by J. D. Robb
“It’s for your protection, as your representative will tell you.”
“It’s best, Billy. It’s best if we keep everything to the letter of the law.”
“Do you understand your rights and obligations in this matter, Mr. Crocker?”
His hand fussed with the knot of his tie. “Yes, of course.”
“And you have chosen Samuel Wright, also present, as your representative during this interview?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, Peabody, Detective Delia, in interview with Crocker, Billy, regarding the investigation into the murder of one Jimmy Jay Jenkins. Mr. Crocker, we have the statement you gave to me last night, at the scene, on record. Is there anything you wish to change regarding same at this time?”
“No. Nothing I can think of.”
“You stated that you saw the victim approximately five minutes before his stage entrance, in his dressing room.”
“Yes. I gave him his five-minute cue, then we spoke for a moment. I walked with him to the wings, stage right.”
“What was his mood?”
“He was very energized.”
Eve smiled at the term. “At the time you walked with him to the wings, the table and the bottles of water were already onstage?”
“Yes. As always. Behind the drop. At the cue, the curtain comes up, the singers exit—stage right, and Jimmy Jay and Jolene enter from stage right and left, respectively.”
“Josie Jenkins Carter has confirmed that she placed the water bottles onstage. That she opened them, and replaced about an ounce of spring water in each with vodka.”
“That has nothing to do with this interview,” Samuel interrupted, with some heat. “And if you think you can insinuate that Josie had anything to do with what happened—”
“Are you also legal rep for your sister-in-law?”
His jaw tightened. “If need be.”
“Fine, I’ll let you know if need be and if I require a follow-up with Mrs. Carter. You were aware, were you not, Mr. Crocker, that alcoholic additives were routinely used in the victim’s stage water?”
“Yes.” Billy sighed. “Lieutenant, as that isn’t what killed him, I don’t want to see that made public.”
“You also stated you were busy during the opening performance by the singers, checking details. You’d have been traveling behind that drop, from one wing to the other, correct?”
“At various points in time, yes.”
“And did you see anyone approach the water bottles, see anyone out of place, see anyone behaving in a nervous or suspicious manner?”
“I’m sorry, no. The singers and musicians were onstage. Others were in their dressing rooms, some in the little canteen. I do think I saw Merna there, briefly, with some of the children. Techs would have been moving about, but for the most part, at least in those last few minutes, everyone should have been in place. No one should have been behind the drop. I didn’t see anyone there.”
“Okay. As manager, did you keep Mr. Jenkins’s schedule? Arrange his appointments.”
“Yes, those were my duties.”
“You’d have his ’link numbers, be able to reach him at any time.”
“Absolutely.”
“And would, as his manager, know his whereabouts? Particularly when touring like this.”
“That would be essential,” Billy agreed. “If something came up, Jimmy Jay wanted to know. He wasn’t just a figurehead, Lieutenant. He was the head of the church. He worked very hard, and was involved in every aspect, every area.”
“And it was your job that he was where he needed to be when he needed to be there.”
“Exactly.”
“You also had a long, close relationship with the victim.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Did you spend time together—free time, I mean. Leisure time.”
“Oh yes. Quite often.” His shoulders relaxed, but the hand that had moved from his tie to his leg plucked, plucked, plucked at his pants at the knee. “Our families sometimes vacationed together, and we enjoyed having barbecues. When my wife was alive . . . You remember, Sam.”
“I do. She made the best potato salad in Mississippi. Rest her soul.”
“And did you and the victim—just the two of you—ever spend leisure time together?”
“We fished. Often with the boys, or other friends. But, yes, sometimes just the two of us.”
“You spent a lot of time—between the work of the church and free time—in each other’s company.”
“It was rare for a day to go by we didn’t spend time.”
“So you know he was engaged in an extramarital affair.”
