by Lisa Jackson
“Nah. A couple of lookie-loos slowed down then took off, including the paper guy. It’s early yet. In an hour or two we’ll get more action. People gettin’ up and go in’ to work or makin’ deliveries.”
“Thanks.”
Careful to disturb as little as possible, Bentz and Montoya walked along the tracks leading to the house. The scene was already crawling with crime-scene investigators, detectives from the sheriff’s department, and someone from the coroner’s staff. A videographer panned the rooms of the house, where bright lights had been set up. Bonita Washington from the crime lab was giving orders to Inez Santiago, who was measuring blood spatter, and A. J. Tennet, who dusted for prints. Measurements were being taken, the rooms dusted for fingerprints or shoe prints, a vacuum used to suck up any unseen trace evidence. Bags of evidence had already been collected.
They walked into the kitchen where a bottle of booze was being examined and a tray that had once held ice was half filled with water.
Down a hallway and through open French doors they found the crime scene—a den where embers in the fireplace glowed red under white ash. Renner’s body lay on the floor in a pool of blood, his forehead marked with a tattoo. A newspaper was on the floor, an overturned glass beside it.
“Jesus,” Montoya said and noticed that his partner’s complexion had blanched, jaw muscles working as if he were trying to keep whatever was in his stomach down.
On the wall near the top of Renner’s head, the number 101 had been scrawled in blood. Probably Renner’s. Just like Kajak.
“The number is wrong,” Bentz said.
Montoya sniffed loudly. “We don’t know that. We only know that it doesn’t match the other killing.”
“Copycat?” Bentz offered up. A few facts from the Kajak homicide had never been given to the press. The actual number written on the wall of the cabin had been withheld. Just in case some nutcase tried to claim he was the murderer. With a few facts secret, the police were able to sort out the looney tunes from the real players. “Someone with a grudge against Renner who read about Renner’s association with Kajak and thought they could pin this on the other doer.”
“My money’s on Cole Dennis.”
“Yeah, I know.” Bentz’s gaze swept the interior, landing on the officer in charge, Detective Louis Brounier, a burly African-American man with silver hair, fleshy face, and intense eyes that seemed to miss nothing.
“Look familiar?” Brounier asked, and Montoya nodded.
“Who called this in?” Bentz asked.
“The caller didn’t ID himself, but the call came from Renner’s land-line, and it wasn’t Renner.” Brounier pulled out a small notebook and flipped back a few pages, his big face creasing as he scanned his notes. “A male phoned 911 at one forty-seven A. M. today. He said, ‘There’s been a murder. Dr. Terrence Renner. Someone killed him. At his house.’ Then there’s a two-second pause while he comes up with the address.”
“You think it was the murderer?”
“Maybe. Whoever it was didn’t stick around. By the time the first officer arrived, the place was empty, back door unlocked.” Bushy eyebrows rose in speculation. “By the way, no forced entry.”
“Anything missing?”
“Not that we can tell. Yet. We’re still looking. But if robbery were the motive, the killer missed out on some expensive art, and Renner’s wallet was in his back pocket. All his ID, credit cards, and nearly a hundred bucks. His stereo is here, his television, and he’s got one of the new expensive ones, as well as his computer, a desktop in a bedroom upstairs.”
“Laptop? Cell phone?”
“Haven’t found either.”
“Anyone see anything? Any phone messages?”
“Not that we know of. Two phone messages came in just after the first officer arrived. One from Eve Renner, the victim’s daughter. Another from Renner’s daughter-in-law, Anna Maria Renner. Deputy Mott didn’t answer either call. He wanted to hear what kind of messages they would leave.” Brounier walked to the answering machine in the kitchen and hit the play button. The breathless, worried voice of Eve Renner filled the room.
“Dad? This is Eve. I’m sorry to call you so late, but I thought you’d want to know that…that I’m back in town…. I, um, should have called earlier. Call me back.”
Brounier clicked off the machine. “That call came in at two fifty-one, according to this machine.”
