Hot Blooded

  "You wanted him to."

  Did she? That was kind of a sick thought. "I just figured he might and I could get a little insight into what it was he was talking about last night." She leaned on one crutch as a sudden thought struck her. "What about when you were hosting the show while I was in Mexico? Did he call you?"

  "Me?" Melanie laughed but the sound seemed brittle. "No way. This one, he's all yours."

  "Maybe."

  "Samantha?" Tiny's voice called down the hallway. "You've got a call on line two. Says his name is John."

  "What?" She froze for a second.

  "I said—"

  "I heard you." She twisted around and hitched her way back to the darkened studio, where line two was bunking ominously.

  "It's your guy," Tiny whispered, though no one could hear him until she clicked on.

  "Make sure you record this." Tiny nodded, restarted the tape. Sam grabbed Melanie's headset and leaned over the console, pushing the flickering button.

  "This is Dr. Sam," she said.

  "It's John." His voice was breathless, yet smooth—as if he was trying to pretend a calm he didn't feel. "Your John. I know you were expecting me to call, but I was busy."

  "Who are you?"

  "This is not about me," he said, and his calm seemed to snap.

  "Sure it is. What is it you want?"

  A pause. "I thought you'd like to know that what happened is all because of you. It's your fault. Yours."

  Her blood turned to ice.

  "What—what happened?" she demanded.

  "You'll know."

  Click.

  "What—what will I know?" she asked. The line was dead. "Damn." She tossed off the headset and stared at the console, willing a light to blink again. But the phone lines didn't illuminate. In fact the room seemed strangely dark and when she looked through the glass to the studio where she worked, she saw her own thin reflection as well as the translucent images of Tiny and Melanie in the clear glass— ghosts inhabiting the empty building.

  "It was him, wasn't it?" Melanie whispered.

  "Oh, yeah." Sam nodded.

  "You'd better call someone." Tiny rubbed the stubble on his chin and bit his lip as he stared at the blank console.

  "The police?" she asked.

  "No! I mean, not yet." Tiny shook his head and thought so hard he squinted. "I mean, maybe you should call Eleanor or Mr. Hannah."

  "I don't think I'll wake George up," Sam said, thinking of the owner of the station. George Hannah didn't like any ripples in the water. He wouldn't appreciate a call in the middle of the night. "I think he cherishes his beauty sleep."

  "Well, someone should know."

  "Someone does," she said, thinking of the smooth voice without a face. He knew what she looked like. Where she lived. What she did for a living. How to contact her. And she was at a distinct disadvantage. So far she knew nothing about him. Nothing at all.

  Chapter Five

  "We've got ourselves another one." Detective Reuben Montoya leaned a muscled shoulder against the doorjamb to Rick Bentz's office in the weathered stone building that housed the precinct. His black hair was glossy as a raven's wing, his goatee trimmed and neat. White teeth flashed when he spoke, and a gold earring caught the bluish glare from the flickering fluorescents overhead.

  "Another one?" Bentz glanced at the clock. Three-fifteen; he'd been on duty since 7 p.m., was about to call it a night. A fan was whirring behind him, pushing around warm air that the old air conditioner hadn't found a way to chill.

  "Dead working girl."

  The muscles in the back of Bentz's neck tightened. "Where?"

  "Around Toulouse and Decatur. Not far from Jackson Brewery."

  "Hell." Bentz rolled back his chair.

  "Her roommate came home and found her on the bed."

  "Have you called the ME?" Bentz was already reaching for his jacket.

  "He's on his way."

  "Has the scene been disturbed—the roommate, did she do anything?"

  "Just scream loud enough to wake everyone in the building, but the super swears he's closed the door and kept everyone at bay."

  Bentz frowned. "You know, this isn't really my baby. You should call Brinkman."

  "He's on vacation and besides he's a dick, and that's not meant to be a compliment." Montoya's dark eyes flashed. "You've got experience with this kind of thing."

  "That was a while back," Bentz admitted.

  "Not that long ago, and just cuz you're not officially working homicide here, doesn't mean jack shit, okay? Now, are you in or not?"

