"Looks like." Montoya leaned a shoulder against Bentz"s filing cabinet, one rescued from the aftermath of Katrina. Repainted and now rust free, it served as a constant reminder of how bad things could get. "They"re sending divers, seeing if the victim was alone, or if she had company."
"s.h.i.t," Bentz muttered, already rounding the desk. He snagged his jacket off a hall tree. "Let"s go. I"ll drive."
"No, I"ll...never mind, you drive. And there"s more."
"More?"
"So you haven"t heard of the arm they found in the belly of a gator?"
"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" Bentz"s gut twisted because he knew what was coming. The day took a nosedive.
"I"ll explain on the way." Montoya finished his coffee and dropped the paper cup into a trash can in Bentz"s office. They walked amid the cubicles and desks and Bentz caught sight of a TV monitor, where, sure enough, the local news was showing shots of a search and rescue boat on the Mississippi. It was getting dark, but the crew had set up lights and cameras.
"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," Bentz muttered. He reached into his pocket for a pack of Juicy Fruit, unwrapping a stick as they headed downstairs and outside to the parking lot, where rays of a fast-dying winter sun were struggling to pierce the clouds. A few managed to reflect in a myriad of puddles strewn across the asphalt, but darkness was coming fast.
Bentz took the wheel of the Crown Vic. As Montoya, over the crackle of the radio and thrum of the engine, explained about the arm discovered in the swamp north of New Orleans, Bentz drove to a spot in their jurisdiction where crews had taped off an area of the levee.
Camera crews had already gotten wind of the discovery and had set up shop. Overhead two news helicopters, blades whirring loudly, spotlights illuminating the gloaming, vied for a better view of the scene. Uniformed cops held back an ever-growing crowd.
Bentz almost wished for worse weather to keep the lookie-loos at bay. The water was thick and muddy, the dank scent of the Mississippi filling his nostrils, a cool breath of wind starting to pick up.
"Detective Bentz!" He turned to see a pretty woman reporter brandishing her microphone and making a beeline for him.
"Can you verify that a woman was found in the river?"
"I just got here."
"But it appears as if a body had been pulled from the Mississippi and there"s speculation that it might be one of the girls who went missing from All Saints College in Baton Rouge."
"That"s a mighty big leap," he said, trying not to snap.
"And isn"t it true that a body part was recovered in the swamp closer to Baton Rouge?"
Son of a b.i.t.c.h, he thought, but turned briefly and said, "I"m not at liberty to say, but I"m certain the public information officer will give some kind of press briefing." He offered the woman an all-business smile, then ducked under the crime scene tape. he thought, but turned briefly and said, "I"m not at liberty to say, but I"m certain the public information officer will give some kind of press briefing." He offered the woman an all-business smile, then ducked under the crime scene tape.
"Detective Montoya!" the woman called.
"No comment." He, too, slid beneath the tape and together they approached the water"s edge, where members of the crime scene and the coroner had already gathered. Bonita Washington nodded at them, her face a stern mask.
"Dionne Harmon?" Bentz asked.
"Tattoo"s the same. African American. About the right age, size, and shape." Washington walked over to a body bag, unzipped it, shielding the contents from view overhead with her own body.
Bentz stared at the partially decomposed face of what had once been a pretty black woman. Someone"s daughter. Sister. Friend. Though no one, especially not her jerk of a brother, seemed to care. Got herself involved with a snake of a boyfriend, too, from what he"d heard. Naked, her hands bagged by the criminologists in the hope that she"d fought her a.s.sailant and there was still a trace of DNA under her fingernails, she lay eyes open, lifeless inside the heavy bag.
Above them the copters hovered, disturbing the thick water.
Bentz held out little expectation of getting enough of the killer"s DNA that wasn"t degraded to do any good.
His stomach roiled. He looked away.
"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," Montoya muttered.
"Dionne Harmon went missing around a year ago," Bentz said, mentally calculating the state of decomp.
"Yeah, I know." Washington was way ahead of him. "This body, it only looks like it"s been in the water a few days, and before that..." She shrugged.
"She was alive," Bentz said, his mind spinning ahead. "So he keeps her alive, locked away for a year, then decides to kill her?"
"Maybe." Washington was obviously as puzzled as he.
"Do you know the cause of death?"
"Not yet, but I did notice some puncture wounds on the body."
"From what"
"Don"t know yet, but she"s got what appears to be a bite mark on her neck." Washington pointed to two holes beneath the dead woman"s ear. "And then another, larger and single, here, over the jugular. And another at the carotid." She glanced up at him, then rezipped the bag.
Bentz straightened. "What"s that mean?"
"Nothin" good," she said, her face a knot of worry. "Nothin" good."
"Hey!" A shout from the boat.
Bentz braced himself as the helicopters swooped in for a better look. He knew what was coming. The officer on deck yelled over the whomp-whomp-whomp of the copter"s rotors: "Looks like we got another one!"
CHAPTER 26.
