by J. D. Robb
“Yes, yes.” She dropped her hands. “And I found myself detesting this pitiful, sad, terrified woman and giving props to a dead man I strongly suspect—hell, I know—was a murderer.”
“Giving him props for doing the right thing for a child isn’t excusing the rest, Eve.”
Calmer, she picked up her wine again. “It got a hook in me,” she repeated. “Later, the priest came back to see me. The real one. López. There’s something about him.”
“Suspicious?”
“No, no. Interesting. King of . . . compelling. He . . .” It struck her, shot out of far left and beaned her with insight. “He reminds me of you.”
If she’d fielded the ball and winged it straight into his face, he’d have been no less shocked. “Me?”
“He knows exactly who and what he is, and accepts it. He’s tough and he gets your measure pretty damn quick. Lino slipped by him, and that’s in his craw. He takes responsibility, and he blurred the lines to do what he saw was right.”
“All that?” Roarke asked.
“Yeah. He brought me information I needed, even though his superiors wanted to debate and stall on it. He went around them, followed his own code. Then I asked him—it didn’t apply, I don’t know why I asked him—what he did before he became a priest.”
She sat now, had to sit now, and told him about López and Annamaria.
“You thought of yourself again, of being trapped and defenseless all those years when your father beat you, raped you. And more, you thought of Marlena,” Roarke added, speaking of Summerset’s daughter.
“God.” Her eye swam with the memories, the nightmares. “When he was telling me, I could see it. And I could see myself, that last time, in the room when he broke my arm, and was raping me, when I went crazy and killed him. I could see Marlena, and how it must have been when those men took her to get at you, when they tortured and raped and killed her.”
She rubbed away tears, but couldn’t stop them. “And he’s talking about visitations and miracles, and I’m thinking: But what about before? What about the terror and the pain and the horrible helplessness? What about that? Because I’m not dead, and I can still feel it. Do you have to be dead not to feel it anymore?”
Her voice broke. Roarke felt the crack in his own heart.
“And he asks me if I’ve killed, and he knows the answer is yes because he asked me before. But then, he asks if I got pleasure from it. I said no, automatically. I’ve never taken a life in the line, I’ve never used my weapon as a cop for pleasure. But I wondered, for a minute, I had to wonder, did I feel it that night? That night when I was eight and I put the knife in him, when I kept putting it in him, did I get pleasure from that?”
“No.” He sat beside her now, took her face in his hands. “You know better. You killed to live. No more, no less.” He touched his lips to her forehead. “You know better. What you’re wondering, what you need to know, is did I find pleasure in killing the men who murdered Marlena.”
“There’d have been no justice for her. They killed her—brutalized and killed her to strike at you—and they were powerful men in a corrupt time. No one stood for her. No one but you.”
“That’s not the point.”
She laid her hands over his, joined them. “The cop can’t condone vigilantism, can’t condone going outside the law to hunt down and execute murderers. But the victim inside the cop, the person inside the cop understands, and more, believes it was the only justice an innocent girl would ever get.”
“And still you won’t ask what you need to know. Are you afraid you won’t be able to stand the answer, and would rather not see? Rather not know?”
Her breath shuddered out. “Nothing you could say will change the way I feel about you. Nothing. So okay, I’m asking. Did you get pleasure from killing them?”
His eyes stayed level on hers, so clear, so desperately blue. “I wanted to feel it, more than anything, I wanted to revel in it. I wanted to fucking celebrate their deaths—their pain, their end. For every second of pain and fear she’d had. For every second of life they’d taken from her, I wanted it. And I didn’t. It was duty, when it came to it. Not revenge, but duty, if you can understand that.”
“I guess I can.”
“I felt the anger, the rage, and maybe at the end of it, that lessened a bit. I can kill with less pain than you—for you feel it, even for the worst of them. We don’t stand in the same precise spot on moral ground, on everything. And because I don’t believe we must to be what we are to each other, I wouldn’t lie to spare your feelings. So if I’d felt pleasure from it, I’d say it. Neither did I feel, nor do I now feel, a single drop of regret.”