  "Let's roll." Bentz was on his feet and out the door, the lethargy he'd felt seeping into his bones half an hour ago replaced by a jolt of adrenaline. Through a room filled with beat-up desks and down one flight where their boots clattered on the old metal and linoleum, they hurried into the street, where Montoya's unmarked was parked illegally. Bentz didn't think about the consequences. Brinkman would probably be pissed, but then he always was, and Melinda Jaskiel, in charge of the Homicide Division, had pretty much given Bentz carte blanche.

  Despite what happened in LA.

  If she didn't like him taking charge, she could pull him off the case and call Fred Brinkman back from Disneyland. Bentz had always believed in asking for acceptance rather than permission. More often than not it got him into trouble.

  Montoya snapped on the ignition as Bentz climbed into the car. Though nearly twenty years Bentz's junior, Montoya had earned his stripes, hurtling over barriers of racism, poverty and attitude to land, at twenty-eight, as a full detective with the NOPD. He wanted to work Homicide and sometimes did a double detail just to be involved in murder investigations.

  He also drove through the dark city streets as if he were at Daytona. As the police band crackled, he managed to jam a Marlboro into the side of his mouth and light up while negotiating the sharp turns and keeping the wipers at the right tempo. The misty night clung, like a shroud, to the corners of the old buildings and mingled with the steam that escaped from the manholes in the street.

  Within minutes they skidded to a stop in front of the building. Montoya flicked his cigarette onto the street, where some of the beat cops were keeping a small crowd at bay and crime-scene tape was used as a shimmering yellow-and-black barricade. A couple of news vans had pulled up, and Bentz cussed the reporters under his breath. "Jesus, if they'd just give the cops a couple of hours to do their jobs before descending like vultures, it would help."

  A microphone was pushed close to his face but before the pert Asian reporter could spout her first question, Bentz growled, "No comment," and in tandem with Montoya took the front steps two at a time to a door tucked by the side of the deli, where a uniformed street cop let them inside.

  "Third floor," the cop muttered, and Montoya was a step ahead of him as they took the stairs to a cramped hallway that reeked of marijuana, mold and incense. People had gathered in the corridor, craning their necks, talking and smoking, all the while casting curious glances toward the door marked 3F.

  Montoya flashed his badge to a cop Bentz had seen around the precinct, but men the young buck got off on showing his ID. It gave him a "rush," the younger cop had admitted on more than one occasion. Bentz had long since given up on the authority trip. If LA had taught him anything, it was humility. There just weren't a helluva lot of reasons to be an asshole. A cop learned more from subtlety than intimidation. Though, at Montoya's age, Bentz, too, had thought differently.

  Standing in the doorway, Bentz took one look into the tiny room and his stomach clenched. Bile rose up the back of his throat as it always did when he viewed a murder scene, but he wouldn't admit it to a soul, and it immediately disappeared as he assumed his role as detective. He smelled stale coffee and blood, the stench of death, even in the early stages, noticeable, and heard muted conversation over a radio tuned to some soft music, an instrumental piece.

  "I want to talk to the roommate," he said to no one in particular.

  "She's in
the next room—3E—pretty shook up." The uniform, Mike O'Keefe, nodded to a door with chipped paint that was slightly ajar. Through the crack he caught a view of a pale, rail-thin woman with bags under her eyes, kinky brown hair and bad skin. Her lipstick had faded, her mascara had slid from her eyelashes to darken the natural circles under her eyes. She was smoking, swilling coffee and looked scared of her own shadow. Bentz didn't blame her.

  "Keep her there. I'll want to talk to her."

  "You in charge?" O'Keefe asked, questions in his eyes.

  "Until someone says differently."

  O'Keefe didn't argue.

  Careful to disturb nothing, Bentz walked past a small kitchen alcove where a glass pot was half-full of yesterday's coffee and crumbs from the toaster had scattered over a counter that hadn't seen a sponge in quite a while. The chipped sink was piled with dishes. Cobwebs hung near the ceiling light.

