Devious (45 page)

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Authors: Lisa Jackson

BOOK: Devious
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“Except for the missing nun. Sister Lea,” Montoya said, biting into his corn bread, then brushing the crumbs from his goatee. He scowled, not liking his train of thought.
“Right.” But it wasn’t enough. The connection to Father Frank O’Toole wasn’t strong enough. Even if he had been involved with Lea and Camille, what about Asteria, Lucia, and Louise?
His thoughts in a tangle, Bentz finished his lunch, draining his Diet Coke and tossing all the remains into a trash can while he considered the fruitless morning. Uniformed cops had scoured the grounds and buildings of St. Marguerite’s convent, cathedral, and cemetery and had come up with nothing. Nada. Zilch. No signs of a struggle, no dead body, nothing on Louise Cortez. And who the hell knew where Lucia Costa and Cruz’s motorcycle had ended up.
The neighbors, as usual, hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual. Father Frank had an alibi: Father Paul. They had spent the night talking, working on sermons, and praying until long after midnight.
Louise could have been kidnapped in the morning, so O’Toole wasn’t completely off the hook, but still . . .
Montoya finished his ribs, ignored the slaw, and took two more bites of his corn bread before tossing the remains into the trash. Together, each lost in his own thoughts, they returned to the station.
“And so I agree with Father Thomas. I feel it’s our duty to attend the auction tonight,” Father Paul insisted. Once again, he’d asked Sister Charity to round up the novitiates, nuns, and laypeople so that he could lecture them on what was expected, his version of a pep talk. With a solemn-faced, quiet Father Frank O’Toole at his side, Father Paul was trying to convince everyone who had gathered in the meeting room to go about his or her business—no,
God’s
business—as normal.
As if they could!
Was he out of his mind?
After what had happened here?
His was the-show-must-go-on mentality.
Sister Charity listened and nodded her agreement, though her commitment to the auction was waning, and she had to force her lips into a curve of accord. She’d done it all her life, of course, followed the rules, obeying the church’s law, trusting in the Trinity, in her church. She’d accepted that only men became priests, and most of those men were good, God-fearing men whose faith was unshakeable. The few bad apples, and there seemed to be more of them than she had ever thought, were tarnishing an institution that had existed for more than two millennia and that would stand until the end of time.
For those who dismissed organized religion as unhealthy, as taking away one’s right, one’s individual opinions, she said, “Bah.” The church was good. The people within it were good.
But Father Paul, right now, standing near the windows, was pushing her to the limits of her patience in insisting they partake of the festivities at St. Elsinore’s tonight.
Outside, visible through the panes, a storm was brewing, dark clouds smoldering overhead. The rain was predicted to start around four, a storm unleashing all its fury around six, just in time for the festivities at St. Elsinore’s.
Sister Charity’s heart twisted. To the depths of her soul, she loved St. Elsinore’s, and she’d been giving her heart, mind, and body to the upcoming auction, had been excited to be a part of it, not only as someone who had grown up there, but also as a member of the church.
However, things had taken a tragic and dire turn.
With two of her novitiates missing and two more murdered, it hardly seemed right to leave the convent and partake of any of the celebration tonight.
Why not? What good has staying here done?
A deep sadness settled in her chest. Though she hated to see the orphanage at St. Elsinore’s moved, the building marked for the wrecking ball, she had thrown her heart and soul into helping with the transition.
How the choir would perform without Sister Louise was beyond her. But they would make do. She was a firm believer in God giving a person only what he or she could handle.
Father Paul was leading them all in prayer, though the nuns and staff were nervous, had been on tenterhooks all morning, with the search of the convent and property and then the inevitable questions from the police.
All the women were worried about Sister Louise and Sister Lucia, as well they should be.
She glanced down, saw she was wringing her hands, and caught a warning glance from Father Paul. Today, she thought, he was insufferable, unbending and pushy, when he should have been kind. Understanding.
