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“Well then,” she said cheerfully, and took his hand, “sink or swim, for you’re about to be tossed into the deep end of the pool.”
Chapter 17
She questioned over two dozen registered owners of vehicles with carpet matching the fibers found on the victims. Including a little old lady who used hers to transport other little old ladies to church on Sundays.
Eve found herself trapped inside a two-room apartment that smelled of cats and lavender sachet. She wasn’t sure which was worse. She drank weak, tepid iced tea because Mrs. Ernestine Macnamara gave her no other choice.
“It’s so exciting—terrible of me, but I can’t help myself. So exciting to be questioned by the police at my age. I’m a hundred and six, you know.”
And looked it, Eve thought sourly.
Ernestine was tiny and dry and colorless, as though the years had leached her. But she shuffled around the room with some energy in her faded pink slippers, shooing or cooing at cats. There appeared to be a full dozen of them, and from some of the sounds Eve heard, some were very busy making more cats.
She supposed Ernestine would be considered 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 t
racksuit 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. Ignatious 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.
