“Ms. Benchet is helping us with a case.”
“What case?” Tawilda’s eyes were round. Then they narrowed on Olivia. “You didn’t tell me anything about a case. What’s goin’ on?”
“She’s not at liberty to discuss it now,” Bentz said. “In fact, it would really help out if you could tend to the store while I speak with Ms. Benchet for a few minutes alone.” He glanced at Olivia. “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
Olivia pulled her arm out of Bentz’s grasp.
“Is she bein’ arrested? Don’t you have to read her rights to her or somethin'?”
“She’s not being arrested,” Bentz said.
“It’s all right, Tawilda.” Olivia forced a smile. “But if you wouldn’t mind, I think I need to talk to him.”
“I do mind. I mind that you didn’t tell me about this,” Tawilda snapped. “I knew something was up with you, girl. You’ve been acting strange for the last couple of days and I thought it might have somethin’ to do with your mama comin’ to town, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?” She gave Bentz the once-over with her dark eyes. “Oh, go on.” With a shooing motion of her long fingers, she gestured for Bentz and Olivia to go out the door. “I’ll handle things here, it’s about time for you to be off anyway. Now, you do whatever it is you have to, just don’t you be holdin’ out on me, y’hear?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, “ Olivia drawled. “I owe you one.”
“You owe me a million, but who’s countin'?”
“You are. Every single one.”
“Well, maybe.” Tawilda rolled her eyes. “And I intend to collect.”
“You will,” Olivia insisted, then said to Bentz, “Give me a minute to get my things.” She ducked through the beaded archway and into the back rooms to the office, where she located her purse stuffed inside a closet. In one motion, she tugged her jacket from a brass hook and stuffed her arms down the sleeves. Finger-combing her hair, she made her way past boxes of inventory yet to be catalogued and stocked, then rattled the beads as she returned to the front of the store.
Bentz was waiting at a display of dried alligator heads sporting Santa caps. “The perfect gift for that hard-to-buy-for someone,” Olivia quipped as he held the door open for her. Along with a blast of cold air, two middle-aged women bustled into the shop.
“I’ll remember that on Christmas Eve when I go shopping. Aunt Edna’s a bitch to buy for. I’d been thinking along the lines of chocolates or a new pair of slippers but I bet what she’d really like is the gator head with the red hat.”
“Wouldn’t anyone?” Olivia stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket. The smell of the river was thick, the wind blowing across its muddy depths cold and raw. “So were you trying to lay a trap for me?” Olivia asked as they walked toward Decatur Street. The sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians bustling in and out of the shops and restaurants facing the streets. Cars, trucks, and carriages drawn by mules filled the streets. On one corner a street mime was standing motionless. In front of him an upturned hat, sprinkled with a few dollars and coins, was an open invitation for donations.
“I just wanted to see if we were on the right track.”
“That girl, the one with the tennis racquet, is the one.”
“And the other one? How do you know her?”
“I don’t. Not really,” she said, thinking hard. Tiny pictures of the woman, cracked shards, cut through her brain. “The image I got of her wasn’t as intense, but I feel like I’ve seen her before. And yes, in my dreams. Last summer, when I was here taking care of Grannie, I think. I had several nightmares. About her. It was in bits and pieces, but… I’m sure she’s the woman. Someone was shaving her head … and positioning her … and choking her.”
Bentz guided her into a café that boasted strong coffee and even stronger drinks. They took a table near the window where the street was visible through the glass and a candle was flickering in a small hurricane lantern. “Was the same guy you saw the other night, the priest, was he choking her?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “As I said, I only saw bits and pieces.”
“And the guy in the cave with the woman who was left to starve?”
