Salvation In Death Part 24

"Okay. The other's been skimming under the radar, avoiding a couple of ex-wives, who he was married to at the same time. He's in Chile-or was when I tracked him-and the last track was less than three months ago. He weighs in at about two-fifty. Probably skipped by now, as both women have suits pending against him. Apparently, he's got about six legal offspring, and he's dodging the child support thing."

"Prince of a guy. Pa.s.s on the info to the proper authorities."

"Already done. You get kids, you take care of them. Working on another one now."

She'd figured as much, as McNab was bopping on the screen. She'd never known an e-geek who could keep still when he worked.

Except Roarke, she corrected."I keep losing him," McNab added. "He bounced a lot, switched names, then switched back. What I get is he'd get a little twisted up with some deal under an aka, take off, show up under his real, play it straight, then move on, take another alias."

"What's his real?"

"Lino Salvadore Martinez."

Eve brought it up on her machine. "Right age, right location at birth. Keep looking." Eve clicked off, then refreshed her memory of Martinez's data.

Both parents on record, she noted, but whereabouts of the father unknown-and unknown since Martinez hit five years of age. Mother, T eresa, applied and received professional mother status and payments after the birth. Previous employment ... Eve extended the search, then sat back.

"Hector Ortiz-Abuelo's. Interesting. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. Returned to outside work when her son reached the age of fifteen-as a waitress for Ortiz again. Where she worked for six years before remarrying and relocating to Brooklyn. Okay, Teresa."

She noted down the current address. "I think we need to have a little chat."

She pulled out her communicator to contact Peabody. "What's your status," she said when Peabody popped on-screen.

"I 'm just walking into Central. We had the best-"

"Meet me in the garage. We're going to Brooklyn."

"Oh. Okay, why-"

But Eve simply cut her off, tucked the communicator away, and started out. She nearly walked straight into Baxter. "No way you finished those searches."

"No way I 'll finish those searches in the next twenty man-hours. You've got a couple of visitors. A Luke Goodwin, a Samuel Wright, and a Billy Crocker."

"Quicker than I thought." She stepped back into her office, signaling Baxter to follow. "I need to secure an interview room. Hold on."

She ordered her computer to scan for availability, and book her Interview C. "Okay, tell them I 'm going to be a few minutes, escort them to Interview.

Make nice, offer refreshments."

"That's going to take time off my current a.s.signment."

"Half of which you've already pa.s.sed off to your aide. Trueheart can keep it going while you get these guys settled. I f I get my confession out of Crocker, have him booked and in a cage within the next ninety minutes." She checked her wrist unit. "From now, I 'll take half of what's left of the search off your hands."

"Deal."

When he walked out, Eve tagged Peabody again. "Change of plans, come up, meet me outside Interview C. We've got Crocker and company."

"Jeez. I f I was a lesser person, it would p.i.s.s me off, how often you're right."

"Since I am a lesser person, you'll be good cop in today's performance."

Eve cut Peabody off, then contacted both Whitney's and Mira's offices to relay her prime suspect on the Jenkins homicide was in the house.

"Okay, Billy," she murmured. "Let's see what you have to say for yourself."

She took her time, to give Baxter a chance to settle them in and Peabody a chance to reroute from the garage. She already had her strategy outlined in her mind, and had adjusted that somewhat after her meet with Mira. Due to that, she wasn't surprised that Billy had come in with Luke.

The confessor, she thought.

She slipped into Observation first, studied the setup. Billy sat at the table, flanked by the victim's sons-in-law. The lawyer looked grim, with his gaze cut away from Billy. Luke looked ... sorrowful, Eve thought. A more sophisticated lay-version of Lopez, to her eye.

And Billy himself? Jittery, scared, and on the edge of weepy.

She stepped back out as Peabody hoofed down the corridor.

"He brought his priest and his lawyer," Eve said.

"Priest?"

"In a manner of speaking. Luke Goodwin. He's already told them everything he intends to tell us and probably more. Yeah, more, because the lawyer may be p.i.s.sed and shocked, but he's still a lawyer, and he'd advise him how to play it. You're sympathetic, you get why he had to do what he did. You want to help."

Peabody 's face went wistful. "Am I ever going to be able to be bad cop?""Sure, as soon as you're willing to kick a puppy out of the way to take down a suspect."

