And maybe, just maybe, Father John was back. He stared at the spine of Kristi’s book The Rosary Killer, and a knot tightened in his stomach.
He needed a list of the subjects of her books along with other enemies she may have made in her life.
The same went for her husband. As Bentz recalled, Jay had left some broken hearts along the way, including jilting a woman to whom he’d been engaged. That had been years before, of course, but what was the old saying? “Revenge is best served cold,” or some such crap.
But he couldn’t discount it.
He couldn’t discount any suspect.
He flipped over the page of his legal pad and wrote quick reminders on a clean yellow sheet. Again he thought about the murderers who might be connected to him, convicts he’d put away and were out of prison. They ate at him. Could the killer be one of the psychos who had sworn they would make Bentz pay for arresting and convicting him?
Once again, he studied the spines of Kristi’s books. More than a couple of the cases had been made into television movies and had been intertwined with his investigations. That had been only natural. Also her own life had been in jeopardy on more than one occasion.
Bentz’s jaw slid to the side and he felt the burning in his gut again when he considered how many times he’d already thought he’d lost her, how often a woman of her age, young, athletic, and healthy, had faced and cheated death.
But the Grim Reaper was nothing if not determined. Patiently so. Because he always wins in the end.
* * *
I study my wound in the mirror.
A bright red scar runs from my eye to chin, compliments of Kristi Bentz. The slice is raw and red, but will heal. Luckily my eye was saved. Wouldn’t droop. And I know how to take care of wounds; I understand how to help the injury heal and reduce its scarring. Though vanity is a sin, I can’t help but take pride in my looks—yes, I know, another sin. Add it to the list. The truth is I usually spend more hours working out than I do praying.
I will have to change that, I think as I take out my favorite weapon, that perfect little knife, and sharpen it on the stone. Scritch! The blade rubs across the hard surface. Scritch! Scritch! Faster and faster, scraping the edge until it’s razor sharp. Scritch!
Perfect.
I think about that fine, deadly edge and consider the night I last used it.
On Jay McKnight.
I managed to escape on the night I attacked Kristi Bentz, although I worried that the police with their cameras, computer enhancements, legions of troops with guns, cars, helicopters, and dogs would hunt me down. Arrest me. Cage me.
So far I’ve escaped.
I didn’t chance going to a hospital to get stitched up. No urgent care, or clinic, or even visiting a veterinary supply store. I know what to do. The US government helped me out on that score. I was a medic in the army. I learned. I practiced. And I was able to apply that knowledge and those skills to the thin cut running down the side of my face. With a little surgical tape and glue, I pulled the skin together. Ever since I’ve tended to the area meticulously, gently massaging my skin and applying vitamin E as if I was in post-op care for plastic surgery. I’ve laid low, which I planned in advance—another convenient trip out of town for those who asked—but I’ve also avoided sunlight and recuperated, staying inside, even forgoing my usual workout routine for now.
And I prayed.
Oh, how I prayed. Over and over as I healed.
Asking for guidance.
Begging for a sign.
Hoping to atone.
Now, not for the first time today, I make the sign of the cross and whisper, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
It’s been over a week since I’d taken Jay McKnight’s life and I’ve replayed the scene in my mind hundreds of times, maybe even a thousand. McKnight’s death hadn’t been part of the plan. Never before had her husband, or anyone else, interrupted that bitch’s walk from her three-night-a-week yoga class to her car. I know. I followed her for weeks, making certain her routine was always the same.
So why on this night had McKnight tracked her down?
Had he known?
It was all just bad luck, I decide as I gently apply more of my healing ointment onto the scar, then wipe my fingers and make my way from the tiny bathroom to the main living area of my apartment, a converted old carriage house that backed the property, the access only visible by one neighbor, an infirm elderly woman on the other side of a thick hedge, but there are a few holes in the greenery and I’ve seen her peering through them as she gardens. Luckily, lately she can’t pry. Not since her last stroke, which was all the more convenient as she’d been hauled off to a nursing home where she was recuperating and rehabilitating. Hopefully she wouldn’t ever return “home.”
Which would be perfect because, before that fortunate little bleeding in her brain, Bessie Cawthorne was getting a little nosy. Sometimes if the old bat was out in the garden trimming or deadheading her flowers, she’d call to me, ask me how I was, to which I always answered, “Fine” or “Busy” or whatever. At times I’d caught her peering through her blinds, especially if I was leaving late at night. That’s when her curiosity got the better of her and she’d always ask the next time she ran into me, what was I doing, where was I going, that sort of thing. I’d been able to fend off her questions fairly easily for the most part.
And now, at least for the foreseeable future, she won’t be a problem.
Aside from the old lady, there aren’t too many others to worry about. A lawn service with a variety of gardeners mows her yard and blows debris off our shared driveway. But the workmen wearing ear protection were always trying to finish as quickly as possible, never even glancing at the short alley and brick fence that surround this private spot.
My biggest concern had been Bessie’s scrappy little dog—a terrier of some sort—and an infernal beast with bristly gray fur, curious dark eyes, and a penchant for watching my every move. As soon as I open the gate, there he is, peering out the kitchen window from his seat on the banquette, paws on the glass. Sometimes the damned dog barks—a high-pitched, irritating noise—and I’d rather he didn’t alert the old lady to my comings and goings. Especially at night. Not that I’m in the alley all that often, but still, the less notice, the better.
However that problem is solved. At least temporarily. Someone in Bessie’s dutiful family took the irritating mutt away.
And now that the dog and Bessie are gone, my life is simpler.
Aside from the sorry fact that Kristi Bentz is still alive.
That’s a problem.
I try to convince myself that it’s all for the best, that I should savor this moment. I’ll get to her in time, but for now, isn’t it better that she is grieving, feeling the pain of the loss of her husband?
Sure, it is, I tell myself as I walk into the kitchen and reach into the small refrigerator and pull out a bottle of cranberry juice—not that sugary stuff, not the “cranberry cocktail” that is touted on TV, but pure, tart cranberry juice. I dilute it with filtered water, then carry it to the tall café table where newspapers are spread, opened to pages dedicated to the murder that occurred in Pirate’s Alley. I peruse them again—there’s nothing new, thank God—then fold them and pull out my laptop to check the latest reports. I scroll through the news reports, not only for New Orleans, but nationally. Just in case.