And what about the missing dresses? His gut told him that was not good. Not good at all.

Hell.

Sister Charity had provided names of the nuns who had been orphaned and left in the care of St. Elsinore’s orphanage:

Sister Asteria McClellan

Sister Camille Renard

Sister Dorothy Reece

Sister Maura Voile

Sister Irene Shikov

Sister Devota Arness

Sister Zita Williams

Sister Louise Cortez

Sister Angela Peterson

Sister Edwina Karpovich

So different. Their only links being St. Marguerite’s and St. Elsinore’s. Most of them were from the Gulf states, but not all, and certainly they were not all in love with Father Frank O’Toole.

Maybe he was jumping to conclusions.

Maybe St. Elsinore’s orphanage had nothing to do with the murders.

Maybe involvement with Frank O’Toole was just coincidence, actually. As far as he could tell, Sister Camille had been the only victim who had consummated an affair with the priest. Sister Lea De Luca and Sister Asteria had only had fantasies about the man. Perhaps flirtations. There was no proof that they’d actually had sex with him.

Yet, the guy just wasn’t the kind of man who should be wearing a priest’s alb.

And who would be that right individual?

Remember your brother? James? Not exactly a shining example of a man who took an oath of celibacy and held tight to it.

Disturbed, his thoughts traveling along dark roads he’d rather avoid, Bentz made some calls, checked his e-mail, read over the final autopsy report on Camille Renard and her unborn child. She’d died by asphyxia due to strangulation, and the deepest abrasions and contusions on her neck were in a singular pattern that Bentz had seen before: a rosary, the beads sharp, the wire holding the strands strong enough to resist any attempts by the victim to break it.

There were scratch marks on her neck where she’d tried to yank the garrote off her neck, abrasions made by her own fingernails in the wild attempt to free herself.

His stomach soured at the thought of her frantic, terrified, and ultimately doomed struggle as she gasped for air, kicked at her attacker, her eyes bulging.

“Who did this to you?” he asked as the air conditioner wheezed. Through the window, he heard a semi’s engine growl as the big truck rumbled down the street. He would have bet his pension on Father O’Toole, the lothario disguised as a priest.

However, the blood tests of Camille’s fetus cleared him as the father.

But not necessarily of the murders, he reminded himself as his cell phone jangled. The caller ID indicated it was his daughter.

“Hey,” he said, cradling his cell between his shoulder and ear.