by J. D. Robb
“Crap.”
“She’s holding up, holding on.”
“Which one’s Josie?”
“Inside. Jackie, Jaime, and Josie.” Peabody’s face creased with a frown. “What’s with all the J’s?”
“Who knows. I need to ask this J a couple of questions.”
“Okay. Listen, I told McNab to take the husbands since he’d finished with Security.”
“That’s fine. Maybe we’ll get out of here before morning.” Eve stepped in.
The woman inside wore white. Her hair was a softer shade of blond than her mother’s and worn loose around her shoulders. If she’d indulged in facial enhancers like her mother, she’d cleaned them off. Her face was pale and bare, her eyes red-rimmed with tears shining out of the blue.
After the sugary pink of Jolene’s dressing room, the reds and golds of this one came as a relief. Under a lighted mirror stood a tidy grove of stage enhancers, grooming tools, framed photographs.
In one the recently deceased held a chubby baby.
“Josie.”
“Yes.”
“I’m Lieutenant Dallas. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I’m trying to tell myself he’s with God. But I want him to be with me.” As she spoke, she rubbed circles over the lump of her belly. “I was just thinking how busy we all were today, getting ready for tonight, and how little time I had with him. How I was doing something or other this afternoon, and I thought: ‘Oh, I have to talk to Daddy, and tell him how Jilly—my little girl—how she printed her name today, and got all the letters right.’ But I didn’t get the chance. Now I won’t.”
“Josie, did you put the water bottles onstage?”
“Yes. Seven of them. Three for each half, and one extra. He usually only went through the six, but we always put out seven, in case. On the table behind the drop.”
“The drop?”
“Curtain. See, the singers open, upstage, then when Mama and Daddy come in, they lift the curtain. The table’s there, behind it.”
“When did you put them out?”
“Ah, about fifteen minutes before his cue, I think. Not much before that.”
“When did you put the vodka in?”
She flushed, pink as her mother’s dress. “Maybe an hour or so before. Please don’t tell Mama.”
“She knows. She understands.”
“You got the bottle in his dressing room?”
“That’s right.”
She wiped at fresh tears with her fingers. “He wasn’t in—sometimes he is, and we’d talk a little while I fixed his bottles. If I was doing it. And we’d joke. He liked a good joke. Then I’d take them back to my dressing room. My sisters and I sing, too. We’d perform in the second half with Mama, and at the end, with the Eternal Lights, Mama, and Daddy.”
“Did you see anyone around your father’s dressing room?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There are so many of us. I saw some of the crew going here and there, and the wardrobe mistress—Kammi—she came in with Daddy’s suit as I was leaving, and some of the tech crew were here and there. I wasn’t paying attention, Miss Dallas. I was thinking how I wanted to get back to the dressing room with my sisters, and stretch out for a few minutes.” Her hands moved over her belly again. “I get tired easy these days.”
“Okay, let’s try this. Did you see anything or anyone out of place?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
Eve pushed to her feet. “Detective Peabody’s going to finish up, then she’ll take you to your mother.” Eve started to the door, stopped, turned back. “You said how busy you all were today. Did your father spend the day here, rehearsing?”
“Oh, no. We all had breakfast this morning, at the home where we’re staying. And morning prayer. Then the kids have school. My sister Jackie and Merna—that’s who helps out with the kids—taught today. Mama came down first, to meet with Kammi, and with Foster, who does our hair. Mama is very hands-on with the wardrobe, the hair, and makeup. Daddy went out for his walk and meditation.”
“When?”
“Oh . . . around noon, I guess. No, closer to eleven.”
“With his bodyguard?”
Josie bit her lip. “I forgot, that’s one of those things like the vodka. Daddy sometimes gives Clyde an hour or two off, and he sort of lets Clyde think he’ll be staying in, working. But he just wants to get outside and walk and think, on his own.”
“So your father was out on his own, walking and thinking, from around eleven to . . .”
