A Kiss Gone Bad (20 page)

The fishing skiff bobbed in the shallow waves. He dumped the body into the boat, grabbed a small shovel and a plastic bucket,
and dug up the blood-sodden sand. He motored the skiff into deeper water and aimed the prow across the heart of St Leo Bay.

He trembled. He really had nothing against her, didn’t really want her the way he desired his Darlings, but now it was done
and a shaky rush of triumph dried his mouth. Again, he was okay. Again, no one had seen. Again. For all the times he felt
dumb as a stump, lost among other people, this he could do and do it okay.

The Blade steered the skiff out into the night, deep into the bay. He spotted a rather grand fishing trawler anchored in the
middle, halfway between Port Leo and Santa Margarita Island, but its lights were down and he gave it a wide berth. The clouds
lay heavy and low over the sky, like a second shroud, blocking out the clear stars, and he moved unseen on the waters.

At nine Thursday morning Claudia, supercharged by a large chocolate croissant from an art district bakery and a double espresso
stronger than Gulf crude, waited to interview Jabez Jones about the Marcy Ballew case. David stood in the small bare study,
hands on trim hips, inspecting the photos of Jabez body-slamming a thick-barreled antagonist during his pro wrestling days.
David’s uniform needed pressing, and she wondered if he wore it as a silent you-fled-domestic-bliss rebuke.

‘I’m pretty sure all this wrestling’s faked,’ David said.

Delford had called her last night, asking her to work with David, per his request.

Are you pissed at me or what?
she had asked.
Why are you putting me through the wringer? First you cut me from the Hubble case. Now you’re inflicting my ex on me.

I’m just expecting you to work with the man. It’s a whole hour out of your day, Claudia. Just do it.

She wondered if the pay was better in Rockport or Port Aransas than Port Leo.

Jabez Jones entered, filling khaki shorts and a crisp T-shirt that read
BE STRONG
–
I SAMUEL
4:9. His thighs looked like wooden blocks and a light sheen of sweat coated his face. Morning workout or morning prayer?
she wondered. He mopped at his face with a hand towel.

‘Hello, Deputy Power.’ He shook David’s hand warmly and nodded toward Claudia. ‘Detective Salazar, we’re blessed again with
your presence. Carrot juice? Smoothie? We probably even have coffee, although I’m not fond of polluting my temple with stimulants.’

His temple. But Jabez’s expression remained perfectly serious.

‘No, thanks,’ Claudia said. David shook his head.

‘Well, I could use a protein shake,’ Jabez said. ‘Why don’t y’all come with me and we can talk in the kitchen?’

They followed him to a kitchen where a young woman sliced cantaloupe with the precision of a jeweler. She gave Jabez a come-hither
grin, but her smile froze when she saw Claudia and David.

Claudia thought:
Where do I know you from?
The girl’s slender, doe-eyed face looked vaguely familiar. She moved with a complete awareness of her small body, setting
down the knife with a shrug of short-snug hip, turning from the counter and leaning against it slightly to bring her breasts
to full tilt against her shirt.

‘Good morning,’ she said.

‘Rachel, would you mind excusing us?’ Jabez said.

‘Just a moment.’ Claudia sidestepped around Jabez. She held up the picture of Marcy Ballew. ‘Have you seen this young woman?’

Rachel glanced at Jabez, who shrugged. She studied the flyer. Claudia remembered her then, the girl from the volleyball game
when she and Whit had interviewed Jabez before.

‘No. I’ve never seen her,’ Rachel said.

‘Thanks,’ Claudia said. Jabez nodded, so Rachel left. Claudia noticed David watching her exit. It was probably inspiring to
a newly single guy, and she thought,
Quit it, quit looking at her.

Jabez startled her. ‘May I see the picture of who you’re looking for?’

‘Yes.’ She handed it to Jabez.

‘Her name is Marcy. We think she was in this area recently,’ David said.

Jabez handed Claudia back the photo after a blink’s worth of looking. ‘I don’t know her.’

‘Her mother told us that she was a big fan of your wrestling career and your new show,’ Claudia said.

The Adam’s apple rose slightly in his oak of a throat. ‘A fan? Well, I’m sorry I don’t know her, then, and sorry I can’t be
of further help to you.’

Claudia smiled. ‘I don’t know about Deputy Power, but I think I will take one of those shakes you offered, if you don’t mind.
I’m afraid I skipped breakfast. Then we can ask you a few other quick questions.’

Jabez’s smile was as tight as his shirt. ‘Certainly. Melon or strawberry? I load them with vitamin mix and wheat germ as well.’

It would nullify the chocolate and the espresso. ‘I’ll have whatever you’re having.’

‘Nothing for me, thanks,’ David said. ‘Fruit tears up my stomach real bad.’

