She was tense, her stomach in knots as she closed the door to the soundproof booth, slid into her chair and settled behind the microphone.
Eleanor and George had been right, she thought as the intro music played through the speakers mounted over her desk. The e-mail and calls the station had received in the last twenty-four hours had far surpa.s.sed any other similar span of time. The conversation last night between Dr. Sam and "John" had spurred interest in the program, and she could feel a new sense of electricity in the station, through the headset, in the voices of the callers as they phoned in.
"Good evening, New Orleans and welcome..." She started out her show with her usual bit. Then, knowing she was dancing with the devil, said, "I thought we"d pick up tonight where we left off. Last night a caller phoned in, bringing up the subject of forgiveness, repentance and sin." Sam"s fingers were a little shaky as she leaned into the mike. "I thought it was worth exploring tonight as well. I know a lot of you were listening, and I"d like to hear your interpretations of sin." The first phone line was already blinking. Lines two and three lit up almost simultaneously. Once the program was over, Eleanor would probably kill her, tell her that she was inviting trouble, but though her hands were sweaty and her pulse elevated, she wanted to connect with John again...to find out more. Who was he? Why had he called? He had to be the same man who left her the voice message on her machine and was the same guy who had sent her the mutilated publicity shot. Why was he trying to terrorize her?
The computer screen showed that Sarah was line one and Tom on two. Three belonged to Marcy. New Orleans was eager to talk about sin, redemption, quote Bible verses and express opinions vociferously about the wages of sin. Two men named John called-neither being the one who had phoned the night before. The hours rolled by into morning and Sam felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. She didn"t believe he would just go away. But there was tomorrow night.
"Take care of yourself, New Orleans. Good night to you all and G.o.d bless. No matter what your troubles are today, there is always tomorrow.... Sweet dreams..." she said, signing off over the sound of music. She yanked off her headset and pushed the appropriate b.u.t.tons so that the advertis.e.m.e.nts would flow into the opening for the Lights Out Lights Out program, then met Melanie in the hallway. program, then met Melanie in the hallway.
"I guess my personal creep didn"t have the urge to call."
"Disappointed?" Melanie asked, eyebrows elevated. "I just want to know what he"s thinking."
"Maybe it"s over. He got his jollies last night and he"s given up...gone on to greener pastures."
"Maybe." Sam wasn"t convinced. In fact, silly as it seemed, she thought he was playing a game with her. That he was listening, knowing she expected him to call, and was trying a new tactic to freak her out.
"Forget him. You all but begged him to call what with the subject tonight," Melanie said. "He"s probably bored."
"Or he might be more cautious. He doesn"t know that I haven"t talked to the police yet. He could have thought the cops could trace the call."
Melanie yawned. "You know, Sam, maybe you"re not as important to him as you think." She seemed irritated, and added, "It was probably just a kid with a deep voice playing a prank."
Sam didn"t think so.
"You really expected him to call, didn"t you?" Melanie asked, as they walked toward the locker room and Tiny, hurrying in, sped past them.
"I thought he might."
"You wanted wanted him to." him to."
Did she? That was kind of a sick thought. "I just figured he might and I could get a little insight into what it was he was talking about last night." She leaned on one crutch as a sudden thought struck her. "What about when you were hosting the show while I was in Mexico? Did he call you?"
"Me?" Melanie laughed but the sound seemed brittle. "No way. This one, he"s all all yours." yours."
"Maybe."
"Samantha?" Tiny"s voice called down the hallway. "You"ve got a call on line two. Says his name is John."
"What?" She froze for a second.
"I said-"
"I heard you." She twisted around and hitched her way back to the darkened studio, where line two was blinking ominously.
"It"s your guy," Tiny whispered, though no one could hear him until she clicked on.
"Make sure you record this." Tiny nodded, restarted the tape. Sam grabbed Melanie"s headset and leaned over the console, pushing the flickering b.u.t.ton.
"This is Dr. Sam," she said.
