Salvation in death

10

SHE’D HAVE PREFERRED COFFEE, BUT SHE DOWNED the shake, which wasn’t as disgusting as it should’ve been.

“It tastes like a fruit bowl,” she decided. “On Zeus.”

“That’s rather the idea.” He studied what remained in his own glass, sighed just a little, then drank it. “Well then, that chore’s down.”

“Why don’t they make coffee-flavored ones?”

“There are all manner of coffee-flavored drinks, aren’t there? The point of a protein shake is drinking some-thing healthy. Something good for you, easily and quickly done.”

“Maybe more people would drink it if it tasted like something that wasn’t healthy that they actually liked. Then people who only drink them under duress might start going, mmm-mmm, I love me those fudgy, whipped protein shakes.”

He started to speak, then angled his head. “Hmm.”

“Just saying. Anyway. I’ve got to grab a shower before I get started.”

“So do I.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Is that grabbing a shower, or grabbing me?”

“Let’s find out.”

Eve stripped off her nightshirt as she walked from bedroom to bathroom. She stepped into the shower first. “All jets on full, one-oh-one degrees.”

“Christ, it’s like being boiled for breakfast.”

The crisscrossing streams shot on, a shock to the skin that took the heat straight down to the bones. As they soaked her, she turned. And grabbed him.

“I feel energized.” She took his mouth in a hard, hungry kiss, with just a hint of bite, then laughed when her back hit the drenched glass wall. And his body pinned hers. “Hey, you too. What a coincidence.”

He ran his hands down her first, wet against wet, so that every inch of her body craved.

“Fast,” she said and wrapped herself around him. She bit him again, and those golden brown eyes lit with challenge. “Fast, hard, hot. Now.”

He gripped her hips, jerking her up to her toes, and gave her what she wanted.

Pleasure was dark, and had teeth. His eyes, a wild and burning blue, trapped her even as his body plunged and pumped, to propel her over that first barbed peak.

She cried out from the thrill, from the knowledge that here, here, here, she understood the power of finding, accepting, merging with a mate. Here she knew the fire that forged them, and with him-only him-the absolute trust that tempered strength into love.

Whatever had come before, whatever dreams came haunting, she knew who she was, and reveled in the world she’d made with her lover.

She wrapped tighter, only tighter while her system shuddered. Her mouth raced, all speed, all greed, over his hot, wet skin while her heart quaked.

“More. More.”

Steam curled; water thundered on glass. Her nails bit into his shoulders as she erupted around him. But she didn’t let go. She wouldn’t, he knew. She would hold, they’d found that. They would hold, whatever came.

Through the consuming, outrageous lust she incited in him, wove the consuming, outrageous love until they knotted together so truly there was no end or beginning to either.

He drove her up again, drove them both. When he felt her flying over, saw that dazzled shock glaze in her eyes, he went with her.

Still she held. As her body went limp with release, her arms stayed around him. Dazzled, he nuzzled her-the curve of cheek, the line of throat. Then his mouth met hers in a kiss, long and sweet.

“God,” she managed. “Jesus. Wow.”

“A personal holy trinity?” He tapped a glass block, cupping his hand for the creamy liquid it dispensed. “I feel an urge to stock a lifetime supply of that energy drink.”

She smiled as he stroked the fragrant soap over her shoulders, her back, her breasts. “I don’t think we need it.”

Whether it was the energy boost, the good, strong sex, or coming out of a nightmare, Eve sat down to write her report on the Jenkins investigation with a clear head.

She went back through witness statements, started a time line. And because it was routine, ran a probability on her two active cases.

As she’d suspected, the computer determined both victims had fallen to the same killer at 86.3 percent.

Though she didn’t buy it, she rearranged her murder board into two sections, one for Flores/Lino, one for Jenkins.

Sipping coffee, she studied the results.

“On the surface, sure. On the surface,” she muttered. But it didn’t go deep enough; it ignored the subtleties.

The simple priest-who wasn’t a priest-in a predominantly Latino parish, and the big-time, wealthy, media-savvy evangelist. Different faiths, different cultures, different doctrines.

Considering, she circled the board. If the computer was right, and she was wrong, the media itself might be part of the motive. The first murder got plenty of coverage, and with this one, that was going to explode. Both murders had been executed in front of witnesses, both during what could be termed a well-staged, rehearsed performance, and both weapons had been planted backstage. Where, even with the security for Jenkins, people could and did move fairly freely.

