Cold Blooded

by Lisa Jackson

  Yeah, and what if he gets sick and has no money… what then? You are flesh and blood. His only kid.

  She decided she needed help sorting this all out. After finishing locking up, she reached in her purse, pulled out her wallet, and found the card Father James McClaren had pressed into her hand when she’d found him at St. Louis Cathedral.

  “This is a surprise,” James said, and he meant it as he looked up from his desk. The secretary had left for the day, as had Father Roy, and now he was faced with Olivia Benchet again, the beautiful woman with the tangled hair and enigmatic eyes. He’d thought about Olivia more than once in the last couple of days. More than he should have. And his thoughts hadn’t been pure. Far from it. But that was his personal cross to bear, the demons he had to fight.

  “I want to talk to someone,” she said, hesitating in the doorway.

  “Come in … please …” He stood and pointed at one of the two side chairs on the other side of the desk. They were wooden, their seats smoothed and polished by fifty years of backsides of the troubled, the cursed, or the penitent. “You’re here to see me?”

  “Yes.”

  “As a priest?”

  She hesitated as she sat and he noticed the curve of her calf peeking from beneath a slit skirt. Quickly, he looked away, to the window and the naked branches of the oak tree that were visible in the blue illumination from nearby street lamps. A crow was sitting on a lower limb, his head tucked beneath his wing. “Yes, and, well … I haven’t been to mass in years.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem.” He offered her a smile and noticed her lips twitch.

  “If so, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “What’s going on with you, Olivia?”

  Again there was a moment’s hesitation. She worried her lower lip as if deciding just how much she could confide. “I think I should start with my family,” she said, then found his eyes again. “That alone could take days.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Why don’t you begin and we’ll see where it takes us and how long. I’ve got all night.”

  “Even men of God need to sleep,” she said.

  “What’s troubling you, Olivia?”

  What isn’t? she thought, but said, “I guess I felt compelled to seek some kind of counseling because of my father. I’ve never really known him; he and my mother were divorced when I was a toddler, and for most of the remaining years he’s been in prison. For murder.” Father James didn’t so much as flinch. “But he got out earlier this year, I guess, I didn’t know. My mother told me just recently and now he wants to meet me. He even called and claimed he’s a changed man, that he’s reformed, a minister of some sort, and the simple truth is I really don’t want anything to do with him.”

  “But …” he encouraged.

  “But even though I think of him as just a sperm donor, the truth of the matter is that he is my flesh and blood. I’m his only living child and my good old Catholic guilt is rearing its ugly head. He mentioned that I was all he had left.” And there was something about the way he’d said it that had bothered her; something was off.

  Father James was listening hard, his square jaw balanced on the knuckles of both hands, his blue eyes focused on her. His jaw was dark with beard-shadow and he wore a black shirt and a stiff white cleric’s collar. He was just too damned handsome to have given his life to God. There was something about him that reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t put her finger on who that could be. Probably some television or B-movie Hollywood hunk who never made much of a name for himself.

  He just didn’t look the part of a priest. Though he wore cleric’s garb and sat in this ancient room with its wide, polished desk, an open Bible in one corner, an arched window offering a view outside the vestibule, Father James McClaren looked as if he belonged on a soccer field or guiding a white-water rafting trip or standing on the bridge of a sailboat.

  As if he read her mind, he smiled, showing off straight white teeth. “I guess I should tell you to search your heart, look into your soul, find the courage to forgive your father for his sins against you.”

  “Turn the other cheek and avert my eyes to all he’s done?”

  “He’s paid his debt to society. His punishment has been complete in the eyes of the law, so that leaves what he did to you, which, essentially is abandon you and your mother, the embarrassment to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t mean to trivialize it. There’s nothing trivial about abandonment, especially to a child. I’m sure the ramifications to you and your mother were devastating. And even though you’re an adult, it doesn’t mean that the pain will just vanish. You can say you don’t care, that you’re over it, that it was probably for the best, but the scars run deep and are painful. And when the pain is revisited as it is now that your father has contacted you again, it’s like the scab over those old wounds is being picked at. It stings. Threatens to bleed again. Burns. Brings back old, wretched memories that we’d hoped and prayed were long forgotten.” He didn’t smile as he looked at her, and Olivia was suddenly aware how dark the room was, that aside from the weak light from the street lamp outside, the only illumination in the room was from a banker’s lamp with its dim bulb and green shade.

