In Death 27 - Salvation in Death

Turner?”
    “Why would she?”
    “To ensure your silence. To make sure you take the fall for Lino Martinez’s murder alone. You did kill Lino Martinez, didn’t you?”
    “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
    “Bullshit.” Eve stood so abruptly, her chair flew back. “You want to play, Juanita, let’s play. Penny Soto told you Martinez was conning you, conning everyone. Lino Martinez, the man responsible for your son’s death, was right under your nose, playing priest. You could see it then, you could see right through him then, once she told you. Once she told you all about how he’d planted that bomb that ripped your son to pieces.”
    Eve slammed her hands on the table, leaned down close. The gesture and the words had Juanita jolting, had tears sheening over the defiance in her eyes.
    “And she helped you plan it, every step of your vengeance. She walked you right through it, didn’t she?”
    “Where were you?” Juanita demanded. “Where were you when he killed my baby? When my husband grieved so he took his life. Took his own life and will never see God, never see God or our boy again. This is what that bastard did. Where were you?”
    “You had to exact payment.” Eve rapped a fist on the table. “You had to make him pay for Quinto. The police didn’t, so you had to.”
    “He was my only child, our only child. I told him, I taught him never to look at skin—the color of skin is nothing. We’re all God’s children. He was a good boy. I told him, he had to work, that all of us must earn our way. So he took the work there, there where they killed him. Because I told him to.”
    Tears spilled down her cheeks, streaming out of misery. “Do you think it matters what you say, what you do? I sent my boy to the place where they killed him. Do you think it matters if you take my life from me now, if you put me away for the rest of it? I can’t see God, just like my husband. There’s no salvation without redemption. I can’t ask for true forgiveness. I killed the one who killed my son. And I don’t repent. I hope he’s burning in hell.”
    “Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turner.” Peabody’s voice soothed, calmed. “You were Quinto’s mother. He was only sixteen. It must have been devastating, the loss. It must’ve been devastating all over again when Penny told you that the man you believed to be Father Flores was Lino Martinez.”
    “I didn’t believe her. At first I didn’t believe her.” When Juanita lowered her head into her hands, Eve gave Peabody a small nod of approval. “Why would she tell me this? She’d been his whore once. How could I believe it, believe her? I worked with him, took Communion from him, confessed to him. But . . .”
    “She convinced you,” Peabody prompted.
    “Little things. The way he walked, the swagger of it. The basketball, so much pride. He had so much pride in his skill with a ball and a net. His eyes. If you really looked, if you really looked he was there. Inside the priest’s eyes.”
    “Still she could’ve been lying,” Eve insisted. “You killed a man on her word ? The word of Lino Martinez’s whore?”
    “No. No. She had a recording, she’d recorded him, talking to her. Talking about how he was fooling everyone. How he could play the priest and be the sinner. She asked him to say his real name, and he laughed. Lino Martinez, he said. And even his mother didn’t know it. But how everyone would know him again, respect him, envy him. In just a little more time.”
    “She made the recording for you.”
    “She said she made it because I’d need proof. That she was ashamed of what he’d made her do. What he made her do still. She had loved him as a girl, and she’d fallen back when he’d come to her. But then he told her what he’d done. The bomb, and she couldn’t live with that.”
    She wiped at her eyes. “Who could live with that? Only evil can live with that. She couldn’t. She’d found God, found strength, and came to me.”
    “And helped you,” Peabody said, very gently. “She understood how shattered you were, and offered to help.”
    “He wouldn’t pay for Quinto. He would never pay, unless I made him pay. Unless I stopped him. I could get the poison. I could get in the church, the rectory, the tabernacle. Still, I waited. I waited, because to take a life, even in justice, is a terrible thing. Then she showed me another recording, where he’d talked of the bombing, bragged about it. How he’d pretended to leave days