Nothing was making any sense, he thought, finishing his coffee just as the autopsy report came in through his e-mail. Setting his cup aside, he viewed the photographs and read through the notes. He wasn’t surprised that the coroner confirmed what the prelim had suggested: Camille Renard, eight or nine weeks pregnant, had died of asphyxiation due to having her air supply cut off by a garrote that was uneven in texture. The cuts and abrasions on her neck were deeper in some spots, a pattern clear.

But there was an oddity, too. The ME had discovered scars on Camille’s back, tiny lines crisscrossing her shoulders and lower, mostly healed, certainly not part of the attack that killed her.

He frowned, made a note, and kept reading.

As he perused the report, ugly memories assailed him, gruesome images from another case where victims were killed in a like manner. He typed the name of that killer into his computer, just as his partner paused in the doorway.

“Father John,” Bentz said, eyeing the screen.

Montoya froze at the mention of a serial killer who had terrorized the city years before. “He’s dead. You took care of that. Remember?”

He pointed to the computer monitor where a picture of the first victim of the serial killer, known as Father John, appeared. Cherie Bellechamps, a local prostitute, had had the misfortune of meeting the twisted psycho masquerading as a priest, only to come to a horrifying, grisly end.

“Maybe.”

“Holy Christ, Father John has to be dead.” Montoya thought of the madman, a tall, good-looking man with a sordid penchant for killing. Bentz had shot him dead in the swamp. Right?

“Same weapon.” Bentz had come to the same conclusion as Montoya: Camille Renard had been killed with a rosary used as a garrote.

“Jesus, don’t even go there.” Montoya didn’t like the dread crawling through him. “It’s been years. What, ten? Twelve?”

“About that.” Bentz’s brow furrowed.

“But Father John killed prostitutes, or people he thought were whores.” Montoya was still shaking his head.

“Maybe a nun who got herself pregnant qualifies.”

“He’s dead, man!” Montoya thought Bentz was definitely barking up the wrong tree.

“Never found his body.”

“Well, shit, so what? It was the goddamned swamp. You nailed him!” Montoya felt his blood pressure rise. He wanted that son of a bitch dead. Forever. “Besides, in this case, the MO is way different. The killer didn’t leave any C-notes with Ben Franklin’s eyes blacked out sitting around, the way that other sick bastard did. Nobody’s complained about a priest running around in sunglasses. And the biggy—Camille Renard wasn’t raped. No sign of sexual trauma, according to the autopsy report. Father John got off on raping his victims as well as killing them.”

“You’re right,” Bentz said, “but still—”