Salvation in Death

  “Yeah.”

  She could smell the remnants of the packed house—sweat and perfume, sweetened drinks and treats that had spilled in the rows. More uniforms and the first of the sweepers milled around those rows, the stage, the aisles.

  But the body lay center stage, with an enormous screen behind him where an image of a hellacious, wrath-of-God storm was frozen in mid-lightning strike.

  She hooked her badge on her waistband, took the field kit Roarke carried.

  “Full house. Like Ortiz’s funeral. Smaller scale, but same idea. Priest, preacher—taken out in front of the faithful.”

  “Same killer, or copycat.”

  She nodded as she scanned. “There’s a question. But I won’t ask it until we determine COD. Maybe he had a stroke or a heart deal. Overweight,” she continued as they walked toward the stage. “Probably worked up, playing for a crowd this size. People still die of natural causes.”

  But not Jimmy Jay Jenkins, Eve thought when she got closer to the body. She mounted the stage. “First on scene?”

  “Sir.” Two uniforms stepped forward.

  She held up a finger, scanned over to the grizzled-haired man in a dark suit. Once a cop, she thought. “You’re the bodyguard?”

  “That’s right. Clyde Attkins.”

  “You were on the job.”

  “Thirty years, Atlanta.”

  “Rank?”

  “DS when I put my papers in.”

  He had the eyes for it. “Mind giving me the roundup?”

  “Nope. Jimmy Jay had the stage, heading toward halftime.”

  “Halftime?”

  “Well, that’s loose, but Jimmy Jay’d preach for ’round an hour, after the singing, then the singers would come back onstage, and Jimmy Jay, he’d change his shirt—’cause he’d’ve sweat right through the one he started with. Then after that break, he’d come back and fire it up again. He had maybe ten minutes to go when he went down.”

  Attkins’s jaw tightened visibly. “He drank some water, and went down.”

  “From one of those bottles on the table there?”

  “The one that’s still open. He drank, set the bottle down, said a couple more words. Coughed, then he choked, grabbed at his collar, his tie—and down he went. His wife—Jolene—she ran out even before I could—and when she saw him, she fainted. I secured the scene as quick and solid as I could, but there was pandemonium for a few minutes.”

  He looked back at the body, away again. “Some people tried to get up onstage, and we had to work some to keep them back. Others were running for the exits, or fainting.”

  “Pandemonium,” Eve repeated.

  “It surely was. Fact is, nobody really knew what had happened. And their daughters—Jimmy Jay and Jolene’s—came running, grabbed at their mama, their daddy. Body’s been moved some, and one of the daughters—that’d be Josie—she tried to revive him with mouth-to-mouth before I stopped her.”

  “Okay. Have those water bottles been touched or moved?”

  “No, sir, I made sure of that. Security had a hell of a time with the crowd, and with the crew, but I closed things off here in a hurry.”

  “Appreciate that, Mr. Attkins. Can you stand by?”

  “I sure can.” He looked down at the body again. “This is a terrible night. I can stand by as long as you need.”

  Taking out a can of Seal-It, Eve coated her hands, her boots. Then she moved to the glossy white table and picked up the open bottle of water. Sniffed.

  She frowned, sniffed again.

  “There’s more in here than water. I can’t place it, but there’s something in here.”

  “Mind?” Roarke stepped over. With a shrug, Eve held out the bottle so he could lean over. “I think it’s vodka.”

  “Vodka?” Eve glanced back toward Clyde, and saw from his expression Roarke was right. “Can you confirm that?”

  “Yes, sir, I can. Jimmy Jay liked a shot of vodka in his water bottles. Said it kept him smooth through the preaching. He was a good man, Lieutenant, and a true man of God. I’d sure hate for this to come out in a way that smeared his name.”

  “If it’s not relevant, it won’t. Who spiked his bottles?”

  “One of his girls, usually. His daughters. Or I would if things got busy. Or Billy, his manager.”

  “Which is why all these bottles are unsealed. Where’s the vodka bottle?”

  “That would be in his dressing room. One of your men locked that up.”