  The corners of the office seemed to shrink, the atmosphere thickening.

  Father James said, “I can’t tell you what to do, Olivia. I can only suggest that you pray and talk it over with God. See what He says.” He spread his hands wide. “That’s probably not the answer you were searching for, but it’s the best I’ve got.”

  “Is it?”

  “Tell you what. Why don’t you go home and think about it? Do some soul-searching, then come back in a couple of days and we’ll discuss it again.”

  “And in the meantime? If he calls again?”

  “Do what your heart tells you.”

  “What if my heart tells me to call him every name in the book?” she asked and he grinned.

  “Just make sure it’s this book.” He thumped two fingers on a corner of the Bible resting on his desk.

  “Is that what you’d do?”

  “It’s what I’d try to do.” He sighed through his nose. “You know, I wear this collar”—he touched the white ring at his neck—“but it doesn’t mean I have all the answers. I’m just a man.”

  “And here I thought you were touched by God.”

  “I guess I’m supposed to say we’re all touched by the Father.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I suggest you speak with Him. And then listen. He will respond.”

  She wasn’t so sure, but she didn’t argue. After all, she’d come here for Father McClaren’s counsel. The least she could do was hear him out. “Thank you for your time.”

  “My pleasure,” he said and the twinkle in his eye and warm handshake across the desk told her that he meant it. “Here, let me walk you out.” He rounded the desk, touched the crook of her arm as he opened the door, then crossed the vestibule to the front doors. Dozens of votive candles were flickering in the dim nave, and a few lights glowed, shining from the exposed beams and reflecting on the stained glass windows. “Perhaps I’ll see you at mass this Sunday,” he suggested as he shouldered open the door and a cold breeze gusted inside, sending the tiny flames of the candles dancing wildly.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  He touched her hand, his fingers brushing the back of her knuckles. “Call me after you talk with God.”

  She glanced into his eyes … blue … intense … sexy. At odds with his soft-spoken piety. “I will,” she promised and he stepped away from her, though she felt his gaze as she bundled her jacket around her and skirted puddles to reach her truck. As she climbed inside and slid behind the steering wheel, she saw him lift a hand and she waved back, then shoved her key in the ignition, pumped the gas, and twisted her wrist. The old engine ground for a second or two and she hesitated, then gave it another try. The tired motor sputtered to life and she wheeled out of the parking lot, the truck bouncing over po
tholes.

  Her heart was pounding way too fast.

  Because Father McClaren had touched her. Not her skin. But deeper down. To her soul.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she warned as she looked into the rearview mirror. She couldn’t let herself be attracted to a priest. Nor a cop. Two men who were off-limits. Way off-limits. Maybe that was her problem, she thought as she accelerated onto the freeway. Maybe she was only interested in men who weren’t safe; men she couldn’t possibly be involved with.

  So why didn’t you confide in Father McClaren about your visions? Why not trust him? Are you afraid he might think of you as another nutcase like Bentz does?

  Large drops of rain started to fall, splattering on her windshield. She turned on the wipers and knew she couldn’t talk to the priest. Not yet. She’d look like a fruitcake. He already knew about her ex-con of a father, and soon, no doubt, she’d explain about her often-married mother, so right now she wouldn’t bring up a grandmother who practiced voodoo along with Catholicism, nor would she mention the fact that she witnessed murders through visions in her mind … at least one of which had been committed by a priest.

  He’d write her off for good if she mentioned that little fact.

  So, for now, she’d hold her tongue.

  Chapter Twenty

  The names of the saints ran through Bentz’s head.

  St. Cecilia.