"Aww, does it have to be a puppy?"

"Keep that save-the-puppy look on your face. I t's perfect." Eve opened the door, nodded to Baxter. "Thank you, Detective. Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Wright, Mr. Crocker."

"My client wishes to make a statement," Samuel began.

"Great. Hold that thought. Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve," she began and ran all the particulars as she took a seat. "Mr. Crocker, you've been read your rights, correct?"

"Yes."

"And have stated, for the record, that you understand your rights and obligations in the matter of the investigation into the death of James Jay Jenkins."

"Yes, I-"

"And have come into this interview of your own volition, and with Samuel Wright as legal counsel?"

Billy cleared his throat. "Yes."

"You would also like Mr. Goodwin to witness this statement, at this time?"

"Yes."

"I am here to bear witness," Luke said, "and to serve as Billy's spiritual adviser. Lieutenant Dallas, this is very difficult, for all of us. I hope you'll take into account that Billy has come in, voluntarily, that the statement he intends to make is sincere and heartfelt."

"I think, of all connected to this matter, all this has been most difficult on Mr. Jenkins, seeing as he's stone dead. As for heartfelt and sincere?" She jerked a shoulder. "I don't much care. I 'm interested in the facts. You served up a cyanide shooter for your pal Jimmy Jay, didn't you, Billy?"

"Don't answer that. Lieutenant Dallas," Samuel began in a tight voice, "my client is willing to make a statement, in return for consideration."

"I 'm not feeling real considerate."

Something flashed in Samuel's eyes that told Eve he wasn't either. But he did his job. "The media is running with the two recent homicides, and is especially pushing on the death of my father-in-law. The longer it takes to investigate, the more attention will be paid-and much of it to the detriment of this department, and to you."

"You want me to cut your client a deal, before he tells me jacks.h.i.t-and I should do that to spare myself and the NYPSD a little media heat?" She leaned forward. "You know what, Sam? I like the heat, and I haven't even broken a sweat yet. I 'll have your client tied up and dunked within twenty- four, without his statement. So if that's all-"

She started to rise, and Peabody stepped up. "Lieutenant, maybe we should take a minute."

"Maybe you've got more time to waste than I do."

"Lieutenant, come on. I mean, Mr. Crocker did come in, and if two of the victim's sons-in-law are willing to stand with him, I think we need to hear what he has to say. The circ.u.mstances." She sent Billy a sympathetic look. "None of this could be easy, for anyone. I know you and Mr. Jenkins were friends, good friends, for a long, long time. Whatever happened, it has to be rough. I t has to be really hard."

"We were friends," Billy managed. "As close as brothers."

"I get that. We can't cut deals here. We don't even know what you're going to tell us. But that doesn't mean we can't, and won't, listen with an open mind."

"You can take Murder One off the table," Samuel argued. "You can contact the prosecutor's office and arrange for that before this goes any further."

"No." Eve spoke flatly.

"The PA wouldn't do it," Peabody continued in that same reasonable, wish-I -could-help tone. "Even if we-"

"I won't do it." Eve spared Peabody a glare. "I don't need the statement to close this. Maybe it ties it sooner, and with a bow on it, but I 'm not much on the fancy work. Make a statement, or don't. Your choice. And you?" She lifted her chin toward Billy. "You play make a deal with the PA on your own time. This is mine, and you're wasting it."

"Billy," Luke said softly. "You need to do this. Sam-" He simply held up a hand to stop Samuel from arguing. "Not just for man's law. You need to do this to begin to make it right with G.o.d. You need to do this for your soul. There can be no salvation without the admission of sin."

Silence fell. I t ticked, ticked, ticked. Eve waited it out.

"I believed it was the right thing to do." Billy gulped in a breath. "The only thing. Maybe it was the Devil working through me, but I believed I wasacting on the behalf of G.o.d."

Billy lifted his hands, a supplicant. "Jimmy Jay had strayed, and was straying farther and farther off the path. The drink, he couldn't see the sin in it, or how his weakness for it corroded his soul. He deceived his wife, his followers, and didn't see it as deception, but a kind of joke. An amus.e.m.e.nt.

He became less cautious, drinking more, and often writing his sermons, even preaching under the influence of drink."