“She knows,” Montoya said, his heartbeat quickening, the synapses in his brain moving so quickly he felt agitated, nervous, already ahead of the game. “How could she know unless whoever had done it had called her?”
“You don’t know—”
“No one calls their parent at three in the morning unless you want to give them a heart attack. She was worried about him, otherwise she would have waited until the morning.”
“Maybe something happened to her, and she needed to talk to him. Maybe she hurt herself, fell, or—”
“Oh shut the hell up, Bentz. You don’t need to play fucking devil’s advocate. Eve Renner knows because someone told her, and that person is the killer.”
Bentz turned to Brounier. “Maybe,” he conceded. “So, where did the call originate? Eve Renner’s been in Atlanta.”
“Caller ID says the call came in from a New Orleans number. I checked already. It’s her house. The second one, that’s the call from Atlanta.” He hit the play button again.
“Dad? This is Anna Maria. Could you call me back? I just want to make sure you’re okay. I’ve, uh, I’ve got this friend who works for the paper. He called and said there might be some trouble at your place, so I kinda got worried. Kyle’s not home right now, but you can probably reach him on his cell. But you can call here. Okay? Please. Just let me know that everything’s fine. Love ya.”
Click.
“Stupid reporters,” Brounier said. “Listening in on our bands. I know they’re just doing their jobs, but hell, they’re such a pain.”
“So Eve Renner’s back in New Orleans,” Montoya whispered. “Same day that Cole Dennis is released. Same damned day that her father gets himself offed. How much of a coincidence is all that?”
“You know how I feel about coincidences,” Bentz muttered.
“Don’t believe in ’em.” Brounier took off his glasses and rubbed the lenses with the tail of his shirt.
Montoya said, “Someone from the department should go and give Eve the bad news.”
“A unit’s already been dispatched,” Brounier said. He checked his watch and scowled. “They should have reported back to me by now.” His mouth pursed in aggravation, and Montoya guessed Louis Brounier suffered no fools, especially if they were underlings.
“Anything else you can tell us?” Bentz asked.
“Not until we gather more evidence and sift through what we’ve got. It looks like the victim was surprised, attacked, his throat slashed, and then, as he was bleeding out, the killer wrote the number on the wall with a finger.”
“The vic’s finger,” Montoya said, adding, “If it’s the same killer.”
“Then there’s the number tattooed on his forehead. One hundred one, same as on the wall.”
“Same MO as the Kajak homicide,” Montoya said, “but a different number.”
Bentz stared at the body then glanced up at Montoya. “Got to be the same guy.”
“Now you’re talkin’.”
Brounier’s cell phone jangled. “Brounier. What? Oh for Christ’s sake! Now? No…no, I’ll be right there.” He clicked off and looked at Montoya. “The daughter’s here.”
Eve saw the police cars, flashing lights, officers, and news crews parked haphazardly on the road running past her father’s small farm and felt ill all over again. She found a spot near the neighbor’s fence, nosed her Camry into the weeds, and pulled to a stop. Saying a quick prayer, she climbed out of the car and half ran toward the end of the lane, where a skinny officer was standing guard. The night was bone cold, or so it suddenly seemed. She pulled her hastily donned jacket more ti
ghtly around her.
“I’m Eve Renner,” she said as she reached the deputy. “I need to see my father.”
“Sorry, ma’am, no one’s allowed. Crime scene.”
“But I’m family. Terrence Renner is my father. I lived part of my life in this house,” she said as if the man hadn’t heard her correctly.
“If you’ll just step to one side, I’ll have one of the detectives come and speak with you.”
“The police came to my house to tell me. That’s why I’m here,” she insisted.
“Excuse me.” The officer spoke into the radio microphone attached to his uniform. Eve felt all the starch drain out of her and sank against the police cruiser and tried to pull herself together, but all the while images of her father flashed through her mind.
