He also took a good long look at the area.
As far as he could see, no one was watching him. No one loitered. There was a gas station and convenience store next to another motel across the wide boulevard. A little farther down sat a three-story building that looked like it had shops on the street level and offices above. Then came the bar where he and Hayes had met last night.
But no silver Impala anywhere in sight.
Restless, itching for something to do after spending hours on his laptop at the battered desk in his motel room, Bentz walked to the car.
So Hayes thought he should pack it all in and return to New Orleans.
No damned way. Someone was baiting him, impersonating his dead wife, and following him.
He intended to find out who.
With the help of Montoya and his cell phone company, he tried to track down the owner of the phone who had called him, the woman impersonating Jennifer. It appeared to be one of those untraceable prepaid phones that criminals were so fond of.
So he was left to his own devices and hungry as hell. He bought a few newspapers, then stopped at a local diner that served breakfast all day. Over the clatter of silverware, sizzle of the fryer, and buzz of conversation, Patsy Cline was singing “Crazy.”
Perfect, Bentz thought as he used his cane to help lower himself into a booth with a table straight out of the fifties: Slick green plastic top rimmed with chrome, matching napkin holder, and bottles of ketchup and mustard at the ready. He scanned a faded menu, ordered from a tall woman with a pile of red hair adding three inches to her height, then spread the newspapers on the table.
While reading the most recent accounts of the Springer girls’ murders he dived into his “All-American-All-Day-Breaker” which consisted of two eggs, five sausage links, a heap of hash browns, and a mountain of toast. His coffee cup was never empty, though he had to ask for ice water.
The food was substantial and filling, if not gourmet.
Once he’d forked up the last bit of potatoes, he flipped the newspaper closed and caught a glimpse of an ad that stopped him short. It was for a thrift shop, a Catholic thrift shop, and the symbol in the corner of the page, a cross with the letter A attached, was sickeningly familiar.
It was the same symbol from the sticker on the Impala he’d seen at San Juan Capistrano. A symbol for St. Augustine’s.
He stared at the information for a second, then asked the waitress if they offered wi-fi service here. She looked at him as if he were nuts, so he paid quickly, then drove to a nearby coffee shop where he knew there was free Internet access.
After ordering another cup of coffee he really didn’t need, he sat in a worn couch and fired up his laptop.
Over the sounds of soft jazz, grinding coffee, and the hiss of the steamer, he connected to the Internet where he searched for any mention of St. Augustine’s hospital or clinic in the L.A. area. For the first time since coming to L.A., he felt a ray of hope that he might have a way to discover who was tormenting him.
He found a parish in West L.A. on Figueroa Street, a school in Culver City, and several other institutions, but no hospital or clinic.
The fact that one of the schools was on Figueroa and the other in Culver City bothered him. Jennifer had lived with him in Culver City and supposedly, according to her friend Shana McIntyre, had met with James in a little motel somewhere near the USC campus on Figueroa St. It was the same major street where he’d thought he’d seen her at the bus stop.
Possible? Had he seen her? He clicked his pen, wondering.
There were too many connections. Too many coincidences. Too many possibilities.
Doggedly he kept at it, searching the Internet until he came to the mention of St. Augustine’s Hospital, which had closed five years earlier. Bingo! He stared at the information for a second, then jotted down the address, and was out the door.
He had several stops on his agenda. First, he planned to drive to the old hospital, just to get a closer look. Then he would try to catch Fortuna Esperanzo at work in the gallery in Venice. Afterward he planned on heading to Hoover Middle School, where Tally White was a teacher. He remembered Tally had befriended Jennifer when her daughter Melody had been in the same first-grade class as Kristi.
He punched in the address, headed for the freeway, and barely moved. The 10 was jammed in the middle of the day, but he kept at it, inching past an accident, then picking up speed.
As he headed east he checked his mirrors, on the lookout for a tail, watching to see if he was being followed, particularly by a silver Chevy.
Using his cell, cognizant that he might get pulled over as he wasn’t using a hands-free device, he left a message with Montoya, asking him to look up more on St. Augustine’s Hospital and see if there was some way he could get personnel records from the archdiocese or whatever institution or attorneys or board oversaw the hiring or firing of the staff. There had to be records somewhere. True, there would be a lot of staff to sift through, but only for a couple of years. He explained that the Impala was seven or eight years old and the hospital was closed five years earlier, so even if the car was bought new, the window of time when the sticker could have been issued was relatively short.
A plus.
He also left the license plate numbers and hoped that somehow there would be a match. If Montoya used the police department’s computers, databases, and DMV records, they might be able to find some shred of evidence to help him sort out the mystery.
Bentz knew he didn’t have a lot to go on, but he figured it was a start. Tedious work, but a slight inroad. His cell rang. Bentz saw it was Montoya and grinned.
“Got an answer for me already?”
“Up yours, Bentz. It’s not like I don’t have a job to do here.”
“Just see what you can do.”
“Great. Anything else?” he mocked.
“Not yet.” No reason to tell him about last night’s leap into Santa Monica Bay. Yet.
“Well, just let me know because it’s my mission in life to be your bitch.”
“Fulfilling, isn’t it?”
“You owe me, man.”
“Always have, Montoya.” He hung up just before taking his exit off the freeway, then wound his way around the surface streets to the site of the old hospital.
It wasn’t a large piece of property. The crumbling stucco building that had once housed St. Augustine’s Hospital was now surrounded by mesh fencing and warning signs that trespassers would be prosecuted “to the full extent of the law.”
Fine.
Ignoring the warnings, Bentz climbed over a gate and jumped onto the packed dirt inside the enclosure. Pain jolted his hip as he landed, reminding him that he still wasn’t a hundred percent. But he kept on, making his way toward the abandoned hospital.
The stucco exterior was just a shell. Limping a bit, he walked around the rubble and ducked into a gaping doorway. Inside, the building was skeletal, torn down to the studs. Tired floorboards creaked beneath his sneakers, and he saw evidence of bats in the rafters. Some of the old plumbing was intact, rusted pipes running up and down between aging two-by-fours and beams. Whoever had started this renovation had stopped suddenly. Because of the failure of the economy?
Outside again, he paused by a huge sign that faced the road and advertised a strip mall that was to be built. But the intended date for opening had already passed and it was obvious whoever was backing the project had pulled out. So here sat the remnants of St. Augustine’s Hospital, a sad ruin of a building.