"Oooh, low blow, Bentz," she said, but chuckled deep in her throat. "So, okay, I"m lying about being able to read your mind, but I know you, Detective, and I do know how you think." She walked into the room and propped that tight little b.u.t.t of hers against the arm of an overstuffed chair that was pushed into a corner, opposite a twin bed covered with an aqua-colored spread. "You"re worried about Kristi."
"You don"t have to have ESP to know that."
"But it"s because of the missing girls and hence my warning that Baton Rouge is not your jurisdiction."
"I know. But who cares about lines on a map when girls have gone missing?"
"Oh, yeah, like you would be thrilled if someone from another jurisdiction showed up and started nosing around your cases. Face it, Bentz, you don"t like it when the FBI shows up, and you"re not even crazy about sharing your cases with some of your own men. I don"t know how many times you"ve complained about Brinkman."
"He"s a pain."
"Hmm...I won"t argue that one," she said, dunking her tea bag in the steaming water within her cup. The scent of jasmine wafted over to him as he stared at the images on the screen-pictures of the four missing girls.
"Brinkman might be resigning."
"Really?" She looked up, letting the tea bag settle.
"Because of the storm."
"It"s been over two years."
"He lived in the Lower Ninth Ward, had a couple of rentals there, too. All gone. His parents lived in one. They got out," he said, not adding that their cats hadn"t. They"d hidden during the storm and when the rescuers had come, couldn"t be found. Weeks later, when the floodgates had receded, Brinkman had returned to his family home and found the house marked with an X by the searchers. The other note said only: "Two dead cats inside." Brinkman had gotten to dispose of the animal carca.s.ses and inform his mother. Since then, he"d packed up his parents, who now lived in Austin, and was talking of getting the h.e.l.l out of Dodge himself.
"It"s too bad."
"Yeah. So I"m not going to let some government-drawn lines stop me from looking into the disappearances on my own time. I"ve got a call up to the Baton Rouge PD."
"Because you don"t have enough to do." She lifted the tea bag from the cup and dropped it, dripping, into a nearby trash basket.
"I said it was on my own time."
"Time you could be spending with your family."
"Kristi is my family."
"I was talking about me," she said.
He smiled. "I know."
Sipping the tea, she said, "I could put on my s.e.xiest negligee and we could..." She let her voice trail off.
He c.o.c.ked a brow.
"Interested?"
Pushing his chair away from the TV tray, Bentz growled, "Always. But you don"t need a negligee."
"No?" She looked up at him over the rim of her cup.
"Waste of time." He took the cup from her hand and set it on the window ledge. "So tell me, Mrs. Bentz, is this attempt at seduction because you"re so hot for me you can"t think straight, or is it because it"s the right time of the month to conceive?"
"Maybe a little of both," she admitted, and it was like a douse of cold water.
"I told you...I don"t think I want any more children."
"And I told you, I need a baby."
He rested his head against hers and saw the desperation in her eyes. He"d give her anything. But this...
"Being a cop"s kid is no picnic."
"Neither is being a cop"s wife. But it"s worth it. Please, Rick, let"s not worry about this, okay. If it happens, it happens, if it doesn"t, then we"ll see."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning let"s not worry about that that now." now."
He pulled her more tightly against him, feeling her warm body pliant against his. To his knowledge, he"d never fathered a child. Not biologically. Kristi"s mother, Jennifer, had cheated on him. Plain and simple. And she"d gotten pregnant. That could have been the end of it, as Jennifer had owned up to the fact that the baby in her womb wasn"t his in the eighth month of her pregnancy. But Bentz had taken one look at Kristi seconds after she"d been born and had claimed the baby as his own. Even now, twenty-seven years later, he remembered the moment she"d come into the world, the moment that had changed his life forever.
In all the years since, neither Jennifer nor anyone else had gotten pregnant by him, whether by luck or incredibly good birth control. He"d never been tested, hadn"t really worried about it. Never felt the need for another kid, but now Livvie wanted a baby, when he was facing the big five-o. If she got pregnant now, Bentz would be pushing seventy when the kid finished high school. If he didn"t get killed in the line of duty first.
Was that fair to the child?
His wife stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. She tasted of jasmine and desperation and d.a.m.n it, he gave into her. As always.