“I already told you, I’m not sure.” She shook her head as a waitress took their orders for coffee then moved to the next table. “It must be. But I don’t remember a priest … just … there was something the same about it … besides the terrified woman, there was… a necklace or chain. Like the one I saw the other night, the one the priest left over the showerhead.” She shuddered at the intense memory, the scent of fear and smoke. She glanced at Bentz across the table, his features shadowed in the dark room, warm candlelight playing upon his skin. His eyes were a dark gray. Intense. Suspicious and yet … there was another emotion in their steely depths. She hadn’t remembered the connection of the chain at the time, but now it seemed important. “You have to believe me, Bentz. I’m not making this up. I couldn’t.”
“I know.” He nodded as the coffee was deposited.
“Anything else?” the waitress, a gum-chewing girl of about eighteen, asked. Bentz looked at Olivia.
“You want something?”
“No … this is fine.” She wrapped her fingers around the cup and the waitress, popping the gum, sauntered off. “So. Did I pass?” she asked as Bentz leaned back in the booth. “The pictures. Did I pick out the right ones?”
He nodded over the clink of spoons swirling in cups and soft conversation. “Right on the money.”
“So now you’re wondering, What’s her connection? It can’t be that she actually has ESP or whatever you want to call it, so she must have some other way of knowing what happened at the murder scene. Right?”
“It’s crossed my mind,” he admitted and her temper snapped.
She shot to her feet, banging the table and sloshing coffee from her cup. “Well, when you figure it out, would you let me know? It would help me out, too. I wouldn’t feel like I was going out of my mind.”
“You’re not,” he said. “Please. Sit down.” He motioned toward the other side of the booth and reluctantly she took a seat again. “There’s something else I want to talk to you about.”
“What?” she asked and sensed she wasn’t going to like the subject matter. She dabbed at the spilled coffee with a napkin.
“Your mother.”
“What about her?”
“She was married to Oscar Cantrell.”
Husband number three. “She was married to a lot of people,” Olivia said, then immediately regretted her flippant tone. “Okay, right, she was married to Cantrell for a while.”
“You ever meet him?”
“At the wedding, but that was it. My mother and I aren’t particularly close. I thought I told you all this.” She dropped the wet napkin onto the table.
“Bear with me,” he said and she got the impression he was leading up to something; something she wouldn’t like. “It turns out that the house where the last Jane Doe was killed the other night is owned by some people who live out of state. They rent it through a management company, Benchmark Realty.”
She waited but he didn’t elaborate. “So?”
“Benchmark Realty is owned by Oscar Cantrell.”
“What?” she whispered, disbelieving. “Do you think he’s involved?”
“We’re checking,” Bentz said, not elaborating.
“As I said, I met Oscar at the wedding. He was short, maybe five-six or -seven, and he wasn’t built like the man I saw.”
“He could’ve lost weight.”
This sounded all wrong. She remembered Oscar. A teddy bear of a man with a big nose, red cheeks, and a quick, wide smile—the salesman’s salesman. A far cry from the intense, reined-in anger she felt in the murderer. “Why would Oscar use a place that could be so easily traced to him? That would be stupid.” She was certain Oscar Cantrell wasn’t the suspect. “Doesn’t he have an alibi?” She looked at Bentz, who was sipping his coffee and studying her ov
er the rim.
“We’re checking that out.”
“My mother wasn’t married to him but about two years, I think. Maybe two and a half on the outside, so if you think that there’s a connection to me through Oscar, you’re barking up the wrong tree. As I said, I only met him once.”
“You ever meet any of his family? A brother? Father?”
“No. During the time that Bernadette was married to Oscar, I lived with my grandmother.”
“Did they have any children?”
“No! I don’t have any half-siblings. I only had my sister and she died years ago.”
He nodded, as if he understood, but Olivia saw the shadows in his gaze. “What is it?” she asked. “You don’t believe me?”
“Just trying to piece this all together.”
“Don’t you trust anyone?” she demanded. “What is it with you, Bentz? Are you so jaded from your job that you can’t believe anyone or is it more than that? Did something happen to you personally?”
His lips twitched. “Why don’t you tell me? You’re the psychic.”