The air went out of Billy, as if Eve had pulled a plug. But Samuel came up out of his chair, quivering with outrage. “How dare you! How dare you slander a man like Jimmy Jay! If you speak one word of that indefensible lie outside this room, I can promise we will sue you, and the New York City Police and Security Department.”
“The affair has been confirmed, and documented on record,” Eve said coolly.
“Then I insist on seeing that confirmation, that documentation. If you think I’ll take your word, or allow you to go to the media with—”
“Cut your jets, Wright. First, you have no legal right to that access at this time.”
“We’ll just see about that.”
“Yeah, you do that. Meanwhile, I’m not interested in gossip, I’m interested in murder. And motive. For the last four and a half months, the victim engaged in a sexual affair outside of his marriage. He, in fact, engaged in same on the afternoon of his death.”
Eve cut her eyes from Samuel to Billy. “But you know that already, don’t you, Billy?”
He jolted, as if she’d given him a nudge with her stunner. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You fished, you barbecued, you vacationed together. You managed his work, his time, and a great deal of his life. You knew where he was and where he needed to be nearly every minute of every day. But you want me to believe you didn’t know he was spending an hour or two, two, sometimes three times a week in hotel rooms with another woman? That he often got himself a boost from that woman backstage before he went on to preach?”
“That’s enough!” Samuel snapped it out. “You’re trying to enhance yourself by besmirching the reputation of a good, Christian man. Neither my client nor I have any more to say to you.”
“Nothing more to say, Billy?” Eve shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll have to talk to other people who may have known. And I can’t control it if those people decide to talk to other people. Including the media.”
“That sort of threat—” Samuel began.
“I’ve got a job to do,” Eve shot back. “That’s not a threat.”
“Please don’t.” Billy spoke quietly. “Sam, please sit down. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.” He cleared his throat—a tic, Eve determined, used to give him time to collect his thoughts. “Only God is perfect, Sam.”
“No.” Outrage quavered into disbelief. “No, Billy.”
“Jimmy Jay was a great leader. A visionary, and a humble child of God. But he was also a man, and a man with weaknesses. He did fall victim to lust. I counseled him as a friend, and as a deacon of the church. He struggled against this weakness, and he succumbed to it. You mustn’t think less of him. You mustn’t cast the first stone.”
“How many times?” Samuel demanded.
“Once is too many, so it doesn’t matter.”
“It may matter to the investigation,” Eve corrected.
“I believe he succumbed with six women over the years. He struggled, Sam. This was his demon. We have to believe, if he’d lived, he would have beaten it. Our job now is to shield Jolene and the church from this. To preserve Jimmy Jay’s image, so that Luke can take his place and continue the work.”
“Killing him before he got careless enough to let it get out,” Eve suggested, “that would be a good way to preserve the image.”
&nbs
p; “This interview is over.” Sam strode to the door. Tears as much as anger glittered in his eyes. “Don’t come back here without a warrant, or I’ll cite you for harassment, and for prejudicial treatment of a sanctioned church.”
Eve leaned over to retrieve her recorder, and switching it off spoke quietly to Billy. “I know what you did. I know why you did it. I’ll take you down. It’ll be up to you whether I take the rest down with you.”
She straightened. “I hear confession’s good for the soul. Peabody.”
They walked out, leaving Billy slumped on the couch, and Samuel nearly weeping at the door.
In the car, Peabody sat silent as Eve began the weave and dodge through traffic. Then she shook her head. “How did you know he did it?”
“He’s not cuffed and heading downtown with us, is he?”
“Maybe we can’t arrest him, yet. But you know. You knew. How?”
“Besides the guilt-stink rolling off him?”
“Seriously?”
“Okay, stink’s too harsh a word. There was a distinctive whiff. He’s the one who spoke to the vic last. He’s the one who schedules everything and sees to the details. He’s the one who has to know pretty much whatever the vic was up to. Add a kind of pompous, stick-up-the-ass attitude. Add the subtle change of tone and look in his eyes when he talks about Jolene.”