Kristi took off across campus.
The air was thick. Heavy. A wisping fog rising from the damp ground. She wasn"t alone. Other students, too, were heading this way and that, cutting across the quad. They pa.s.sed her on bikes, skateboards, or on foot; knots of kids talking, solitary students walking briskly to the various old brick buildings that made up All Saints College.
It was weird to be back.
Most of the undergrads were nearly a decade younger than her. There were the grad students, of course, in much smaller numbers, and a few adults who"d returned to school in midlife or beyond. Though the campus with its vine-clad, hundred-year-plus buildings and neatly trimmed grounds seemed fairly unchanged, the feel of being at All Saints was quite different from her freshman year.
At the library, she veered away from the heart of the school as Knauss Hall was at the edge of campus not far from the large old mansions that had been converted to sorority and fraternity houses. Hurrying as the night closed in, she looked down the narrow, tree-flanked street lined by estatelike houses. Her gaze landed on a pillared white plantation-style mansion, home to the Delta Gammas, a sorority she"d pledged at her father"s insistence all those years ago, but the whole Greek thing had never worked for her. To this day she didn"t know where even one of her sorority sisters was, nor did she care. She"d never felt like a "DG" while here. Not only had Rick Bentz insisted she join what she"d later referred to as "the sisterhood," but he"d also laid down the law and forced her into tae kwon do lessons as well as teaching her all about the use and safety of firearms. Although the sorority thing hadn"t taken, she"d gotten a black belt in her martial art of choice. She also knew her way around guns and was a decent-enough shot.
She noticed a car moving steadily up the street, creeping along, as if the driver were looking for something, or someone. The hairs on the nape of her neck rose. She squinted, unable to make out the driver.
Most likely, it was nothing. He was probably just lost and searching for an address, she decided, though all the talk about missing girls and possible foul play made her a little suspicious.
Maybe some of your dad"s paranoia is finally rubbing off on you!
The glare of the car"s headlights reached Kristi and the vehicle slowed even more, tires crunching. The low-lying mist rose over the fogged windows, making it even more difficult to see who was behind the wheel. Was the driver a man? A woman? Was someone in the pa.s.senger seat?
Church bells tolled the hour, reverberating chimes reminding her of the time.
"h.e.l.l," she whispered. Late again! Late again!
She kicked into a jog, leaving the slow-moving car and its mystery driver behind. Running easily along the walkway, she cut through the gra.s.s and trees lining the brick and stone building that housed the science labs.
She heard the car pick up speed, then slow again to the point where the engine was only idling. Kristi glanced over her shoulder, still unable to see who was in the darkened vehicle. She wished she was close enough to get the license number. All she saw was that it was a dark domestic-looking sedan, probably a Chevy, but she couldn"t be sure.
So what? A car is going slow. Big deal. What does it matter if it"s a Ford, a Chevrolet, or a friggin" Lamborghini? Get over it.
She had a more pressing problem: there was a chance that the high school boyfriend she"d so callously tossed over might be her professor.
Groaning inside, Kristi dashed up the steps of the vine-clad hall and yanked open a heavy gla.s.s door.
Another student shot through ahead of her and she recognized Hiram Calloway as he swept past. She almost said something because she felt as if the guy were following her. When she"d needed his help with the apartment building, she couldn"t scare him up to save her life. But now that she was starting cla.s.ses, he was everywhere she turned on campus. She had a bad feeling that he, too, might be signed up for Dr. Monroe"s Monday night cla.s.s.... Geez, didn"t guys work their schedules so that they could stay home on Mondays and watch football?
Let him get to the cla.s.sroom first so she could avoid sitting anywhere next to him.
As the door swung shut behind her, Kristi headed for the stairwell, where the smell of some pine-scented cleaner couldn"t quite hide the odor of formaldehyde that seeped through the hallways. Many of the floor tiles had cracked, and the light green walls had grown dingy with age. The stairs, too, were worn, the banister polished smooth by thousands of hands.
The staircase opened to a wide landing. Several hallways angled off the main corridor, making the area seem more like a rabbit warren than a science lab building.
She followed signs around a corner that led to a long corridor. At the far end of the hall a door was open and a few students, including Hiram Calloway, were walking into a large cla.s.sroom.
