Salvation in death

“I can’t answer you.”

“Is this person a member of your church?”

“I can’t answer you.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “It makes me ill, but I can’t answer.”

“I could put you in a cage. You’d get out. Your church will campaign, send their lawyers, but you’d do time first while we’re fighting it out.”

“And still, I can’t answer. If I tell you, I’ll have broken my vows, betrayed them. I’ll be excommunicated. There are all kinds of cages, Lieutenant Dallas. Do you think I want this?” he demanded, with the first hint of heat. “To block your justice? I believe in your justice. I believe in the order of it as much as you. Do you think I want to stand by, knowing I can’t reach a wounded, angry soul? That my counsel may have turned it away instead of bringing it to God?”

“They may come after you. You know who they are, what they did. I can take you into protective custody.”

“They know I won’t break my vows. If you took me away, I’d have no chance to reach them, to try, to keep trying to persuade them to do true penance for the sin, to accept man’s law and God’s. Let me try.”

She could all but feel herself beating her fists against the solid, the impenetrable wall of his faith. “Did you tell anyone? Father Freeman, your superiors?”

“I can’t tell anyone what was said or who came to me. As long as they live with it, so do I.”

“If this person kills again…” Peabody began.

“They won’t. There’s no reason.”

“It goes back to the bombings in 2043.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“What do you know about them?”

“Everyone in the parish knows of them. There’s a perpetual novena for the victims and their families. Every month a Mass is dedicated to them. To all of them, Lieutenant, not just the victim from El Barrio.”

“Did you know that Lino selectively blackmailed some who came to him in confession?”

López jerked as if struck with sudden, shocking pain. Rather than sorrow, it was fury that flashed into his eyes. “No. No, I didn’t know. Why didn’t any of them come to me for help?”

“I doubt seriously they knew who was blackmailing them, or where the blackmailer got the information. And now I know whoever killed him wasn’t one of them.”

Eve pushed to her feet. “I can’t force you to tell me what you know. I can’t make you tell me who used your church, your faith, your ritual, your vows to murder. I could squeeze you, and sweat you, but you still wouldn’t tell me and then both of us would be pissed off. But I’ll tell you this: I’m going to find out who it was. Whatever kind of slime Lino was, I’m going to do my job, the same as you.”

“I pray you will find them, and I pray that before you do, they come to you. I pray that God gives me the wisdom and the strength to show them the way.”

“I guess we’ll see which one of us gets there first.”

Eve left him sitting on the bench.

“I get he’s doing what he thinks he has to,” Peabody said. “But I think we should be taking him in. You could break him in Interview.”

“Not sure I could. He’s got titanium for faith. And even if… isn’t that going to make him one more victim? I break him, make him slip enough, and he’d never be the same. He wouldn’t be a priest anymore.”

She remembered what she’d felt like when they’d taken her badge. How she’d felt empty, helpless. Like nothing, like no one.

“I’m not doing that to him. Have I even got a right to do that to an i

“Protect and serve.”

“We do people, he does souls. I’m not going to sacrifice him to make my job easier. But I’ll tell you what we are going to do.” She got into the vehicle, switched on the engine. “We’re putting him under surveillance. We’re getting a warrant to monitor his communication devices. I’d put eyes and ears in the damn church if they’d clear it, but that’s not going to happen. We’re going to know where he goes, when, who he sees.”

“Do you think the killer will go for him?”

“He’s got that titanium faith, so he thinks not. Me? I’ve got faith that people mostly look out for their own ass. So we cover him-we protect-and we leave him out here as bait, hoping the si

As Peabody started that ball, Eve glanced at the time. Thought, Shit. “One more stop. We’ll see if we can jangle anything out of Inez.”

A woman answered this time, a looker with warm brown hair pulled back in a jaunty tail from a rose-and-cream face. Behind her, two little boys rammed miniature trucks together and made violent crashing noises.

“Pipe down,” the woman ordered, and they did, instantly. The crashing noises continued, but at whispers.

“Mrs. Inez?”

“Yes?”

“We’d like to speak to your husband.”

“So would I, but he’s stuck in New Jersey, there’s a jam at the tu

Eve took out her badge.

“Oh, Joe said the police were here last night. Something about one of the tenants being a witness in a hit-and-run.”

“Is that what your son told you?”

“Actually, Joe filled me in.” Awareness came into her eyes. “And that wasn’t entirely accurate. What is this about?”

“We’re investigating an old co

“No, but I know the name. I know Joe was in the Soldados, and I know he did time. I know he had trouble, and he pulled himself out of it.” She gripped the doorknob, eased the door closed a few more inches, as if to shield the children behind her. “He hasn’t had anything to do with any of that business for years. He’s a good man. A family man with a decent job. He works hard. Lino Martinez and the Soldados were another life.”

“Tell him we were here, Mrs. Inez, and that we’ve located Lino Martinez. We’re going to need to follow up with your husband.”

“I’ll tell him, but I’m telling you he doesn’t know anything about Lino Martinez, not anymore.”

She closed the door, and Eve heard the locks snick impatiently.

“She’s pissed he lied to her,” Peabody commented.

“Yeah. Stupid move on his part. It tells me he’s hiding something from his wife. Something from now, something from then? Either way, something. I’m going to drop you at the subway and work from home. Keep on those John Does. I think I’ll comb through those old case files, see if something swims up from the deep.”

“I know what you said back there to López is right. We’ve got to do the job no matter what a creep Lino was. But when you know some of the shit he pulled, and the shit we think he pulled, it’s hard to get worked up because somebody ended him.”

“Maybe if somebody had gotten worked up a long time ago, he wouldn’t have been able to pull so much shit, his mother wouldn’t be crying tonight, and somebody who strikes me as an especially good man wouldn’t be honor-bound, or faith-bound, to protect a murderer.”

Peabody sighed. “You’ve got a point. But I like it better when the bad guys are just the bad guys.”

“There’s always plenty of them to go around.”