“Yeah.” Another swallow of coffee.
“So that’s it, you’re curious.”
“Hey, I’m just covering your back.”
“Fine.” Bentz studied the postmark. It was smudged and the lighting in the bar was too dark to see much. But he had a penlight on his key chain, and as he shined its small beam over the postmark his gut tightened.
The name of the town was unreadable, but he recognized the zip code as the one in which he and Jennifer had lived before her death.
Using a house key, he slit the envelope open and gently tugged the contents within. A single piece of paper and three photographs.
He sucked in his breath.
His heart stilled.
The pictures, complete with dates, were of his first wife, Jennifer.
Dear God, what was this?
He heard his pulse pounding in his brain. First the “sightings” and now this?
“Is that-?”
“Yeah.” The photographs were clear and crisp. In color. Jennifer walking across a busy street. Jennifer sliding into a light-colored car, make and model undetermined. Jennifer sitting at a tall café table in a coffee shop. The last picture was taken from the street, her image captured through the window of the shop. In front of the window was a sidewalk with pedestrians passing by and portions of two newspaper boxes in the foreground. He recognized one as USA Today, and the other the L.A. Times.
Narrowing his eyes, Bentz looked for a reflection of the photographer in the large window, but saw none.
This was nuts.
“Old pictures?” Montoya asked.
“Not if the dates from the camera are right.”
“Those can be changed.”
“I know.”
“And with Photoshopping and image altering and airbrushing, pictures can be made to look like anything someone wants them to. Other people’s heads on someone else’s body.”
Bentz looked up from the disturbing photos. “But why?”
“Someone just fuckin’ with ya.”
“Maybe.” He turned his attention to the document and his jaw grew hard as granite. The single page was a copy of Jennifer’s death certificate. Scrawled across the neatly typed document was a bright red question mark.
“What the hell is this?” Montoya asked.
Bentz stared at the mutilated certificate. “A sick way of telling me that my first wife might not be dead.”
Montoya waited a beat, watching the expression on his partner’s face. “You’re kidding. Right?”
“Does this look like a joke to you?” Bentz asked, pointing at the death certificate and scattered pictures.”
“You think this is Jennifer? Nah!” Then eyeing his ex-partner, “You’re messing with me, right?”
Bentz filled Montoya in. Until this point only his kid, who had been in his hospital room at the time he’d awoken from his coma, had any idea that Bentz had seen his first wife. Kristi had dismissed his vision of Jennifer as the result of his coma and too much medication. After that first sighting, he’d kept his mouth shut and his daughter, caught up in preparing for her wedding, hadn’t brought up the subject again.
“Wait a second,” Montoya said when Bentz paused to take a drink. “You’re saying you believe she might actually be alive?”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“Otherwise you’re chasing a ghost.”
Bentz scowled. Felt the heat of Montoya’s stare. “I’m not chasing a ghost.”
“Then?”
“And I’m not going out of my mind.”
“Which leaves…what? You believe that someone’s dressing up to look like your ex and then gaslighting you? Is that what you’re thinking, that you’re caught up in some kind of weird scenario straight out of a Hitchcock movie?”
“As I said, I don’t know what to believe.”
“You tell this to Olivia?”
“No.” He looked away. “Not yet.”
“Afraid she might have you committed?” One of Montoya’s dark eyebrows raised as he finished his coffee.
“Nah, just that she wouldn’t understand.”
“Hell, I don’t understand.”
“Exactly.”
Pushing his empty cup aside and resting his elbow on the table, Montoya asked, “So what do you want me to do?”
“Keep it quiet. For now. But I might need some favors.”
“Such as?”
“A few things. Since I’m on leave, I can’t get information as easily as before. I might need you to do some digging.”
“In finding this woman?”
“Maybe,” Bentz said. “For starters, I’ll need someone to have this letter fingerprinted and checked for DNA-lift the stamp and the envelope flap. Can you get me a copy of everything?”
“Sure.” Montoya looked at the document.
“And have the lab check, see if the photographs have been altered. They should be able to tell, right?”
“Probably.” He eyed the pictures. “At least I’ll give the lab guys a run at it. There’s one tech-Ralph Lee-specializes in all kinds of photography.”
“Good. After I take copies, have him look at the originals. Blow them up, sharpen the focus if possible, find details that might help me pinpoint the locations and time they were taken. See if there are street names, license plate numbers, clocks on the buildings, or the position of the sun, anything that confirms the time and date of the original pictures.”
Montoya frowned. “What’re you gonna do with the copies?”
“Not sure. I’m still working on it.”
Bentz returned the eight-by-tens and the death certificate to the manila envelope. He wasn’t even certain himself what he needed, not yet, but he was sick of jumping at shadows, of feeling that his brain was fraying, bit by bit. He just couldn’t sit back and let whoever was behind this run with it. “So, for now, don’t say anything. If Jaskiel or anyone else at the department thinks I’ve been seeing things, it’ll take a whole lotta convincing for me to get back to work.”
Montoya scratched at his chin and pushed his chair back, the diamond stud in his earlobe catching the light.
Bentz saw a flicker of doubt in his partner’s dark eyes. “You don’t believe me.”
“Me? A doubter? No way. Not my style.” He offered a quick, hard-edged Montoya grin. “But as you said earlier, it’s strange. I’m like you. I don’t know what to believe.”
CHAPTER 4
The postmark from Southern California really bothered Bentz. Burned in his brain as he drove away from Bourbon Street. He’d found a Quickie Print and taken several copies of the photographs and death certificate, even using the enhance and enlarge options to get more definition. Then he’d handed the originals to Montoya.
He was convinced that someone from his past, or Jennifer’s past, was tracking him down. But who? Why? And why screw with his mind?
He slowed for a red light, brooding as the Jeep idled. Overhead, dark clouds scudded slowly across the sky and the smell of the Mississippi River reached his nostrils through the open window.
He remembered Jennifer’s image as she’d stood in the woods skirting his backyard. So close to his house-Olivia’s home. And now the photographs. He glanced to the passenger seat. The picture of Jennifer crossing the street met his eye. Either the woman in the photo was his ex-wife or a dead ringer.
Ghosts don’t show in photographs.
Crazy manifestations aren’t real images and therefore cannot be caught on film.
So she was real?
His gut tightened.
So who had been in the backyard of his home, the house that Olivia had brought into the marriage? All in all, this latest encounter was too close for comfort. Too close to Olivia.
He didn’t like the thought of his wife being dragged into this, whatever the hell it was. She lived here, too, and just the inkling of her safety being the least bit compromised didn’t set well. Olivia had always felt safe at this house. Though Hairy S was useless as a guard dog, they did have a security system Bentz had insisted she install years ago. They rarely used it, but that would have to change.