In Death 27 - Salvation in Death

tone, in energy, pausing with his showman’s timing for the cheers, the applause, the hallelujahs and amens.
    He worked up a sweat so it glistened on his face, dampened his collar. He wiped at it with the handkerchief that matched his tie. And when he stripped off the white jacket, went down to shirtsleeves and suspenders, the crowd roared.
    Souls, he thought. He could feel their light building. Rising, spreading, shining souls. While the air thundered with them, he lifted the third of the seven bottles of water (with just a whisper of vodka in each) he would consume during the evening.
    Still mopping sweat, he drank with gusto, draining nearly half the bottle in one go.
    “ ‘Reap,’ the Good Book says. ‘You will reap what you sow!’ Tell me, tell God Almighty: Will you sow sin or will you sow—”
    He coughed, waved a hand as he pulled at his tie. He choked, sucking for air as his big body convulsed, as he tumbled. With a piping squeak, Jolene rushed across the stage on her pink glittery heels.
    She shouted, “Jimmy Jay! Oh, Jimmy Jay,” while the roars of the crowd turned to a wall of wails and screams and lamentations.
    Seeing her husband’s staring eyes, she swooned. She fell across her dead husband, so their bodies made a white and pink cross on the stage floor.
     
    At her desk, Eve had narrowed her list down to twelve male babies, baptized at St. Cristóbal’s in the years that jibed with the age range of her victim who had Lino as a first or middle name. She had five more that skirted the outside boundaries of those years in reserve.
    “Computer, standard run on the names on the displayed list. Search and—hold,” she added, muttering a curse under her breath when her ’link signaled.
     
    “Dallas.”
    Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Report to Madison Square Garden,
    Clinton Theater. Suspected homicide by poisoning.
     
    “Acknowledge. Has the victim been identified?”
    Affirmative. The victim has been identified as Jenkins, James Jay.
    Report immediately as primary. Peabody, Detective Delia, will be notified.
     
    “On my way. How do I know that name?”
    “Leader of the Church of Perpetual Light. Or no, Eternal Light. That’s it,” Roarke said from the doorway.
    Eve’s eyes sharpened, narrowed. “Another priest.”
    “Well, not precisely, but in the ballpark.”
    “Shit. Shit.” She looked at her work, at her lists, at her files. Had she gone completely off, taken the wrong turn? “I’ve got to go.”
    “Why don’t I go with you?”
    She started to say no, to ask him to stay, continue his search. No point, she thought, if she was after a man-of-God killer. “Why don’t you? Computer, continue assigned run, store data.”
     
    Acknowledged. Working . . . it announced as she headed for the door.
     
    “You’re thinking dead priest, dead preacher, and you took the wrong line of investigation.”
    “I’m thinking if it turns out this guy drank potassium cyanide, it’s no damn coincidence. Doesn’t make sense, doesn’t make any sense.”
    But she shook her head, shut it down. She’d need to walk onto the scene objectively. She detoured into the bedroom, changed into street clothes, strapped on her weapon.
    “It’ll have cooled off out there.” Roarke passed her a short leather jacket. “I’ll have to tell you that so far I haven’t found any major heists, nothing that fits your bill. Not with the take outstanding or the doers at large. At least,” he added, “none that I don’t know the particulars of, personally.”
    She simply stared at him.
    “Well now, you did ask me to go back a number of years. And a number of years back, I might have had my hand in a few interesting pies.” He smiled. “So to speak.”
    “Let’s not,” she decided, “speak about those particular pies. Crap. Crap. Do me a favor and drive, okay? I want to get some background on the victim before we get there.”
    As they walked out of the house, Eve pulled out her PPC and started a background run on the recently deceased Jimmy Jay.

8
     
    A PLATOON OF UNIFORMS HELD A GOOD-SIZED army of gawkers behind police barricades at Madison Square Garden. The winter before last, the terrorist group Cassandra had blown a good chunk out of the building. Wreaking bloody havoc.
    Apparently, the death of an evangelist elicited nearly as much hysteria and chaos.
    Eve held up her badge as she muscled her way through. “He’s with me,” she told one of the uniforms, and cleared the path for