Dad! Oh Dad! I’m so sorry…so sorry. Tears again filled her eyes as she remembered Terrence Renner as a young man, over two decades earlier, when she hadn’t yet entered kindergarten. She recalled how he’d tossed her into the air, only to catch her again, and how she’d she squealed in glee. “More, Daddy,” she’d cried, though her mother had been horrified at the game. “More, more, more!”
Another fleeting image, of her father as a doctor, the tails of his blindingly white lab coat catching in the breeze as he walked briskly across the tended lawns and gardens of Our Lady of Virtues campus. His professional smile had always been in place, though he’d rarely looked side to side at the patients who sat in the shade or pushed walkers or clustered in “outdoor group activities.” He’d been self-important then, a brilliant, educated man among the mentally incapacitated, the patients he’d tried to help.
She closed her eyes and turned her face to the night breeze. Another memory seared through her brain: she’d been older, maybe preteen, and her father had made a daily ritual of returning home to their house just off the campus of the hospital. Eve’s mother, lipstick bright, forever in jeans and a colorful T-shirt, had always had a pitcher of drinks waiting for him. Each night Terrence had set his briefcase in the front closet, deposited his keys in a dish on the table in the foyer, and brushed a kiss over his wife’s cheekbone. Even so, he was distracted, lines of worry creasing his high forehead, his gaze trained on the living room, where the sanctuary of the television and nightly news waited.
And then there was the most painful memory: Eve and her father standing at the cemetery in the hot sun on an August afternoon without a breath of breeze. Her brothers, red eyed and uncomfortable in their suits and ties, had been a few steps away, part of the family but not too close. Nana, draped in black, had been there as well, as Terrence stood staunchly in the blazing sun, his face pale, no tears visible as his wife was laid to rest.
Now, leaning against the police car, Eve tried to rally.
“I would like to see my father,” Eve repeated to the skinny officer with the big hat.
“Sorry, ma’am. I can’t let you. Crime scene.”
“I heard you the first time. I understand a crime has been committed.” Her head was thundering again, pounding mercilessly. “Can you please tell me what’s happened to my father?” When she realized the deputy wasn’t about to budge, she added, “Or…or can I talk to whoever’s in charge?”
“Detective Brounier’s on his way.”
“Brounier?” Eve turned toward the house and saw not one but three men, backlit by the lights of the house and flashlights, striding down the lane. She didn’t recognize the big, burly black man, but she knew the others.
Too well.
Her heart nosedived.
Detectives Bentz and Montoya.
More bad news.
Before they spoke, just as the threesome reached the barrier of yellow tape, she said to the approaching black man, “I’m Eve Renner. Dr. Renner’s daughter. I want to see him.”
“Detective Louis Brounier,” he said, extending a big hand, though he didn’t smile. He stared at her with surprisingly kind eyes. “You were alerted to the news about your father?”
“It’s a homicide?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t equivocate, and for that she was grateful. She nodded slowly several times. “I would…I would like to see him.”
“No, you don’t,” Montoya interjected.
Her temper snapped, white hot. “He’s my father, damn it.” Who was this guy to tell her what she did or didn’t want?
Bentz said, “We can’t let you do that. Not yet, anyway. In a few hours, after he’s been transported to the morgue, then we’ll need you to make an identification.”
Brounier said, “The sheriff’s department is going to work with the state police and the New Orleans Police Department. We just don’t have enough resources to handle something like this alone.” Eve knew there was more to it. Bentz and Montoya had been called in because her father’s death was similar to Roy’s. There was a connection. Sooner or later, the police would be knocking on Cole’s door again. And she was betting on sooner.
Montoya said, “You called here earlier. For your dad.”
She nodded. “I got into town late, and I wanted to call him and let him know I was back. But I got his machine, and then my sister-in-law from Atlanta phoned me. A reporter friend of hers had called her and told her there was trouble at Dad’s house, a possible homicide.” Eve managed to keep her voice in check. She’d already decided not to mention Cole. Not yet. “Then the police came and alerted me, and then I drove straight here.”
“It would have been better if you’d stayed home and let us do our job,” Montoya said.