  The living area was small, occupied almost entirely by a double bed shoved into one corner. Upon the crumpled sheets the victim lay, half-dressed in a black teddy, eyes staring glassily at the ceiling where the blades of a fan moved lazily. She was around thirty, he guessed, white, with short dark hair and little makeup. Her throat was bruised and cut with tiny nicks where blood had crusted, as if she'd been garroted by some kind of kinky noose that cut into her flesh—like barbed wire or one of those S/M dog collars turned inside out. While her legs were spread wide, her arms had been placed together, fingers interlocked, as if she were praying. The perp had taken time to pose her.

  Bentz's gut tightened. "Time of death?"

  "Best guess—sometime after midnight, from the looks of her. The medical examiner will know more."

  "Name?"

  "Rosa Gillette according to the roommate and the super."

  "One bed? Two women?"

  "They just use the place for tricks. Rosa, here, and a couple of friends. The third, a woman named, oh get this— Cindy Sweet, sometimes known as Sweet Sin—she hasn't been located yet. They're independents, no pimp."

  "Check this out" Montoya pointed to a small table. Tucked beneath a candle was a hundred-dollar bill that no one had swiped. Odd, he thought. The roommate would have taken the cash or the perp would have retrieved it… then he noticed the mutilation—someone had taken a black felt pen to Ben Franklin's eyes. It wasn't the first time. His gut tightened.

  "Look familiar?" Montoya asked, dark eyes gleaming. The kid really got off on all this cop shit.

  "Yep." Bentz nodded. There had been another murder, much like this one. The victim, a prostitute, had been strangled with some unknown noose—one that bit into her neck in a distinct pattern like this one. "The hooker near the French Quarter… A few weeks ago. Cherise Something-or-Other."

  "Cherie Bellechamps."

  "Yeah. That's it," Montoya said.

  An odd case. A waitress and loving mother by day, a hooker at night, a woman involved in a custody suit that her ex-husband, by default, had won. "Shit," Bentz muttered under his breath. He'd seen enough. "Make sure nothing's disturbed for the team. Let's talk to the roommate."

  As he crossed the hallway the ME and crime-scene team clattered up the stairs. While they entered 3E, Bentz introduced himself to the frail-looking, tense woman, who, guardedly, said her name was Denise LeBlanc and after being assured that the cops weren't out to bust her admitted that she'd come back from a trick in the Garden District, to the apartment and found Rosa on the bed. Obviously dead. She'd started screaming, the super, Marvin Cooper, a beefy man of mixed race with few remaining teeth and a shaved head had taken charge, bolting the door and calling 911. Marvin, who occupied this studio alone, was leaning on the cabinets of the kitchen alcove, huge arms crossed over a black T-shirt while Denise chain-smoked and drank cups of coffee laced with cheap whiskey.

  "I know this is tough," Bentz said, as Denise lit a cigarette while the last was burning in an overflowing ashtray.

  "It's freaky, that's what it is. Fuckin' freaky." Denise's hands were shaking, her eyes wide.

  "Did you notice anything missing?"

  "How the hell would I know? I walked in and… and saw… Oh shit." Her head dropped to her hands and she sobbed. "Rosa was a nice kid… She had dreams of gettin' out of the business… oh, God…"

  Bentz waited, then said, "Was anything taken? Disturbed?"

  "The whole fuckin' place was disturbed! The guy who did it is disturbed! Shit, yes, it was disturbed." She was sobbing, and Bentz could coax little out of her.

  "I just want to find out who did this to her, and you'll have to help."

  "She's scared out of her mind," Marvin said gruffly. He sat next to Denise on the couch, and she curled up under one of his muscular arms. "I saw that C-note under the bedside lamp. When Denise started screamin' I ran over there and I saw that hunderd-dollar bill all messed up. Man, whoever did this is weird, I'm tellin' ya."

  "Did you notice anything else?" Bentz asked. "You saw the body."

  "Hell, yes, I saw her." His lips folded in on themselves, and absently he patted Denise's shoulder. "I saw the way that freak messed with her, leavin' her all spread-eagled and… crap."

  "So did you see anything you thought was odd?"

  "Everything, man!"

  This was getting him nowhere. "What about your other roommate? Cindy. Where's she?"

  "Dunno," Denise grumbled. "She and Rosa had a fight a week or so ago. Cindy split. Haven't seen her since."

  "She hasn't called?" Bentz asked.

  "No! Hasn't paid her share of the rent, either. I say 'good riddance to bad news.' She was a real pain."

