AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His Jolene looked a picture to Jimmy Jay’s loving eyes. As they began the routine they’d made their own over decades, her pink dress sparkled in the stage lights as her eyes sparkled into his. Her hair was a mountain of gold, as bright and shining as the trio of necklaces she wore. He thought her voice when she broke into song as rich and pure as the forest of gems along that gold.
As always, her song brought them both to tears, and brought down the house. Her perfume drenched him, saturating his senses as he kissed her hand with great tenderness, watched her walk offstage through the mist of moisture. Then he turned, waiting until the last clap had died to hushed silence.
Behind him, the screen blasted with light. God’s spear through the gilt-edged clouds. And as one, the crowd gasped.
“We are all sinners.”
He began softly, a quiet voice in a silent cathedral. A prayer. He built, in volume, in 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.”
