As soon as the waitress left, Bentz eyed a somber-faced Hayes. His gut clenched. “Something happened.”
“Where were you last night?”
“What?”
Hayes didn’t respond. Just waited. Dark eyes assessing, lines showing near the corners of his mouth and around his eyes. His big hands rotated the tiny porcelain cup around and around, steam rising in fragrant swirls.
“I was here in L.A. Culver City, to be exact. At the motel.” What the hell was going on here?
“Anyone able to confirm that?”
“What?” Bentz asked, not liking where this conversation was leading. He waited as a busboy delivered soy sauce to their table, then said, “I don’t know, but I got in around…seven maybe, or eight? I didn’t check with the desk.” He stopped short and eyed the man he’d counted on as a friend. “What the hell happened, Hayes?”
“You know Shana McIntyre, right?”
“Jennifer’s friend. Yeah. You know I do.”
“You visited her?”
“A few days ago. What? She complain that I was harassing her?”
Hayes shook his head. “It’s more serious than that, Bentz. Shana McIntyre was killed last night.”
Bentz was stunned. He tried to soak it all in as the waitress returned with steaming platters of spicy vegetables, meat, and rice. She placed them on the table, then smiled expectantly. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked as if from a distance.
Shana was dead? But he’d just seen her…
“We’re fine,” Hayes said.
Bentz sat back, having lost his appetite. A feeling of doom settled like lead in his gut. He couldn’t believe it. As the waitress disappeared, clicking off on high heels to another booth, Bentz pushed his platter aside and lowered his voice. “Wait a second.” He was still trying to wrap his mind around what Hayes was saying. “Killed?”
“Murdered.” Dark eyes drilled into him. Silent questions-accusations-in their dark depths.
Jennifer. This has to do with Jennifer. The dark idea snaked through his brain as he understood the unspoken accusations in Hayes’s eyes. What?
“Holy Christ. You think I did it?” he asked, shocked all over again. “No.” Bentz shook his head, feeling for the first time in his life like a damned suspect. “Wait a second.”
“Look,” Hayes said seriously. “This is a courtesy, okay? One cop to another. Your name was found on her computer. She keeps a calendar there.”
“I told you I saw her.”
“And you never went back?”
“No.” Bentz’s gut wrenched. This was madness. He couldn’t believe for a second that anyone who knew him, who had worked with him, for God’s sake, would think him capable of killing someone.
What about Mario Valdez? You killed him, didn’t you? An accident, yes, but the kid died. At your hand. You are capable, Bentz. Everyone here in L.A. knows it.
“Tell me what you discussed with her.”
“Jennifer, of course.” He told himself not to be paranoid. Hayes wasn’t trying to nail him. He was just doing his job. The hostess was leading two men in business suits to a booth nearby. Bentz watched them pass before settling his gaze on Hayes again.
A dark eyebrow raised. “That’s all?”
“Yeah.” Bentz recounted their discussion, explaining about the conversation from the time he was met at the door by Shana and her mammoth dog to his departure. He even recounted that shortly thereafter he’d spied “Jennifer” at the bus stop on Figueroa.
Hayes’s face didn’t change expression. “Did Shana buy it that your ex-wife might be alive?”
“Nah. She thought Jennifer was dead, though she always had her doubts that she committed suicide.”
“She thinks Jennifer was killed?” Hayes’s underlying message was clear: She was killed and you were involved.
“I get where you’re going with this, but I wouldn’t be here, looking for the truth, if I had any connection to Jennifer’s death. And I have no motive to kill Shana McIntyre.”
Hayes was unmoved. “You have to admit, these are strange coincidences. The Twenty-one killer strikes again, and now Shana McIntyre is dead…all within a week of your return to L.A. Any detective worth his salt would be making some connections.”
Bentz’s jaw tightened. A storm roiled inside him and it was all he could do to hang onto his temper. “When I left Shana, she was alive. That was a few days ago…check her calendar. I never went back and never saw her on the street and never so much as talked with her on the phone. You can check my cell records.”
“We will.”
“Good. Then you’ll see that last night I was on the phone with my wife in New Orleans. The cell tower in the area should have caught the signal. Jesus, listen to me. I don’t have to explain myself to you or anyone else.”
Hayes held up a hand defensively. “I just thought you’d rather hear it from me first.”
Bentz bit back a comment, trying to restrain his anger. No need to shoot the messenger. “First and last. I wasn’t at Shana’s place last night. But you would know that if you checked her security system,” Bentz said. “The place is gated like she’s a celebrity. Anyone think to get into the system, see what those cameras all over her house picked up?”
“We’re looking into it.”
“Well, do, because I wasn’t there. And while you’re at it, you might check out some of the information I sent you about that silver car and the license plates. Someone’s fuckin’ with me, Jonas, and that person’s playing the LAPD for a fool. I didn’t kill Shana McIntyre, but someone wants to fuck me over. Someone orchestrated this whole thing. They’re probably watching us now.”
The waitress came by with more tea and her ever-present smile, but Hayes shook his head and she moved on as three middle-aged women were seated at a table not far from them.
“You’re paranoid,” Hayes said, his voice still low as the women scraped their chairs back, his accusations echoing Bentz’s own very private fears.
“That’s right, but I’ve got a good reason.”
“I’m here as your friend.”
“You know the old line about, ‘with friends like you, who needs enemies?’”
“Just watchin’ your back.” Hayes’s dark eyes flashed and his lips drew tight. “More than a few people in the PD would like to see you go down, Bentz.”
“So what else is new?”
“As I said, I’ve got your back.”
“Prove it. Get me that information. We’ve done here.” Bentz stood up, grabbed his cane, and shoved his plate toward Hayes. “You might want to put this in a ‘to go’ bag.”
Bentz had a point, Hayes thought grudgingly as the clock ticked toward five and he still a stack of paperwork looming on his desk. The air-conditioning system was working overtime, the cold office emptying as detectives signed out and the night shift dribbled in. For the third time Hayes scanned the statements collected from the neighbors and friends of Shana McIntyre, trying to make some sense of the events surrounding her death. An impossible task, he thought, clicking his pen nervously.
Although he didn’t see enough evidence to string together any kind of case, all factors did point to one thing: someone had lured Bentz here and, once he’d landed on West Coast soil, a homicidal rampage had begun.
Were the Springer girls part of it?
He didn’t know. His frown deepened as he clicked his pen even more rapidly.
Thinking he was missing something, he flipped through the reports one more time. The neighbor to the north of the McIntyre property owned dogs that had gone nuts around ten-thirty the night before, an event consistent with the time of death. But, of course, that neighbor had seen nothing out of the ordinary. No surprise, as the hedges and fences made it impossible to peek into the abutting yard.
Another neighbor three doors down had spotted a dark pickup on the road, but that vehicle belonged to one of the lawn care companies who serviced the neighborhood. The truck had broken down and was later towed-all legit.