Couldn’t the same be said of you, Charity? Haven’t you always run a “tight ship”? Haven’t you always been the captain? While the priests might have been the admirals, working from a distance, you have been the stalwart leader, the person directing these nuns to their paths. Have you always been kind? Or understanding? Or has your rigidity become your Achilles heel, the weakness that will eventually bring down your ship? And who will pay? You? Or those you have trusted with the oars, the women who have come to live here under your guidance, who have trusted in you to steer them straight, the very young innocents you saw and recruited? Truly they are your “sisters,” Charity, for you have no others. You never have.
She swallowed a sudden lump in her throat and stiffened her spine. This was no time for retrospection or second-guessing.
Her gaze returned to Father Paul, a desperate priest gathering his flock. Beside him, Father O’Toole stood, white-faced and stricken. Unlike the impassioned Father Paul, the younger priest was just going through the motions of his profession, his expression slightly dazed.
Father Frank O’Toole’s mind, it seemed, was several thousand light-years away.
“
J
ust for the record, I think this is a big mistake,” Slade said. He was futzing with his tie, scowling into the mirror and trying to talk Val out of attending the St. Elsinore’s auction.
She wasn’t about to be dissuaded.
“I know. You’ve said—oh, about a hundred times.” She was already dressed in a black silk sheath and heels, her hair twisted onto her head. “Let me do that,” she said, and fixed his tie, then saw their reflection in the full-length mirror she’d propped into a corner of her bedroom. “Oh, God, look,” she said, and grinned at their reflection. “It’s so
not
us!”
“Thank the good Lord for small favors,” he mocked, but grinned at the image—she in the floor-length dress, black because she was in mourning, he in dark slacks and a white shirt, tie, and jacket, his hair combed, his jaw devoid of even the smallest beard stubble.
A far cry from the dusty jeans and faded work shirts they’d both worn on the ranch. Though, she reminded herself, she’d already packed a small bag filled with a flashlight, her tennis shoes, and a change of clothes. She intended to look around the old school tonight, to find out more about her birth parents and whatever it was that Camille had found, while the auction was in progress.
She hadn’t mentioned her plan to Slade, didn’t want to hear his arguments. Not that he didn’t have legitimate concerns; ever since she’d received her latest threat, she’d been edgy. Somehow she’d become a more pressing target. From
You’re on the lisssst
to
You’re nexxxt!
As Slade said, she was coming up in the world, at least from the killer’s perspective, and it gnawed at her. Big-time. Then there was the worrisome fact that two more nuns had gone missing. She’d talked to Bentz earlier, and he’d informed her that Sisters Lucia and Louise were missing. So far, no bodies had been located, and no one was certain whether they were alive or dead—though Bentz had hinted he believed Sister Lucia was still with the living.
Slade, upon hearing the news, had flat-out refused to attend the auction, but when she’d told him she was going with or without him, he’d been forced to agree. “No way are you going there alone!” he’d said, and hadn’t accepted her offhanded remark about being with hundreds of people.
The bottom line was that people were being killed. People attached to St. Elsinore’s and St. Marguerite’s.
Nuns, she reminded herself, and didn’t want to think about the prostitute who had also been killed. The press had tried to link the murders, but so far the police hadn’t indicated that they were connected.
Any way around it, the citizens of New Orleans were worried.
And, truth to tell, so was she.
A part of her wanted to run and hide, but the other part, that section of her that had become a cop, was ready to track down this sick, anonymous coward and nail his ass.
Slade’s gaze met hers in the mirror. “But you do look amazing,” he admitted. “You know, we could order in and spend the night in bed.”
“No way.” She gave his tie a yank. “We’re going!”
“I love it when you’re bossy,” he said, and grabbed her, pulling her tight, and there in front of the mirror kissed her hard.
“Uh-uh, you’re not convincing me,” she said with a grin when she pulled her head back and looked him square in the eye. In heels, she was nearly nose to nose with him.
Nearly.
“I’m on to you, Houston,” she warned with a wink, then before he kissed her again slid out of his arms and hurried out of the bedroom. Bo, who had watched the entire dialogue, trotted after her to the living room, where she noticed the rain had begun to fall, thick drops drizzling down the windows. “Summer storm,” she thought aloud.
“An omen.”
She glanced over her shoulder as he walked into the room. “I don’t believe in omens.