"It"s John." His voice was breathless, yet smooth-as if he was trying to pretend a calm he didn"t feel. "Your "Your John. I know you were expecting me to call, but I was busy." John. I know you were expecting me to call, but I was busy."
"Who are are you?" you?"
"This is not about me," he said, and his calm seemed to snap.
"Sure it is. What is it you want?" A pause. "I thought you"d like to know that what happened is all because of you. It"s your fault. Yours." Her blood turned to ice. "What-what happened?" she demanded. "You"ll know."
Click.
"What-what will I know?" she asked. The line was dead. "d.a.m.n." She tossed off the headset and stared at the console, willing a light to blink again. But the phone lines didn"t illuminate. In fact the room seemed strangely dark and when she looked through the gla.s.s to the studio where she worked, she saw her own thin reflection as well as the translucent images of Tiny and Melanie in the clear gla.s.s-ghosts inhabiting the empty building.
"It was him, wasn"t it?" Melanie whispered. "Oh, yeah." Sam nodded.
"You"d better call someone." Tiny rubbed the stubble on his chin and bit his lip as he stared at the blank console.
"The police?" she asked.
"No! I mean, not yet." Tiny shook his head and thought so hard he squinted. "I mean, maybe you should call Eleanor or Mr. Hannah."
"I don"t think I"ll wake George up," Sam said, thinking of the owner of the station. George Hannah didn"t like any ripples in the water. He wouldn"t appreciate a call in the middle of the night. "I think he cherishes his beauty sleep."
"Well, someone someone should know." should know."
"Someone does," she said, thinking of the smooth voice without a face. He knew what she looked like. Where she lived. What she did for a living. How to contact her. And she was at a distinct disadvantage. So far she knew nothing about him. Nothing at all.
Chapter Five.
"We"ve got ourselves another one." Detective Reuben Montoya leaned a muscled shoulder against the doorjamb to Rick Bentz"s office in the weathered stone building that housed the precinct. His black hair was glossy as a raven"s wing, his goatee trimmed and neat. White teeth flashed when he spoke, and a gold earring caught the bluish glare from the flickering fluorescents overhead.
"Another one?" Bentz glanced at the clock. Three-fifteen; he"d been on duty since 7p.m., was about to call it a night. A fan was whirring behind him, pushing around warm air that the old air conditioner hadn"t found a way to chill.
"Dead working girl."
The muscles in the back of Bentz"s neck tightened. "Where?"
"Around Toulouse and Decatur. Not far from Jackson Brewery."
"h.e.l.l." Bentz rolled back his chair.
"Her roommate came home and found her on the bed."
"Have you called the ME?" Bentz was already reaching for his jacket.
"He"s on his way."
"Has the scene been disturbed-the roommate, did she do anything?"
"Just scream loud enough to wake everyone in the building, but the super swears he"s closed the door and kept everyone at bay."
Bentz frowned. "You know, this isn"t really my baby. You should call Brinkman."
"He"s on vacation and besides he"s a d.i.c.k, and that"s not meant to be a compliment." Montoya"s dark eyes flashed. "You"ve got experience with this kind of thing."
"That was a while back," Bentz admitted.
"Not that long ago, and just cuz you"re not officially working homicide here, doesn"t mean jack s.h.i.t, okay? Now, are you in or not?"
"Let"s roll." Bentz was on his feet and out the door, the lethargy he"d felt seeping into his bones half an hour ago replaced by a jolt of adrenaline. Through a room filled with beat-up desks and down one flight where their boots clattered on the old metal and linoleum, they hurried into the street, where Montoya"s unmarked was parked illegally. Bentz didn"t think about the consequences. Brinkman would probably be p.i.s.sed, but then he always was, and Melinda Jaskiel, in charge of the Homicide Division, had pretty much given Bentz carte blanche. Despite what happened in LA.
If she didn"t like him taking charge, she could pull him off the case and call Fred Brinkman back from Disneyland. Bentz had always believed in asking for acceptance rather than permission. More often than not it got him into trouble.
