She walked forward. "Nice round."

Puffing, still bent over, Marc turned his head. "The guy kills me."

"You drop your right before you jab."

"So he tells me," Marc said bitterly. "You want a shot at him?"

Eve glanced up at Lopez. "Wouldn't mind, but I 'll rain-check. Have you got a few minutes now?" she asked Lopez. "We have some questions."

"Of course."

"Outside maybe? We'll wait for you on the blacktop."

"He's built," Peabody said when they walked out of the gym. "Who knew that under all the priest gear he was Father Seriously Ripped."

"Keeps in shape. And something's up. Father Seriously Ripped had his sad eyes on, but there was more. There was dread."

"Really? I guess I wasn't looking at his eyes. He could have heard about Lino by now. Word like that starts traveling fast. Since he's the man in charge, he's going to have to explain, I guess, why he didn't realize a man like that was working under him. Everybody needs a fall guy, right?

Maybe the church bra.s.s is aiming at him."

Since the blacktop was swarming with kids, Eve stayed at the side of the building. "Why aren't these people in school?"

"School's out for the day, Dallas. On the technical end of things, it's nearly end of shift."

"Oh. Maybe he's worried about his career. Do priests have careers? But that wasn't it. I know the look that says, 'I don't want to talk to the cops.'

That's what he had in his eyes."

"You think he's hiding something? He didn't know Lino-as Lino. He's only been in the parish for a few months."

"He's been a priest a h.e.l.l of a lot longer." She thought of what Mira had predicted, and decided not to dance and jab, but to try for the knockout as soon as Lopez came out.

His hair was damp, and the sweat had his T-shirt clinging to his chest. Yeah, Eve mused, he kept in shape.

She didn't wait a beat. "The victim's been officially identified as Lino Martinez. You know who killed him. You know," Eve said, "because whoever did told you."

He closed his eyes briefly. "What I know was told to me within the sanct.i.ty of the confessional."

"You're protecting a murderer, and one who is indirectly responsible for a second death in Jimmy Jay Jenkins."

"I can't break my vows, Lieutenant. I can't betray my faith, or the laws of the Church."

"Render unto Caesar," Peabody said, and had Lopez shaking his head."I can't give to man's law with one hand, and take from G.o.d's with the other. Please, can we sit? The benches over there, away from the building.

This needs to be very private."

Resentment bubbling, Eve walked over to where benches, their legs set into concrete, were facing the court. Lopez sat, rested his hands on his knees.

"I 've prayed on this. I 've prayed since I heard this confession. I can't tell you what was told to me. I t was told not to me, but to G.o.d through me. I received this confession as a minister to G.o.d."

"I 'll take the hearsay."

"I don't expect you to understand, either of you." He lifted his hands from his knees, palms up. Lowered them again. "You're women of the world. Of the law. This person came to me to unburden their soul, their heart, their conscience, of this mortal sin."

"And you absolved them? Good deal for them."

"No, I did not. Cannot absolve them. I can't unburden them, Lieutenant. I counseled, I instructed, I urged this person to go to you, to confess to you.

Until this is done, there can be no forgiveness, no absolution. They will live with this sin, and die with it unless they repent it. I can't do anything for you, for them. I can't do anything."

"Did this individual know Lino Martinez?"

"I can't answer you."

"Is this person a member of your church?"

"I can't answer you." He pressed his fingers to his eyes. "I t makes me ill, but I can't answer."

"I could put you in a cage. You'd get out. Your church will campaign, send their lawyers, but you'd do time first while we're fighting it out."

"And still, I can't answer. I f I tell you, I 'll have broken my vows, betrayed them. I 'll be excommunicated. There are all kinds of cages, Lieutenant Dallas. Do you think I want this?" he demanded, with the first hint of heat. "T o block your justice? I believe in your justice. I believe in the order of it as much as you. Do you think I want to stand by, knowing I can't reach a wounded, angry soul? That my counsel may have turned it away instead of bringing it to G.o.d?"

"They may come after you. You know who they are, what they did. I can take you into protective custody."

"They know I won't break my vows. I f you took me away, I 'd have no chance to reach them, to try, to keep trying to persuade them to do true penance for the sin, to accept man's law and G.o.d's. Let me try."

She could all but feel herself beating her fists against the solid, the impenetrable wall of his faith. "Did you tell anyone? Father Freeman, your superiors?"

"I can't tell anyone what was said or who came to me. As long as they live with it, so do I ."

"I f this person kills again ..." Peabody began.

"They won't. There's no reason."

"I t goes back to the bombings in 2043."

"I can't tell you."

"What do you know about them?"

"Everyone in the parish knows of them. There's a perpetual novena for the victims and their families. Every month a Ma.s.s is dedicated to them. T o all of them, Lieutenant, not just the victim from El Barrio."

"Did you know that Lino selectively blackmailed some who came to him in confession?"

Lopez jerked as if struck with sudden, shocking pain. Rather than sorrow, it was fury that flashed into his eyes. "No. No, I didn't know. Why didn't any of them come to me for help?"

"I doubt seriously they knew who was blackmailing them, or where the blackmailer got the information. And now I know whoever killed him wasn't one of them."

Eve pushed to her feet. "I can't force you to tell me what you know. I can't make you tell me who used your church, your faith, your ritual, your vows to murder. I could squeeze you, and sweat you, but you still wouldn't tell me and then both of us would be p.i.s.sed off. But I 'll tell you this: I 'm going to find out who it was. Whatever kind of slime Lino was, I 'm going to do my job, the same as you."

