Cold Blooded Read Online Free PDF Page B

Benchet--Olivia-- you'd recognize the killer?"
    "No." She shook her head and bit down hard on her lip.
"He was wearing a mask--like a black ski mask that covered his entire
head."
    "Now we've got a priest in a mask," Bentz repeated.
"Yes!" Her eyes flashed angrily.
"And this murder that you witnessed though you weren't there, happened
    in a bathroom?" "I told you the woman was chained to the sink and--"
She shuddered. "God, it was awful. The flames were coming in through the
    vent and he didn't seem to care; it was like he expected the fire
somehow, but that wasn't enough."
"Not enough?" Bentz asked, dreading what was to follow.
"No. He had a sword," she whispered, visibly shaking and squeezing her
    eyes shut as if to close off the memory.
"He swung down three times at her bowed head."
"Jesus!" Montoya muttered.
Tears formed in Olivia Benchet's eyes and she blinked several times.
Either she was one hell of an actress, or she really believed her own
    lies.' '--it was horrible. Horrible." Bentz glanced at Montoya as he found a box of tissues and handed it to Olivia. She pulled out a couple and looked embarrassed as she wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry." "Don't even think about it," he said. He wasn't sure what was going on, but one way or another, Olivia Benchet was at the end of her decidedly frayed rope. He decided to go by the book and take her statement formally. Just in case.
    Crackpot or not, she was scared to death. "Let's start over.
    I'll tape this if that's all right with you."
    "Please ... fine ... whatever." She waved her fingers as if she didn't care what he did, then sipped her coffee as Bentz found his recorder, put in a fresh tape, and pressed the record button. "November twenty-second, this is an interview with Olivia Benchet. Detective Rick Bentz and Detective Reuben Montoya are with the witness." Angling the microphone so that she could speak into it easily, he said, "Now, Ms. Benchet, please spell your name for me and give me your address ... "
    As the tape whirred and he took notes, Olivia cradled a cup of coffee and spoke in soft, calmer tones. She told him she lived out of the city, in bayou country, gave him her address and phone number along with the name of the shop where she worked--the Third Eye, just off Jackson Square.
    Before moving to Louisiana a few months back to care for her ailing grandmother, she'd lived in Tucson.
    With Bentz's prodding she repeated much of what she'd already said, and as Montoya watched, Bentz scribbled notes, listening as she explained her "vision" only hours earlier, that she was certain she'd "seen" a priest who had chained a naked woman to a sink in a smoky room and that the woman had repeatedly begged for mercy.
    Olivia's voice was a low whisper, nearly a drone, almost as if she was in some kind of trance, detached from Bentz's small office with its piles of files, overflowing wastebasket, and dying Boston fern littering the floor with dried, curled fronds.
    "... after he was certain that the radio was playing the right song, some kind of hymn, then he used the sword," she said, describing again that he'd swung three times. "I sensed he was in a hurry, probably because of the fire or a fear of being caught, but after he was finished, while the flames were beginning to come up from the vent, he took the time to dig into his pocket. He pulled a chain or a necklace of some kind and hung it over the shower head.
    The radio was playing some weird music and the smoke was so thick I
    could barely see, but I think he stripped off his robes and left them there."
    "So he was naked?" Montoya interjected. He was leaning against the door frame, his arms folded over his chest, his forgotten cup of coffee in one hand. ' ' could see identifying marks. Like tattoos or birthmarks or moles ... "
    "He wasn't naked. He was wearing something like a wet suit or one of those tight hiking suits, all black."
    "And a ski mask that covered his entire head."
    "And gloves?" Montoya