“I did notice that, but not until today.”
“I interviewed him; you didn’t. He’s got a thing for her. She’s totally oblivious to it, but he’s got one. Look at the replay of the murder again. He’s in the wings when Jenkins starts choking, seizing. But he stays where he is. He doesn’t run out until after Jolene’s gone down. And he goes to her, not the dead guy. He barely gives Jenkins a glance.”
“Yeah, I guess I noticed that, too,” Peabody said as she played it back in her head. “But there was so much going on, I didn’t separate it out. Do you think he did it because he wants Jolene?”
“He won’t think so, won’t let himself think so. But it’s under there. I think he killed him, or so he tells himself, because Jenkins’s behavior, and refusal to stop, could have brought down the church, shattered the family. And I think he did it because he tells himself Jenkins wasn’t worthy of his position—or that family.”
“He made a lot of mistakes. Even without the guilt-stink, it would’ve come back to him.”
“Impulse.” Eve powered through a yellow light. “He hears about the dead priest, and he coattailed. He didn’t think it through, not like whoever killed Lino. He just jumped.”
“Why didn’t you push harder? We could get him in to interview, pull it out of him—lawyered or not.”
“Guilt’s going to do that for us.” Eve tipped her wrist to check the time. “He’s not going to be able to take it much longer. He’ll need to confess. If not, if I’m wrong, we’ll be hauling his ass in real soon. Meanwhile, we see if we can track down where he got the cyanide. Impulse, again. It had to be within the last couple of days. And we see how McNab’s doing with the many Linos.”
“I had an idea about the Lino angle,” Peabody told her. “The medal. It was from his mother. Just his mother. It could be his mom just wanted to give him something special, just from her. But maybe she was a single parent at that point. We could cross-reference your list with single parents, or couples who divorced—though I think divorce is still a big deal for Catholics—or with women whose husbands died or took off.”
“That’s good, Peabody. That’s very good. Let’s dig into that. Or, better yet, you dig into it. I have to take a meet with Mira.”
“I’ll get started on it. I’m actually supposed to meet Nadine and Louise about thirteen hundred, if we’re not running hot. We’re going to finalize plans for the bridal shower-slash-bachelorette party.”
“Bachelorette is a stupid, demeaning word.”
“Yeah, but it’s kinda cute, too.” Even the idea of a party had Peabody scooting happily in her seat. “Anyway, we decided, since the wedding’s coming up, we’d do the combo. I figured you’d like that, since it means only one event.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“And you just mostly have to show up.”
“No games.” Eve took a hand off the wheel to point. “That’s my line in the sand. That and strippers. No games and no strippers.”
“Done. See? It’s easy.”
Maybe too easy, Eve mused, but she tucked it away as she pulled into Central’s garage. “Check with McNab,” Eve told her, “and get started on that cross-referencing. I’m going to walk over to meet Mira. I should be back within the hour.”
“I’ll leave whatever I’ve got for you, in case we miss each other. Oh, and if Billy comes in stinking to confess, I’ll tag you.”
“Do that.” But Eve figured it would take a little longer before he couldn’t stand his own stench.
She liked the walk, just striding across New York with its noise, its crowds, its attitude coming at her from all directions. She passed through the greasy smoke of a glide-cart, drew in the smell of grilling soy dogs, fries, veggie hash—and heard the operator snarl at a whiny customer.
“Whaddaya want for five bucks? Freaking filet mignon?”
She passed a couple of cops in soft clothes quick-marching a guy greasier than the dog smoke across the sidewalk and into Central while he proclaimed his innocence in all matters.
“I didn’t do nothing. I don’t know how that shit got in my pocket. I was just talking to the guy. Sweartagod.”
She watched a bike messenger—a Day-Glo blur on a shiny jet-bike—gleefully challenge a Rapid Cab for position, and whiz away with lunatic speed, leaving the horn blasts and curses in his dust. An enormous black guy walked a tiny white dog, and stopped to responsibly scoop miniature dog poop.
