In Death 17 - Imitation in Death

You've also left your mark-and, had an impact on more lives than either-of us can count. Remember that when you look in.the mirror, and into your own eyes." ,
     
     
Chapter 11
     
     
When Eve. walked into the break room, Baxter was chowing down on an enormous sandwich that smelled too good and looked too fresh to have come out of the facility's AutoChef, any of the vending machines, or the take-out counter at the Eatery..
     
     
It looked civilian and delicious.
     
     
Beside him at the square table, the sweet-faced Trueheart was making neat work of a leafy salad topped with chunks of chicken.
     
     
Across from them, a woman who looked to have seen the dawn and dusk of a couple- of centuries beamed goodwill over them.
     
     
'"There: now," she said in a reedy voice, "isn't that better than anything you can get out of a machine?"
     
     
"Glump," Baxter responded over bread and meat in what was obviously delirious agreement.
     
     
Trueheart, who was younger, nearly as green as his salad, and whose mouth wasn't quite as full at the time, scraped back his chair when he spotted Eve. "Lieutenant. He shot to attention as Baxter rolled his eyes in amusement over the rookie, and adoration over his sandwich.
     
     
He swallowed. "Jeez, Trueheart, save the brownnosing until after I digest. Dallas, this is the amazing and wonderful Mrs., Elsa Parksy. Mrs.- Parksy, ma'am, this is Lieutenant Dallas, the primary investigator you wanted to see."
     
     
"Thanks for coming in, Mrs. Parksy."
     
     
"My duty, isn't it? As a citizen, not to mention as a friend and neighbor. Lois looked after me when I needed it, now I'll look after her, best I can. Sit down, deans. Have you had your lunch?"
     
     
Eve eyed the sandwich, the salad, and ignored the envy that swirled in her mostly empty stomach. "Yes, ma'am."
     
     
"I told these boys I'd fix extra. Can't, abide food out of a machine. It's not natural. Detective Baxter, you offer some of that sandwich to this girl. She's too skinny."
     
     
"I'm fine, really. Detective Baxter told me. you saw a man leaving Mrs. Gregg's apartment building on Sunday morning."
     
     
"Did. I didn't talk to the police before as.1 went straight on to my grandson's after church and stayed -overnight. Didn't get back home until this morning. Heard. about Lois on the news yesterday, of course !"
     
     
The-countless wrinkles in her withered raisin of a face shifted in what Eve took for sorrow.
     
     
"I've never been so shocked and sad, even when my Fred, God rest him, fell.under the Number Three,-train back in 2035. She was a good woman, and a good neighbor."
     
     
"Yes, I know she was. What can -you tell us.about the man you saw?"
     
     
"Hardly paid him any attention. My eyes are pretty good yet. Got them fixed up again last March, but I wasn't paying him much mind."
     
     
Absently, she pulled a pack of nap-wipes out of a cavernous handbag, and passed them to Baxter.
     
     
"Thank you, Mrs. Parksy," he said in a humbled, respectful voice.
     
     
"You're a good boy." She patted his hand, then turned her attention back to Eve. "Where was I? Oh yes.-I was just coming out to wait for my grandson..' He comes: by every Sunday at dune-fifteen, to take me to church. You, go to church?"
     
     
. There was a quick and beady gleam in Mrs. Parksy's eyes, causing Eve to hesitate between the truth and a convenient lie.
     
     
"Yes, ma'am," Trueheart spoke up, his face solemn. "I like to go to Mass at St. Pat's when I can -get into Midtown on Sunday. Otherwise, I go to Our Lady of the Sorrows, downtown."
     
     
"Catholic, are you?"
     
     
"Yes, ma'am. '
     
     
"Well, that's all right." She patted his hand in turn, as if it wasn't his fault.
     
     
"You saw the man come out from Mrs. Gregg's building," Eve prompted.
     
     
"Said I did, didn't I? He came out just a minute after I stepped out my own front door across the street. Had on a gray uniform and carried a black toolbox. Had a blue plastic basket in his other hand, like the kind they have down at the market. Couldn't see what was in it, 'cause it was a ways, and.1 wasn't staring at the man."
     
     
"What can you tell me about how he looked?"
     
     
"Looked like a' repairman, is all. White man, or maybe mixed. Hard to tell as the sun was blasting. Don't know how old. Not as old as me. Thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, that's all the same when you hit your century mark, and I hit mine seventeen years ago last March. But I'd say thirty or forty