Salvation in death

She crouched, ran her hand through buildings that wavered and shimmered at the contact. “All through here, all these homes, apartments. Part of the parish, and also part of the school district. Anybody living here then would have known Lino. Big bad dude. Sure, there’s been turnover. People move out, people move in, people die and get born. But there are plenty, like the Ortiz family, who’re rooted deep here. Every day, every day,” she murmured. “Hey, Father. Good morning, Father. How’s it going, Father. I bet he juiced on that. Father.

“It’s a patrol, isn’t it? A kind of daily patrol. His turf, his territory. Like a dog marking his territory.” She poked her finger at the Ortiz house. “How much is it worth, today’s market? A private home like this, this sector?”

“Depends. If you’re looking at it as a residential property-”

“Don’t nitty-gritty it. Just basic. Single-family home, pre-Urban construction. Well-maintained.”

“Square footage? Materials? It does depend,” he insisted when she curled her lip at him. “But if you want a very general ballpark…” He crouched as she did, studied the house, and named a figure that had her eyes bulging.

“You’re shitting me.”

“No indeed. That’s a bit of low-balling actually because I haven’t really studied the property. And that estimate will likely increase as the neighborhood gentrification continues to spread. Now if it’s a straight home-owner to home-owner sale you’re thinking, that would fluctuate somewhat due to the interior. Is the kitchen, are the baths, high-end, how much of the original materials remain, and all ma

“That’s a lot of tacos.”

“New York tacos, darling Eve. The same house in a different location. Let’s say… Baltimore or Albuquerque? About a third to a half of that market price.”

“Geography.” She shook her head. “Once a New Yorker,” she added, thinking of Mavis’s remark. “So he runs by this, and the rest every day. Patrols this area, every day. And whoever killed him knew him, whoever killed him goes to St. Cristóbal’s, whoever killed him lived in this sector when Lino lived here as Lino. Knows Pe

“Cyanide. Doesn’t come cheap. We’re not pulling anything from black market sources, but hell, I didn’t expect to ring the bell there.”

“There are buttons I could push there.”

“Yeah, I bet there are. If it comes to it, maybe, but either way, it costs. Whoever killed him’s Catholic enough to be compelled to confess to his priest. I don’t know, I don’t know, that says older to me. That says it’s not some kid, but someone mature. Yeah, Mira said mature,” she said half to herself. “Mature enough to pull this off, mature enough to feel guilt over it. Not for gain, not for gain, that angle’s bullshit. If the killer was looking for gain, knife the bastard.”

She tapped her fingers on her knee as she ran it through, imagined it. “If it’s just gain, even the most simple kind of revenge or survival instinct, you’d work with Pe

“But you don’t,” Roarke put in, “because it’s not simple.”

“It goes too deep for that. Pe

She slowly straightened. “Because it didn’t work before. He got away before. No payment, no penance. It has to be done, and it has to be done in God’s house. You’ve held on to your faith all these years. You’ve been faithful, even though you lost something so vital. And here he is, back again, blaspheming, defiling the church, ru

She frowned down at the holo, could almost hear the conspiratory whispers. “Why, why, what’s the angle there? Gotta get back to that. Because that has to be it. Pe

She stepped back. “Damn it. There’s this, and this and that. And I can see it. I can see each point, but how do they come together?”

“Keep going. If it’s an eye for an eye, who did Martinez kill?”

“Soto. Nick Soto because of what he’d done and was doing to Pe

She went back to check her notes. “Gang-related violence, questioned numerous times regarding the deaths or disappearances of several known members of rival gangs. No evidence, alibied.”

“Members of the parish?”

“No. But there’s those blurred boundary lines.” She moved back to the holo. “Could be friends, family along that blur, co

“I don’t know why in hell you’d ask me.”

“Because. Could it be eye for an eye-payment, penance-if the past vic was a known gang member-out there doing pretty much what Lino was doing? If he was killed or harmed during a gang altercation?”

“If it was a loved one I don’t see why it would matter. Love doesn’t qualify.”

“From the Catholic angle,” Eve insisted.

He sighed, sipped brandy, and tried to put his head into it. “It seems, if we follow your way of thinking through this, that to justify murder-as it bloody well was-the act should have been in reciprocation for the death of an i

“That’s what I’m thinking. I get the but,” she added, waving a hand in the air. “Murder isn’t logical, it doesn’t follow nice clean lines. Those who set out to kill make their own rules. However, butting your but-”

“Christ, no wonder I love you.”

“This was logical, and it does follow lines. Kill priest in church with God’s blood. Well, technically wine because Lino wasn’t ordained and all so he couldn’t actually do the transubstantiation.”

“And you have the nerve to ask me Catholic questions when you can spout off transubstantiation.”

“I studied up. The point is the motive’s going to fit the method. I think-”

She broke off when her computer a

“I think,” she continued, “that the killer is a core member of the church. One of those who never misses Sunday Mass, and goes to confession… How often are you supposed to go to confession?”

Scowling, he jammed his hands into his pockets. “How the bloody, buggering he«y,

She smiled at him, very sweetly. “What is it about asking you Catholic questions that gets you all jumpy?”

“You’d be jumpy, too, if I asked you things that make you feel the hot breath of hell at your back.”

“You’re not going to hell.”

“Oh, and have you got some inside intel on that?”

“You married a cop. You married me. I’m your goddamn salvation. Computer, display primary data, screen one. These are the owners and/or tenants of the properties along Lino’s jogging route.”

“My salvation, are you?” He caught her around the waist, yanked her in. “And what would I be to you then?”