Both victims had secrets, and neither was as good and pure as he professed. Or his image professed.

She turned as Roarke came in. “Probability hits mid-eighties I’ve got one killer, two vics.”

“So you predicted.”

“Here’s a thought: If it’s one killer, could that killer have discovered the duplicity of each vic? Flores’s fakery, Jenkins with his liquor and his sidepiece.”

“Killed for hypocrisy?” Roarke studied her revised murder board. “Then many thousands of religious leaders best mind what they drink.”

“Yeah, and more than that. Why these two, in this city? Because, the killer lives here. Jenkins didn’t. Multiple homes, but none in New York. Plus he traveled extensively, so he could have been killed pretty much anywhere. Anytime.”

“But was killed here, and now. Only a couple of days after Flores.”

“Yeah. After. Fanatic psycho-killer? Then why start with the obscure priest, and not the biggest target? And where’s the killer’s claim for credit?”

Eve shook her head as she circled the board. “Sure, a lot of serials and signatures manage to keep their mouths shut, at least for a while. But it follows, for me, that if you’re going to target religious leaders, you’re the fanatic. You believe. And when you’re a fanatical believer, you, by God, just have to spread t cve s lhe word.”

“Or what’s the fun of being a fanatic?” Roarke agreed.

“Oh yeah. But there’s no word. And you kill the fake priest hoping, trusting the cops will discover he’s not who he says he is? You, the fanatic, don’t make damn sure he’s exposed? I don’t think so. You leave a sign, or you rent a goddamn ad blimp to denounce him.”

Roarke held up a finger, then moved to her kitchen to get his own coffee. “We’ve substantiated you don’t agree with your computer.”

“I think the computer’s full of shit.” She sent it an annoyed glance. “There was ritual in the first killing. It felt personal as well as hinging on the ceremony. The second? It feels…”

“Expedient,” Roarke suggested, and Eve shot a finger at him.

“Exactly. An opportunity seized. I sent the report to Mira, asked to be scheduled in for a consult.”

“Want to hear my opinion?”

“Yes, I do.”

“The probability doesn’t hold for me, not once you scrape away the thinnest top layer. Both victims were, ostensively, men of God. But, with the first, there’s no gain-nothing known, in any case.”

Roarke tapped a finger to Lino’s photo. “As Flores,” he continued, “while he was liked by those he worked with, and popular among the members of the church, a parish priest can and will be replaced. With the second, there’s considerable gain-monetarily, and the potential for some loss. At least potential for some loss in the short run. A replacement there will need to be cultivated. But, Jenkins ran what was, under it all, a business. Moves will be made to protect that business. If steps aren’t already being taken to do so, I’d be very surprised. In both cases, I’d say the murders were personal, in that they were target specific. The killer, or killers, accomplished precisely what they’d set out to do.”

“To eliminate the targets. But not, necessarily, to expose them.” She drank more coffee, her eyes narrowed on the board. “In fact, to expose Jenkins puts the business at considerable risk. No one with an interest in that business would want that.”

“There you are.”

“Let’s hope that’s the right track, or we’re going to be looking at some rabbi or monk or whatever in the morgue before much longer. Here comes Peabody, and she’s brought McNab.”

“You’ve got ears like a cat.”

Eve glanced at her sleep chair where Galahad sprawled for his post-breakfast, pre-lunch nap. “Depends on the cat. Reports,” Eve said the minute Peabody and McNab came in.

“Right here.” Her dark eyes still blurry with sleep, Peabody held up discs. “Please, can there be coffee, and food, and maybe a direct transfusion of massive vitamins?”

Eve jerked a thumb toward the kitchen as she crossed over to plug the discs into her machine. She sent copies to Mira and Whitney unread. She’d have to catch up.

“While your associates are scavenging, I have some work of my own.” Roarke tipped her head up with a finger under her chin, touched his lips to hers. “Good hunting, Lieutenant.”

“Thanks. Hey, you’ve got a lot of businesses to protect.”

He turned in his doorway. “One or two.”

“Zillion,” she finished. “The point being, you’ve got fail-safes and contingencies and whatever. Various people who’d do various things when in the dim, distant future, you die at two hundred and six after we have hot shower sex.”

“I’d hoped for two hundred and twelve, but yes.”