  She went back to the body, crouched. The cheeks were deep pink, the eyes bloodshot. There were bloody grooves at the throat where he’d clawed for air. She could smell the vodka as she leaned close to his face, and the sweat. And yes, just the faintest whiff of almonds.

  As she opened her kit, she turned to see Peabody and her partner’s skinny, blond heartthrob hustling toward the stage.

  “I didn’t call EDD.”

  “We were out with Callendar and her latest hunk,” Peabody said. “That is the Jimmy Jay, right?”

  “Apparently. Take prints to confirm, get TOD for the record.” Eve eyed McNab and the red and orange starburst on his purple tee. He wore slick green airskids to match the slick green belt that kept his seeringly orange pants from sliding off his bony hips.

  Despite the fashion statement, and the half-dozen colorful rings weighing down his left earlobe, he was a good cop. And since he was here, she might as well put him to work.

  “Got a recorder, Detective?”

  “Don’t leave home without it.”

  “Mr. Attkins, I’d like you to take a seat out there—” Eve gestured vaguely to the audience. “And give your statement to Detective McNab. Thanks for your help.”

  She turned to first on scene. “Officer, where’s the vic’s wife?”

  “In her dressing room, sir. I’ll escort you.”

  “In a minute. Peabody, when you’re done, have the body bagged and tagged and flag Morris. I want COD asap. Cap and bag that open bottle separate from the rest. They’re all for the lab and they’re priority. The vic had three daughters, all here. You take them. I’m on the wife, the manager. McNab can take Security.”

  “On that.”

  Eve turned to Roarke. “Want to go home?”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Then find someplace quiet and comfortable. Dig into the vic.” She offered her PPC. “I’ve got the initial run on here.”

  “I’ll use my own.”

  “I’ve got the run started on mine.”

  He sighed, took hers, tapped a couple buttons. “Now it’s on mine, too. Anything in particular you’d like me to find?”

  “It’d be really keen if you found Jimmy Jay Jenkins had ties to some guy named Lino from Spanish Harlem. Otherwise . . .” She looked around the arena. “God’s a big business, right?”

  “Biblical.”

  “Ha. Find out how much in Jimmy Jay’s pockets, and who gets what. Thanks. Officer?”

  They exited the stage, moved through the wings. “Where’s the vic’s dressing room?” she asked.

  “Other side.” The cop jerked a thumb.

  “Really?”

  He shrugged. “Mrs. Dead Guy got the hysterics. Had to carry her off, call the MTs in for her. We got a female officer in with her. MT gave her a mild soother, but . . .”

  He trailed off as wailing and sobs echoed off the walls.

  “Didn’t help much,” he added.

  “Great.” Eve stepped to the door where the wails and sobs battered the metal. She rolled her shoulders, opened it.

  She might have staggered, not just from the sounds, but from all the pink. It was like a truckload of cotton candy exploded, and it immediately gave her a phantom toothache.

  The woman herself wore a pink dress with an enormous skirt that poofed up as she sprawled on a chaise like a candy mountain. Her hair, a bright, eye-dazzling gold, tumbled in disarray around a face where several pounds of enhancers had melted and washed down in black, red, pink, and blue streaks.

&
nbsp; For a moment, Eve thought Jolene had torn some of her hair out in her mad grief, then realized the hunks of it scattered on the floor and chaise were extensions and enhancers.

  The cop on the door gave Eve a look that managed to be weary, cynical, relieved, and amused all at once. “Sir? Officer McKlinton. I’ve been standing with Mrs. Jenkins.”

  Please was the underlying message. Please set me free.

  “Take a break, Officer. I’ll speak with Mrs. Jenkins now.”

  “Yes, sir.” McKlinton moved to the door, and mumbled, “Good luck,” under her breath.

  “Mrs. Jenkins,” Eve began, and in response Jolene shrieked and threw her arm over her eyes. And not for the first time, Eve decided, as the arm was covered with smears of the facial enhancers like a kind of weird wound.

  “I’m Lieutenant Dallas,” Eve said over the shrieks and sobs. “I know this is a difficult time, and I’m very sorry for your loss, but—”

  “Where is my Jimmy Jay! Where is my husband? Where are my babies? Where are our girls?”

