Salvation in death

“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.”

“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 kthey L,” 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 ru

“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 i

“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.”