The Fountain of Age by Nancy Kress Read Free Book Online Page B

Washington just a beat behind him. In Henry’s hearing the woman had said nothing whatsoever. “Thank you both. We’ll be in touch about the autopsy results.”

    In the elevator, Tara Washington said, “These old-people places give me the creeps.”
    “One day you and—”
    “Spare me the lecture, Vince. I know I have to get old. I don’t have to like it.”
    “You have a lot of time yet,” he said, but his mind clearly wasn’t on the rote reassurance. “Erdmann knows something.”
    “Yeah?” She looked at him with interest; Vince Geraci had a reputation in the Department for having a “nose.” He was inevitably right about things that smelled hinkey. Truth was, she was a little in awe of him. She’d only made detective last month and was fucking lucky to be partnered with Geraci. Still, her natural skepticism led her to say, “That old guy? He sure the hell didn’t do the job himself. He couldn’t squash a cockroach. You talking about a hit for hire?”
    “Don’t know.” Geraci considered. “No. Something else. Something more esoteric.”
    Tara didn’t know what “esoteric” meant, so she kept quiet. Geraci was smart. Too smart for his own good, some uniforms said, but that was just jealousy talking, or the kind of cops that would rather smash down doors than solve crimes. Tara Washington knew she was no door-smasher. She intended to learn everything she could from Vince Geraci, even if she didn’t have his vocabulary. Everything, and then some. She intended to someday be just as good as he was.
    Geraci said, “Let’s talk to the staff about this epidemic of food poisoning.”
    But the food poisoning checked out. And halfway through the morning, the autopsy report was called in. Geraci shut his cell and said, “Peltier died of ‘a cardiac event.’ Massive and instantaneous heart failure.”
    “Young cop like that? Fit and all?”
    “That’s what the M.E. says.”
    “So no foul play. Investigation closed.” In a way, she was disappointed. The murder of a cop by a battered wife would have been pretty high-profile. That’s why Geraci had been assigned to it.
    “Investigation closed,” Geraci said. “But just the same, Erdmann knows something. We’re just never gonna find out what it is.”

    SEVEN
    Just before noon on Friday, Evelyn lowered her plump body onto a cot ready to slide into the strange-looking medical tube. She had dressed up for the occasion in her best suit, the polyester blue one with all the blue lace, and her good cream pumps. Dr. DiBella—such a good-looking young man, too bad she wasn’t fifty years younger aha ha ha—said, “Are you comfortable, Mrs. Krenchnoted?”
    “Call me Evelyn. Yes, I’m fine, I never had one of these—what did you call it?”
    “A functional MRI. I’m just going to strap you in, since it’s very important you lie completely still for the procedure.”
    “Oh, yes, I see, you don’t want my brain wobbling all over the place while you take a picture of—Gina, you still there? I can’t see—”
    “I’m here,” Gina called. “Don’t be scared, Evelyn. ‘Though I walk in the valley of—’”
    “There’s no shadows here and I’m not scared!” Really, sometimes Gina could be Too Much. Still, the MRI tube was a bit unsettling. “You just tell me when you’re ready to slide me into that thing, doctor, and I’ll brace myself. It’s tight as a coffin, isn’t it? Well, I’m going to be underground a long time but I don’t plan on starting now, aha ha ha! But if I can keep talking to you while I go in—”
    “Certainly. Just keep talking.” He sounded resigned, poor man. Well, no wonder, he must get bored with doing things like this all the live-long day. She cast around for something to cheer him up.
    “You’re over at St. Sebastian’s a lot now, aren’t you, when you’re not here that is, did you hear yet about Anna Chernov’s necklace?”
    “No, what about it? That’s it, just hold your head right