She crossed the street with a throng of others at the light. Passed a flower vendor who sent perfume madly into the air, a deli that wafted out pickles and onions when a customer walked out. A couple of women walked by speaking what might have been Cantonese.
She crossed again, making the turn north.
And two women flew out of a shop door, screaming, punching, to drop nearly at her feet in a hair-pulling, scratching, teeth-snapping tangle.
“Why?” Eve wondered. “I was having such a nice time.”
Pedestrians scattered like pool balls at the break. Others edged closer, calling out encouragement and/or grabbing ’links or cameras to record the bout. Eve barely resisted the urge to just keep going, and instead waded in. She grabbed a hank of hair, pulled hard. When the owner squealed and reared up, Eve nabbed her opponent in a headlock.
“Cut it out!”
Hank of Hair bit her, snapping forward to sink teeth into Eve’s shoulder. And got an elbow to the chin in return.
“I’m a cop,” Eve stated. “Goddamn it. The next one who bites, scratches, slaps, or squeals is getting hauled over to Central and dropped in the tank.”
“She started it.”
“Lying bitch. I want to press charges.”
“I want to press charges.”
“I saw it first.”
“I—”
“Shut the hell up!” Eve considered just knocking their heads together and calling for a wagon. “I don’t give a rat’s ass who started what. It’s done. Break it up, stand up, step back. Or I’ll charge you both with disturbing the peace, creating a public nuisance, and whatever else occurs to me.”
They glowered at each other, but said nothing else as they climbed to their feet and stood with Eve between them. A third woman gingerly opened the shop door. “I called the police.”
“I am the police,” Eve told her.
“Oh, thank goodness.” Showing considerable faith, the shopkeeper opened the door wider. “I just didn’t know what to do. These ladies were in the shop. We’re having a nice sale today. And they both wanted the Betsy Laroche triple roll bag in peony. We only have one. Things got very heated, and before I knew it, they were fighting.”
Eve held up a han
d. “Let me get this straight. You’ve got a bloody lip, a ripped shirt, ruined pants, and a black eye coming on between you. Over a bag?”
“A Laroche,” the one with the bloody lip lisped. “At ten percent off. And I saw it first. I had my hand—”
“Bull! I saw it first, and you came running across the—”
“Liar.”
“Bitch.”
And they leaped around Eve and at each other’s throats.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
She broke it up this time by grabbing both by the hair and shoving faces against the wall. “Two things can happen now. You can each go your separate ways, unless this lady here wants to press charges.”
“Oh, no.” The shopkeeper peered out of what was now a tiny opening. “No. That’s okay.”
“Your separate ways is option one,” Eve continued and noted the black-and-white pulling up to the curb. “And neither of you will come to this establishment for the next month or I’ll hear about it. Option two is I’m going to have—I’m on the job,” Eve said to the uniforms as they strode across the sidewalk. “Can’t get my ID right at the moment.
“Option two is I will have these two officers cuff you both, put you in the back of their vehicle, and take you the few blocks to Central to book you on the variety of annoying charges I will list. Either way, neither of you is getting that stupid bag. Choose.”
“I’ll leave if she leaves.”
“Okay, all right.”
“You.” Eve tugged the first hank. “Go south. And you.” Then the other. “Go north. Don’t speak, don’t look at each other. Just start walking. Now.”
She released them, stood where she was until each combatant limped away. She reached for her ID, winced slightly when the bite on her shoulder objected to the move. “Thanks for the backup,” she said. “I think we’re clear here.”
“Thank you, Officer, thank you so much.” The shopkeeper laid a hand on her heart. “Should I take your name and contact information, in case they come back?”
“They won’t.” With that Eve walked the half a block more to Ernest’s.
It was an upscale kind of diner, with service at its stainless counter, or chummy booths. Service was quick, the food simple.