That did it. He’d been hard-nosed from the minute he’d stepped into the shop. Suspicious all over again. “I’m outta here.” She snagged her purse from beneath the table.
“Wait a minute,” he said as several heads swiveled from the nearby booths.
“Forget it. I’m sick to death of being second-guessed. I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, okay? It doesn’t make any sense to me, either. But there it is. I thought … I mean … don’t you believe me? Didn’t you say that… Oh, hell, it doesn’t matter!” She huffed off and wondered why she bothered trying to explain anything to the bull-headed cop. She heard him slapping bills onto the table and felt his arm on her as she reached the front door.
“Olivia—”
“Can it, Bentz. Whatever it is you want to say, just can it. I’m not interested. I’ve done my part, my good citizen bit, and I’ve suffered enough of your disbelief and suspicion and your insults. Enough already.”
“You can’t blame me for being skeptical.”
She spun on him, bumping into his chest. “I can and I will. Take me at face value or leave me the hell alone.” She was overreacting, but she didn’t care. Who the hell was he to second-guess her? To mock her? She expected more from him and, damn him, he kept letting her down. One minute he seemed to trust her, to open up to her, to even go so far as kiss her, for God’s sake, then the next thing she knew they were back to this, the hard-nosed cop with all the questions.
She darted across the street, dashing through traffic, hearing a horn blast as she jaywalked. She half-expected Bentz to pursue her and slap a ticket on her, but she made it back to the shop without being accosted and didn’t bother looking over her shoulder to see if he was still standing on the other side of the street staring after her.
It didn’t matter.
Because the feelings she had for him, the desperation she felt to make him believe her, not just to solve the crime, unfortunately, but for personal reasons she had no right to feel, were ludicrous. She was being a fool. Of the highest order. A fool of a woman over a man.
That, she told herself, was going to stop. Pronto.
The Chosen One was restless. Edgy. Irritated as he paced in his chapel. He’d read the accounts of the fire in Bayou St. John. No mention of the sacrifice. Just a victim who’d died in the blaze. As if she’d accidentally succumbed to the flames.
Ahh … Cecilia. What a beauty she was.
The police were withholding evidence, of course, but they were morons. Cretins. He’d watched them arrive, a pathetic group and they hadn’t yet connected his “crimes.” That’s what the imbeciles would call them—crimes. Like he was a common criminal. They had no idea of his mission, that what he was doing was God’s work. And he was far from finished.
No amount of prayer could calm him. He reached into his closet to his private cache and fingered the pieces of fingernails and toenails, the tiny trophies he’d taken and he relived each encounter. Closing his eyes, aware that his cock was stiffening, he saw himself in the mirrors he’d set upon his altar, the way he’d been able to see his victims’ fear and his own mastery in the reflective glass, the way they’d begged. He’d ached for each of them, suffered the torment of wanting to claim their blasphemous, heathen bodies. The Jezebels had been so outwardly innocent, so inwardly evil. There were so many of them.
One more important than the rest. The cop’s daughter. That one was personal. Smiling, he thought of her … soon … soon.
Deep in the recess he found the braid, the one he’d so carefully woven, strands of different colored hair winking in the light from his candles … brown, black, blond … but no red. A flaw. One he would have to correct. He rolled the plait between his fingers, imagined each terrified face of the whores, remembered cutting a lock of hair first, while they still believed they would live, while they were sending up prayers of repentance for crimes they didn’t believe they’d committed, then tucking the trophy under his neoprene suit, close to his body. Foolish cunts. Daughters of Satan. Whores each and every one.
Slowly he parted his bath robe, letting it fall open. His cock was hard. Throbbing. Standing at attention. He dragged the braid across himself, feeling the light caress, as soft and teasing as a harlot’s lips. He stiffened, sensing the driving need to release. His blood pounded through his veins, thundered in his ears, ached in his groin. Oh … for just the touch of one mouth upon him … one evil kiss … He felt the need to touch himself, to let go, but he didn’t. No. He would not give in to the base desire to relieve himself.