Jabez turned to fix the beverages.

‘Do you take in runaways here?’ she asked.

Jabez pushed aside the cantaloupe that Rachel had been slicing and began to peel a banana. He peeled a second one and upended
both in a blender. Then he began to wash and slice several strawberries. ‘People come to our camp for succor, for comfort.
I believe they are safer with us than on the road, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know much about what all you do here.’

‘We pray, we minister.’ He dumped the cut berries in with the bananas, poured in some milk and ice, and thumbed on the blender.
Claudia waited until the pureeing stopped.

‘This girl’s ID turned up alongside a road two miles outside Port Leo.’

‘She didn’t come here.’ He sprinkled wheat germ and shaved carrots and some other powder Claudia hoped
wasn’t strychnine into frosted glasses and poured the blended froth over them. He rummaged in the industrial-size fridge
and held up an egg to her with a raised eyebrow. She shook her head and he cracked the raw egg into his frosted glass. She
heard David gulp. Jabez garnished her glass with a slice of cantaloupe and handed it to her.

‘Thank you.’ The drink tasted sweet on her tongue but had the texture of cement mix. Jabez gestured for them to follow him.

They went into an adjoining living room-cum-training center. If Jesus preached poverty, Jabez wasn’t listening. A state-of-the-art
Nautilus machine towered in the corner. Expensive contemporary furniture – Danish, and out of character with the Victorian
exterior of the home – adorned the room. A wide-screen television dominated one corner. Photos of Jabez’s glory days in the
wrestling ring covered the wall. In one he held aloft a weighted championship belt and snarled at the screaming audience of
modern-day gladiator junkies.

One small cross hung on the wall, fitted in between a pair of ringside wrestling photos. No pictures of Jesus the gentle shepherd.

‘We’d like to show her picture to your followers,’ David said.

‘They don’t follow me. They follow Jesus.
Followers
makes it sound like a cult.’

‘Well,’ David said pleasantly. ‘No offense meant.’

‘You start a new church, offer seekers new answers to old questions, find success with it, and then people question you.’

‘You glorify the body, though,’ Claudia said.

He flexed the muscles in one arm. ‘We consider our bodies temples to the Lord, since we are sculpted in His image. Our own
bodies are reflected in the Body of Christ
that the church forms.’ He ran a hand over the muscle in his arm like it was sacred velvet, a priest admiring his vestments.

‘You certainly have a lot of young women here,’ she said.

‘I’m sure there are many young women at your own church.’

Claudia smiled. ‘But they don’t live with Father O’Hearn or Father Aguilar.’

‘I don’t sleep with these young women, if that’s what you’re implying.’

‘You just focus on having female disciples? That it?’ David asked.

His gaze hardened. ‘The way I bring God to them appeals to them, just as a prayer book appeals to an Episcopalian or bowing
toward Mecca appeals to a Muslim.’

‘You’re sure the Ballew girl didn’t make her way here?’ David asked.

‘I will happily swear on a stack of Bibles that I’ve never laid eyes on her face before.’

‘You are the only connection we’ve yet found between this girl and Port Leo,’ David said bluntly.

Jabez drained his shake in such a pronounced swallow it reminded Claudia of a python downing a rat. ‘You have no cause to
bother us.’

‘This girl had no reason to be in Encina County that we know of except for you.’ Claudia set down her drink on a glass-topped
table. ‘I’m sorry, but I feel like you’re not being completely honest with us.’

‘I’ve given you no reason for doubt.’

‘I wonder,’ she said, hoping to shake the tree. ‘You have this missing girl who might have come here to see you. You’re seen
arguing with Pete Hubble on his boat, and he is now dead. I suppose it might be coincidence. I suppose it might not.’

David shot her a questioning look with the barest shrug of his shoulders.

Jabez crossed his buffed arms. ‘I don’t get easily intimidated. Jesus is on my side, in my heart, in my brain. I can withstand
Satan. Comparatively, you’re not that frightening.’

‘Satan can’t get a search warrant, Reverend. And Satan can’t put every aspect of your operation under a microscope. How do
you think your television flock would react to news of you being investigated?’ Claudia asked.

‘On what charge? I’ve cooperated fully.’ He laughed. ‘I might expect this of a provincial buffoon like Delford Spires, but
I always marked you as fairer and more intelligent, Ms Salazar.’

Claudia shook her head. ‘So why do I believe I’m going to have to lean on you very hard to get the truth?’

He smiled beatifically. ‘Lean away. I have a great PR firm in Austin. They’ve already laid out a plan for any crisis. Arrest,
investigation, scandal – not that it’s likely.’

She let the silence hang. ‘Fine. Anything else, Deputy Power?’