  St. Joan of Arc.

  St. Mary Magdalene.

  Each one different. Each one immortalized on a medal that was purposely left at the scene of the crime.

  Why? Bentz wondered as his computer spewed out pages of information on each of the martyred women. What was the significance? Pivoting in his desk chair, he picked up the first page on St. Cecilia, patron saint of musicians, poets, and sinners. He skimmed the account of her life as a Roman girl, then came to the part about her death. His nerves tightened. Cecilia or Cecily was sentenced to death for refusing to repudiate her Christianity. She was supposed to die from suffocation in her bathroom by furnace fumes, and when that didn’t work, she was to be beheaded by three blows to the neck, which again failed, and she survived for several days after the attack.

  “Jesus,” he whispered as he thought of the similarities to the woman’s death in Bayou St. John—the smoky bathroom and then her head nearly severed from her body, in three blows according to the ME as well as Olivia Benchet. The sick bastard who did this was copying the punishment meted out against St. Cecilia—the name Olivia had heard him whisper in her vision.

  An eerie sensation swept over Bentz’s skin.

  He knew that Joan of Arc died from being burned at the stake and the Jane Doe had been horridly burned before her body had been dumped at the statue of Joan in the French Quarter.

  But what about Mary Magdalene … that part didn’t quite fit. He didn’t have a record of Mary Magdalene’s death, but he did know that she was a sinner—presumably a prostitute—as was Cathy Adams, who was found dead in her Garden District apartment. Cathy’s head had been shaved, and the smell of patchouli oil had been present. He read the account of Mary Magdalene’s life and how it was recorded in the New Testament by St. Luke that she wiped Christ’s feet with her hair and anointed him with ointment.

  Bentz felt that eerie sensation again.

  Had the killer turned this story of Jesus into something grotesque?

  The phone rang. It was the ME in the morgue. “The dental records of the victim from the fire in Bayou St. John match with Stephanie Jane Keller,” he said, though Bentz had already convinced himself that the girl who died in the fire was Dustin Townsend’s girlfriend.

  “You’re certain?”

  “A hundred percent. She had a lot of dental work done a few years back. I’ve checked the X-rays and talked to the dentist. She’s your girl.”

  “Thanks.” Bentz hung up and tapped his pen on a legal pad situated near the phone. He felt sick inside. He’d seen grizzly deaths—more than he wanted to count—but these killings were so macabre and hideous, gruesomely executed by some kind of weird zealot. A priest? No way.

  “So think, Bentz. Think.” Stop him before he strikes again.

  What did the three women have in common aside from being murdered in a bizarre fashion?

  They all appeared to be under thirty. Two of the three were white, though Cathy Adams was racially mixed. The killer had jumped racial lines, which was odd in and of itself. But not unheard of. He made a note.

  Okay, what else?

  Until he found out who the Jane Doe left at the statue of Joan of Arc was, he had only Cathy Adams and Stephanie Jane Keller to compare lifestyles and acquaintances and their pasts. They both had boyfriends, though Cathy’s hadn’t been heard from in months. Marc Duvall, Cathy’s pimp/boyfriend, had blown town around the time of the murder and was still a suspect.

  Both of the identified victims had lived alone, Cathy in the Garden District of the city, Stephanie in an apartment in Covington, less than a mile from her boyfriend’s house. Cathy was a part-time student at Tulane and an exotic dancer. Stephanie was a secretary for an insurance company and took night classes at Loyola.

  Which was next door to Tulane University.

  A connection? Or a coincidence?

  Bentz made it a personal code not to believe in coincidence. He made another note and wondered about the remaining Jane Doe. Another student at one of the universities in the Garden District?

  Olivia Benchet’s a graduate student at Tulane.

  His jaw tightened. He didn’t like where this was leading. The thought that Olivia might be in contact with the killer scared him. Big-time.

  So what about the priest?

  The priest only Olivia saw—and that was in her “vision.” Don’t go jumping off the deep end here, Bentz. You need more facts to believe that a priest would kill these women.

