Never Die Alone

Montoya made a grim point. Lately, things had been quiet. Aside from the usual domestic violence cases and gang-related or booze-fueled fights, the city had been calm. Not since a killer had stalked St. Marguerite’s Cathedral had there been any unusual homicide cases. Which had suited him just fine. Or so Bentz had told himself. But, as proven by Bentz’s obsession with the tape of Father John murdering the woman prisoner, Montoya was right. Bentz’s investigative juices were definitely flowing again.

How sick was that?

Frowning, he heard his partner swear as Montoya turned onto an overgrown lane leading to the remote bayou. Dry grass and weeds scraped the undercarriage of the low-slung car as Montoya followed the twin ruts that marked the old driveway.

By the time they reached the area of the bayou where Father John had once lived, the mosquitoes were out in full force and the midday heat shimmered in waves. Tall cypress trees gave a little shade, but the air was still and humid. Oppressive. Sweat collected around Bentz’s neck and he tugged at his collar as they walked down the overgrown path toward the water. The dilapidated dock listed to one side, its rotting boards bleached from the intense sun. The brackish water stretched wider here.

Squinting, Bentz stared across the expanse to the thicket of trees that used to shelter a cabin set upon pilings. A killer’s lair where, over the drone of insects and croak of bullfrogs, Father John had tuned into Dr. Sam’s show as he sharpened the stones of his rosary and plotted his next grisly crime. Years had passed, long years that had lulled Bentz into believing the killer who had cloaked himself as a man of God had died in this very swamp.

Bentz swiped at the sweat beading at the back of his neck and wondered if Father John’s cabin still existed.

Maybe Montoya was right about this after all.

Maybe this trip to the bayou was all a huge waste of time.

CHAPTER 7

Bria

Bria

She thought back over her recent trip to California, where she’d run into so many dead ends. The LAPD hadn’t been responsive, the officer who had arrested Donovan Caldwell for the crime having retired, and the DA who had prosecuted the case was no longer with the department. His replacement, a stern woman of around fifty, was not interested in anything about the case other than keeping the convicted man known as the 21 Killer behind bars. The LA bureaucracy saw Bria

As if!

She slid a glance at Selma whose eyes were closed, her arms wrapped protectively around her thin body. Was it really possible? Could it be that Selma’s two precious daughters, on the cusp of becoming adults, had been kidnapped by 21?

If so, it was far too late.

The killer would have ended their lives precisely twenty-one years from the time Selma had brought them into the world.

Heart filled with dread, she drove into the city of Baton Rouge and turned onto the street that would lead into the center of All Saints’ campus. Bria

To that end, as the car nosed its way under the archway at the college’s southern border, Bria

At the sound of an outboard engine, Bentz turned toward the water to watch as an aluminum craft appeared, rounding a bend in the bayou.

Leaving a small wake, the boat sidled up to the old pier. Ray Calloway, a barrel-chested African American who was ma

“Ray,” Bentz said, stepping aboard the gently rocking boat. “Thanks for coming.”

“Any time, any time. You know it. Good ta see ya, Bentz.” The boat’s owner was an ex-cop who spent his days fishing these bayous. “No trouble at all,” he said as Montoya took a seat on the bench already occupied by Bentz. “Been too long.”

“That it has.” Bentz made quick introductions, then Calloway unhitched the boat, started the engine, and guided the craft across the murky water. Bentz didn’t like the feel of the area where alligators slid slowly through the swamp and water moccasins made their home.

“I hate this place,” Montoya admitted.

“The bayou?”

“No, this place.” He motioned to the shadowy thicket where Father John had resided during his reign of terror. His eyes darkened to nearly black. “Evil lived here.”

Bentz said, “A long time ago.”

“Doesn’t matter. I figure it still exists.”

Calloway nodded, his bald head speckled with sweat as he guided the boat’s bow between trees rising out of the water. “The spirit stays, you know. It lingers, even after the perp is gone. Y’know, like a bad smell.”

Bentz didn’t buy into Ray’s theory of lingering evil, but he couldn’t deny the sudden coolness at the back of his neck, like the breath of a demon prickling the hairs at the base of his scalp. The chill was at odds with the heat of the day. He told himself it was all his imagination. Montoya wasn’t right. Evil may have existed in this bayou where a musty smell rose from rotting vegetation, but no malingering spirits lurked in the deepening umbra.

The dinghy slipped farther into the woods, where shafts of light glinted through the branches overhead, sparkling the water. An ibis, disturbed by the watercraft, took off. White wings stretched, the bird disappeared in the higher branches.

“Here we go,” Calloway said, cutting the engine. Sure enough, the remains of a cabin came into view in the nest of foliage. Rotting on its pilings, the wooden structure sagged. Its roof had collapsed, and some of the floorboards of the porch surrounding the structure were missing.

“No one living in this mess,” Montoya observed; he seemed relieved.

“Yeah, I figured.” Bentz squinted at the dilapidated building. “This would have been way too easy, and nothing about Father John ever was.” He thought back to the time when the serial killer had been terrorizing the city. Long before Hurricane Katrina had meted out her punishment, Father John had stalked the streets of New Orleans, choosing his victims and leaving them with a necklace of bruises around their throats and a mutilated hundred-dollar bill nearby. A fake priest, serial killer, fan of Dr. Sam’s radio program. Yeah, he was a sick bastard all right.

And now he was back.

From the looks of it vandals had found the cabin. Luminescent paint had been scrawled over the remaining boards, a sleeping bag with its stuffing spilling out hung over what was left of the railing near the stairs, and beer cans and wrappers were visible. A wasp’s nest hung from a low branch, slim black insects crawling on its papery shell. Mosquitoes and dragonflies buzzed near the watercraft.

Montoya gave a wasp a swat as it hovered near his head. “Jesus, I hate the swamp.”

“Bayou,” Calloway corrected.