He looked up to see Dawn Rankin, one of the other detectives in the department, walking toward his desk. She dropped a report into his in basket. “I sent this to you via e-mail, but thought you’d like a hard copy. The shooting in West Hollywood. Witness statements.”

“Not an accident?”

She shook her head. “Looks like we’ll get an indictment. Weird, huh? Best friends and one ends up killing the other over a woman.”

“Stupidity has no bounds.”

“I guess.” She flashed him a wicked little grin. “Hey, I heard that Rick Bentz is back, digging into his wife’s death.”

“Ex-wife, but yeah.”

“What’s that all about?” Dawn’s eyebrows drew together. She was a pretty woman. Petite, smart, with a smooth complexion that required little or no makeup, she forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Not sure. Thinks he’s being gaslit, that someone’s manipulating him into thinking Jennifer is still alive.”

“He made the ID.”

“Yeah, he knows.” Hayes felt a twinge of a headache coming on. “He never struck me as the kind who would fall into this kind of trap. I mean if someone was messin’ with him, he’d blow them off.”

“Unless he wants to believe she’s still alive.” She threw up a hand. “Not that I could ever figure him out.”

Hayes remembered now: back in his younger days Bentz had hooked up with Dawn. Aside from a passing interest, she seemed long over him, though at the time of the breakup, according to rumors, it had been messy.

“Anyway, I spent the afternoon talking to people who knew the vics in the Springer case. I even tracked down the boyfriends of both the Springer girls. They both, conveniently, have alibis, but the one who dated Lucy, Kurt Jones, has a record. Nothing serious or violent, but drug charges. The word on the street is he’s a dealer.” She shook her head. “Small-time stuff. I don’t think he’s our guy.”

“Not likely to be linked to the Caldwell twins.”

“He’s old enough, just not the right kind of nut job.”

Bledsoe overheard the tail end of the conversation as he walked into the squad room. “Don’t tell me, you’re talking about my favorite ex-dick Bentz.” He pulled a face. “Wouldn’t you know he’d show up when the Twenty-one comes out of the woodwork? I’m thinking the killer came out because he knows Bentz is here, just to rub it in his face and piss him off.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s how serial killers work,” Dawn said, obviously irritated at the intrusion. Bledsoe had that way about him, an ability to aggravate without trying. “Next you’ll be saying Bentz killed the Springer girls.”

“Nah. He’s a bastard, but not a killer…but then again, there was the Valdez kid. Bentz nailed him.”

“Accident,” Dawn said. “That’s low, even for you.”