  “I need you to stop.” Eve walked over, leaned down, took Jolene by the quaking shoulders. “I need you to stop this, or I’m walking out. If you want me to help you, help your family, then you’ll stop. Now.”

  “How can you help? My husband is dead. Only God can help now.” Her voice, thick with tears and the South, shrill with hysteria, sawed through the top of Eve’s head. “Oh why, why did God take him from me? I don’t have enough faith to understand. I don’t have the strength to go on!”

  “Fine. Sit here and wallow then.”

  She turned away, and got halfway across the room when Jolene called out, “Wait! Wait! Don’t leave me alone. My husband, my partner in life and in the light eternal, has been taken from me. Have pity.”

  “I’ve got plenty of pity, but I also have a job to do. Do you want me to find out how, why, and who took him from you?”

  Jolene covered her face with her hands, smearing enhancements like fingerpaint. “I want you to make it not happen.”

  “I can’t. Do you want to help me find out who did this?”

  “Only God can take a life, or give one.”

  “Tell that to all the people, just in this city, who are murdered by another human being every week. You believe what you want, Mrs. Jenkins, but it wasn’t God who put poison in that bottle of water.”

  “Poison. Poison.” Jolene slapped a hand to her heart, held the other up.

  “We need the medical examiner to confirm, but yes, I believe your husband was poisoned. Do you want me to find out who did that, or just pray about it?”

  “Don’t be sacrilegious, not at such a time.” Shuddering, shuddering, Jolene squeezed her eyes shut. “I want you to find out. If someone hurt my Jimmy, I want to know. Are you a Christian, miss?”

  “Lieutenant. I’m a cop, and that’s what matters here. Now tell me what happened, what you saw.”

  Between hiccups and quavers, Jolene relayed what was essentially Attkins’s statement of events. “I ran onstage. I thought: ‘Oh sweet Jesus, help my Jimmy,’ and I saw, when I looked down, I saw . . . His eyes—he didn’t see me, they were staring, but he didn’t see me, and there was blood on his throat. They said I fainted, but I don’t remember. I remember being sick or dizzy, and someone was trying to pick me up, and I guess I went a little crazy. They—it was one of the police and, Billy, I think, who brought me in here, and someone came and gave me something to calm me down. But it didn’t help. What would?”

  “Did your husband have any enemies?”

  “Any powerful man does. And a man like Jimmy Jay, one who speaks the word of God—not everyone wants to hear it. He has a bodyguard, he has Clyde.”

  “Any particular enemies?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “A man in his position accumulates considerable wealth.”

  “He built the church, and ministers to it. He gives back more, so much more than he ever gathered for himself. Yes,” she said, stiffly now, “we have a comfortable life.”

  “What happens to the church and its assets now?”

  “I . . . I—” She pressed a hand to her lips. “He took steps to be sure the church would continue after his passing. That if he met God first, I would be taken care of, and our children, our grandchildren. I don’t know all the particulars. I try not to think about it.”

  “Who set the water out for him tonight?”

  “One of the girls, I suppose.” Her ravaged eyes closed. Eve calculated the tranq had finally cut through the hysteria. “Or Billy. Maybe Clyde.”

  “Were you aware your husband routinely had vodka added to his water?”

  Her ravaged eyes popped open. Then she huffed out a matronly breath and shook her head. “Oh, Jimmy Jay! He knew I disapproved. An occasional glass of wine, that’s all right. But did our Lord and Savior have vodka at the Last Supper? Did He change water into vodka at Cana?”

  “I’m guessing no.”

  Jolene smiled a little. “He had a taste for it, my Jimmy. Didn’t overdo. I wouldn’t have stood for it. But I didn’t know he was still having the girls tip a little into his stage water. It’s a small indulgence, isn’t it? A small thing.” Fresh tears spilled as she plucked at the voluminous poofs of her skirt. “I wish I hadn’t scolded him about it now.”

  “How about his other indulgences?”

