Evelyn grunted. “God, that man would rather climb a tree and lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth.” She took the pen off her desk and stood up to write on the puzzle wall. “Saw sister one week prior to disappearance,” she called out, writing down the words under Hank Bennett’s name. “What else did Juice say?”
“Hank Bennett told him to cut Kitty off heroin.”
“You mean Lucy?”
“No, I mean Kitty.”
Evelyn turned around. “Why would Hank Bennett want Juice to cut Kitty off heroin?”
Amanda pulled a Sergeant Hodge. “That’s an interesting question.”
Evelyn groaned as she looked back at the puzzle. “Maybe Andrew Treadwell sent Hank Bennett to get Kitty cleaned up.”
“Maybe.”
Amanda could tell she wasn’t convinced. “Okay, try this: Trey Callahan at the Union Mission said that Kitty stuck out from the other girls. She was obviously from an upper class. It wouldn’t take much poking around to find out who her people were. Maybe Juice tried to blackmail Treadwell, and Treadwell sent Hank Bennett to do his dirty work.” She scanned her notes. “Juice said it himself, that Bennett offered him money to get Kitty off the Boy.”
Evelyn breathed a heavy sigh. “Bennett went to bribe Juice about Kitty, but then he saw that his sister was there?”
“Juice said that Bennett didn’t see Lucy that time, but who knows? They all lie.”
“Yes, they do.” Evelyn bent down and studied the yellow page with the timeline drawn out. “We need to update this. Call it out to me.”
“Thanks for taking the hard part.” Amanda flipped through her notes as Evelyn waited. “Okay. The letter for Lucy Bennett comes to the Union Mission. We have both Trey Callahan and Juice confirming that.”
Evelyn took out a new piece of blue construction paper, stuck it on the wall, and wrote THE LETTER across the center. “Did Juice know what it said?”
“That he wanted to see his sister. That he missed her. Juice took it for a load of bull.”
“Look at me, agreeing with a pimp.”
Amanda continued, “Hank Bennett shows up at the mission a few days later and talks to Trey Callahan. Then, presumably soon after, he goes to Juice on his street corner. He sees Kitty instead. He tells Juice to cut Kitty loose. He doesn’t ask about his sister.” She squinted at her scribbles. “Juice made a point of telling me that he told Bennett to wait around for a few minutes, that Lucy would be right along, but Bennett didn’t wait.”
Evelyn guessed, “So, seeing Kitty put finding Lucy on the back burner for our boy lawyer.”
“Evidently,” Amanda concurred. “Then, two weeks later, Lucy is gone. A week or so after that, Kitty is gone. And then Mary disappeared after that.” Amanda looked up from the notebook. “Three girls gone. But why?”
“Tell me so I can stop writing.” Evelyn shook a cramp out of her hand before she finished the updating. Finally, she stood back and stared at the timeline. They both did. The puzzle was sprawling now, different bits of information floating around without a seeming connection. “I feel like we’re missing something.”
“Okay—” Amanda stood up. Pacing sometimes helped her think. “Let’s think about it this way: Bennett was trying to get in touch with his sister. His father was dead. His mother wanted to see her daughter, to let her know what had happened. So Hank goes to the streets looking for Lucy, only he finds Kitty Treadwell.”
“All right.”
“Bennett said that he sent Lucy the letter in August. He remembered it because he’d just graduated law school and his father was recently deceased. Later, he told us that he was a first-year associate at Treadwell-Price.”
“Oh-h-h.” Evelyn drew out the word. She picked up her pen and wrote down the approximate dates. “Bennett sees Kitty whored out on the street and parlays that into a job with Treadwell-Price?” She smiled. “That’s a top firm. A job there sets you up for life. I can totally see that weasel trying to work his sister’s tragedy to his own benefit.”
“Right.”
Evelyn sat back down in the chair. “But what does this have to do with Jane Delray? And why would Bennett lie about the ID? What does he gain from Lucy being dead? Oh!” She excitedly jabbed the pen in the air. “Insurance. I was looking at it from the wrong angle. Of course there’s no policy on Lucy. Bennett told us himself—his father’s dead, the mother’s just as good as, which leaves the estate and whatever policies the parents have to the children.” She sat up in the chair. “Maybe Bennett wanted to see Lucy in order to get her to sign away her claim to the estate. That happened with one of Bill’s clients last year. The old man was batty as a fruitcake. His children got him to sign away every last dime.”
“Hank Bennett certainly strikes me as an opportunist.”
“And besides, what would be the alternative?” Evelyn asked. “That Bennett killed Jane Delray? We saw him two days ago. His hands were perfectly clean. No cuts or bruises, which is exactly what you’d get if you attacked somebody.”
Amanda remembered the skin under Jane Delray’s fingernails. “She scratched her assailant. You would think he’d have a mark on the back of his hands or his neck or face.”
“Unless she scratched his arm. His chest. He was wearing a three-piece suit. Who knows what was under there?” Evelyn blew out a puff of air. “I don’t see Hank Bennett strangling a prostitute to death, then throwing her off the roof of Techwood Homes. Do you?”
Amanda didn’t know what the man was capable of. “I just get a bad feeling about him.”
“Me, too.”
They both stared at the wall. Amanda let her gaze wander, picking up different names out of order. She said, “Juice told me that Kitty was renting out her apartment to the other girls.”
“I guess she gets that entrepreneurial spirit from her father.”
“The next logical step would be to interrogate Andrew Treadwell and Hank Bennett.”
“Or, we could flap our hands and fly to the moon.”
“We should go back to Trey Callahan at the Union Mission. Juice said that he’s friends with the guy who runs the soup kitchen.”
Evelyn’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Is it just me, or does everyone lie to us?”
“They lie to the men, too. No one tells you the truth if you have a badge.”
“Well, I suppose we should tell Betty Friedan we’ve finally achieved some parity.”
Amanda smiled.
“We should talk to the soup kitchen guy, too.”
“We still don’t know who Butch’s CI is. Someone at Techwood identified Jane Delray as Lucy Bennett.”
Evelyn took a clean sheet of paper out of her desk drawer. “Okay, first thing tomorrow: Union Mission, then the soup kitchen, then Techwood to show around the photographs of the girls. Do you think we could sneak a picture of Hank Bennett?” She tapped her pen on the desk. “I know a gal over at the driver’s license bureau. I bet we can get his photograph that way.”
Amanda looked at her friend. She was showing the same mixture of excitement and purpose that Amanda had felt all week. Something about working this case made them forget the danger involved. She said, “Two people warned me off this today.”
“Landry?”
“Three, then. Holly Scott and Deena Coolidge. They both told me that I was crazy to be doing this.”
Evelyn chewed her lip. She didn’t have to say that the women were right.
Amanda asked, “Are we really going to keep doing this?”
Evelyn stared back at her rather than respond. They both knew that they should stop. They both knew what was on the line. Not just their jobs. Their lives. Their futures. If they were fired from the police force, no one else would hire them. They would be pariahs.