“Not much to see.” Giving out a raspy chuckle, Calloway jammed a cigarette into the corner of his mouth and circled his small craft around the cabin. He didn’t bother lighting his Pall Mall, but headed to the opposite shore where Montoya’s Mustang was waiting.

Bentz was sweating heavily as he climbed out of the boat one step behind his partner. He paused on the dock. “Thanks,” he said to Calloway.

“Any time.” The ex-cop flicked his lighter to the end of his cigarette. “Seriously, Bentz, you should come back. And next time, not on business. Spend the day out here. You could catch yourself and the missus a mess o’ catfish.”

“She’d love that,” Bentz said with more than a trace of irony as he pictured Olivia cleaning a bunch of fat fish at the kitchen sink. She’d done it all her life, of course, growing up with Granny Gin, but still she wasn’t fond of gutting and filleting the whiskered bottom-feeders.

“I’ll bet she would.” Chuckling again, Calloway eased his boat into the bayou. Cigarette clamped firmly between his teeth, hand on the tiller, he sped through the murky water to disappear around the bayou’s bend.

“Now what?” Montoya asked, rubbing the red mark on his neck as he and Bentz made their way along the overgrown path to the car.

“Haven’t figured that out yet,” Bentz admitted as he slid into the passenger seat and rolled down the window. “But I will.” He’d already pulled the file on Father John from the Cold Case Archives and had made inquiries. It wasn’t as if the police department didn’t know his identity. Of course, they had a contact list of his friends and family. So far none of those who had known the killer had admitted to seeing the man who disguised himself as a priest and used a rosary as a murder weapon. Every contact had expressed surprise that Bentz was asking questions again; they insisted that Father John had to be dead.

Were they lying?

Time would tell.

“The bastard’s taunting us, you know.” Montoya fired the engine and hit the A/C, then backed onto the overgrown gravel road.

“Yep.”

“Daring us to catch him.” He found a wide spot where the grass was mashed down and turned around, the Mustang bouncing on the uneven ground.

“We will.”

“Not by doin’ what we just did. The boat ride out to the old lair? That’s what we professionals in the business call a wild-goose chase!”

“I just wanted to get the feel of him again.”

Montoya slid him a glance. “Feel of him?”

“Yeah.” Bentz couldn’t explain it, not even to his partner, but he had a strange connection with the killer.