. The session had seemed more like an inquisition rather than an interrogation.

But then, his judgment wasn't as clear as it should be.

He probably should remove himself from the case, but couldn't stomach the idea of Brinkman running roughshod over Abby again, or teaming up with Bentz when he returned.

A h.e.l.luva time for Rick Bentz and his wife to take a honeymoon.

Montoya turned off the freeway, slowed as he entered the city and wound his way to the French Quarter. The city was teeming with people, as usual. Pedestrians vied with cars, buses, trucks, and mule-drawn carriages while jaywalking through the thick traffic. Even in the rain, street musicians played, their instrument cases open as they hoped for tips, people walked bareheaded or huddled under umbrellas, and the aromas from the local restaurants mingled with those of gasoline and oil.

And still his thoughts were with the case and Abby Chastain.

The bottom line, he thought, as he wheeled around a corner, was that whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was attracted to the woman. Physically and even emotionally. The first woman since Marta. And the worst choice possible.

Luke Gierman's ex, for crying out loud. And if not a suspect in his death, then certainly a person of interest.

She had the means and opportunity. And the motive? Over half a million dollars was a good start. The fact that Gierman had publicly ridiculed her didn't hurt.

But how could she pull a well-planned killing like that in so little time? And what about Courtney LaBelle? No, it couldn't happen. Even if she had wanted Gierman dead because of what he'd said on the radio, there just wasn't enough time to hire an a.s.sa.s.sin, set up the abduction and killings to make it look like . . . what? A lover's quarrel? Nah, no paid hit-man would do what was done to Gierman and LaBelle, despite the time.

Brinkman's theory was bulls.h.i.t. Plain and simple.

"d.a.m.n it all to h.e.l.l," he growled, catching sight of his reflection in the rearview mirror. He saw his own dark eyes, the purse of his lips, the determination in the set of his jaw. "Stay objective," he ordered. As the light changed, he drove the final two streets to the station's parking lot and nosed the cruiser into an open spot. Still irritated with himself, the case, and the whole d.a.m.ned world, he climbed out of the Crown Vic and took his foul mood up the main steps of the station.

Women had always been his problem.

He liked them.

And they liked him.

Plain and simple.

His stupid libido had a way of working overtime, or at least it had, until Marta. For a while he'd been a one-woman man, changing his womanizing ways for Ms. Vasquez.

But that was all over now, he thought as he climbed the stairs and walked into the offices of the homicide division. Computer keyboards clattered, phones rang, and there was a sense of urgency in the nest of cubicles and offices that spread out over the floor. Somewhere a copy machine was whirring out pages, and near Zaroster's desk a handcuffed and shackled suspect, his dreadlocks disheveled to his shoulders, his face unshaven, was talking with great animation. In jeans and a denim jacket with the sleeves cut out, he was speaking fast and jerkily, coming off of something, protesting his innocence vigorously to Zaroster and another detective.

Montoya nearly ran into Brinkman, who was heading out the main doors while slipping his arms through the sleeves of his jacket. "Get a load of that," he said, sliding a look at the suspect. "Involved in a knifing down off of Esplanade and Royal. Sc.u.mbag One here," he explained, hooking his thumb at his dreadlocks, "didn't like the fact that Sc.u.mbag Two was gettin' it on with Sc.u.m One's old lady. Grabbed a kitchen knife and that was the end of Sc.u.m Two." He made a theatrical slice across his neck with his thumb. "Ooops. I mean he 'allegedly' nearly sliced the guy's head off in front of the lady, and I use the term 'lady' loosely, considering the piece of a.s.s in question."

"Why isn't he in an interrogation room?"