Portrait in Death (32 page)

His blood chilled, but he nodded. If they wanted money from him, he'd give them money. "I'm well set."

"Well set's a variable term, isn't it? Depending on where you're standing."

She walked back toward the kitchen, past what he assumed was the company parlor, then the family living area. The rooms were crowded with furniture and whatnots, and fresh flowers. And all as neat as she.

The table in the big family kitchen could have fit twelve, and he imagined it had. There was a huge stove that appeared to be well-used, an enormous refrigerator, miles of butter yellow counters.

The windows over the sink looked out over garden and field and hill, and there were little pots he supposed were herbs sitting on the sill. It was a working room, and a cheerful one. He could still smell breakfast in the air.

"Have a seat then, Roarke. Will you have biscuits with your tea?"

"No, thank you. I'm fine."

"Well, I will. Don't get much of a reason to eat a biscuit in the middle of the day, might as well take advantage of it when I do."

She dealt with the homey chores, and had him wondering if she was giving them both time to settle. The tea was in a plain white pot, and the biscuits she put on a pretty blue plate.

"Yours is a face I never expected to see at my door." With the chores done, she sat, chose a biscuit. "So, why have you come?"

"I thought I... felt I... Ah, well." He sipped the tea. Apparently, she hadn't given him time enough to settle. "I didn't know about you-about Siobhan-until a few days ago."

Her eyebrow lifted. "Know what?"

"That you-she-existed. I'd been told, I believed, that my mother... the woman I thought was my mother, had left. Left me when I was a child."

"Did you?"

"Ma'am-"

"I'm Sinead. Sinead Lannigan."

"Mrs. Lannigan, until a few days ago, I'd never heard the name Siobhan Brody. I thought my mother's name was Meg, and I don't remember her particularly well except she had a hard hand and she walked out, leaving me with him."

"Your mother, your true mother, wouldn't have left you if there'd been breath in her body."

So she knows already, he thought. Knows her sister's long dead. "I know it now. He killed her. I don't know what to say to you."

She set her cup down, very carefully. "Tell me the story as you know it now. That's what I want to hear."

He told her, while she sat in silence, watching him. And when he'd told her all he knew, she rose, filled a kettle, put it on the stove.

"I've known it, all these years. We could never prove it, of course. The police, they didn't help, didn't seem to care. She was just one more girl gone astray."

"He had a few cops in his pocket back then. One or two is all it takes when you want something covered. You could never have proved it, however you tried."

Her shoulders trembled once on a long breath, then she turned. "We tried to find you, at first. For her sake. For Siobhan. My brother, Ned, nearly died trying. They beat him half to death, left him in a Dublin alley. He had a wife, and a babe of his own. Much as it pained us, we had to let you go. I'm sorry."

He only stared, and said, very slowly. "My father killed her."

"Yes." Tears swam into her eyes. "And I hope the murdering son of a whore's burning in hell. I won't ask God to forgive me for saying it, for hoping it." Carefully, she folded the red-and-white dishcloth, then sat back down while the kettle heated for more tea.

"I felt, when I learned all this, what had happened to her, I felt you-her family-deserved to be told. That it was only right that I tell you, face-to-face. I realize it's no easier hearing it from me, maybe harder at that, but it was the only way I knew."

Watching his face, she leaned back. "Come from America, did you, for this?"

"I did, yes."

"We heard of you-your exploits, young Roarke. His father's son, I thought. An operator, a dangerous man. Heartless man. I think you may be a dangerous man, but it's not a heartless one sitting in my kitchen waiting for me to slap him for something he had no part in."

"I didn't look for her, never thought of her. I did nothing to put it right."

"What are you doing now? Sitting here with me while your tea goes cold?"

"I don't know. Christ Jesus, I don't know. Because there's nothing I can do."

"She loved you. We didn't hear from her much. I think he wouldn't let her, and she only managed to sneak a few calls or letters off now and then. But she loved you, heart and soul. It's right that you should grieve for her, but not that you should pay."

She rose when the kettle sputtered. "She was my twin."

"I know."

"I'd be your aunt. You have two uncles, grandparents, any number of cousins if you're interested."

"I... it's difficult to take it in."

"I imagine it is. Aye, I imagine it is. You have her eyes," she said quietly.

Baffled, he shook his head. "Hers were green. Her eyes were green, like yours. I saw her picture."

"Not the color, but the shape." She turned around. "The shape of your eyes is hers. And like mine, don't you see?" She stepped to him, laid a hand over his. "It seems to me that the shape of something is important, more important than the color."

When emotion stormed through him, Sinead did what came naturally. She drew his head to her breast, stroked his hair. "There now," she murmured, holding her sister's boy. "There now. She'd be glad you've come. She'd be happy you're here, at last."

***

Later, she took him out to where the edge of the yard met the first field. "We planted that for her." She gestured to a tall, many-branched tree. "We made no grave for her. I knew she was gone, but it didn't seem right to make a grave for her. So we planted a cherry tree. It blooms fine every spring. And when I see it bloom, it gives me some comfort."

"It's beautiful. It's a beautiful place."

"Your people are farmers, Roarke, generations back." She smiled when he looked at her. "We held on to the land, no matter what. We're stubborn, hotheaded, and we'll work till we drop. You come from that."

"I've spent years trying to shake off where I came from. Not looking back."

"You can look back on this with pride. He couldn't break you, could he? I bet he tried."

"Maybe if he hadn't tried so bloody hard I wouldn't have gotten away. I wouldn't have made myself. I'll... I'll plant a cherry tree back home for her."

"There's a good thought. You're a married man, aren't you, married to one of the New York guarda."

"She's my miracle," he told her. "My Eve."

His tone stirred her. "No children though."

"Not yet, no."

"Well, there's plenty of time for them yet. I've seen pictures of her, of course. I've kept tabs on you over the years. Couldn't help myself. She looks strong. I suppose she'd have to be."

"She is."

"Bring her with you next time you come. But for now, we should get you settled in."

"I'm sorry?"

"You don't expect to get away so easy, do you? You'll stay at least the night, meet the rest of your family. Give them a chance to meet you. It would mean a great deal to my parents, to my brothers," she added before he could speak.

"Mrs. Lannigan."

"That's Aunt Sinead to you."

He let out a half-laugh. "I'm out of my depth."

"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 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 Ernestine mentioned that you give her a nice discount."

"We do what we can," he said cheerfully. "Nice, elderly lady. Keeps her slot year round. Gotta give her a break, you know."

"And she only uses it five times a month."

"Like clockwork."

"Tell me, Billy, how much do you make, any average month, renting out vehicles."

He stopped by a small gray van. "What's that?"

"Somebody needs a ride, they drop in and see Billy, and he fixes them up. You get the codes, pocket the fee, vehicle comes back, you put it in its slot. Owner's none the wiser, and a nice sideline for you."

"You've got no proof of something like that."

Eve leaned on the van. "You know, as soon as somebody tells me I've got no proof, it just makes me want to dig down and get it. I'm just that perverse."

He pokered up. "This van stays in this slot except on Sundays and every third Wednesday. I park and I fetch, and that's all I do."

"You're independently wealthy then, and provide this service to the community out of a spirit of altruism and benevolence. Nice boots, Bill."

"Man likes nice shoes, it's no crime."

"Uh-huh. I'm going to run tests on this van. If I find this van was used in the case I'm investigating, your ass is in a sling. It's homicide, Billy. I got two bodies so far. I'll be taking you into Interview and holding you as an accessory."