“And my guess is that you’d have Summerset in charge-coordinating. The one person you know you can trust to juggle all the balls, keep them in the air.”

“You realize that would mean he’d have to live to be about two hundred and forty, but yes. While I could trust you, I wouldn’t expect you to set aside your own… balls to juggle mine. Especially when you’re comatose with grief and contemplating the bleakness of your remaining years without me.”

“Right.”

“You’re still liking the manager.”

“We’ll see.”

She went back to her desk, ordered a full run on Billy Crocker. Both Peabody and McNab stepped back in with plates of waffles.

“Carbs,” Peabody said between forkfuls. “Energy.”

“Yeah, it’s a big day for energy. Billy Crocker’s a widower. His wife-only marriage-died in a vehicular accident six years ago. He has two grown offspring. One’s a professional mother, living in Alabama with her husband and two minor daughters. The other is on the EL payroll, and is married to a woman employed as a publicist for EL. He’s sitting more than reasonably pretty financially, even while pumping a full twenty percent of his income back into the EL coffers annually. His home back in Mississippi is virtually next door to Jenkins, while he maintains a smaller second home near the married daughter.”

Eve sat back. “He’s in charge of booking appearances, clearing the venues, scheduling all Jenkins’s appointments, securing his transportation-or working with the transportation head. To get to Jimmy Jay, you’ve got to go through Billy.”

“Second in command,” Peabody offered.

“Absolutely. Schedules his appointments,” Eve repeated. “I can all but guarantee that both Caro and Summerset know where Roarke is pretty much any given time of the day or night. If not precisely, they know how to reach him, anywhere, anytime. If he was ever stupid enough to cheat on me-”

“I heard that,” Roarke called out.

“They’d know. One or both would know.”

“So Billy knew Jenkins was… preaching to the choir?” McNab suggested.

“According to Ulla, the side dish, she and Jenkins had been saying hallelujah for nearly five months. Regularly. I’m betting Billy knew, just as I’m betting Ulla wasn’t Jenkins’s first conversion.”

“So we pin Billy on how much he knew and see what else we get,” Peabody added. “And we see if we can find previous converts.”

“Meanwhile, we’re running the Flores investigation on parallel but potentially intersecting lines. I’ve got the results of a run I started last night before the second homicide. I’ve got about a half-dozen Linos baptized at St. Cristóbal’s during the appropriate time frame, who have not lived in that parish during the last six years. On this first pass, I eliminated those who do, or those who are currently listed as having a spouse, legal cohab, or are incarcerated. If we don’t hit on this pass, we’ll do another with those eliminated. It may be he created a trapdoor cover ID that’s as bogus as he was.”

“A lot more work.” McNab polished off his waffles. “A lot more complicated. Just adding in the tax filing shit wouldn’t make that real practical.”

“So we hope we hit first pass. Can Feeney spare you if I want you on this?”

“I don’t know how he runs EDD without me, but if you ask, he nods, I’m yours. What about the ID search?”

“Can Callendar handle it?”

“She’s almost as good as I am.” He grinned. “And I’ve pointed her in the right direction anyway.”

“I’ll tag Feeney. Meanwhile, get down to Central and start contacting and interviewing these Linos.” She tossed him a disc. “If Feeney can’t live without you, just hang onto it for now. I have a copy. Peabody, with me. And if the two of you have to lock lips before parting ways, make it fast.”

Eve headed out so she didn’t have to watch.

But the rosy flush riding her partner’s cheeks when Peabody caught up told Eve there’d been more than a quick lip bump.

“Where first?”

“Morgue.”

“Waffles, corpses, and slabs. The cop’s trifecta. Did you get any sleep?”

“A couple hours.”

“I wish I could bounce on a couple like you do.”

“I don’t bounce. McNab bounces.”

“Yeah.” Peabody stifled a yawn as they walked out the front door. “I guess you plow, and I’m down to a crawl.” She flopped down in the passenger seat of the vehicle parked at the base of the stairs. “So, the side dish isn’t on your suspect list?”

“Dumb as a cornstalk. Roarke says sweet, and I guess I see that, too. Loyal, I’d say. She may be part of the motive, but she wasn’t part of the execution.”

“You said how we may intersect lines with the Flores case. But I don’t see it.”

“Why?”