  “His daughters, his grandbabies. He spoiled them to bits and pieces. And me.” She sighed, her voice slurring now with the drug. “He spoiled me, too, and I let him. Children. He had a soft spot for children. That’s why he built the school back down home. He believed in feeding a child’s mind, body, soul, and their imagination. Officer—I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten.”

  “Lieutenant Dallas.”

  “Lieutenant Dallas. My husband was a good man. He wasn’t perfect, but he was a good man. Maybe even great. He was a loving husband and father, and a devoted shepherd to his flock. He served the Lord, every day. Please, I want my children now. I want my daughters. Can’t I have my daughters now?”

  “I’ll check on that.”

  With the oldest daughter’s statement on record, Eve cleared putting the two women together. And she moved on to the manager.

  Billy Crocker sat in a smaller dressing room on what Eve thought of as Jimmy Jay’s side of the stage. His eyes were raw and red, his face gray.

  “He’s really dead.”

  “Yes, he is.” Eve chose to start at a different point. “When’s the last time you spoke with Mr. Jenkins?”

  “Just a few minutes before he went on. I gave him his cue. I went to his dressing room to give him the five-minute cue.”

  “What else did you talk about?”

  “I told him what the gate was, that we were sold out. He liked hearing it, pepped him up, knowing there were so many souls to be saved. That’s what he said.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “Yes. He always took the last thirty minutes—twenty if we were pressed—alone.”

  “How long did you work for him?”

  Billy took a choked breath. “Twenty-three years.”

  “What was your relationship?”

  “I’m his manager—was his manager—and his friend. He was my spiritual adviser. We were family.” With his lips trembling, Billy wiped at his eyes. “Jimmy Jay made everyone feel like family.”

  “Why is his wife stationed at the other side of the stage?”

  “Just a practicality. They come in on opposite sides, meet at the center. It’s tradition. Jolene, oh good Jesus, poor Jolene.”

  “What was their relationship like?”

  “Devoted. Absolutely devoted. They adore each other.”

  “No straying into other pastures—on either side.”

  He looked down at his hands. “That’s an unkind thing to say.”

  “Am I going to dig a little, Billy, and find out you and Jolene have been breaking any commandments?”

  His head snapped up. “You will not. Jolene
would never betray Jimmy Jay in that way. In any way. She’s a lady, and a good Christian woman.”

  “Who spiked Jenkins’s stage water with vodka?”

  Billy sighed. “Josie took care of it tonight. There’s no need to bring that out, and embarrass Jolene. It was a small thing.”

  “The church is big business. A lot of money. Who gets what?”

  “It’s very complicated, Lieutenant.”

  “Simplify it.”

  “Church assets remain church assets. Some of those assets are used by the Jenkins family. The plane used for transportation in the work of the church, for instance. His daughters’ homes, which are also used for church business. Several vehicles and other assets. Jimmy Jay and Jolene have—over more than thirty-five years of time and effort—accumulated considerable wealth in their own right. I know, as I was consulted, that Jimmy Jay arranged, should . . . should he go to God, that Jolene and his family are provided for. And that the church itself can and will continue. It was his life’s work.”

  “Did he leave anything to you, Billy?”

  “Yes. I’ll inherit some of his personal effects, one million dollars, and the responsibility of managing the church in the manner he wished.”

  “Who’d he cheat on Jolene with?”

  “I won’t dignify that with an answer.”

  Something there, Eve decided. “If you’re taking that stand to protect him, you may also be protecting his killer.”

  “Jimmy Jay is beyond my protection. He’s in God’s hands.”

  “Eventually, his killer will be in mine.” She rose. “Where are you staying in New York?”

  “At the Mark. The family was given use of the home of one of our flock. They’re at a town house on Park Avenue. The rest of us are at the Mark.”

  “You’re free to go there, but don’t leave the city.”

  “None of us will leave until we take Jimmy Jay’s earthly remains back home.”

  Eve tracked down Peabody, pulled her out of yet another dressing room. “This place is a damn maze. Status.”

  “I’ve finished the first two daughters, and I’m on number three. My take is they’re in shock, and they want their mother, which is where the first two are now. They’re worried about their kids, who are with the nanny who travels with them. The youngest one’s in there and about five months pregnant.”