She closed her eyes, resting her brow to his as another tear slid down her cheek. “Okay. All right.”
He stroked her hair as they sat, as she calmed. As she came back. “I don’t know why I let myself get twisted up this way.”
“It’s what makes you who you are. A good cop, a complicated woman, and a pain in the ass.”
She managed a laugh. “I guess that’s about right. Oh, and about what you said before? I love you, too.”
“Then you’ll take a blocker for the headache, and have a decent meal.”
“How about I have a decent meal first, and see if that takes care of the headache, which isn’t so bad anymore, anyway?”
“Fair enough.”
They ate where they’d shared breakfast, in the bedroom sitting area. Because she’d dumped on him, Eve thought it only fair to bring him up to date on the case. For a civilian, he had a sharp interest—and sharp sense—of cop work.
Besides, she knew he’d programmed cheeseburgers for the same reason some people offered an unhappy kid a cookie. To comfort her.
“Don’t Irish gangs go for tats?” she asked.
“Sure. At least back when I was running the streets.”
She cocked her head. “I know your skin intimately. No tats on you.”
“No, indeed. Then again, I wouldn’t consider my old street mates and associates a gang. Too many rules and regs with gangs, to my way of thinking, and that constant cry to defend the home turf as if it’s holy ground. They could’ve taken my square of Dublin back then and burned it to ashes for all I cared. And tattoos—as you’ve so recently proven—are an identifying mark, even when removed. And the last thing a young, enterprising businessman, with brains, wants is an identifying mark.”
“You got that, which is why Lino had it taken off. The marks it leaves are so faint, it’s not going to pop to the naked eye so much—and not at all to the casual glance. Even if it’s noticed, it can be explained away—and was—as a youthful folly.”
“But it gives you another point of reference toward his identity.” He took a thoughtful bite of his burger. “What sort of burke marks himself with an X to announce he’s killed? And what sort of killer values ego above his own freedom?”
She gestured with a fry. “That’s gang mentality. But still, can’t take an X to court. What I need to know is why he left his beloved turf—for how long—and why he needed to assume another identity to come back. It tells me he did something—and something major—after the Clemency Order was revoked, or after he reached legal age.”
“You believe he killed Flores.”
“Had to be before that. As far as we can track, Flores was out West. Why was Lino out West? And since I’m not going to buy Lino decided to spend the rest of his life pretending to be a priest, there’s a reason he came back under that cover, and an endgame. Patience.”
“I’d say there’s a score involved.”
She nodded. “Money, jewels, illegals—which translate back to money. Enough so this gangbanger from Spanish Harlem could afford expensive face work, top-grade ID. Enough that he’s got to go under for a solid stretch of time, either because it’s too hot, or because he’s going to take that stretch of time to get the whole pie.” She narrowed her eyes. “I need to do a search for major heists, robberies, burglaries, illegal deals betwee
n six and eight years ago. Maybe six and nine, but that’s the cap. And run the baptism records. Then I need to find a cop who worked that sector back when Lino would have been an active member of the Soldados. Somebody who’d remember him, give me a picture.”
“Why don’t I take the first search? I so enjoy heists, robberies, and burglaries. And I did deal with dinner, so deserve a reward.”
“I guess you did, and do.” She sat back. “How big a bitch was I when I got home?”
“Oh, darling, you’ve been bigger.”
She laughed, held out a hand. “Thanks.”
Backstage at the recently reopened Madison Square Garden, Jimmy Jay Jenkins, founder of the Church of Eternal Light, prepared to greet his flock. He prepared with a short shot of vodka, followed by two breath strips, while the voices of the Eternal Light Singers poured in faith and four-part harmony through his dressing room speakers.