“Well, I know it looks like they should cross, or merge. Same method, same basic victim type. Except they’re not basically the same victim type. And if it’s a killer on a mission, why is he keeping the mission to himself? Maybe the vics are connected in another way, but I can’t find it. I spent some time doing background on Jenkins. I just can’t see where he’d have run into the guy posing as Flores, where they’d have common ground.”

“You may not bounce or plow, but you’re crawling pretty well on a couple hours.” She made it nearly five blocks before she hit the first hideous traffic snarl. “Crap. Crap. Why do they call it rush hour when it lasts days and nobody can rush anywhere?”

She engaged her dash ’link to tag Feeney.

She’d barely finished securing McNab to the team when her ’link signaled an incoming.

“Dallas.”

“Lieutenant.” Mira’s admin sniffed on-screen. “Dr. Mira’s schedule is fully booked today.”

“I just need-”

“However, the doctor would be happy to discuss your current cases over her lunch break. Twelve o’clock. Ernest’s.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Be on time. The doctor doesn’t have time to wait.”

Before Eve could work up a scowl, the screen went blank. “Like I sit around and play mahjong all frigging day.”

“What is mahjong, exactly?”

“How the hell do I know? Am I playing it? Screw this.” If nothing else, Mira’s dragon’s attitude annoyed Eve enough to have her slapping on the sirens and going vertical.

Peabody gritted her teeth and gripped the chicken stick as Eve skimmed over the roofs of honking Rapid Cabs and compact commuters, as she veered around the hulk of a maxibus, veered back around the dingy wedge of a delivery van.

“He’s still going to be dead when we get there,” Peabody pointed out in a squeak. Then huffed out a breath of relief when Eve landed the vehicle in a short span of clear road.

“Look at that.” Eve pointed a finger at one of the animated billboards running news headlines.

There, looming over the circus of Times Square, was Jimmy Jay Jenkins, choking out his last breaths, falling like a huge white pine under the ax.

“They’ll be running that clip for days,” Peabody predicted. “And any time they do a story on him for the next forever, they’ll run it. Whoever had the rights to that feed is now a really rich bastard.”

“Stupid!” Eve rapped her fist on the wheel, hit vertical again to zip over another, smaller jam. “Moron. Idiot.”

“Who? What?”

“Me. Who owns the fucking feed? Who gets the juice? Find out. Now.”

“Hold on. Hold on.” Concentrating on her PPC, Peabody stopped visualizing her own mangled body trapped in the police issue after a violent midair collision.

“If it’s not the church, I’m even a bigger moron. Why pass that revenue on to someone else? Even if it’s a different arm, it’s going to be the same body. It has to be the same damn body.”

“I get Good Shepherd Productions.”

“That’s a church thing. Good Shepherd. They aren’t talking sheep. Tag Roarke. He can get it faster.” Eve’s eyes stayed hot and hard on the road as she maneuvered. “Tag Roarke, ask if he can find out if Good Shepherd Productions is an arm of the Church of the Eternal Light.”

“One second. Hi, sorry,” Peabody said when Roarke’s face came on, and she thought, “Gosh, pretty.” “Um, Dallas wonders if you could find out if Good Shepherd Productions is part of Jenkins’s church. She’s currently trying to keep from killing us both in morning traffic, so she’s kind of tied up.”

“If the lieutenant had managed to read the data I added to her case file, she’d find a complete list of the various arms of the Church of EL, which include Good Shepherd Productions.”

“I knew it. Thanks. Later.”

“Okay. Me, too.” Peabody added a smile. “Have a good one.”

“The church is going to make a mint from that feed alone. If we need an estimate, Nadine could give it round numbers.” Eve threaded through traffic, pushing south. “So you lose your figurehead, and the main source of revenue. But you lose it in such a way that brings you an instant spike in that revenue-there is no downswing, no potential loss. But there is the potential, if you’re smart enough, to capitalize on that for years. For, what was it, the next forever.”

“Hey. I said that!” Peabody took a moment to preen-then another to exchange shocked stares with the glide-cart operator they skimmed by with the skin of a soy dog to spare.

“You’ve still got the family, and you’re damn straight you’ve got a replacement already in mind. Plus, your figurehead’s drinking and screwing around. That gets out, the money train’s going to take a long, unscheduled stop. But this? It’s win-win more.”

She rode on that, turning the different angles in her mind until she reached the morgue. Striding down the white tunnel, Eve pulled out her ’link to check one of those angles. Then stopped when she saw Morris standing in front of a vending machine. With Detective Magnolia Blossom.