Crossing her fingers that she wasn"t about to see Jay again, Kristi walked briskly to catch up with the crowd. She stepped through the doorway with the last of the stragglers.
Once inside, Kristi"s worst fears were founded.
Beneath the glow of fluorescent lights, Jay McKnight stood at the front of the windowless room. Several life-sized charts of the human body were pulled down over a chalkboard behind him.
Kristi"s heart sank. What had started out as a bad day just nose-dived. She caught his eye and he didn"t so much as smile, but he didn"t look away. The worst part of it was that the fates of aging had been more than kind to him. At six foot two inches, he was tall, fit, with a strong clean-shaven jaw and razor-thin lips. His light brown hair was longer than she remembered and uncombed, either because he didn"t care or because he was making a stab at being hip. Eyes somewhere between brown and gold met hers and she thought she caught the faintest narrowing at the corners. He had a new tiny scar that cleaved the top of one eyebrow, but other than that one slight imperfection, he looked none the worse for wear. In fact, he"d filled out slightly, his beard shadow darker than it once was, and there was a new air of confidence about him that increased his appeal.
Not that she cared.
She was over him. Had been for a long, long time.
She dropped into one of the few empty chairs and didn"t immediately realize that she"d taken a seat directly in front of Hiram Calloway.
This is just getting better and better, she thought without a drop of humor, then reminded herself it was no big deal. She was in college, not fourth grade. It"s not as if the seats were a.s.signed. she thought without a drop of humor, then reminded herself it was no big deal. She was in college, not fourth grade. It"s not as if the seats were a.s.signed.
It"s only about ten weeks, for G.o.d"s sake. Thirty-odd hours. You"ll live!
But tonight, staring at Jay McKnight, the first man she"d ever loved, she wasn"t so sure about that.
CHAPTER 8.
Jay wasn"t going to let her distract him.
Of course he noticed Kristi the second she stepped into the room. How could he not? And he"d been primed, seeing her name on the cla.s.s roster.
She was taller than he recalled, probably because her long legs were accentuated by slim jeans and boots with at least two-inch heels. She had an athletic build, her shoulders defined by years of swimming, her abdomen flat, b.r.e.a.s.t.s on the small side but still firm, hips slim.
Even dressed down in old jeans and a sweatshirt, she could turn some heads. Not because she had runway model beauty, but because she was a little bit more than pretty and she wore an air of confidence that was natural, easy, and compelling.
As she started toward the rear of the room, she glanced at him, but somehow he hung onto his cool, not even acknowledging her as the rest of the would-be next generation of forensic scientists found their seats. Jay was certain that these students a.s.sumed his job was like CSI, CSI, glamorous and slick, in cities as cool as Las Vegas, New York, and Miami, with s.e.xy, smart police officers and clever, if quirky, crime scene techs working against sly crooks. They probably imagined investigators who were always able to determine the perpetrator and send him away for good. Jay figured his job here was not so much to disavow the television image as to give them all a cold dose of reality. glamorous and slick, in cities as cool as Las Vegas, New York, and Miami, with s.e.xy, smart police officers and clever, if quirky, crime scene techs working against sly crooks. They probably imagined investigators who were always able to determine the perpetrator and send him away for good. Jay figured his job here was not so much to disavow the television image as to give them all a cold dose of reality.
"Some of you are probably wondering who I am," he began, rounding the desk and balancing his hips upon its edge as the final stragglers slid into their seats. The cla.s.sroom had seen better days and the worn flooring, scarred desks, and undulating fluorescent lighting suggested the last time it had been revamped was in the Eisenhower administration. "I"m Jay McKnight and I work for the New Orleans Police Department. I"ve got a double degree, one in criminology and another in clinical laboratory science, then a master"s in forensic sciences, the last from the University of Alabama. I also work for the New Orleans crime lab, which, as you probably guessed, since Katrina, has been a struggle. We lost our lab and more than five-million dollars worth of equipment in the storm. Evidence was destroyed and will never be regained. We"ve had to work out of s.p.a.ce provided by other parishes" sheriff"s offices or through private agencies, which has slowed things down incredibly. We"ve lost technicians, too, who got tired of living out of FEMA trailers and working in FEMA trailers and collecting evidence at FEMA trailers."