“I’m not sure, because most of us went on before one, to rehearse, and to check with Mama on the wardrobe and so on.”
“Everyone was here at one?”
“Well, I don’t know. Everyone on the girls’ side would’ve been by around one-thirty anyway. I know that sounds silly, but the singers are all girls, and we’re all on stage left, so we call it the girls’ side.”
“Anyone missing, or late?”
“I just don’t know. My sisters and I went straight out to rehearse, and I can’t recall anyone not being there when we switched off so the Eternal Lights could rehearse.”
“And your father?”
“I heard him doing sound checks. He had such a big voice. Then we all rehearsed the final song, and the encore. I went to spend some time with Walt and Jilly—my husband and my daughter.”
“Okay. What’s the address where you’re staying?”
Eve noted it down, nodded. “Thank you, Josie.”
“I know God has a plan. And I know whoever did this will answer to God. But I hope you’ll see that whoever did this answers here on Earth before that day.”
“Well, that’s my plan.”
Eve went back out, wound around to Roarke, who sat front row center, happily playing with his pocket PPC. “Status?”
“God is a very big, and very lucrative business. Want a report?”
“Not just yet. You should go home.”
“Why do you always want to spoil my fun?”
She leaned down until they were eye to eye. “His wife loved him. That’s no bullshit. I love you.”
“That’s no bullshit.”
“If I found out you were screwing around on me, could I off you?” He inclined his head. “I believe I’ve already been informed you’d be doing the rhumba—after appropriate lessons—on my cold, dead body.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” It cheered her up. “Just not sure pink Jolene has the stones for that.”
“Jimmy Jay was in violation of the . . . which commandment is it that deals with adultery?”
“How the hell would I know, especially since I wouldn’t wait for you to face your eternal punishment, should you be in said violation, before I rhumba’d my ass off.”
“Such is true love.”
“Bet your excellent ass. I got the vibe he might’ve been screwing around, but maybe I’m just a cynical so-and-so.”
Pleased with her, Roarke tapped a finger over the dent in her chin. “You are, but you’re my cynical so-and-so.”
“Awww. Money’s another good one. What kind of—round figure—lucrative are we talking?”
“If we put church assets, personal assets, assets neatly tipped into his children’s and grandchildren’s names, his wife’s personal assets into the same hat, upward of six billion.”
“That’s pretty fucking round. I’ll get back to you.”
She hunted down Clyde, found him in a small backstage canteen, sitting over what smelled like a miserable cup of coffee. He smiled weakly.
“Coffee here’s as bad as cop coffee ever was.”
“I’ll take your word.” She sat and looked him in the eye. “Did Jimmy Jay have a sidepiece?”
He puffed out his cheeks. “I never saw him, not once in the eight years I’ve been with him, behave inappropriately with another woman.”
“That’s not an answer, Clyde.”
He shifted in his seat, and she knew her vibe rang true.
“I’ve been divorced twice. Drank too much,
saw too much, brought it all home too much and lost two wives to the job. Lost my faith, lost myself. I found them again when I heard Jimmy Jay preach. I went to him, and he gave me a job. He gave me a second chance to be a good man.”
“That’s still not an answer. He’s dead. Somebody put something besides a little shot of vodka in his water. So I’m going to ask you one more time, Detective Sergeant: Did he have a sidepiece?”
“I figure it’s likely. I never saw him, like I said. But I had a sidepiece or two in my time, and I know the signs.”
“Did his wife know?”
“If you asked me to swear to it, I might hesitate, but I’d still say no.”
“Why?”
“I’d’ve seen it, felt it. It’s a good bet I’d have heard it. I think she’d have stood by him if she found out, but I think—hell, I know—she’d have put the stops to it. She’s a soft-hearted woman, Lieutenant, and she loved him to distraction. But she’s got a spine in there. She wouldn’t put up with it. Fact is, he loved her the same way.
