Hot Blooded (43 page)

For a second he closed his eyes and let his thoughts tumble ahead. To the coming night. To Melanie Davis and his plans
for her. His fingers tangled in the rosary—sweet, sweet instrument of death to those who sinned.

At this moment Melanie was expecting the surprise of her life.

What she didn’t know, was it would be her last.

“Somethin’s up,” Montoya said, edgy and nervous, his black hair gleaming under the harsh lights of Bentz’s kitchen, where three rosaries were lying on the table beside a plastic tub and various dishes, saucers, plates, even old margarine containers held a few glittering beads.

“What’s up? What do you mean?” Bentz picked up one of the beads and rolled it in his fingers. Plastic, the facets rounded.

Montoya reached into the fridge and grabbed a bottle of near beer. “You got anything stronger?”

Bentz shook his head. “If you want booze, there’s a tavern two blocks down.”

“You’re off duty.”

“I’m never off duty,” Bentz grumbled.

“Shit.” Montoya eyed his partner’s’s half-drunk cup of coffee on the counter, the near-empty glass pot pushed against the stove where a stale loaf of bread and a container of
lite peanut butter was testament to Bentz’s dinner. Montoya twisted off the cap of the bottle. “This is un-American.”

“No fat, no booze, no nicotine. It’s about growing older.”

“You’re barely forty, for Christ’s sake…just don’t tell me there’s ‘no sex,’ okay, cuz I don’t wanna hear it.” Montoya kicked out one of the kitchen chairs and took a seat. “And what’s this?” He motioned to the table where Bentz was conducting an experiment.

“What’s it look like?” Bentz asked.

Montoya swilled half his bottle. “A damned campfire project.”

“Guess again,” Bentz said.

“Okay, okay, I see the rosaries. This is about the weapon the killer uses. I thought we already established that. We checked the wounds, saw that this sick-assed creep strangles his victims with a rosary. Hell, he left one on the mannequin at the party. So he’s a wacked-out Catholic. There are enough of them out there.”

“Watch it.” He pinned Montoya in his glare. “I’m one.”

“Hey, me too, me too…well, I was.”

“You will be again,” Bentz predicted. “We all go back.”

“Another aging thing?”

“Yeah. Now, take a look. This one’s a duplicate of the one we found wrapped around the mannequin’s neck.” Bentz wrapped the first rosary with its clear beads around his hands. Then he placed both hands in a big plastic tub and gave a little tug. Beads split off, singletons, those in segments, all flying into the plastic vessel. “Not too strong,” he observed. “Not meant to be used as a weapon.”

“We knew this, too.” Montoya reached into the tub and picked up three beads held together by thin wire. “Okay, so where did he buy the superstrength version?”

“I’m betting he didn’t.” Bentz held one of the beads up to the light, stared into the clear facets. “My guess is that he made his own. Selected really sharp beads, sharp enough
to cut skin, strung “em together with some heavy-duty wire and probably prayed as he counted off the Hail Marys and Our Fathers.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just use a rope or the wire?”

“Not symbolic enough. Our boy gets off on all of this…there’s all sorts of undercurrents here…you know, I’m starting to think Samantha Leeds knows what she’s talking about. She suggested the killer made some kind of reference to
Paradise Lost.
I think I’d better pick up a copy.”

“I might have the
Cliff’s Notes,”
Montoya admitted, and when Bentz started to smile, “Hey, I had a lot of shit to get through in college. So I used the notes and the Internet. It saved me a bundle on books.”

Bentz dusted his hands and reached for his coffee cup. “You said somethin’ was bother in’ you.”

“Yeah. I’ve been tryin’ to track down the two guys from Houston—Annie Seger’s boyfriend and her brother. They’re both supposed to live around here, right—one in White Castle, the other in Baton Rouge? Both have jobs and they’re both AWOL. Missing in action. Why?” He took another swallow from the alcohol-free beer and made a face. “I hate to say it, but I’m startin’ to buy into Wheeler’s theory that it has something to do with Annie Seger’s death. Maybe she didn’t commit suicide.”

“You think John killed her?”

“Yeah,” Montoya said, “and I think he’s either Kent Seger or Ryan Zimmerman.”

“Okay, then what about motive?” Bentz flashed him a mirthless smile. “And don’t try to sell me that it’s all about money, cuz I’m not buyin’.”