He had their attention. Their eyes, serious now, were trained on him, and no one was talking or so much as chewing gum.
"But things are getting better. Slowly. We don"t have the offices and labs portrayed on television shows like CSI, CSI, but we do have our own facility now at the University of New Orleans at the lakefront campus." but we do have our own facility now at the University of New Orleans at the lakefront campus."
He glanced at Kristi. She, like the others, was regarding him soberly. If she felt any emotion other than studious regard, she sure managed to hide it.
Good.
"I know most of you thought the cla.s.s would be taught by Dr. Monroe, but due to an illness in her family, she had to take some time off and so you"re stuck with me.
"So, for the next nine weeks we"ll be discussing criminology in three-hour segments. We"ll hit the major topics and rather than say I"ll lecture, we"ll say I"ll lead the discussion on the science of forensics and evidence. During the last hour and a half, we"ll have whatever quiz I think is appropriate and then there"ll be a question and answer period. We"ll discuss crime scenes and how to protect them, how to gather evidence and what we do with that evidence when it"s collected. We"ll cover everything from blood spatter patterns to firearms, entomology, and forensic biology, both plant and animal. We"ll talk about cause of death and autopsies."
One boy, sporting a soul patch and several earrings, shot a hand into the air, "Is there any way we can go to an autopsy?"
That caused a few whispers, some excited, some disgusted.
"Not this term, I"m afraid," Jay said.
"But how cool would that be?" Soul Patch wasn"t giving up.
"I don"t know, how cool would it be?" Jay asked the cla.s.s, and some of the kids actually hooted while others groaned. "As I said, it"s not scheduled and this is a pretty large group. There are rules about that kind of thing, contamination issues, timing issues, and as cool as you think it might be to see, the medical examiner is a busy person, as is everyone who works for the examiner"s office.
"However, to make things interesting, each week I"ll discuss a specific case that the department solved, then show you the evidence that was collected, and we"ll see what you can tell me about the crime. Afterward, we"ll compare it to what the police actually discovered."
He still had their attention. Everyone seemed tuned in. At least for now. He made eye contact with Kristi again, as he did with the other students as he continued to lecture. It was easy for him because he loved his job. Examining evidence and linking it to a crime and a suspect was exhilarating as well as frustrating. He was animated as he talked, though it was difficult not to notice that Kristi still had that same vibrancy about her that had attracted him years before, when she was still in high school and he"d just started taking a few college cla.s.ses while still working for his dad. Then, Jay had found her to be smart, sa.s.sy, stubborn, and tough as nails, sometimes even foolhardy, but Kristi Bentz had never been boring. Athletic and brave almost to the point of idiocy, Kristi exuded a raw energy that had been missing in most of the women he"d dated in his lifetime, including Gayle Hall.
Now, sitting in the back of the room without any makeup, her big, green eyes staring at him, her dark coppery hair twisted away from her face to reveal a clean jaw, straight nose, and high cheekbones, Kristi watched him intently. She sat low on her back, arms folded over her chest almost insolently, as if she were daring him to teach her anything she didn"t know.
Or maybe he was imagining things.
He barely let his gaze touch hers before he turned toward the other side of the room and focused on a tall boy with thick gla.s.ses and a scrawny black beard that didn"t cover his case of acne.
"I"ll send each of you a syllabus tonight via e-mail, and my office hours are Friday afternoons from four to six. I know, that"s a b.u.mmer for those of you who like to take off for the weekend, but it"s the best the department could do as they have to work around my schedule. You can e-mail me at anytime; my e-mail address is on the syllabus.
"So, let"s start with a little basic anatomy. Tonight, we"ll talk about how a person can be killed, and what the body might show in an autopsy. After the break we"ll discuss the crime scene and collection of evidence. This might seem a little backward, but I thought for our first "case" we"d go at it from the body back to the scene. Next week, we"ll take another case and do it in just the opposite manner, which, of course, is usually the normal procedure, though, not always. Can anyone tell me why?"
One arm shot up and waved frantically as if she could barely contain herself. She looked to be less than five feet tall and couldn"t weigh a hundred pounds. Her light blond hair fairly shivered as she tried to get his attention.