"You killed him because he knocked back too much vodka?" Eve demanded. "h.e.l.l, why not just hit any given bar or club on a Friday night and get the group-kill rate?"

"Lieutenant." Peabody murmured it, c.o.c.ked her head at Billy. "You couldn't convince him to stop?"

"He enjoyed it, and believed every man was ent.i.tled, even required to have flaws and weaknesses. T o seek perfection was to seek to take the place of G.o.d. But ... he even brought his children into the deception, having Josie-especially Josie-provide the drink. This isn't the loving act of a father, is it? He'd lost his way. The drink corroded him, and made him weak so he fell to the temptations of the flesh."

"And screwed around on his wife."

"That's an unpleasant term." Luke shook his head.

"I t's unpleasant behavior," Eve countered. "You knew about his affairs."

"Yes. Five times before he'd committed adultery, broken this commandment. But he repented. He came to me so we could pray together, so he could ask for forgiveness, and the strength to resist temptation."

"You covered for him."

"Yes. For too long, yes, I did. He knew what he risked by falling into such sin. His soul, his wife and family, the church itself. And he fought it."

Tears glimmered in Billy's eyes as he swiped at them with the back of his hand. "He was a good man, a great man, with deep weaknesses, with the pull of good and evil inside him. And this time, this last time, he didn't resist, he didn't repent. He refused to see it as sinful. He'd twisted G.o.d's word, you see, to suit his own base needs. He claimed that with this woman, and with the drink, he gained more light, more insight, more truth."

"And still, you covered for him."

"I t was becoming more difficult, for my conscience. The weight ... and knowing I was a party to it, he'd made me a party to it. His betrayal of G.o.d, of his good wife. And as with the drink, he became less cautious. I t was only a matter of time before his sins were discovered. Sins that could have irreparably damaged all the work that came before. All he'd done, all he'd built, now at risk as he was caught in this cycle of sin."

"So you stopped the cycle."

"There was no choice." His gaze met Eve's, beseeched her to understand that single point. "The church, you must see, the church is bigger than any one of us. And must be protected. I prayed for him, I counseled him, argued with him. He wouldn't see. He was blind to it. We're all just men, Lieutenant. Even Jimmy Jay. He stood as the head of the church, as a representative of the Lord on Earth, but he was only a man. The man had to be stopped to save his soul, and to preserve the work of the Eternal Light."

"You killed him to save him."

"Yes."

"And to save the church."

"To save all he'd built so that it would go on after him, so it would live and thrive, so others could be saved."

"Why here and now?"

"I ... The papist priest. I t seemed a sign. I understood then that if Jimmy Jay was to be saved, if the Eternal Light was to go on without him, his death had to be quick, and public. I t would stir others to look inside themselves for the light, to understand death comes to all, and salvation must be earned."

"Where did you get the cyanide?"

"I-" He licked his lips. "I approached a dealer of illegals, in the underground of Times Square."

Eve's eyebrows shot up. "You went into the underground in that sector. That's either brave or stupid."

"I had no choice." His hands balled on the table, stayed knotted there. "I t had to be done quickly. I paid him to secure it, and paid him twice that when he'd done so."

"Name?"

"We didn't exchange names."

She nodded, unsurprised. Plenty of time to push on that later. "You procured the poison. Then?"Samuel held up a hand. "Is it really necessary that we-"

"Yes. Then?" Eve repeated.

"I kept it on my person. Such a small amount, really. I had to pray it would be enough. I didn't want him to suffer. I loved him. Please, believe me."

Billy looked from Luke to Samuel. "Please believe me."

"Go on, Billy." Luke laid a hand briefly on Billy's shoulder.

"I intended to speak with him again, to try to convince him to acknowledge his sins, repent them. And that same day, he went to the room of his consort. And when I spoke to him afterward, he laughed. Laughed. He'd never been stronger, he told me. Or closer to G.o.d. To preach against sin, a man must know sin. He was studying the scriptures, he told me." Billy closed his eyes. "Studying them with a new eye as he had come to believe G.o.d meant man to have more than one wife. Each to fill one or more of his needs to clear his mind and heart for G.o.d's good sfor Go work. I knew then it was too late to bring him back, too late to draw him back on the path. That the only way to save him, to save all, was to end his mortal life. T o send him to G.o.d."