Salvation in death

“A full compliment, I think. But again, I haven’t finished. I can tell you it was a first-class job, and first-class face work is very pricey. One would think out of the range of a servant of God.”

“Yeah, you would.” Slowly, she pulled off the goggles. “How long ago did he have the work?”

“I’ll need to work my magic to refine that, but again, about the same time he had the tattoo removed.”

“A priest with tats who gets into knife fights.” Eve set the goggles under a forest of red roses. “Who comes here going on six years ago with a new face. Yeah, it’s pretty interesting.”

“Who has jobs like us, Dallas?” Morris gri

“Well, we’re a hell of a lot luckier than Father Dead here.”

You gotta wonder who,” Peabody said the minute they walked back down the white tu

“Of course I wonder who. I get paid to wonder who.”

“No, well, yeah. But I meant about the roses. Who’d send Morris all those roses, and why?”

“Jesus, Peabody, the why’s obvious. I can’t believe I made you detective. The why is: Thanks for banging me into another plane of existence.”

“It doesn’t have to be that,” Peabody countered, just a little miffed. “It could be a thank-you for helping her move into a new apartment.”

“If you get a token for lifting furniture, it’s going to be a six-pack of brew. A big-ass bunch of red roses is for sex. Really good sex and lots of it.”

“I give McNab really good sex, and lots of it, and I don’t get big-ass bunches of red roses.”

“You cohab. Puts sex on the to-do list.”

“I bet Roarke buys you flowers,” Peabody muttered.

Did he? There were always flowers all over the place in the house. Were they for her? Was she supposed to acknowledge them? Reciprocate? Jesus, why was she thinking about this?

“And the who is probably the Southern belle cop with the big rack he’s been hitting on for the last while. Now, since that mystery’s solved, maybe we could spend a couple minutes contemplating the dead guy we just left.”

“Detective Coltraine? She hasn’t even been in New York a year. How come she gets Morris?”

“Peabody.”

“I’m just saying, it seems to me if somebody’s going to get Morris, it should be one of us. Not us us, because, taken.” Peabody’s brown eyes sizzled with the insult. “But one of us that’s been around more than five damn minutes.”

“If you can’t bang him, why do you care who does?”

“You do, too,” Peabody muttered as she dropped into the passenger seat. “You know you do.”

Maybe a little, but she didn’t have to admit it. “Could I interest you in a dead priest?”

“Okay, okay.” Peabody heaved a huge and sorrowful sigh. “Okay. The tattoo thing isn’t necessarily a big deal. People get tats then change their mind all the time. Which is why temps are smarter. He could’ve gotten it when he was younger, then decided it wasn’t, I don’t know, dignified enough for his job.”

“Knife wounds.”

“Sometimes priests and religious types go into dicey areas, and sticky situations. He could’ve been stabbed trying to help someone. And the older one could’ve happened when he was a teenager, before the holiness.”

“I’ll give you both of those,” Eve said as she drove to Cop Central. “Face work.”

“That’s tougher. But maybe he was injured. A vehicular accident, say, and his face got messed up. Maybe the church or a member thereof paid for the reconstruction.”

“We’ll check the medicals and see.”

“But you don’t buy it.”

“Peabody, I wouldn’t take it for free.”

In her office at Cop Central, Eve wrote up her initial report, opened the murder book. She set up a board, then fixed a copy of Flores’s ID photo in the center. And spent the next few minutes just staring at it.

No family. No criminal. No valuable earthly possessions.

Public poisoning, she mused, could be seen as a kind of execution. The religious symbolism couldn’t be overlooked. Too obviously deliberate. A religious execution?

She sat again, started a time line from witness statements and López’s memo.

0500-gets up. Morning prayer and meditation. (In room.)

0515-showers, dresses.

0540 (approx.)-leaves rectory with López for church.

0600-0635-assists López in morning service. Accesses Communion wine and crackers-strike-hosts.

0630 (approx.)-Rosa O’Do

0645 (approx.)-leaves church for rectory with López.

0700 to 0800-has breakfast with López, prepared by Rosa O’Do

0800-0830-retreats to communal office to review readings, etc., for funeral.

0830-Roberto and Madda Ortiz arrive at church with funeral staff and body of Ortiz.

0840-returns to church with López to greet family and assist in floral placements

0900-retreats to anteroom (where tabernacle is kept) to dress for service.

0930-begins service.

1015-drinks poisoned wine.

Which gave the killer from five-forty to six-thirty to walk into the rectory, take the keys to the box, and from seven to nine hundred to doctor the wine. Anytime from seven to nine hundred to walk back into the rectory and replace the keys.

Pretty big windows, Eve mused, especially if the killer was a member of the church, and others were accustomed to seeing him or her coming and going.

Even without the keys, bypassing the lock on the box would have been ridiculously simple if the killer possessed bare minimum skills. Accessing the keys almost as ridiculously simple, particularly if the killer had knowledge of their location, and the basic routines of the church and rectory.

The how wasn’t the deal, though the how would certainly help lock up the killer. The why was the point. And the why was wrapped around Miguel Flores.

She picked up the photos of the medal, front and back.

This was important to him. Important enough to hide, and to keep close so he could take it out, touch it, look at it. Fresh tape, Eve mused, but with traces of older adhesive on the drawer back. Had it awhile, but took it out very recently.

She read the inscription again.

Who was Lino?

A Spanish given name, she discovered after a quick search, for Linus. It also meant linen or flax, but she doubted that applied.

According to the bio, Flores’s mother had died in 2027, so the mama on the medal couldn’t be A

Had Lino been a friend, another priest, a lover? Flores would have been six when the inscription was made. An orphan, spi

She knew all about that.

Maybe she didn’t know about making close and lasting ties while spi

Then why hide it?

Never adopted, but educated through the church. Had Lino been the one to take an interest in him, help educate him?

She turned back to her comp and began digging down through the layers of Miguel Flores.

Peabody came in, opened her mouth to speak.

“Pretty good timing,” Eve said without looking up. “I see my coffee cup is empty.”

With a roll of her eyes, Peabody took the cup, walked to the AutoChef to program another. “It’s a challenge getting medicals from Mexico. No record of treatment for a knife wound, or any cosmetic work here. After much and heroic persistence-which is why I’m also getting coffee-I’ve accessed his medicals from his years in Mexico. No record of either treatment there either.”

Eve leaned back, took the coffee. “What is on the record in Mexico?”

“Pretty much standards. A