The detective spotted Eve and Peabody first, and brushed back a silky lock of melted butter hair. “Lieutenant, Detective.”

“Detective,” Eve said with a nod. “You got one in?”

“No, actually, I was just on my way out. Thanks for the coffee,” she said to Morris, with a gleam in her deep summer blue eyes that made it clear she was thanking Morris for a lot more than a crappy soy product.

“I’ll walk you out. One minute,” he said to Eve, then moved with Detective Coltraine side-by-side down the echoing tunnel. His hand reached out, skimmed lightly down her back.

“Wow. They’re, like, touching. Oh, and look. She’s doing the head-tilt thing. That’s a definite invite. I bet they’re going to share a big sloppy one at the door,” Peabody predicted.

“Gee, you think?” The idea of the big sloppy one made Eve want to do a quick check of Detective Amaryllis Coltraine’s on-the-job record. Because the urge annoyed her, Eve put it out of her mind. “He’s a big boy.”

“That’s what I hear.” Peabody grinned at Eve’s cool stare. “I can’t help hearing things. Yeah, big sloppy one was had,” she muttered under her breath as Morris strolled back. “He sure looks happy.”

He did, Eve realized. And that would be enough. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“Now, or when you red-flagged me?”

“Either or both.”

“Not to worry. Let’s go say good morning to Reverend Jenkins.”

“Were you able to start on him?”

“Yes, indeed. Some tests still pending,” Morris added as they moved down, then into an autopsy room. “COD was what I assume you’d expected. Cyanide poisoning. He’d also ingested a tad over eight ounces of vodka and approximately thirty ounces of spring water in the last hours of his life. He’d had fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, fried onions, collard greens, biscuits, and peach pie with vanilla ice cream about six P.M. And, if that wasn’t enough, about ten ounces of deep fried pork rinds with sour cream dip at around eight.”

“I’m surprised he had room for the cyanide,” Eve mumbled.

“I’m going to guess he ate that way with some regularity as he was about thirty pounds overweight. Carried most of it in his belly, as you see.”

It was hard not to as Jimmy Jay was currently splayed out naked on a slab.

“Unlike your previous entry, I’d say this one didn’t believe in regular exercise, and liked to eat, preferring his food fried, starchy, and/or full of refined sugar. Take away the cyanide, and it’s still unlikely your soul saver would have made his given one-twenty.”

“How much cyanide?”

“Nearly half again as was used for your priest.”

“Take him down, quick and hard. If he’d ingested it slowly, over the course of, say, an hour? If he’d had some laced in to his water bottles-multiple?”

“He’d have felt ill-weak, confused, short of breath.”

“So not that way. All at once. The first two bottles onstage were most likely clean. It’s about timing. Third bottle is consumed right around break time. Everything, everyone’s revved up, he’s in his groove. Sweating, preaching, pulls off his jacket. That’s routine-the audience loves it. Can’t risk it happening after the break,” Eve said half to herself. “Can’t risk even the slight possibility someone else might drink from that bottle, or that bottle is replaced. So it has to be before the break, when he’s still by himself onstage. But for the biggest impact, at the end of that period.”

“The daughter put them onstage,” Peabody pointed out.

“Yeah. Yeah. What does it take?” Eve paced away from the body. “All you have to do is cross that stage. Everyone’s used to seeing you, handling details, being around. Who’s going to say: ‘Yo, what are you doing?’ Nobody. You just check the water, that’s all. Making sure the lids are loose for good old Jimmy Jay. And you tip in the cyanide.”

She paced back. “The water’s on the table, behind the drop,” she remembered. “Smarter to do it when the singers are already out there-what do you call it-upstage. In front of the drop. Vic’s in his dressing room, most everyone is except the ones onstage. It takes a minute, if that. Sealed hands, maybe thin gloves, like a doctor’s. I bet there’s a medical on staff. Smart, pretty smart. Still, maybe stupid enough to toss the sealant or gloves, the empty poison container in one of the arena’s recyclers. Why wouldn’t you? It’s just going to prove what you want us to find out anyway. Somebody poisoned him.”

Morris smiled at her. “As Reverend Jenkins and I are now so intimately acquainted, and you appear to know who somebody is, share.”

“His name’s Billy Crocker. And it’s time we had another chat.”