“That was twelve years ago, man. She died in a single-car accident. Probable suicide.” Again Hayes searched Bentz’s face with those black eyes. Cop’s eyes.

“That’s what we all thought at the time, but it’s a helluva way to kill yourself. Messy. Sometimes doesn’t get the job done right and you end up a vegetable, or taking someone else out with you, or spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair. Not a usual form of suicide. Why not just run the car in the garage or take pills? Slit your wrists in the tub? Hang yourself in the closet?”

“She was your wife. You tell me.”

Bentz was shaking his head. “Besides, she wouldn’t have wanted to mess herself up that way. Too vain.”

“She was killing herself, man. On pills and booze. Not thinkin’ right. She didn’t give a good goddamn about how she looked and she might have taken the car out cuz she didn’t want you or your kid to come home to it, y’know? Not a good thing for her daughter to find her dead.”

“She didn’t have to do it at home. There are other places. Motels.” He thought about the shabby condition of the So-Cal Inn, a perfect place for a suicide. Cheap. Private. Poolside view if you wanted it.

Hayes rotated his drink between his palms. “Okay, let’s cut the crap here. What’s going on?”

Bentz took another swallow of his beer, then reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a copy of the marred death certificate. Quickly he explained that it had been sent to the station, mailed from Culver City.

“So what?” Hayes said. “Someone messin’ with ya.”

Bentz nodded. “But it’s more than that.” He placed the photographs of Jennifer on the table. “I think someone is gaslighting me.”

“Oh, hell! These are Jennifer, right? And recent, I assume?”

“That’s what whoever sent them to me wants me to think.”

Hayes looked at him. “Dead ringer?”

“Perfect.”

“But…dead ringer from twelve years ago? No extra pounds, no more wrinkles.”

“You got it.”

“Son of a bitch.” Hayes stared at the pictures, then gave the death certificate a longer look, his eyes narrowing. At least he was listening now.

“Someone’s pretending to be Jennifer.”

“But why?” Hayes asked.

“Don’t know, but she’s not in this alone. Someone’s taking pictures.”

“So now it’s a conspiracy? To make you nuts.”

Bentz nodded.

“This is so far-fetched,” Hayes said, though his eyes strayed to the photographs again. “Man, oh, man. You and JFK? Okay, I’ll bite. Start from the beginning.”

Bentz filled him in. From waking up in the hospital, to see and smell and feel Jennifer in the room, to the sighting in his backyard. He left out the woman at the bus stop, worried that it was too vague, that she could have been anyone.