“I know,” he said when she stared through him. “We always say we love the wife when we’re screwing around on her. But he did. The man was crazy about Jolene. He just lit up when she was around. If she’d found out and put it to him, if he’d seen it hurt her, he’d have stopped.”
“He didn’t stop the vodka.”
Clyde puffed out his cheeks again. “No. No, I guess he didn’t.”
9
EVE TOOK TIME OUT TO WATCH A REPLAY OF the live feed. To watch the last minutes of Jimmy Jay Jenkins’s life, and study his death. The witness reports fell into the accurate range. But now she was more interested in the reaction than the action.
Jolene, rushing to her fallen husband. Shock, horror, faint. And if that wasn’t a genuine faint, Eve would personally nominate her for the evangelical equivalent of an Oscar.
Clyde next, sprinting from the opposite end of the stage while he shouted orders to the security team to keep people back. The daughters, their husbands, crew running, tumbling, screaming, shoving.
Pandemonium.
Clyde holding them back, sharp words—cop’s words. And, hmm, she mused, a group of women in sparkly, flouncy blue dresses. All blondes, all clinging together like one entity.
Eternal Light Singers, by her guess. One took a step forward, choked out the victim’s name—Eve could see her candy pink lips form the words—before she went to her knees to weep into her hands.
Interesting. Snapping off the replay, she turned to head back. McNab crossed paths with Eve as she snaked her way toward the dressing areas.
“I got the sons-in-law and the security team. She-Body’s finished with the daughters and most of the live-feed crew. We got a snag. One of the sons-in-law’s a lawyer.”
“Shit.”
“Ain’t that always the way?” McNab took a strip of gum from one of the pockets of his fluorescent pants, offered it. At Eve’s head shake, he folded it into his own mouth. “So. He’s making lawyer noises. It’s after two A.M., and people have been held here for over four hours, yaddah-blah-blah.”
“Did you get anything from any of the interviews?”
“Nothing that buzzed and popped. Lawyer Guy’s puffing a bit, but it feels like mostly he just wants to get his family out of here.”
Eve considered a moment. She could cut the immediate family loose, for now. Or . . . “Let’s let them all go. Nobody’s going to cut and run. Maybe we’ll give the killer a few hours to think he or she got away with it. Give some of the others time to mull, maybe come up with more on re-interview. I got something I want to check out anyway.”
“I’ll open the gates.”
“I’ll want your full report, and Peabody’s, by eight hundred, and Peabody at my home office that same hour.”
“Ouch.” He shrugged good-naturedly.
Eve went back to Roarke. “I’m letting them go. Whoever we didn’t get to this round, we’ll interview in the morning.”
“Aren’t you being uncharacteristically considerate?”
“One of the vic’s sons-in-law is a lawyer.”
“There’s one in every crowd.”
“And, not only is it not worth dicking with the lawyer, but it may work to my advantage. The sweepers will be a while,” she added with a glance back toward the stage. “And I want to check something out on the way home anyway.”
“All right.” He pocketed his PPC and rose.
“Anything in those financials you’ve been playing with hinky?”
He smiled at the term. “Most financials—if they’re worth anything—contain small portions of hink. But no, nothing over the line. Skirting it, in several areas. Your victim had very smart, very creative, and very lucrative advice. He was generous with his good works, but the cynical part of me says he could well afford to be. And those good works played to his advantage tax-wise and publicity-wise. He wasn’t shy about tooting his own horn.”
“I figure, if you’ve got a horn, why wouldn’t you toot it, so that one never makes sense to me.”
“His horn-tooting helped bring in more donations, which translated to a very, very nice lifestyle for Jenkins and family. Multiple homes,” he continued, “luxury vehicles, considerable staff, art, jewelry. In addition, they’re all—including the minor children—on the church payroll. Perfectly legal as they perform or have specific duties and job descriptions. And the church pays very well.”
“So no recent downswings.”
“On the contrary, this tour has sold out in every venue, and has generated a solid increase in donations.”