  Bentz asked more questions and didn't learn anything new.

  For the most part, Marvin's story matched Denise's. As the night hours crept quickly toward dawn, Montoya and Bentz interviewed the other denizens of the Riverview Apartments. They discovered that no one admitted seeing Rosa enter with any man, nor had any person noticed a lone man leave. Bentz suspected so many people came and went that unless this guy was extremely unusual, none of the tenants of the building would take note.

  It was broad daylight by the time they headed back to the station. The streets were crowded with the rush of eight-to-fivers, only a few clouds drifting across the sky. Sunlight glared against the pavement and bounced off the hoods of other vehicles. Horns honked, engines thrummed and pedestrians filled the crosswalks, spilling around parked cars as New Orleans woke up. By necessity Montoya drove with a lighter foot, barely breaking the speed limit.

  Once in his office, Bentz yanked off his tie and took the time to check the files of open cases. It didn't take long to come up with the folder and computer information on Cherie Bellechamps, the prostitute who had been found a few weeks earlier. She, too, had been strangled with something causing a peculiar ligature around her neck. Cherie had been posed as well, in mock prayer in her seedy apartment. Left with a marred C-note on the bedside table, a loaded gun in the drawer, all the lights blazing and the radio playing. The crime-scene team had collected dirt, hair, semen and fingerprints. Whoever had offed Cherie hadn't been careful not to leave other evidence.

  The ex-husband, Henry Bellechamps, who lived on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain, had been the primary suspect, but with an ironclad alibi and no evidence linking him to the crime, he'd been questioned and let go. The local PD in Covington was supposed to be keeping an eye on him, but so far, nothing. Henry Bellechamps had suddenly become a model citizen.

  Bentz rubbed the stubble on his chin and twisted a kink from his neck. He'd have to check the guy out, see what old Hank had been doing earlier this evening, but it was his guess that the track driver was clean. At least as far as the murders were concerned. And the third roommate—Cindy Sweet—he wanted to hear what she had to say, know where she'd been.

  In the Bellechamps case, the crime team had collected dozens of fingerprints that had turned up some other suspects, all of whom said the last time they'd seen Cherie Bellechamps she'd been very much alive. Their alibis confirmed that they hadn't b
een in the apartment at the time of death. The hair samples and blood types hadn't matched those of the perp.

  So much for a break in the case.

  He glared at the computer monitor where a picture of Cherie's dead body was displayed and posed. So similar to the dead woman tonight. The murders had to be linked. Had to. They were too eerily the same.

  Wonderful, he thought sarcastically, as the fan blew hot air against the back of his neck, just what this city needs: a serial killer.

  Chapter Six

  "Have you met the new neighbor?" Mrs. Killingsworth asked as her dog, a tiny pug with a pushed-in snout and bulging eyes snorted and dug in one of her flower beds. "Hannibal, you stop that!" The pug ignored her and tore into a freshly turned mound of earth. "He never listens!"

  A matronly woman forever working in the yard in her husband's overalls, Mrs. Killingsworth had been pushing a load of peat moss in her wheelbarrow. She'd been headed toward the back of the house but had stopped when she'd noticed Samantha struggling to get her trash can to the curb for the next day's pickup.

  "What new neighbor?" Sam asked.

  "A man around thirty-five or forty, I'd say. He moved in about a quarter of a mile down from you in the old Swanson place." Edie Killingsworth motioned a gloved hand, indicating a spot farther down the oak-lined street "I heard he's leased the house for the next six months."

  "You've met him?"

  "Oh, yes, and he's quite something, if you get my drift." Gray eyebrows rose over the tops of wire-rimmed glasses held in place by a chain.

  The sun was intense. Bright. Edie Killingsworth's photo gray lenses were nearly black. Hannibal gave up digging and trotted over to plop down at her feet, where he panted, showing off his long tongue.

  "Something? Like what?" Sam asked, realizing what was to come as she wiped her hands on her jeans. Ever since Sam had moved in three months earlier, Edie Killingsworth had taken it as her personal mission to see Sam hooked up with a suitable candidate for marriage.

  "I'd say he's something like Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise and Clark Gable all rolled into one."