Montoya snapped on the ignition as Bentz climbed into the car. Though nearly twenty years Bentz"s junior, Montoya had earned his stripes, hurtling over barriers of racism, poverty and att.i.tude to land, at twenty-eight, as a full detective with the NOPD. He wanted to work Homicide and sometimes did a double detail just to be involved in murder investigations.
He also drove through the dark city streets as if he were at Daytona. As the police band crackled, he managed to jam a Marlboro into the side of his mouth and light up while negotiating the sharp turns and keeping the wipers at the right tempo. The misty night clung, like a shroud, to the corners of the old buildings and mingled with the steam that escaped from the manholes in the street.
Within minutes they skidded to a stop in front of the building. Montoya flicked his cigarette onto the street, where some of the beat cops were keeping a small crowd at bay and crime-scene tape was used as a shimmering yellow-and-black barricade. A couple of news vans had pulled up, and Bentz cussed the reporters under his breath. "Jesus, if they"d just give the cops a couple of hours to do their jobs before descending like vultures, it would help."
A microphone was pushed close to his face but before the pert Asian reporter could spout her first question, Bentz growled, "No comment," and in tandem with Montoya took the front steps two at a time to a door tucked by the side of the deli, where a uniformed street cop let them inside.
"Third floor," the cop muttered, and Montoya was a step ahead of him as they took the stairs to a cramped hallway that reeked of marijuana, mold and incense. People had gathered in the corridor, craning their necks, talking and smoking, all the while casting curious glances toward the door marked 3F.
Montoya flashed his badge to a cop Bentz had seen around the precinct, but then the young buck got off on showing his ID. It gave him a "rush," the younger cop had admitted on more than one occasion. Bentz had long since given up on the authority trip. If LA had taught him anything, it was humility. There just weren"t a h.e.l.luva lot of reasons to be an a.s.shole. A cop learned more from subtlety than intimidation. Though, at Montoya"s age, Bentz, too, had thought differently.
Standing in the doorway, Bentz took one look into the tiny room and his stomach clenched. Bile rose up the back of his throat as it always did when he viewed a murder scene, but he wouldn"t admit it to a soul, and it immediately disappeared as he a.s.sumed his role as detective. He smelled stale coffee and blood, the stench of death, even in the early stages, noticeable, and heard muted conversation over a radio tuned to some soft music, an instrumental piece.
"I want to talk to the roommate," he said to no one in particular.
"She"s in the next room-3E-pretty shook up." The uniform, Mike O"Keefe, nodded to a door with chipped paint that was slightly ajar. Through the crack he caught a view of a pale, rail-thin woman with bags under her eyes, kinky brown hair and bad skin. Her lipstick had faded, her mascara had slid from her eyelashes to darken the natural circles under her eyes. She was smoking, swilling coffee and looked scared of her own shadow. Bentz didn"t blame her.
"Keep her there. I"ll want to talk to her."
"You in charge?" O"Keefe asked, questions in his eyes.
"Until someone says differently."
O"Keefe didn"t argue.
Careful to disturb nothing, Bentz walked past a small kitchen alcove where a gla.s.s pot was half-full of yesterday"s coffee and crumbs from the toaster had scattered over a counter that hadn"t seen a sponge in quite a while. The chipped sink was piled with dishes. Cobwebs hung near the ceiling light.
The living area was small, occupied almost entirely by a double bed shoved into one corner. Upon the crumpled sheets the victim lay, half-dressed in a black teddy, eyes staring gla.s.sily at the ceiling where the blades of a fan moved lazily. She was around thirty, he guessed, white, with short dark hair and little makeup. Her throat was bruised and cut with tiny nicks where blood had crusted, as if she"d been garroted by some kind of kinky noose that cut into her flesh-like barbed wire or one of those S/M dog collars turned inside out. While her legs were spread wide, her arms had been placed together, fingers interlocked, as if she were praying. The perp had taken time to pose her. Bentz"s gut tightened. "Time of death?"
"Best guess-sometime after midnight, from the looks of her. The medical examiner will know more."
