In Death 16 - Portrait in Death

spry.
     
     
Her face was a tiny wrinkled ball set off by oversized teeth. Her wig-Eve hoped it was a wig-sat crookedly on top and was the color of bleached wheat. She wore some sort of tracksuit that bagged over what was left of her body.
     
     
Note to God, Eve thought: Please, if you're up there, don't let me live this long. It's too scary.
     
     
"Mrs. MacNamara-"
     
     
"Oh, you just call me Ernestine. Everybody does. Can I see your gun?"
     
     
Eve ignored Peabody's muffled snort. "We don't carry guns, Mrs.... Ernestine. Guns are banned. My weapon is a police issue hand laser. About your van."
     
     
"It still shoots and knocks people on their butts, whatever you call it. Is it heavy?"
     
     
"No, not really. The van, Ernestine. Your van. When's the last time you used it?"
     
     
"Sunday. Every Sunday I take a group to St. Ignatius for ten o'clock Mass. Hard for most of us to walk that far, and the buses, well, it isn't easy for people my age to remember the schedule. Anyway, it's more fun this way. I was a flower child, you know."
     
     
Eve blinked. "You were a flower?"
     
     
"Flower child." Ernestine gave a hoarse little chuckle. The sixties-the nineteen sixties. Then I was a New-Ager, and Free-Ager. And oh, whatever came along that looked like fun. Gone back to being a Catholic now. It's comforting."
     
     
"I'm sure. Does anyone else have access to your van?"
     
     
"Well, there's the nice boy in the parking garage. He keeps it for me. Only charges me half the going rate, too. He's a good boy."
     
     
"I'd like his name, and the name and location of the garage."
     
     
"He's Billy, and it's the place on West Eighteenth, right off Seventh. Just a block from here, so that's easy for me. I pick it up and drop it off on Sundays. Oh, and the third Wednesday of the month when we have the planning meetings for church."
     
     
"Is there anyone else who drives it or has access? A friend, a relative, a neighbor?"
     
     
"Not that I can think. My son has his own car. He lives in Utah. He's a Mormon now. And my daughter's in New Orleans, she's Wiccan. Then there's my sister, Marian, but she doesn't drive anymore. Then there's the grandchildren."
     
     
Dutifully, Eve wrote down the names-grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and God help her, the great-greats.
     
     
"Ernestine, I'd like your permission to run tests on your van."
     
     
"Oh my goodness! Do you think it could be involved in a crime?" Her little wrinkled face flushed with pleasure. "Wouldn't that be something?"
     
     
"Wouldn't it?" Eve agreed.
     
     
She escaped, drawing in the humid, clogged air like spring water. "I think I swallowed a hair ball," she said to Peabody.
     
     
"You've got enough cat hair on you to make a rug." Peabody brushed at her uniform pants. "Me, too. What is it with old women and cats?"
     
     
"Cats are okay. I have a cat. But if I ever start collecting them like stamps, you have permission to blast me in the heart."
     
     
"Can I get that on record, sir?"
     
     
"Shut up. Let's go talk to Billy, the good Samaritan parking attendant."
     
     
***
     
     
Good Samaritan, my ass, was Eve's first thought.
     
     
Billy was a long, loose-limbed black man with doe-brown eyes behind amber sunshades, and nimble feet inside five hundred dollar airboots.
     
     
The shades, the boots, and the glint of gold she noticed shining in his ears were hardly in the range of budget for a vehicle jockey in a small parking garage in Lower Manhattan.
     
     
"Miss Ernestine!" His smile lit up like Christmas morning, full of joy and innocence. "Isn't she something? I hope I get around like that when I hit her age. She's in here Sunday mornings like clockwork. Churchgoing."
     
     
"So I hear. I have her written authorization to search her van, and, if I deem it necessary, to impound it for testing."
     
     
"She wasn't in an accident." He took the authorization Eve offered. "I'd've noticed if there were any dings on the van. She drives careful."
     
     
"I'm sure she does. Where's the van?"
     
     
"I keep it down on the first level. Makes it easier for her."
     
     
And you, Eve thought, as she followed him back into the shadows and harsh lights of the garage.
     
     
"There aren't too many parking facilities with attendants in the city," she commented. "Most that do have attendants use droids."
     
     
"Nope, not too many of us left. But my uncle, he owns this one, he likes the personal touch."
     
     
"Who doesn't? Miss