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“Cut your jets, Wright. First, you have no legal right to that access at this time.”
“We’ll just see about that.”
“Yeah, you do that. Meanwhile, I’m not interested in gossip, I’m interested in murder. And motive. For the last four and a half months, the victim engaged in a sexual affair outside of his marriage. He, in fact, engaged in same on the afternoon of his death.”
Eve cut her eyes from Samuel to Billy. “But you know that already, don’t you, Billy?”
He jolted, as if she’d given him a nudge with her stunner. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You fished, you barbecued, you vacationed together. You managed his work, his time, and a great deal of his life. You knew where he was and where he needed to be nearly every minute of every day. But you want me to believe you didn’t know he was spending an hour or two, two, sometimes three times a week in hotel rooms with another woman? That he often got himself a boost from that woman backstage before he went on to preach?”
“That’s enough!” Samuel snapped it out. “You’re trying to enhance yourself by besmirching the reputation of a good, Christian man. Neither my client nor I have any more to say to you.”
“Nothing more to say, Billy?” Eve shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll have to talk to other people who may have known. And I can’t control it if those people decide to talk to other people. Including the media.”
“That sort of threat—” Samuel began.
“I’ve got a job to do,” Eve shot back. “That’s not a threat.”
“Please don’t.” Billy spoke quietly. “Sam, please sit down. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.” He cleared his throat—a tic, Eve determined, used to give him time to collect his thoughts. “Only God is perfect, Sam.”
“No.” Outrage quavered into disbelief. “No, Billy.”
“Jimmy Jay was a great leader. A visionary, and a humble child of God. But he was also a man, and a man with weaknesses. He did fall victim to lust. I counseled him as a friend, and as a deacon of the church. He struggled against this weakness, and he succumbed to it. You mustn’t think less of him. You mustn’t cast the first stone.”
“How many times?” Samuel demanded.
“Once is too many, so it doesn’t matter.”
“It may matter to the investigation,” Eve corrected.
“I believe he succumbed with six women over the years. He struggled, Sam. This was his demon. We have to believe, if he’d lived, he would have beaten it. Our job now is to shield Jolene and the church from this. To preserve Jimmy Jay’s image, so that Luke can take his place and continue the work.”
“Killing him before he got careless enough to let it get out,” Eve suggested, “that would be a good way to preserve the image.”
&nbs
p; “This interview is over.” Sam strode to the door. Tears as much as anger glittered in his eyes. “Don’t come back here without a warrant, or I’ll cite you for harassment, and for prejudicial treatment of a sanctioned church.”
Eve leaned over to retrieve her recorder, and switching it off spoke quietly to Billy. “I know what you did. I know why you did it. I’ll take you down. It’ll be up to you whether I take the rest down with you.”
She straightened. “I hear confession’s good for the soul. Peabody.”
They walked out, leaving Billy slumped on the couch, and Samuel nearly weeping at the door.
In the car, Peabody sat silent as Eve began the weave and dodge through traffic. Then she shook her head. “How did you know he did it?”
“He’s not cuffed and heading downtown with us, is he?”
“Maybe we can’t arrest him, yet. But you know. You knew. How?”
“Besides the guilt-stink rolling off him?”
“Seriously?”
“Okay, stink’s too harsh a word. There was a distinctive whiff. He’s the one who spoke to the vic last. He’s the one who schedules everything and sees to the details. He’s the one who has to know pretty much whatever the vic was up to. Add a kind of pompous, stick-up-the-ass attitude. Add the subtle change of tone and look in his eyes when he talks about Jolene.”
“I did notice that, but not until today.”
