Salvation in death

“And the only one who, at least, appears to have rehabilitated himself.”

“I don’t know if one has to do with the other, but it’s interesting. Then there’s Teresa herself. The way it reads, she got knocked up, married a wrong guy. Got kicked around, did what she could, or did what she thought she had to. Guy takes off, and she raises the kid on her own. Supports them, but she can’t keep the kid out of trouble. Then the kid takes off. She gets married again, to a decent guy, and has another kid. Makes a decent life, and this kid stays out of trouble.”

“Is it nature or nurture?”

“It’s both. It’s always both, and more, it’s about making choices. Still, Lino spent the first few years of his life watching his mother get knocked around, watching the father abuse her. So he hears about the Solas bastard beating on his wife, sticking it to his daughter, he breaks out of the priest mold long enough to kick some ass. His weak spot. He carried that medal-didn’t see his mother, didn’t come home to her, but he carried the medal she gave him.”

“And sent her money occasionally.”

“Yeah. Going to come home a rich man-important. Nothing like that bastard who knocked his mother up. That’ll be an underlying factor in his pathology. If we give a rat’s ass.”

“Why do you?”

She said nothing for a few moments. “She knew he was lost. Teresa. She knew there was something in him that she could never pull out, get rid of. Something that made him take the course he did. She’s got her good life now, and still, she’s going to grieve for him. Hell, she already is.”

“Yes. She is.”

“And when I can clear it and give it to her, she’ll keep that medal for the rest of her life. Her reminder of her little boy. I’ve interviewed people who knew him these past few years, worked closely with him, and they liked him. Respected him, enjoyed him. I think he was a stone-cold killer, or at least someone who killed or did whatever he wanted when it was expedient. But there was something there, something buried under the hard case. Sometimes you wonder why, that’s all. Why it gets buried.”

“He wanted more,” Roarke said. “Wanted what he couldn’t have, or didn’t want to earn. That kind of desire can overtake all the rest.”

She paused a moment. “You were going to be a rich man. Important. That was the goal.”

“It was.”

“But you never buried who you were under that goal.”

“You see the parallels, and wonder. For me, the legal lines were… options. More, they were challenges. And I had Summerset, as a kind of compass at a time when I might have taken a much darker path.”

“You wouldn’t have taken it. Too much pride.”

His brow winged up. “Is that so?”

“You always knew it wasn’t just the money. Money’s security, and it’s a symbol. But it’s not the thing. It’s knowing what to do with it. Lots of people have money. They make it or they take it. But not everybody builds something with it. He wouldn’t have. Lino. If he’d gotten the rich, he’d still never have gotten the important. And, for a short time, he stole the important.”

“The priest’s collar.”

“In the world he came back to, that made him important. I bet he liked the taste of it, the power of it. It’s why he could stick it out so long.”

“A little too long, obviously.”

“Yeah.” How much longer had he needed to go? she wondered. How much longer before he’d have collected on those riches and that honor? “Teresa may not be able to confirm the ID-actually, I can’t figure how she could. But it’s Lino Martinez in that steel drawer downtown. Now I just have to figure out who wanted him dead, and why.”

Maybe Joe Inez would have some of the answers. Eve studied the twelve-story apartment building, a tidy, quiet block of concrete and steel with an auto-secured entrance and riot bars on the windows of the first two levels.

She bypassed security with her master and took a scan of the small lobby. It smelled faintly of citrus cleaner and boasted a fake fichus tree in a colorful pot and two chairs arranged together on a speckled white floor.

“He’s 2A.” She eschewed the two ski

From a glance, Inez did his job.

She knocked on 2A. The door opened almost immediately. A boy of around ten with a wedge of hair flopping over his forehead in the current style of airboard fanatics stood slurping on a sports drink. “Yo,” he said.

“Yo,” Eve said. “I’d like to speak to Joe Inez.” She held up her badge.

The badge had him lowering the drink, and his eyes going wide with a combination of surprise and excitement. “Yeah? How come?”

“Because.”

“You got a warrant or anything?” The kid leaned on the open door, took another slurp of his bright orange drink. As if, Eve thought, they were hanging out at the game. “They always ask that on the screen and stuff.”

“Your father do anything illegal?” Eve countered, and the boy phffted out a breath.

“As if. Dad! Hey, Dad, cops are at the door.”

“Mitch, quit screwing around and get back to your homework. Your mom’s go

“Aw, come on.”

“Now,” Inez said, and jerked his thumb.

The boy muttered under his breath, hunched his shoulders, but headed in the direction his father indicated.

“Can I help you with something?” Inez asked.

“Joe Inez?”

“That’s right.”

Eve looked, deliberately, at the tattoo on his left forearm. “Soldados.”

“Once upon a time. What’s this about?”

“Lino Martinez.”

“Lino?” The surprise came into his eyes as quickly as it had his son’s, but with none of the excitement. What Eve saw in them was dread. “Is he back?”

“We’d like to come in.”

Inez raked both hands through his hair, then stepped back. “I got kid duty. It’s my wife’s girls’ night. I don’t know how long Mitch can keep the twins in line.”

“Then we’ll get right to it. When did you last have contact with Lino Martinez?”

“Jesus. Must be fifteen years ago. Couple more maybe. He took off when we were still kids. About sixteen, seventeen.”

“You’ve had no contact with him in all this time?”

“We had some hard words before he left.”

“About?”

Something shuttered over his eyes. “Hell, who remembers?”

“You were both members of a gang known for its violence, and its blood ties.”

“Yeah. I got this to remind me, and to make damn sure my kids don’t make the same mistakes. I did some time, you know that already. I drank, and I kicked it. I’ve been clean for almost thirteen years now. When’s it going to be long enough?”

“Why did Lino take off?”

“He wanted out, I guess. He and Steve-Steve Chávez-said they were heading to Mexico. Maybe they did. I only know they took off together, and I haven’t seen or heard from either of them since.”

“Do you go to church?”

“What’s it to you?” At Eve’s steady stare, he sighed. “I try to make it most Sundays.”

“You attend St. Cristóbal’s?”

“Sure, that’s… This is about that priest.” Relief bloomed on his face. “About the one who died at the funeral. Old Mr. Ortiz’s funeral. I couldn’t make it, had a plumbing problem up on the fifth floor. Are you talking to everyone in the parish, or just former gang members?”

“Did you know Flores?”

“No, not really. I mean, I saw him around now and then. Most Sundays we’d go to the nine o’clock Mass. My wife liked to hear Father López’s sermons, and that was fine by me as he usually keeps them short.”