“Money’s not the motive. Doesn’t play out. Sure, they might get a big spike due to the publicity around his death, the nature thereof. The fact that—sweet, leap-frogging Christ—that death was on air live on a gazillion screens on and off planet. But he’s the image.”
She gestured toward the life-sized billboard as they walked to the car. “He’s the draw. He’s the guy. Why kill the guy who’s providing that really nice lifestyle? Could be the sex, could be professional or personal jealousy. Could be I’ve got a killer who has a boner against religion and wants to kill preachers.”
“I like the sex,” Roarke said, silkily. “For so many reasons.”
“I’m betting Jimmy Jay shared your view.” She gave him the address of the home where the Jenkins family was staying. “Drive by, will you? Then head to the Mark.”
“Where do you suspect he was having that sex?”
“If a guy’s going to diddle on the side, with the least risk factor, he hires an LC. But if the guy preaches against legalized prostitution, he’s not going to take a chance of getting caught paying for a bj or a bang. So, for the extra serving, you’d go to someone you can keep close and trust—and that nobody would blink about you spending time with.”
“Still risky. But the risk might have been part of the appeal.”
Eve shook her head. “Doesn’t strike me as being a risk-taker. More, I think, that he considered himself shielded. Like with the financials. He took steps, he took care. His daughter, most usually, spiked his stage water. Keep it in the family—or close enough with his decades-long manager, his trusted bodyguard. That was his habit—that vodka—but his wife didn’t know. She wasn’t pretending not to know, she didn’t. He gets away with that, why not a little magic on the side?”
“I’m sure Mira would have more lofty terms,” Roarke said after a moment. “But the pathology you outline is clear enough, and logical. There’s your address.”
She studied the town house on Park. “Nice. Roomy. Posh. Private digs for the family, top-drawer security. He took a walk today. A habitual thing, according to the youngest daughter. Ditch the bodyguard, go out for a walk. To meditate, get the energy up. I’m betting he walked as far as the corner here, hailed a cab.”
“And rode to the Mark.” Roarke made the turn to take them to Madison. “Not much traffic this time of night. There’d have been more during the day.”
“Maybe take
him twice as long as it’ll take us now. He could’ve walked it in nearly the same amount of time as driving through afternoon traffic. But the six or seven blocks? Too much exposure. Too many people might recognize him. New Yorkers are used to seeing famous faces, and most would rather eat cat shit than react. But see, we’re passing a lot of shops now, restaurants.”
“Where the tourists would flock.”
“And they’re not generally so blasé. So, grab a cab and you’re there in . . .” Eve glanced at her wrist unit when Roarke slid to the curb in front of the Mark. “Double the time, make it ten minutes. Probably more like eight.” She held her badge up as the doorman whisked over to the car. “I need to leave the vehicle here.”
The doorman hissed through his teeth. “Well, ya mind pulling down some? We get a lot of pickups, drop-offs for another couple hours.”
“Sure.” When Roarke pulled down a length or two, she got out on the sidewalk and studied the hotel as she waited for him. “You don’t own this, do you?”
“I don’t, no, but I can arrange that. If it would help.”
“I think I can muddle through without that. Why don’t you own it?”
“Despite your routine claims, I don’t actually own everything. And this?”
He tucked his hands in his pockets, studied the building as she did. “The location’s good, but the architecture doesn’t appeal to me. That Post-Urban War utility feel combined with the dignified to the point of boring. It’s not nearly old enough to warrant the sort of face-lift I’d want to give it. And there’s the interior, which I’d need to rehab and reconfigure to suit my own vision. Generally, it runs at only fifty-percent capacity. It’s overpriced for its ambiance and its service, and lacks a restaurant of any note.”
She rocked back on her heels. “And here I just thought the building was kind of ugly.”
“Well, that’s the short answer.”
“You thought about buying it.”
“No. I looked into it. I look into things, darling, which is one of the many things we have in common. I assume you’re here to look into something and we’re not just standing on the sidewalk at half-two in the morning to take in the air and study unattractive architecture.”