He was a big man who enjoyed good food; white suits—of which he had twenty-six and wore with various colorful bow ties and matching suspenders—tailored for his girth; his loving wife of thirty-eight years, Jolene; their three children and five grandchildren; those occasional sly swigs of vodka; his current mistress, Ulla; and preaching God’s holy word.
Not necessarily in that order.
He’d founded his church nearly thirty-five years before, laying those bricks with sweat, charisma, a talent for showmanship, and the utter and unshakable faith that he was right. From the tent revivals and country fields of his beginnings, he’d erected a multibillion-dollar-a-year business.
He lived like a king, and he preached like the fiery tongue of God. At the knock on the door, Jimmy Jay adjusted his tie in the mirror, gave his shock of white hair—of which he was not-so-secretly vain—a quick smooth, then called out a cheerful, basso, “Y’all come!”
“Five minutes, Jimmy Jay.”
Jimmy Jay beamed his wide, wide smile. “Just checking the package. What’s the gate, Billy?”
His manager, a thin man with hair as dark as Jimmy Jay’s was white, stepped in. “Sold clean out. We’re going to take in over five million, and that’s before the live-feed fees or donations.”
“That’s a godly amount.” Grinning, Jimmy Jay shot a finger at his manager. “Let’s make it worth it, Billy. Let’s get out there and save us some souls.”
He meant it. He believed he could—and had—saved scores of souls since he’d first taken the road, out of Little Yazoo, Mississippi, as a preacher. And he believed his lifestyle, like the diamond rings on each of his hands, was reward for his good works.
He accepted he was a sinner—the vodka, his sexual peccadillos—but he also believed only God could claim perfection.
He smiled as the Eternal Light Singers finished to thunderous applause, and winked at his wife, who waited in the wings, stage left. She would enter as he did, meet him center stage as the back curtain rose and the towering screen flashed their images to the back rows of the upper balconies.
His Jolene would take some of that spotlight, and just glitter and glow in it like an angel. After they’d greeted the crowd together, after she’d done her signature solo, “Walking by His Light,” he would kiss her hand—the crowd loved that. And she would return to the wings while he went to work, saving those souls.
That would be the time to get down to the serious business of the Lord.
His Jolene looked a picture to Jimmy Jay’s loving eyes. As they began the routine they’d made their own over decades, her pink dress sparkled in the stage lights as her eyes sparkled into his. Her hair was a mountain of gold, as bright and shining as the trio of necklaces she wore. He thought her voice when she broke into song as rich and pure as the forest of gems along that gold.
As always, her song brought them both to tears, and brought down the house. Her perfume drenched him, saturating his senses as he kissed her hand with great tenderness, watched her walk offstage through the mist of moisture. Then he turned, waiting until the last clap had died to hushed silence.
Behind him, the screen blasted with light. God’s spear through the gilt-edged clouds. And as one, the crowd gasped.
“We are all sinners.”
He began softly, a quiet voice in a silent cathedral. A prayer. He built, in volume, in tone, in energy, pausing with his showman’s timing for the cheers, the applause, the hallelujahs and amens.
He worked up a sweat so it glistened on his face, dampened his collar. He wiped at it with the handkerchief that matched his tie. And when he stripped off the white jacket, went down to shirtsleeves and suspenders, the crowd roared.
Souls, he thought. He could feel their light building. Rising, spreading, shining souls. While the air thundered with them, he lifted the third of the seven bottles of water (with just a whisper of vodka in each) he would consume during the evening.
Still mopping sweat, he drank with gusto, draining nearly half the bottle in one go.
“ ‘Reap,’ the Good Book says. ‘You will reap what you sow!’ Tell me, tell God Almighty: Will you sow sin or will you sow—”
He coughed, waved a hand as he pulled at his tie. He choked, sucking for air as his big body convulsed, as he tumbled. With a piping squeak, Jolene rushed across the stage on her pink glittery heels.
She shouted, “Jimmy Jay! Oh, Jimmy Jay,” while the roars of the crowd turned to a wall of wails and screams and lamentations.