Instead he imagined the whores’ faces. Beautiful. Seductive. Wicked. Tear-stained in fear, begging him to let them service him, bargaining for their wretched lives. He smiled. Sweat ran down his back and face. They were his in death. Did they not know he’d saved them? Martyred them?
But he needed another … a soul to save … another Jezebel to add to his harem of the dead… one more lock to add to his braid … tonight.
He had the place. It was ready, a crude altar, but a place of sacrifice nonetheless. Hidden. Dark. The weapon waiting.
The time had been preordained. He looked at the calendar. November twenty-fifth, the feast day of St. Catherine of Alexandria, patron saint of maidens … of philosophers … of preachers … of students … how fitting … oh, yes, it would be perfect.
It had to happen tonight. Before the stroke of midnight. God was waiting.
Chapter Nineteen
Olivia had trouble shaking off her confrontation with Bentz. What was it about the man that made her so crazy? What did she care what he thought? She locked up the shop and was going to pick up her things when the phone rang. The recorder would pick it up, of course, but being as it was near the holidays and all, she plucked the receiver off the phone and said, “The Third Eye. This is Olivia. How can I help you?”
There was silence, but she knew that someone was on the other end.
“Is someone there?” she asked, glancing through the paned windows to the darkened street. The shop itself was shadowed, only the security lights giving any illumination. “Hello?”
“Olivia?” A man’s gravelly voice.
“Yes.” Hadn’t she already identified herself? “Can I help you?”
“I hope so.” A second’s hesitation as if he were gathering his thoughts. “This is your father.”
Her heart plummeted. She didn’t say a word. Couldn’t.
“You probably don’t remember me. I’ve been away a long time, but I was hopin’ that you and I, we could get together.”
She leaned against the wall. Frantically her eyes darted around the shop to the darkened displays, as if she expected Reginald Benchet to pop out from behind a Mardi Gras mask or the rack of books on witchcraft. “I… I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“How do you know?”
“Look, let’s just leave things the way they are,” she said, sweat prickling her scalp.
br /> “Well, that’s the problem, Livvie,” he said and the use of her nickname in his thick southern drawl gave her the creeps. “I’ve been away a long time and I had plenty of time to think. To reassess my life. I didn’t call you right away, didn’t contact your mother, didn’t even come to your grandmother’s funeral even though I read her obituary in the paper. I thought I’d give us all some time to get used to the idea that I’m a free man.”
I’ll never be used to it. “Why would that make any difference?”
“Because I’ve changed, Livvie. I spent a lot of time alone, and a lot of time reading, reevaluating, even philosophizing. I’ve let Jesus into my life, into my heart, and I’ve not only paid my debt to society, but I’ve repented for my sins and taken Jesus Christ as my personal savior.”
“That’s good …” she said, winding the cord around her fingers and wishing there were some way to break the connection. She didn’t need a father now, not the kind of father Reggie Benchet was.
“You bet it is. And I’m going to prove myself.”
“How’s that?”
“By doing the Lord’s work. Spreading His word. I’m a minister now, Livvie, and now that I’m on the outside it’s time to visit my daughter. You’re the only child I’ve got left, you know. I’ve lost the others. When a man spends as much time as I did in prison, he learns what’s valuable in life. And it’s family, Olivia. Family and God.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for this,” she said. “In fact, I know I’m not.”
“Give it some thought.”
Not hardly. “I will,” she lied.
“The Lord be with you, Livvie.” He hung up before she did. Olivia closed her eyes for a second.
He’s your father, her mind nagged, but she wasn’t buying it. “He’s the sperm donor. Nothing more.”
But he’s changed. Turned over a new leaf
Something else she wasn’t buying. From what she’d heard about Reggie Benchet, she’d learned that he was a con artist of the highest order, someone who could talk the skin off a rattler. She didn’t want anything to do with him.