“No? Well, I do.” And with that, he found his pistol and shoved it under the waistband of his slacks before throwing on his jacket.
“We’re going to a church auction,” she reminded him.
His smile held no fraction of amusement. “Exactly.”
The call came in just before five.
Cruz’s motorcycle, none the worse for wear, had been located, parked and locked at the bus station in Baton Rouge. A state cop had seen it, called in the plates, and discovered that it had been reported stolen, Montoya’s name listed as the contact person at the NOPD.
“We need it. Part of a homicide investigation,” Montoya told the officer. “The bike was stolen by a witness.”
“Records say it belongs to a Cruz Montoya.”
“My brother.” Montoya sketched out an abbreviated story for the cop and made arrangements for the Harley to be secured and brought into the garage at the crime lab. Maybe there was a clue as to where Lucia Costa had run to left on or around the bike.
He hung up the phone and got online to check the bus company’s routes and schedules. The earliest Lucia could have arrived in Baton Rouge was around three in the morning, so Montoya checked all the buses leaving from two-thirty on. It took almost an hour for the company to double-check records, but there was a bus that left for Houston at 7:00 a.m.
Did he believe she headed west?
Not really.
Her mission was to ditch Cruz, to fool him, so she wouldn’t have played her hand so carelessly. Nuh-uh.
Montoya was sweating as he rolled back his chair, the air-conditioning unit on the fritz again. The St. Elsinore’s auction was scheduled in an hour, and he intended to be there, to look through the crowd, see who was there. Maybe the killer would show his face; then again, probably not, but Montoya had the gut feeling that the homicides of Camille Renard and Asteria McClellan had been conceived earlier, perhaps starting at the first place they had crossed paths, if only fleetingly, and that was St. Elsinore’s orphanage. The connection was there, but not complete, like a train whose cars were on the track, one after the other, but not hitched together.
So some of the women who had been orphans at St. Elsinore’s had ended up as nuns and novitiates at St. Marguerite’s. Was that so odd?
He picked up his paper coffee cup, its few swallows of java staining the inside, cold and nearly congealed from the morning. He tossed it into the trash under his desk and realized that the noise in the department had lessened, most of the staff having left for the day.
But not Bentz.
As Montoya stepped into the hallway, he noticed that Bentz’s desk lamp was glowing through the open doorway of his office, soft light spilling into the corridor.
Montoya poked his head inside and found his partner, shirt-sleeves rolled over his forearms, elbows on the desk, a clump of hair falling over his eyes. He had jotted notes all over a yellow legal pad, but his gaze was focused on his computer monitor, a split screen with two victims visible. Grace Blanc, the prostitute, was on one half, and another, a woman he didn’t recognize immediately, filled the second half of the monitor. She looked familiar in the crime scene and was splayed in the same position as Grace had been left.
Shit, he realized, it was a picture of Cherie Bellechamps, one of Father John’s victims back when he was terrorizing the city a decade earlier.
Both women were half dressed, their red hair mussed, their eyes those of the dead, the purple scars surrounding their necks sporting the deep cuts from irregular beads—in the case of Bellechamps, a rosary.
“What gives?” he asked, taking in the two, nearly identical images.
“Father John,” Bentz spat out angrily. “I didn’t want to believe it, but I think he’s back.” Bentz tossed a sheet of paper across the desk to Montoya. “Just got the blood type back on the sperm found in Grace Blanc,” he said. “Guess what? It matches that found in the sperm left in all of Father John’s victims ten years ago.” He reached into his desk drawer, found a pack of Juicy Fruit gum, and silently offered Montoya a stick. When his partner declined, he unwrapped a piece and tossed it into his mouth. “It’s not DNA, but . . .”
“I was hoping that son of a bitch was dead.”
“You and me both, but look.” He pointed to the monitor with its grisly photos. “The crime scenes are nearly identical. I suppose they could be copied, but would the new killer have the same rare blood as John?” He was shaking his head.
“Well at least we know who he is.”