Seeing her husband’s staring eyes, she swooned. She fell across her dead husband, so their bodies made a white and pink cross on the stage floor.
At her desk, Eve had narrowed her list down to twelve male babies, baptized at St. Cristóbal’s in the years that jibed with the age range of her victim who had Lino as a first or middle name. She had five more that skirted the outside boundaries of those years in reserve.
“Computer, standard run on the names on the displayed list. Search and—hold,” she added, muttering a curse under her breath when her ’link signaled.
“Dallas.”
Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Report to Madison Square Garden,
Clinton Theater. Suspected homicide by poisoning.
“Acknowledge. Has the victim been identified?”
Affirmative. The victim has been identified as Jenkins, James Jay.
Report immediately as primary. Peabody, Detective Delia, will be notified.
“On my way. How do I know that name?”
“Leader of the Church of Perpetual Light. Or no, Eternal Light. That’s it,” Roarke said from the doorway.
Eve’s eyes sharpened, narrowed. “Another priest.”
“Well, not precisely, but in the ballpark.”
“Shit. Shit.” She looked at her work, at her lists, at her files. Had she gone completely off, taken the wrong turn? “I’ve got to go.”
“Why don’t I go with you?”
She started to say no, to ask him to stay, continue his search. No point, she thought, if she was after a man-of-God killer. “Why don’t you? Computer, continue assigned run, store data.”
Acknowledged. Working . . . it announced as she headed for the door.
“You’re thinking dead priest, dead preacher, and you took the wrong line of investigation.”
“I’m thinking if it turns out this guy drank potassium cyanide, it’s no damn coincidence. Doesn’t make sense, doesn’t make any sense.”
But she shook her head, shut it down. She’d need to walk onto the scene objectively. She detoured into the bedroom, changed into street clothes, strapped on her weapon.
“It’ll have cooled off out there.” Roarke passed her a short leather jacket. “I’ll have to tell you that so far I haven’t found any major heists, nothing that fits your bill. Not with the take outstanding or the doers at large. At least,” he added, “none that I don’t know the particulars of, personally.”
She simply stared at him.
“Well now, you did ask me to go back a number of years. And a number of years back, I might have had my hand in a few interesting
pies.” He smiled. “So to speak.”
“Let’s not,” she decided, “speak about those particular pies. Crap. Crap. Do me a favor and drive, okay? I want to get some background on the victim before we get there.”
As they walked out of the house, Eve pulled out her PPC and started a background run on the recently deceased Jimmy Jay.
8
A PLATOON OF UNIFORMS HELD A GOOD-SIZED army of gawkers behind police barricades at Madison Square Garden. The winter before last, the terrorist group Cassandra had blown a good chunk out of the building. Wreaking bloody havoc.
Apparently, the death of an evangelist elicited nearly as much hysteria and chaos.
Eve held up her badge as she muscled her way through. “He’s with me,” she told one of the uniforms, and cleared the path for Roarke.
“Let me lead you in, Lieutenant.”
Eve nodded at the uniform, a fit female with a crop of curly red hair under her cap. “What do you know?”
“First on scene’s inside, but the word is the vic was preaching up a storm to a sold-out house. Downed some water—already onstage with him—and fell down dead.”
The uniform cut through the lobby, jerked her head toward one of the posters of a portly man with a shock of hair as white as his suit. “Jimmy Jay, big-time evangelist. Scene got secured pretty quick, Lieutenant. One of the vic’s bodyguards used to be on the job. Word is he handled it. Main arena,” she added, leading Eve past two more uniforms flanking the doors. “I’ll go back to my post, if you don’t need anything.”
“I’m set.”
The houselights were on, and the stage lights burned. Despite them, the temperature was like an arctic blast and made her grateful for her jacket.
“Why is it so freaking cold in here?”
The uniform shrugged. “Packed house. Guess they had the temp bottomed out to compensate. Want me to see about getting it regulated?”