Kristi cut through the water, swimming hard, her strokes even and quick as she tried to figure out a way to break into the inner circle of students she was certain were involved in the vampire cult. She"d even gone online and posted a plea: Searching For Lost Souls. Then, in want-ad fashion on the Internet, she made a request as ABneg1984 to link up with other believers in the reign of the vampire. She didn"t know if she"d have any takers, didn"t even know if her request would make any sense, but she was fishing and she would be interested to find out what she might catch.
Probably nothing but weirdo losers, likely all of them under the age of thirteen.
But the good news was that, so far, she hadn"t seen any video of her apartment on the Internet. She"d searched through Mys.p.a.ce and YouTube and a few other Internet sites and hadn"t found any grainy, dark movies of her and Jay making love. Hopefully that"s the way it would stay. So who had put the camera there? She"d tossed it around in her mind hundreds of times and always came back to Hiram Calloway. Who else could it be? Someone posing as a repairman? She didn"t know but it made her nervous as h.e.l.l, a fact she kept from Jay as she didn"t want him insisting she should move out.
At the far end of the pool she submerged, pushed off, and started her last lap. All the while she was thinking about her next move and how she was sick and tired of the waiting game she"d been playing. It was time for action, and she planned to start it at the final production of Everyman. Everyman. Then she intended to have a face to face discussion with Father Mathias. He seemed to be on the fringes of all this somehow. She"d spotted him at Wagner House, coming up from the bas.e.m.e.nt. And he was close with Georgia Clovis, as well as Ariel O"Toole, who had been missing all week. Then she intended to have a face to face discussion with Father Mathias. He seemed to be on the fringes of all this somehow. She"d spotted him at Wagner House, coming up from the bas.e.m.e.nt. And he was close with Georgia Clovis, as well as Ariel O"Toole, who had been missing all week.
When Kristi had spied Ariel"s friends at the student union yesterday afternoon, she"d purposely stopped by Trudie and Grace"s table to ask about her. Chomping on chicken strips and ranch dressing, they"d insisted Ariel"s vanishing act wasn"t in the least bit strange. Ariel liked her s.p.a.ce and sometimes, especially when studying for a major test, she would disappear, only coming out for a needed Starbucks run. That piece of wisdom had been dispensed by Grace, the near-anorexic with braces and electric-shock red hair.
Trudie had nodded, agreeing with Grace"s a.s.sessment. "Everybody needs some downtime," she"d said, dipping a fried piece of chicken into a small plastic cup of dressing. "Ariel just needs more than most of us." She"d bobbed her head, as if agreeing with herself.
Kristi had tried to strike up more of a conversation without turning the girls off, but they seemed more interested in their food than worrying about Ariel the Studious. But they"d been a little friendlier than usual, making room for her to pull up a hard plastic chair, so Kristi considered it progress. As she sat down they gabbled on about how they couldn"t wait for the second performance of "hot" Father Mathias"s play, offering up a few wishful, sighing comments about it being a "shame" the priest had taken his vows of celibacy. Then they mentioned meeting for drinks before the show. They always had a drink or two at the Watering Hole, just off campus, before they watched the play.
"You should join us sometime," Grace said, obviously trying to be polite. Trudie shot her a look and Kristi lifted a shoulder as if the invitation wasn"t a big deal.
"Maybe I will. Someday," Kristi agreed, ignoring the increased look of wariness on Trudie"s olive-toned face.
"Good." Grace had been pleased, or so it had seemed.
Not so her friend. Trudie, obviously agitated, had yanked on her sagging ponytail with both hands, forcing the rubber band higher on her head, so that the thick black shank of hair hung higher and brushed her shoulders. All the while she fiddled with her hair, she glowered at Grace.
Kristi had acted as if she didn"t care one way or the other. She wasn"t sure how to take this thin olive branch of friendship, but Ariel"s "friends" knew something; she was sure of it. She just had to gain their confidence, pretend to be like them. That would be a trick because the more she knew about the girls who seemed prime candidates for the vampire cult, the less she liked them.
She hoisted herself out of the pool, showered quickly, toweled off, and slipped into street clothes. Her muscles, which had been tight for two days, were more relaxed and the exercise had exhilarated her a bit, lifting her spirits, focusing her on what she needed to do to find out the truth about the four missing girls and the d.a.m.ned severed arm. It didn"t hurt that Jay would be back tonight.
She"d actually missed him.
Who would have ever thought?
With minimal makeup, her hair twisted into a damp knot on her head, and the vial she"d sworn to Jay she wouldn"t touch dangling from the chain surrounding her neck, she left the locker room and stepped into the night. In the time she"d worked out, the darkness that had been threatening had fallen and fallen hard. No stars were visible above the street lamps, and the wind, which had been quiet all day, was now blowing with force, rushing through the trees, chasing a few dry leaves across the campus lawns, and biting at her nape.
Shivering, she walked briskly through the alley near Greek Row, crossed one of the busier streets near the campus, and pushed her way through the gla.s.s doors of the Watering Hole. She spied Trudie, Grace, and Marnie, the blonde she"d followed through Wagner House, seated at a tall cafe-style table in one corner of a darkened room. All three girls were huddled over stemmed gla.s.ses filled with a brilliant red concoction.
