Salvation in death

“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 thi

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 a

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 ru

“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 gri

“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 co

“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?”