“I couldn’t,” Eve said simply.
Montoya eyed her. “What time did you call your father?”
“Two-thirty, three…Does it matter?” Eve felt herself begin to perspire. Cole had been with her when she’d made that call, and it felt as if the detective knew it.
“It couldn’t wait till morning?”
“I really wasn’t concerned about what time it was. I was too keyed up and worried to sleep.”
A moment passed when no one said anything. Eve broke the uncomfortable silence. “Do you have any idea who would do this? Or why?”
“We thought you might be able to come up with a list of his enemies,” Bentz suggested.
“Enemies? I…I have no idea. He was retired.” She flashed to Tracy Aliota’s parents and their accusations that her father had been responsible for their daughter’s death. “I’ll think about it,” she promised, suddenly so tired her bones ached. Her father was dead. There was nothing more she could do for him, and even if she did regret their recent estrangement, it was too late now to make amends. “I think I’d better call my brothers.”
“What about Cole Dennis? Has he contacted you?” Montoya asked, the diamond stud in his ear reflecting sharply in the strobing lights.
Eve nearly stopped breathing. “What?”
“He’s out of jail, you know.”
“Of course I do. It’s all over the news.”
“So did he call you?”
“I just got into town, Detective, and I have a restraining order against him, and let’s just say I’m not exactly his favorite person these days.”
“So he didn’t contact you?”
“He hasn’t called me, no. Not in a long, long while,” she said, wondering why she felt compelled to protect the man who she’d once thought had tried to kill her. She started for her car, but Montoya stepped in front of her.
“We have a few more questions.”
“Can they wait?” she asked. “Until tomorrow?”
“Yes, ma’am. Let us have someone drive you home,” Brounier offered.
“No. I’m fine.”
“Are you certain? Is there someone I can call?”
“No, thank you. I’ll be all right,” she said, hoping to appear more collected than she felt. Her head was throbbing, she was dead on her feet, but the last thing she wanted was to be cooped up in some vehicle with a cop. She had to be careful, sort things out.
“We’ll
call you later,” Detective Bentz said, though Montoya studied her as if he didn’t trust anything about her.
Brounier nodded his agreement. “Thank you, Ms. Renner. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, walking quickly toward her car. She didn’t wait for anyone to change his mind. She just needed some time alone. To think. Tomorrow, after a night’s sleep, she would talk to the cops again, and when she did she’d show them the weird clippings about the mental hospital and admit that she thought she’d been followed. If they blew her off as a nutcase, so be it.
And will you tell them about Cole?
One of the news reporters looked her way. Oh God, she didn’t want to talk to anyone from the press. Not now. Probably not ever. Averting her face, Eve unlocked her car and quickly slid behind the wheel. Slamming the door closed, she prayed the reporter wouldn’t recognize her, wouldn’t put two and two together about Royal Kajak and her father. And Cole. The reporters will make that connection too.
She rammed her key into the ignition.
Will you tell them? Will you?
She shook her head and bit her lip, wondering what it said about her that, against all reason, she was protecting Cole.
CHAPTER 11
“I think I’m in trouble.” Cole held the grimy pay-phone receiver to his ear while drinking a brutally hot cup of coffee he’d gotten from an espresso hut on Decatur. He’d called Deeds collect. Thankfully his attorney had deigned to take the call.
“Already?” Deeds said, and Cole imagined him leaning back in his desk chair, looking through the panoramic windows of his corner office. “It’s barely eight in the morning. You haven’t been out of jail twenty-four hours. What took you so long?”
Cole was in no mood for wisecracks. “Terrence Renner’s dead.”
Silence.
“It’s all over the news.”
“What happened?” Deeds bit out.
“He was murdered. Throat slit. Just like Roy Kajak.”
“This is a joke, right?”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes. Turn on the television. Renner’s homicide is nearly identical to the Kajak murder. The only difference that I know is that the numbers scribbled in blood on the wall and tattooed onto his forehead were different: 101 instead of 212.”
