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“And why don’t you fuck yourself?” Zavala yanked his rake away, but some of the venom in his words faded. “You talk to my lawyer. You got his name.”
“I do. And I will.”
“Fuck you!” He spat then, a thin stream of tobacco juice arcing onto the ground.
Glowering at Bentz from beneath the brim of his red cap, he looked about to lunge again, and Bentz braced himself. Then Zavala said, “You know what, I git what you’re doin’ and it ain’t gonna work. So just fuck the hell off.” Sneering, he turned, then went back to cleaning the dry leaves and cones off the cement, the tines of his rake scraping like fingers on a blackboard as he worked.
Bentz didn’t turn his back on the man as he headed back to the parking lot, didn’t trust Zavala as far as he could throw him. The big man was a powder keg, just waiting to be set off.
Bentz wondered about that.
As he reached his Jeep he noticed Opal Guidry getting into her car. She glanced at Bentz, then quickly slid behind the wheel. Without another look in his direction, she hit the gas and drove out of the lot, nearly clipping a Camaro that was speeding down the street.
Bentz watched it all as he climbed into the warm interior of his Jeep, started the engine, and switched on the AC. Before backing up, he gave the church a final glance. Through the dusty windshield he caught a glimpse of Father Anthony standing at the window of his office.
How odd.
The priest had been so insistent he was late to a meeting at the hospital, and yet he’d taken the time to watch Bentz’s exchange with Zavala. Now, however, Father Anthony was dressed in his black robe and clerical collar.
Bentz wondered about Anthony Creswell.
No way was the young priest the Rosary Killer. Bentz was sure of that much, because he knew Father John’s true identity and that particular psycho wasn’t a priest at all. On top of that the true Rosary Killer was older than the man standing in the window.
The thought of a copycat killer tickled his brain. Was it possible?
Father Anthony was young and strong. Surely physically capable of overpowering an unsuspecting victim.
And yet, Anthony Creswell was a true man of the cloth. A believer. Certainly not a murderer.
At least Bentz assumed as much.
There was a line from an old radio show that Bentz had often heard his grandfather quote, something about evil lurking in men’s hearts. He couldn’t remember the exact quote but it seemed appropriate now as he watched the priest disappear from the window.
“Who indeed,” he thought aloud as he backed up, then put his Jeep into drive, pulled out of the gravel lot, and rubbed the back of his neck. He’d originally thought the recent killings of the prostitutes was cut-and-dried, that his old nemesis, Father John, had somehow been resurrected and was haunting the streets of New Orleans once again, but increasingly he was starting to believe it might be something more. Something more complicated. Something more sinister. Something he had yet to figure out.
He thought about Kristi and the attack against her, the murder of her husband and the notes left to terrorize her, notes he was certain Ned Zavala was incapable of creating.
But what about his mother?
And how did this all fit in with Father John?
He couldn’t force the pieces of this ill-fitting puzzle together, no matter how he tried.
Frustrated, Bentz left Our Lady of the Grove with more questions than he had answers and only hoped Montoya had fared better. As his partner had suggested, they were following different paths, he on the Father John trail, Montoya trying to root out a separate psychopath who had brutally taken Jay McKnight’s life and left Bentz’s daughter a wounded widow.
He still believed that Jay’s murderer was either Father John or a clever copycat, and somehow connected to his son-in-law’s killer. All the evidence at the scenes of the murders of Teri Marie Gaines and Helene Laroche pointed to Father John, but so far Bentz had no real proof that the Rosary Killer had survived. If Father John wasn’t responsible for the recent murders, then who? He felt heartburn begin to attack and reached into the console, found an opened roll of antacids, and popped two as he threaded his way through the traffic and drove past the lake, stretching wide, reflecting the sky and meeting the horizon.
He drove past Samantha Wheeler’s house, saw that the gates were closed, and felt that he was missing something. Something important.
If Father John were really alive, why hadn’t he targeted Dr. Sam? Why would he go after Kristi? Some kind of revenge move against Bentz for nearly killing him? Or Kristi for writing the book?
He rounded a corner, slowed for a jaywalker, and cracked the window, allowing the warm autumn air to flow into the interior.
Nothing was making sense.
Once again, he hoped his partner was having better luck.
CHAPTER 22