“Me neither. Not this time. But there’s something we don’t know about Annie Seger,” Montoya said, then drained his bottle and set it on the table near the tub of glittering rosary beads, “but we damned well better find out.” He
climbed to his feet and asked, “Where the hell are Zimmerman and Seger?”

“Good question.” One Bentz couldn’t answer. Yet.

“I’ve got a bad feelin’ about this.”

“Just now?” Bentz snorted. “I’ve had a bad feelin’ all along.”

Voice mail picked up. Ty didn’t even get a chance to talk to Estelle Faraday. He just had to leave a damned message. Again. “Estelle, this is Ty Wheeler. I’ve talked to the police here in New Orleans and given them all the information I have. If you haven’t put two and two together yet, it looks like the serial killer here is somehow tied to Annie’s death. Family secrets be damned, Estelle. People are dying. If you know anything about this and are holding back evidence, you’re guilty, and the police will charge you with the appropriate crimes. This is serious. You can either talk to me or the New Orleans Police Department, but if another woman dies, I will personally hold you responsible. You’ve got my number.” He slammed the receiver down and walked into his living room. He’d dropped Sam off at the station an hour earlier, and her program was due to hit the airwaves in an hour.

He flipped on the radio, listening to the tail end of Gator Brown’s program. Hot jazz flowed through the speakers, the kind of music that wound Ty up rather than calmed him down. But, then, tonight he was restless. On edge. Feeling the electricity of the storm rolling in. He checked his watch. Navarrone was supposed to meet him, share information with him.

But he hadn’t shown up yet. Not that Ty was worried about him. Navarrone was a creature of darkness, felt more comfortable in the camouflage of the night after years of working with the CIA.

Whistling to his dog, Ty walked outside, felt the wind kicking up and watched the
Bright Angel
bob against her moorings. The moon was blocked by clouds, and the heat was oppressive. Muggy. He felt as if he was wearing a second thick, damp skin.

He thought about John, lurking somewhere in the depths of the city. Waiting. Ready to pounce.

So where are you, you son of a bitch,
Ty wondered, as Sasquatch sniffed around the shrubbery.
And what the hell are you doing tonight?

Estelle Faraday sat by the pool in the darkness. The water glowed a bright aquamarine, compliments of a single, flat submerged bulb. A tall, glass pitcher of cosmopolitans was sweating on the table and her stemmed glass, nearly drained of the pink concoction she’d claimed as her most recent favorite drink, was in one hand. It tasted more bitter than usual, tainted, but she didn’t care. What possibly could be wrong with vodka? Sipping her drink, she tried to drive the demons from her head.

But they were still there, relentless, clawing and screaming at her brain.

She’d feared it would come to this, prayed that her worries were ill founded, but she knew now they weren’t. Ty Wheeler’s urgent messages on her voice mail convinced her. He wasn’t going to give up. She’d suspected as much when he’d shown up here in Houston. Even so, she’d threatened him, foolishly hoping that he’d back off.

Instead, he’d called her bluff.

But then, he hadn’t been the first.

Oh, she’d been so naive, she thought as the night closed in and she remembered her daughter—bright, beautiful, and attracted to the wrong kind of boys…not just the wrong kind, but boys she should never have been with.

And she’d gotten pregnant by one.
It seemed a legacy in this family, a damning genetic flaw she’d passed on to her daughter.

Tears of regret and shame filled Estelle’s eyes. She sipped her bitter drink, and when the glass was drained, poured another and swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. No one was home. She was alone. Again. Even the maid had taken the night off to be with her children and grandchildren.

Dear God, how had she ended up alone? she wondered fuzzily. She’d had it all when she was younger. Good looks, money and a future as bright as a newly minted silver dollar. But she’d been headstrong and wanted to show her snobby parents she could make her own decisions.

She’d never loved Wally. She knew that now. She’d probably known it then, but he was a good-looking, witty boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Never mind that he hadn’t gone to Yale or Harvard or even Stanford, oh, no, he hadn’t even taken night courses at the local junior college. He’d been raw and wild and spent all his time working on motorcycles. But, in the beginning, he’d been kind to her at a time when kindness was as rare as a torrent in the desert.

Estelle had found Wally deliciously different. Her parents had been horrified. She’d never intended to marry him, of course, but circumstances had changed her goals.