  It didn’t make any sense. He scanned his notes again, the ones he’d taken during the interviews with Olivia. He stopped when he came to the sheet of paper with the weird letters and symbols. His eyes narrowed as he thought. Another saint? Or was that stretching it too far … grasping at straws? Why would a priest kill women and make them look like martyred saints? That didn’t make sense. And why would Olivia be able to see him killing the women? How? What was the connection? Bentz was missing something … something important.

  He ran a hand over his face, heard the hum of computers and buzz of conversation in the outer office, and glanced back on his notes on St. Cecilia once again. The same stuff. Except … His gut clenched as he noticed the feast day. November twenty-second. He caught his breath. The day Stephanie Jane Keller was murdered.

  The killer had done his work on November twenty-second not because it was the date of the JFK assassination, but because it was the feast day of St. Cecilia.

  “Son of a …” He flipped through his pages on Joan of Arc. “Feast day… May thirtieth.” The Jane Doe was found at the foot of the statue of Joan of Arc on May thirty-first. But she could have been killed before midnight, May thirtieth, her feast day. Burned at a damned stake? Where? “Shit.” What kind of sick mind were they up against?

  And when would he strike again? Jesus, if Bentz remembered correctly, from his days of Catechism, it seemed there was a feast day celebrating some saint’s life every time you turned around.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead. That meant there wasn’t much time.

  If you ‘re right, his mind warned. You could be connecting dots that don’t exist.

  Like hell. He knew he was right. The demented bastard was using the holy days for his gruesome work.

  Suddenly Bentz wanted a drink. And a smoke.

  He opened his desk drawer and scrounged for a piece of tasteless nicotine gum. It wasn’t the same; didn’t give him the hit a Camel straight did, but it would have to suffice. For now. A drink was out of the question.

  Grabbing his jacket, ID, and shoulder holster, he logged out and told a secretary if Montoya showed up he needed to talk
to him. Then Bentz hit the rain-drenched streets, paging his partner himself from his cell phone as he unlocked his Jeep. He decided to drive to the one spot in the city that he’d managed to avoid for a long, long while.

  Jaw clenched, mind racing with more questions than answers, he cut across town, impatient with the clog of traffic. Ironic that a place he’d shunned was now so damned important that he’d abuse the speed limit to get there. The wipers slapped a torrent of rain from the windshield and the police band crackled, though only if Satan himself was found in New Orleans would Bentz be deterred.

  A final turn and he saw the church. A place of faith. His parish, if he had one. Since moving to New Orleans, he’d been here about five times. Always with Kristi. On Christmas, sometimes Easter. Never in between and sometimes he’d skipped a year. It all depended on how he felt about God at the time the holiday rolled around. He parked on the street and stared up at the tall spire of St. Luke’s Church. Illuminated by lights on the ground, the steeple rose into the night, seeming to knife into the clouds, unbent by the rain.

  It was ironic, he thought, that James had ended up here.

  What were the chances?

  Unless James had requested the transfer.

  Wouldn’t that beat all? He’d wondered half a dozen times why his half-brother had transferred to the Big Easy.

  Bentz pocketed his keys, didn’t bother turning up his collar, and made a dash for the front doors. Someone had told him long ago that God was patient. He hoped to hell it was true.

  The woman was a problem. A serious problem.

  The Chosen One sensed her presence, knew that it was only a matter of time before she led the police closer to him. He knew her name. Olivia Benchet … a self-proclaimed psychic. As was her grandmother, a backwoods voodoo priestess. But then The Chosen One knew all about Virginia Dubois.

  He’d done his research. It was necessary to understand one’s enemies. How else would one prevail?

  Standing in the shower’s hot spray, he sneered when he thought of the police. Simpletons. Idiots. With all of their sophisticated equipment and computer links, and manpower, they were still running around in circles. He’d listened to the press conference that was meant to warn the constituents of the city about a homicidal maniac; he’d heard that there was a task force in place and that more details would be released when they were available.