Criminal

Bennett didn’t see Lucy that time, but who knows? They all lie.”
    “Yes, they do.” Evelyn bent down and studied the yellow page with the timeline drawn out. “We need to update this. Call it out to me.”
    “Thanks for taking the hard part.” Amanda flipped through her notes as Evelyn waited. “Okay. The letter for Lucy Bennett comes to the Union Mission. We have both Trey Callahan and Juice confirming that.”
    Evelyn took out a new piece of blue construction paper, stuck it on the wall, and wrote THE LETTER across the center. “Did Juice know what it said?”
    “That he wanted to see his sister. That he missed her. Juice took it for a load of bull.”
    “Look at me, agreeing with a pimp.”
    Amanda continued, “Hank Bennett shows up at the mission a few days later and talks to Trey Callahan. Then, presumably soon after, he goes to Juice on his street corner. He sees Kitty instead. He tells Juice to cut Kitty loose. He doesn’t ask about his sister.” She squinted at her scribbles. “Juice made a point of telling me that he told Bennett to wait around for a few minutes, that Lucy would be right along, but Bennett didn’t wait.”
    Evelyn guessed, “So, seeing Kitty put finding Lucy on the back burner for our boy lawyer.”
    “Evidently,” Amanda concurred. “Then, two weeks later, Lucy is gone. A week or so after that, Kitty is gone. And then Mary disappeared after that.” Amanda looked up from the notebook. “Three girls gone. But why?”
    “Tell me so I can stop writing.” Evelyn shook a cramp out of her hand before she finished the updating. Finally, she stood back and stared at the timeline. They both did. The puzzle was sprawling now, different bits of information floating around without a seeming connection. “I feel like we’re missing something.”
    “Okay—” Amanda stood up. Pacing sometimes helped her think. “Let’s think about it this way: Bennett was trying to get in touch with his sister. His father was dead. His mother wanted to see her daughter, to let her know what had happened. So Hank goes to the streets looking for Lucy, only he finds Kitty Treadwell.”
    “All right.”
    “Bennett said that he sent Lucy the letter in August. He remembered it because he’d just graduated law school and his father was recently deceased. Later, he told us that he was a first-year associate at Treadwell-Price.”
    “Oh-h-h.” Evelyn drew out the word. She picked up her pen and wrote down the approximate dates. “Bennett sees Kitty whored out on the street and parlays that into a job with Treadwell-Price?” She smiled. “That’s a top firm. A job there sets you up for life. I can totally see that weasel trying to work his sister’s tragedy to his own benefit.”
    “Right.”
    Evelyn sat back down in the chair. “But what does this have to do with Jane Delray? And why would Bennett lie about the ID? What does he gain from Lucy being dead? Oh!” She excitedly jabbed the pen in the air. “Insurance. I was looking at it from the wrong angle. Of course there’s no policy on Lucy. Bennett told us himself—his father’s dead, the mother’s just as good as, which leaves the estate and whatever policies the parents have to the children.” She sat up in the chair. “Maybe Bennett wanted to see Lucy in order to get her to sign away her claim to the estate. That happened with one of Bill’s clients last year. The old man was batty as a fruitcake. His children got him to sign away every last dime.”
    “Hank Bennett certainly strikes me as an opportunist.”
    “And besides, what would be the alternative?” Evelyn asked. “That Bennett killed Jane Delray? We saw him two days ago. His hands were perfectly clean. No cuts or bruises, which is exactly what you’d get if you attacked somebody.”
    Amanda remembered the skin under Jane Delray’s fingernails. “She scratched her assailant. You would think he’d have a mark on the back of his hands or his neck or face.”
    “Unless she scratched his arm. His chest. He was wearing a three-piece suit. Who knows what was under there?” Evelyn blew out a puff of air. “I don’t see Hank Bennett strangling a prostitute to death, then throwing her off the roof of Techwood Homes. Do you?”
    Amanda didn’t know what the man was capable of. “I just get a bad feeling about him.”
    “Me, too.”
    They both stared at the wall. Amanda let her gaze wander, picking up different names out of order. She said, “Juice told me that