“Don’t kiss boys, Estelle,” her mother had warned her often enough when Estelle started high school. “It’s the devil’s doing. Remember there are only two types of girls—bad and good. You’ll never have any self-respect if you do any of those nasty things. Trust me. Be a good girl. You’ll never regret it.”

But Estelle kissed plenty of boys and nothing bad had happened. In fact she’d liked kissing, especially when a boy pressed his tongue into her mouth. Oh, how she’d replayed those intimate kisses over and over in her mind. Though she’d felt a little naughty when her dates had progressed
and boys had pawed at her, worming their fingers into her bra cups and stroking her breasts, she’d also liked the feel of her blood running hot, of that darkness between her legs aching. And when a boy had reached beneath her skirts and panties and touched her in that private spot, she’d tingled and gotten moist and wanted more. She’d acted like an animal, gasping and grinding her hips and
wanting.
She’d read about passion for years, hiding under the covers with a flashlight and feeling her face heat while between her legs she’d felt that funny, achy feeling that left her yearning for more and finally, as she began making out with boys, she realized there was a way to assuage that need.

So when she began to experiment and allowed a boy—after the fifth or sixth date and promises of love, of course—to touch her, she’d known it was a sin, one she couldn’t really confess to the priest, but she couldn’t stop herself. She enjoyed it,
craved
it, thought depraved thoughts about it and wanted it all the more. Unlike her mother’s dire predictions, the boys were so attentive, so eager to kiss and touch her, so ready to tell her how beautiful she was, how they loved her.

Stupidly she’d believed them.

She’d lost her virginity at sixteen to a boy her mother had thought was the perfect match and afterwards, he’d never taken her out again, never called, and bragged to his friends about his conquest. Her mother had continually asked about Vincent, what had become of him, why she wasn’t going out with him and she’d felt the first realization of what her mother had professed.

From then on, every boy wanted to do it with her. When she’d rebuffed them, they’d gotten angry, reminding her that she’d spread her legs for Vincent Miller.

In some respects Estelle had enjoyed scandalizing her mother. Until she’d relented and done it with a boy she really liked and turned up pregnant. Abortion was out of
the question, and as she was a minor, she’d let her mother talk her into lying about “taking a semester abroad at a private school” when in reality she only went as far as Austin, where she gave the baby up for adoption.

“It’s the kindest thing,” her mother had insisted, and Estelle had made the single biggest mistake of her life. She’d gone away, had the boy, and watched as the doctor who’d delivered her firstborn had regarded her with cold, judgmental eyes and handed the squalling infant to a nurse who had whisked him away.

Foolishly Estelle had blamed her mother and upon returning to Houston found Oswald Seger. At least Wally had been kind. Considered her feelings. Hadn’t pushed her, and when they had finally gone all the way, he’d called the next day and sent her a single red rose that she still remembered.

Wally had exhibited a romantic side, along with his love for all things mechanical, and as soon as she was eighteen, they’d eloped.

Kent had been born ten months later, Annie in the next couple of years. Her horrified parents had cut her off, only to reclaim her at the birth of their grandson. And the rest, as they say, had been history, a history she’d rather forget. She realized when the kids were little that she’d never be happy with an oil worker for a husband, that Wally’s fascination with motorcycles and boats was coupled with his inability to balance a checkbook or save a nickel.

Fortunately she’d met Jason Faraday…well, she’d thought it was fortunate at the time. Now, as she finished her third cosmo and the alcohol seeped into her system, she wasn’t so certain. There were other secrets, ones she’d never looked at too closely, ones that haunted her days as well as her nights. She couldn’t survive another scandal…there had been far too many.

Head spinning, she gazed at the pool. Into its clear liquid
depths. Into the aquamarine seduction of the smooth water. Nearby stood the statue of the Virgin. Pale in the thickening dusk, her arms spread wide, welcoming, inviting.

Tears slid down Estelle’s cheeks as she finished the pitcher, downing the last of the liquor in one long, biting swallow. She stood and her knees buckled slightly. Her head spun, but she knew what she had to do as she approached the edge of the pool. She thought of those people she’d loved, oh, so foolishly; those she’d lost. All her children. They were gone to her. She’d given them all away, in one form or another, and one had become a horrible monster.
What kind of mother are you?

She kicked off her sandals, then wove her way around the pool to the deep end where the light was the brightest. God the drinks had been strong…almost as if they’d been doctored, but that was impossible.