Salvation in death

“Why don’t I take the first search? I so enjoy heists, robberies, and burglaries. And I did deal with di

“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 begi

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.” Gri

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 si

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 si

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 a

“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.”