In Death 27 - Salvation in Death

join the mourners.
    You had to watch it happen. You’d need to watch him go down.
    Because it’s revenge. Public poisoning. Execution. That’s vengeance. That’s punishment.
    For what?
    She stepped back out, replaced the seal, locked the door.
    Then looked up at the cross. “Didn’t worry about you, or didn’t care. Hell, maybe he thought you were on the same team. Eye for an eye? Isn’t that one of yours?”
    “That’s from the Old Testament.” López stood just inside the front doors. “Christ taught forgiveness, and love.”
    Eve gave the cross another scan. “Somebody didn’t listen.”
    “This was His purpose. He came to us to die for us.”
    “We all come here to die.” She waved that off. “Do you lock the rectory when you come over to do Mass?”
    “Yes. No.” López shook his head. “Rarely.”
    “This morning?”
    “No. No, I don’t think I did.” He closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I understand, Lieutenant, all too well, that our faith in our neighbors may have helped cause Miguel’s death. The church is never locked. The anteroom yes, because of the tabernacle, but the church is always open to anyone in need. I know someone used that to murder my brother.”
    “Will you lock it now?”
    “No. This is God’s house, and it won’t be closed to His children. At least not once you allow it to reopen.”
    “The scene should be cleared sometime tomorrow. The next day latest.”
    “And Miguel? When will we be able to wake and bury him?”
    “That may take longer.”
    She gestured for López to walk out ahead of her, then resealed the door, locked it. Overhead, an air blimp blatted out a stream of Spanish that all seemed to revolve around the words Sky Mall!
    A sale, Eve supposed, was a sale, in any language.
    “Does anybody ever actually listen to those damn things?” she wondered.
    “What things?”
    “Exactly.” She turned, looked into those deep, sad eyes. “Let me ask you this, which is more to the point. Is killing ever permitted in your religion?”
    “In war, in self-defense or to defend the life of another. You’ve killed.”
    “I have.”
    “But not for your own gain.”
    She thought of her blood-slicked hands after she’d stabbed the little knife into her father. Again and again. “That might be a matter of degrees.”
    “You protect, and you bring those who prey on others to justice. God knows his children, Lieutenant, and what’s in their hearts and minds.”
    She slid her master back into her pocket, left her hand in there with it. “He probably doesn’t like what’s in mine a lot of the time.”
    On the sidewalk, people bustled by. On the street, traffic chugged. The air buzzed with the sound of them, of business, of busy, of life, while López stood quietly studying Eve’s face.
    “Why do you do what you do? Every day. It must take you places most can’t look. Why do you? Why are you a cop?”
    “It’s what I am.” Weird, she realized, that she could stand with a man she barely knew, one she couldn’t yet eliminate as a suspect, and tell him. “It’s not just that someone has to look, even though that’s just the way it is. It’s that I have to look.”
    “A calling.” López smiled. “Not so different from mine.”
    She let out a short laugh. “Well.”
    “We both serve, Lieutenant. And to serve we each have to believe in what some would call the abstract. You in justice and in order. In law. Me, in a higher power and the laws of the church.”
    “You probably don’t have to kick as many asses in your line.”
    Now he laughed, an easy and appealing sound. “I’ve kicked my share.”
    “You box?”
    “How—ah, you saw my gloves.” With that, the sadness dropped away. Eve saw through the priest to the man. Just a man standing on the sidewalk on a spring evening.
    “My own father taught me. A way to channel youthful aggression and to prevent your own ass from being kicked.”
    “You any good?”
    “As a matter of fact, we have a ring at the youth center. I work with some of the kids.” Humor danced over his face. “And when I can talk one of the adults into it, I grab a few rounds.”
    “Did Flores ever spar?”
    “Rarely. Dropped his left. Always. He had an undisciplined style, more a street style, I’d say. But on the basketball court? He was a genius. Smooth, fast, ah . . . elastic. He coached both our intramural and seniors. They’ll miss him.”
    “I was going to go by the youth center before