Jennifer. This has to do with Jennifer. The dark idea snaked through his brain as he understood the unspoken accusations in Hayes’s eyes. What?

“Holy Christ. You think I did it?” he asked, shocked all over again. “No.” Bentz shook his head, feeling for the first time in his life like a damned suspect. “Wait a second.”

“Look,” Hayes said seriously. “This is a courtesy, okay? One cop to another. Your name was found on her computer. She keeps a calendar there.”

“I told you I saw her.”

“And you never went back?”

“No.” Bentz’s gut wrenched. This was madness. He couldn’t believe for a second that anyone who knew him, who had worked with him, for God’s sake, would think him capable of killing someone.

What about Mario Valdez? You killed him, didn’t you? An accident, yes, but the kid died. At your hand. You are capable, Bentz. Everyone here in L.A. knows it.

“Tell me what you discussed with her.”

“Jennifer, of course.” He told himself not to be paranoid. Hayes wasn’t trying to nail him. He was just doing his job. The hostess was leading two men in business suits to a booth nearby. Bentz watched them pass before settling his gaze on Hayes again.

A dark eyebrow raised. “That’s all?”

“Yeah.” Bentz recounted their discussion, explaining about the conversation from the time he was met at the door by Shana and her mammoth dog to his departure. He even recounted that shortly thereafter he’d spied “Jennifer” at the bus stop on Figueroa.

Hayes’s face didn’t change expression. “Did Shana buy it that your ex-wife might be alive?”

“Nah. She thought Jennifer was dead, though she always had her doubts that she committed suicide.”

“She thinks Jennifer was killed?” Hayes’s underlying message was clear: She was killed and you were involved.

“I get where you’re going with this, but I wouldn’t be here, looking for the truth, if I had any connection to Jennifer’s death. And I have no motive to kill Shana McIntyre.”

Hayes was unmoved. “You have to admit, these are strange coincidences. The Twenty-one killer strikes again, and now Shana McIntyre is dead…all within a week of your return to L.A. Any detective worth his salt would be making some connections.”

Bentz’s jaw tightened. A storm roiled inside him and it was all he could do to hang onto his temper. “When I left Shana, she was alive. That was a few days ago…check her calendar. I never went back and never saw her on the street and never so much as talked with her on the phone. You can check my cell records.”

“We will.”