In Death 27 - Salvation in Death

closed her eyes a moment while her lips moved in silent prayer. “I’m so confused. So sick in my heart. I want to help. I want to stay on the path.” Ulla spoke to Roarke. It was, Eve realized, as if she herself had poofed like smoke.
    “I guess you could say that Jimmy Jay and I had a special bond. A relationship that transcended earthy barriers.”
    “You loved each other,” Roarke prompted.
    “We did. We did.” Gratitude poured through her voice at his understanding. “In a different way from the way he loved Jolene, and his girls, and how I love my almost fiancé, Earl, back in Tupelo.”
    Ulla glanced at the photo beside her bed of a skinny man with a big, gummy grin.
    “We created light with each other. And I helped him, with my body, gain the strength to preach the Word. It wasn’t just physical, you see. It wasn’t like, well, sex.”
    Eve resisted, by a thin, thin thread, asking what the hell it was like if it wasn’t like sex.
    “Though we gave each other pleasure, I don’t deny it.” Eyes leaking, and pleading for understanding, Ulla caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “But through the pleasure, we gained a deeper understanding. Not everyone understands the understanding, so we had to keep it just between the two of us.”
    “Can I ask how long you had this special bond?” Eve put in.
    “Four months, two weeks, and five days.” Ulla smiled sweetly. “We both prayed on it first, and that power—the spiritual power—was so strong, we knew it was right.”
    “And how often did you . . . create light with each other?”
    “Oh, two or three times a week.”
    “Including this afternoon.”
    “Yes. Tonight was a very big night, for all of us. It was so important that Jimmy Jay have all the light and energy we could make.”
    She took another tissue, blew her nose delicately. “He came here this afternoon. I stayed in when the girls went out to do a little sightseeing before going to rehearsal. It took almost an hour. It was a special, special night, so we had to create a lot of light.”
    “Did he ever give you anything?” Eve asked. “Money, presents.”
    “Oh no, oh goodness. That would be wrong.”
    “Uh-huh. Did you ever go out together? Travel together, a holiday, out to dinner?”
    “No, oh no. We just came together in my room wherever we were. For the light. Or maybe, once or twice, backstage somewhere if he needed a little extra closer to preaching.”
    “And you didn’t worry that you might be found out by someone who didn’t understand the understanding.”
    “Well, I was, a little. But Jimmy Jay felt that we were shielded by our higher purpose, and our pure intentions.”
    “No one ever confronted you about your relationship?”
    Her lips moved into a soft, sad pout. “Not until now.”
    “You never told, or hinted, to your friends? The other singers, your, ah, almost fiancé.”
    “No, I didn’t. I was bound by my word. Jimmy Jay and I both swore right on the Bible that we’d never tell anyone. I hope it’s all right I’ve told you. You said—”
    “It’s different now,” Roarke assured her.
    “Because he’s gone to the angels. I’m so tired. I just want to say my prayers and go to bed now. Is that all right?”
     
    Back on the sidewalk, Eve leaned back against the side of her vehicle. “No way that was an act. She really is that gullible. She really is dumb as a sack of moondust.”
    “Yet very sweet.”
    Eve rolled her eyes toward him. “I think you have to have a penis to get that impression.”
    “I do, and did.”
    “Despite that—or probably because of it—you pushed the right buttons up there. You handled her very well, and got her to tell us without me having to threaten to haul her silly tits downtown.” She couldn’t stop the grin. “Set down the burden of the secret and step onto the path of righteousness.”
    “Well, it was a theme. In any case, she’s the type who looks to the penis, in a manner of speaking, to tell her what to do, what to think. Jenkins used that. Or maybe he actually believed what he told her.”
    “Either way, it’s an angle.” She opened the car door. When they were inside, she glanced at Roarke. “Could they both be dim enough to believe nobody suspected, got the sex vibe? Nothing? Two or three times a week for months, and the occasional booster backstage. Backstage, as we’ve seen, that’s swarming with people.”
    “Someone found them out, as you put it,” Roarke said as he drove them