"I pray you will find them, and I pray that before you do, they come to you. I pray that G.o.d gives me the wisdom and the strength to show them the way.""I guess we'll see which one of us gets there first."

Eve left him sitting on the bench.

"I get he's doing what he thinks he has to," Peabody said. "But I think we should be taking him in. You could break him in Interview."

"Not sure I could. He's got t.i.tanium for faith. And even if ... isn't that going to make him one more victim? I break him, make him slip enough, and he'd never be the same. He wouldn't be a priest anymore."

She remembered what she'd felt like when they'd taken her badge. How she'd felt empty, helpless. Like nothing, like no one.

"I 'm not doing that to him. Have I even got a right to do that to an innocent man? One who's taken an oath pretty much the same as ours?"

"Protect and serve."

"We do people, he does souls. I 'm not going to sacrifice him to make my job easier. But I 'll tell you what we are going to do." She got into the vehicle, switched on the engine. "We're putting him under surveillance. We're getting a warrant to monitor his communication devices. I 'd put eyes and ears in the d.a.m.n church if they'd clear it, but that's not going to happen. We're going to know where he goes, when, who he sees."

"Do you think the killer will go for him?"

"He's got that t.i.tanium faith, so he thinks not. Me? I 've got faith that people mostly look out for their own a.s.s. So we cover him-we protect-and we leave him out here as bait, hoping the sinner needs another shot at redemption. Put it in play, my authorization."

As Peabody started that ball, Eve glanced at the time. Thought, s.h.i.t. "One more stop. We'll see if we can jangle anything out of Inez."

A woman answered this time, a looker with warm brown hair pulled back in a jaunty tail from a rose-and-cream face. Behind her, two little boys rammed miniature trucks together and made violent crashing noises.

"Pipe down," the woman ordered, and they did, instantly. The crashing noises continued, but at whispers.

"Mrs. Inez?"

"Yes?"

"We'd like to speak to your husband."

"So would I , but he's stuck in New Jersey, there's a jam at the tunnel. He'll be lucky to get home in under two hours. What is it?"

Eve took out her badge.

"Oh, Joe said the police were here last night. Something about one of the tenants being a witness in a hit-and-run."

"Is that what your son told you?"

"Actually, Joe filled me in." Awareness came into her eyes. "And that wasn't entirely accurate. What is this about?"

"We're investigating an old connection of your husband's. Do you know Lino Martinez?"

"No, but I know the name. I know Joe was in the Soldados, and I know he did time. I know he had trouble, and he pulled himself out of it." She gripped the doork.n.o.b, eased the door closed a few more inches, as if to shield the children behind her. "He hasn't had anything to do with any of that business for years. He's a good man. A family man with a decent job. He works hard. Lino Martinez and the Soldados were another life."

"Tell him we were here, Mrs. Inez, and that we've located Lino Martinez. We're going to need to follow up with your husband."

"I 'll tell him, but I 'm telling you he doesn't know anything about Lino Martinez, not anymore."

She closed the door, and Eve heard the locks snick impatiently.

"She's p.i.s.sed he lied to her," Peabody commented.

"Yeah. Stupid move on his part. I t tells me he's hiding something from his wife. Something from now, something from then? Either way, something.

I 'm going to drop you at the subway and work from home. Keep on those John Does. I think I 'll comb through those old case files, see if something swims up from the deep."

"I know what you said back there to Lopez is right. We've got to do the job no matter what a creep Lino was. But when you know some of the s.h.i.t he pulled, and the s.h.i.t we think he pulled, it's hard to get worked up because somebody ended him."

"Maybe if somebody had gotten worked up a long time ago, he wouldn't have been able to pull so much s.h.i.t, his mother wouldn't be crying tonight, and somebody who strikes me as an especially good man wouldn't be honor-bound, or faith-bound, to protect a murderer."

Peabody sighed. "You've got a point. But I like it better when the bad guys are just the bad guys."

"There's always plenty of them to go around."

CHAPTER 18

SHE NEEDED THINKING TIME. CLOSED IN WITH the case time where she could put the pieces of everything she knew, didn't know, everything that had been said, left unsaid together with people, events, evidence, and speculation, and see what kinds of pictures formed.

She needed to take a good hard look at the victims in the two bombings, and their families, their connections. She needed to consider the blackmail angle, which she already knew would be a deep and sticky well. I f Lopez wouldn't tell her the name of a murderer, he sure as h.e.l.l wasn't going to share the names of people who'd confessed blackmail-able transgressions to him.

She didn't buy murder for blackmail in Lino's case, but she couldn't discount it as possible. Or connected.

How had Lino collected the money? she wondered as she drove home. Where had he kept the funds, or had he just p.i.s.sed it away as it came in?

Expensive hotel rooms and lavish meals, gaudy jewelry for his bed partner.

Not enough, she thought. A few thousand here and there? What was the point in risking exposure for a fancy suite and a bottle of champagne?

Showing off to the old girlfriend? Stuben said Penny Soto had been his weak spot. So ... I t could be that simple. Wanting to be rich, important, and having his woman see him as both.

Or as simple as needing the rush, of knowing you were pulling a fast one. Reminding yourself who you were while you were pretending to be another. Like a hobby.

Something else to think about.

She drove through the gates, then slowed down. There were flowers where she was d.a.m.n sure there hadn't been flowers that morning. Tulips-she was pretty sure-and daffodils. She liked daffodils because they were so bright and silly. Now there were rivers of both where there hadn't been so much as a drop ten hours earlier.