"Name?"
"Rosa Gillette according to the roommate and the super."
"One bed? Two women?"
"They just use the place for tricks. Rosa, here, and a couple of friends. The third, a woman named, oh get this-Cindy Sweet, sometimes known as Sweet Sin-she hasn"t been located yet. They"re independents, no pimp."
"Check this out." Montoya pointed to a small table. Tucked beneath a candle was a hundred-dollar bill that no one had swiped. Odd, he thought. The roommate would have taken the cash or the perp would have retrieved it...then he noticed the mutilation-someone had taken a black felt pen to Ben Franklin"s eyes. It wasn"t the first time. His gut tightened.
"Look familiar?" Montoya asked, dark eyes gleaming. The kid really got off on all this cop s.h.i.t.
"Yep." Bentz nodded. There had been another murder, much like this one. The victim, a prost.i.tute, had been strangled with some unknown noose-one that bit into her neck in a distinct pattern like this one. "The hooker near the French Quarter...A few weeks ago. Cherise Something-or-Other."
"Cherie Bellechamps."
"Yeah. That"s it," Montoya said.
An odd case. A waitress and loving mother by day, a hooker at night, a woman involved in a custody suit that her ex-husband, by default, had won. "s.h.i.t," Bentz muttered under his breath. He"d seen enough. "Make sure nothing"s disturbed for the team. Let"s talk to the roommate." As he crossed the hallway the ME and crime-scene team clattered up the stairs. While they entered 3E, Bentz introduced himself to the frail-looking, tense woman, who, guardedly, said her name was Denise LeBlanc and after being a.s.sured that the cops weren"t out to bust her admitted that she"d come back from a trick in the Garden District, to the apartment and found Rosa on the bed. Obviously dead. She"d started screaming, the super, Marvin Cooper, a beefy man of mixed race with few remaining teeth and a shaved head had taken charge, bolting the door and calling 911. Marvin, who occupied this studio alone, was leaning on the cabinets of the kitchen alcove, huge arms crossed over a black T-shirt while Denise chain-smoked and drank cups of coffee laced with cheap whiskey.
"I know this is tough," Bentz said, as Denise lit a cigarette while the last was burning in an overflowing ashtray.
"It"s freaky, that"s what it is. f.u.c.kin" freaky." Denise"s hands were shaking, her eyes wide. "Did you notice anything missing?"
"How the h.e.l.l would I know? I walked in and...and saw...Oh s.h.i.t." Her head dropped to her hands and she sobbed. "Rosa was a nice kid...She had dreams of gettin" out of the business...oh, G.o.d..."
Bentz waited, then said, "Was anything taken? Disturbed?"
"The whole f.u.c.kin" place was disturbed! The guy who did it is disturbed! disturbed! s.h.i.t, yes, it was disturbed." She was sobbing, and Bentz could coax little out of her. s.h.i.t, yes, it was disturbed." She was sobbing, and Bentz could coax little out of her.
"I just want to find out who did this to her, and you"ll have to help."
"She"s scared out of her mind," Marvin said gruffly. He sat next to Denise on the couch, and she curled up under one of his muscular arms. "I saw that C-note under the bedside lamp. When Denise started screamin" I ran over there and I saw that hunderd-dollar bill all messed up. Man, whoever did this is weird, I"m tellin" ya."
"Did you notice anything else?" Bentz asked. "You saw the body."
"h.e.l.l, yes, I saw her." His lips folded in on themselves, and absently he patted Denise"s shoulder. "I saw the way that freak messed with her, leavin" her all spread-eagled and...c.r.a.p."
"So did you see anything you thought was odd?"
"Everything, man!"
This was getting him nowhere. "What about your other roommate? Cindy. Where"s she?"
"Dunno," Denise grumbled. "She and Rosa had a fight a week or so ago. Cindy split. Haven"t seen her since."
"She hasn"t called?" Bentz asked. "No! Hasn"t paid her share of the rent, either. I say "good riddance to bad news." She was a real pain."