David shook his head, a numb look on his face. ‘Loved the shake,’ Claudia said.

‘Go with God,’ Jabez said. She wanted to slap the sure smirk off his face.

They got into David’s cruiser and shut the doors. David didn’t start the car.

‘You know, Claud, I miss that little spark of tough you got,’ he said.

‘You said you wouldn’t do this. Talk about us.’

‘Sorry. I just admired the way you wouldn’t let him walk all over you.’

A group of Jabez disciples jogged past the parking lot, legs lifting into perfect beat, mouths moving to a chant of prayer.

‘I knew I should’ve joined a gym,’ David said. ‘I saw the lustful stare you gave those arms of his.’

‘You saw nothing,’ Claudia said. Great. David was teasing her now, bantering.

As David drove down the palm-lined road leading to the encampment and halfway down to the highway, the girl Rachel stepped
out of the growth, waving her arms. David stopped the cruiser, and Claudia lowered her window.

‘Cops, right? Can we talk a minute?’ the girl asked. Her voice shook.

‘Sure,’ Claudia said.

‘Not here. Someplace else.’

David let the girl into the back of the car. Rachel ducked in and pointed at a side road, curving off to the right. ‘Pull
in down there so no one sees us. He’s gonna be looking for me soon enough.’

David obeyed. Claudia turned to Rachel. ‘Do you know that girl in the picture?’

‘No, never seen her. But I know Pete Hubble.’

‘What?’

‘Pete’s a friend from California. I did a couple of movies with him this year, and he lent me some cash.’ Claudia studied
the young woman’s face, and saw anew the vixen clinging to Pete on the cover of one of the tapes.
Cleopatra’s Love Slaves.
Done up as a horny Queen of the Nile, pulling a rubber asp through her cleavage and kissing the snake’s head. Hadn’t one
of the stars had the silly name of Rachel Pleasure? Different hair, but the same girl, the same wide blue eyes, the same elfin
face.

Rachel hunkered down in the seat. ‘Just listen, okay? If I’m gone long, Mary Magdalene will kick my ass. Bitch already hates
me.’

‘We’re listening,’ Claudia said.

‘Pete wanted dirt on Jabez Jones, and he asked me to
help him, said he’d pay me what I make in a month’s work doing flicks. I said sure. He flew me out here and I checked into
the camp.’ Her voice wavered. ‘We don’t get to watch television – except for Jabez’s show – or listen to radio or read papers,
but last night I was in Jabez’s room and heard them say on the TV news Pete was dead.’

‘He shot himself,’ Claudia said.

‘But Pete was supposed to get me out. They watch us like hawks.’

‘Didn’t Velvet know you were here?’ Claudia asked.

Rachel shook her head. ‘He didn’t want Velvet to know about his business. Plus she doesn’t like me too well. I’m a way better
actress than she is.’

‘Um, we’ll get you out,’ David said. ‘You want to go now?’

‘Look, if Jabez knows Pete planted me here, no way am I staying. But I don’t have the evidence Pete wanted.’

‘What were you looking for?’ Claudia asked.

Rachel bit her lip. ‘Pete thought Jabez knew who killed his brother, years ago. He thought maybe Jabez had made all his money
by keeping his mouth shut or maybe was in on his brother’s death. I couldn’t find anything about that, though, but I did find
something else. Dope.’

‘Do tell,’ David said.

‘I made sure I got close to him once I got here.’ Rachel peered out the back windshield, as though the hounds had been released.
‘That’s why Mary Magdalene hates my guts. I’m the new favorite.’

‘He says he doesn’t sleep with his … followers,’ Claudia said.

‘Right. He was screwing me last night while the news was on. I had to keep lying there while he huffed and puffed and watched
himself in the damn mirror. I thought I was going to die when I heard them talk about Pete. He’s rough about sex, too. Something’s
not right with
him, let me tell you. He likes to snort a little coke, especially when he and I are about to get busy. He keeps it in his
bedroom.’

David revved the engine. ‘If we get you out right now, will he flush the cocaine?’

‘I don’t know. I’m due for phone duty for the prayer line in thirty minutes. They’ll look for me.’

Claudia frowned. ‘Can you sit it out so he doesn’t suspect and let us get a search warrant?’

Rachel nodded. ‘If you think it will help.’ She got out of the car. ‘But hurry. And you got to get me out of here when you
get back.’

‘We will, I promise,’ Claudia said. ‘I promise.’

David backed out onto the road, floored the accelerator, and peeled down the road toward the highway. ‘Jesus, Claudia. Jesus,
this is huge!’ he roared. ‘Holy hell!’

Claudia thought:
Oh, no way was Pete gonna kill himself with that girl stuck at the camp. No way now Whit can rule for suicide.