“Do we?” Bentz clicked the pen in his hand. “Probably has a whole new ID, maybe even a new goddamned face.” From the file, he withdrew a photo of the killer, one from ten years prior. “I’ve already requested computer enhancement on this. What would he look like with a beard, without, as a blond . . . Oh, crap, who knows what he looks like now? Damn it all to hell!”
Montoya studied the old photo, and his stomach soured. “So you think he could be one of the priests that we’ve been talking to?”
“Or not talking to. Father Thomas has been pretty damned shy, and Camille worked at St. Elsinore’s in the clinic. You know, I bet if we looked hard enough, we could find a pharmacist attached to St. Elsinore’s. They’ve got pharmaceuticals there.”
“Look, even if you’re right and Father John has come back and assumed some new identity, he can’t have new fingerprints and certainly not DNA . . . or blood type.”
“Yeah, well, here’s the kicker,” Bentz admitted in disgust. “That blood type?” He snorted. “It’s the same as Sister Camille’s baby’s. He’s the fu—effin’ father!”
Slade held the umbrella over Valerie’s head as they dashed across the hotel parking lot of the boutique hotel to the dinner part of the auction.
The hotel was built in the early eighteen hundreds and recently refurbished to its antebellum charm. Huge white columns supported a wide front entrance flanked by rows of paned windows over ten feet tall. Each window was framed by black shutters and gas lanterns that were blazing against the gathering storm.
Beneath a covey of umbrellas, guests of the hotel funneled through the main doors, their raincoats shedding water, their jewels and smiles flashing in equal splendor. A news team had arrived, the van parked across the street, the reporter Brenda Convoy and her cameraman nearby, filming the arrival of the guests—everyone from the mayor to local television personalities, sports figures, and businessmen and women who were a part of the Crescent City’s populace and culture. There were rumors that Trey Wembley, son of one of the city’s richest men and a current Hollywood heartthrob, would be in attendance.
Brenda Convoy, Valerie thought sourly, wouldn’t want to miss that interview.
“I hate these things,” Slade whispered, already tugging at his tie as Valerie greeted Sister Simone, who was serving as a hostess.
Tonight the nuns from St. Elsinore’s and St. Marguerite’s were wearing traditional habits, and Sister Simone was no exception. Her wimple and coif were stark white against the flowing black serge of the holy habit, a wooden rosary hanging from her belt.
“Good to see you again,” Simone said with a smile.
“You, too.”
“So here you go.” She handed Valerie a manila envelope printed with the symbol for St. Elsinore’s. “There’s a program in this packet, along with a list of the items you can bid on and a paddle with your number on it, just in case you find something you can’t live without.”
“Thanks!” Val said, though she had no plans to bid on any of the items.
With Slade’s hand steadfastly at her back, they moved inside, along with a rush of other guests, through a foyer of mirrors, marble, and potted palms. In the center stood a massive table, upon which an ornate display of tropical flowers—anthuriums, birds-of-paradise, and torch lilies—bloomed in bursts of vibrant color.
A string quartet played soft music at the foot of a grand staircase. Wide steps with a deep floral runner wound upward before splitting to the second floor. With gleaming mahogany rails and white balusters, the staircase was reminiscent of the most beautiful of plantation homes.
In the foyer were black-and-white photographs of St. Elsinore’s, propped up on easels, a veritable history of the buildings, showing how the church, orphanage, and grounds had changed with the years. Hundreds of children and scores of teachers, nuns, and nurses and a few priests were caught in long-ago fragments, tiny instants of time.
So many of the people had passed on, Val thought, eyeing the displays and noting the change of fashion in the children, the addition of electrical and telephone wires in the shots, the growth of trees, the morphing of the vehicles in the street from carriages and wagons to Model Ts, the big boats with fins of the cars of the fifties, then increasingly sleeker vehicles.
In one of the more recent pictures, the 1960s or ’70s, judging from the vintage of the cars, Val caught a glimpse of the spire of the cathedral and an oak tree. A solitary nun, dressed in a dark habit, her sleeves voluminous, was reaching for the hand of a small child.
Val froze, her eyes on the image of the nun’s face, young and unlined, yet still harsh, her dark eyes glinting. In her other hand she held the links of a rosary, a silver cross dangling through her slim fingers.

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