Kristi headed in their direction, forced a smile she didn"t feel, wending her way through the tables.
Ready or not, it was showtime.
Ariel O"Toole"s apartment didn"t look like anyone had been inside in days. Dishes were piled in the sink, the bed unmade, a bag of chips tucked into the bedclothes, the cheese dip in a container by the bed old and crusted over.
"Something"s not right," Portia said as she, the uniformed officer, the apartment manager, and Del Vernon moved slowly through the studio with its wall of decorative bricks and a curtain separating the bedroom area from the living room. "Look at this place."
"No sign of a struggle," Del remarked.
That much was true.
"So she"s a slob," Del said. "Hasn"t cleaned up in a few days."
Portia opened the single closet. Everything was neatly organized, her clothes arranged by color, her shoes polished and kept in tidy pairs. Her drawers, too, were meticulous, books in the shelves straight and alphabetized. "Don"t think so. This girl is a neat-freak who just hadn"t cleaned up from a late-night snack." She opened the door of a small refrigerator, saw the contents were arranged carefully. She stepped aside so Del could see.
"Not a slob," he agreed.
Portia turned to the door where the apartment manager had slowly edged. "When"s the last time you saw her?" Portia asked him.
Bald, with a fringe of graying reddish hair that matched three days worth of stubble, he was nervous having the police on site. "Don"t know...uh, I saw her for sure last weekend, taking a load of trash to the cans outside and then again...oh, h.e.l.l..." He rubbed his head and his scrawny shoulders jerked up and down as if pulled by strings. "I think she was hauling laundry up...Let"s see, I"d been raking up some old leaves. Guess that was Sunday afternoon."
"And since?"
He shook his head. "I"ve got forty units here, I don"t keep track of everyone. Do I look like a house mother?"
Defensive, Portia noted. "You got a key to her mailbox?" Portia noted. "You got a key to her mailbox?"
"Well, yeah..."
"Let"s check it." She glanced around. "No phone."
"Most of the kids just use cells," the manager said.
"Can"t check her messages then, and she doesn"t get a paper." But there was a smell to the place, an empty, almost musty smell, and a forgotten cup of coffee was sitting in the microwave.
They walked outside to the mailbox. Bills and junk mail were piling up. According to the report, Ariel didn"t hold down a job, but she should have been going to cla.s.s. Portia had talked to the mother, who was battling a case of hysteria and was flying in early in the morning, hoping to locate her girl. Portia had called the woman and explained that the police were on the job. They"d called all Ariel"s friends, her neighbors, and checked with the local hospitals. She didn"t have a car, but she did have a cell phone and a bike. Campus police were searching for the bike. Portia had also double-checked with the bank, seeing if there had been any activity on her credit cards, but so far there had been no new purchases.
Ariel"s mother wasn"t convinced enough was being done. She gave Portia the name of her daughter"s cell phone company and said Ariel"s phone was equipped with a tracking device, but she wouldn"t be consoled.
"My daughter"s not like those other girls," she argued. "I"ve read about them, those...those girls who have no one who cares about them. It doesn"t matter that Joe and I are divorced, we both love our daughter and...and we"ll do anything, anything anything to find her!" to find her!"
"I"ll call you as soon as I know anything further," Portia a.s.sured her, more determined than ever to find Ariel.
She just hoped the girl would be found alive.
Her cell phone rang as they were locking the apartment. Caller ID indicated the number belonged to the New Orleans Police Department.
"Laurent, Homicide," she said automatically as she walked outside, one step ahead of Del Vernon, who was still talking to the anxious apartment manager.
"Detective Bentz, New Orleans, Homicide," a low, serious voice informed. "I heard you were working on the missing girls from All Saints as potential homicides," he said without preamble.
Portia drew a breath as she stopped under an overhanging eave on the outside of the tired stucco building. Del was saying something to her, but she shooshed him with a wave of her hand.
"That"s right. I am."
"It looks like you were right," Bentz said. "In the last hour, four female bodies, one African American, three Caucasian, all in the same state of decomp, all appearing to be in their twenties, have been pulled out of the Mississippi down here. One of the Caucasian girls was missing an arm."
Portia"s exhale was a sigh of resignation and dying hope.
"Physical characteristics, hair and eye color, tattoos and scars suggest that they are the girls who"ve gone missing from the college."
"Okay," she whispered. Though she"d suspected they had come to bad ends, she"d hoped she was wrong and that everyone else in the department was right, that Dionne, Monique, Tara, and Rylee were still somewhere safe and alive. "You said all in the same state of decomp? But they were abducted months apart."
"We"ll know more once the ME examines them," he said, his voice tightly controlled.
"Cause of death?"
"Don"t know that yet. Preliminarily it looks like they haven"t been in the water more than a few days, possibly a week. Hard to tell." He hesitated and she knew something was on his mind.
"What else?"
"There are strange puncture wounds on the bodies. You know that there wasn"t a drop of blood in that arm you guys found in the swamp?"
"Yes." She suddenly felt cold inside. Steeled herself for what she knew was coming.