Survivor In Death (In Death #20)(36)

“I'm not blind, am I?”

“As I'm standing out here, that's impossible to verify. But you can verify my ID if you contact Cop Central and give them my badge number.”

“Maybe you stole the badge from the real police. People get murdered in their own beds.”

“Yes, ma'am, that's why we're here. We'd like to speak with you about the Swishers.”

“How do I know you're not the ones who killed them?”

“Excuse me?”

Eve, her face a study in frustration, turned to look at the woman on the sidewalk. She was carrying a market sack and wearing a great deal of gold-streaked red hair, a green skin-suit, and a baggy jacket.

“You're trying to talk to Mrs. Grentz?”

“Trying being the operative. Police.”

“Yeah, got that.” She bounced up the stairs. “Hey, Mrs. Grentz, it's Hildy. I got your bagels.”

“Why didn't you say so?”

There was a lot of clicking and snicking, then the door opened. Eve looked down, considerably. The woman was barely five feet, skinny as a stick, and old as time. On her head was perched an ill-fitting black wig only shades darker than her wrinkled skin.

“I brought the cops, too,” Hildy told her, cheerfully.

“Are you arrested?”

“No, they just want to talk. About what happened with the Swishers.”

“All right then.” She waved a hand like she was batting at flies and began to walk away.

“My landlady,” Hildy told them. “I live below. She's okay, except for being--as my old man would say--crazy as a shithouse rat. You ought to go on in and sit down while she's in the mood. I'm going to stick her bagels away.”

“Thanks.”

The place was jammed with things. Pricey things, Eve noted as she made her way between tables, chairs, lamps, paintings that were tilted and stacked against the walls.

The air had that old-lady smell, what seemed to be a combination of powder, age, and flowers going to dust.

Mrs. Grentz was now perched in a chair, her tiny feet on a tiny hassock and her arms crossed over her nonexistent br**sts. “Whole family, murdered in their sleep.”

“You knew the Swishers?”

“Of course I knew the Swishers. Lived here the past eighty-eight years, haven't I? Seen it all, heard it all.”

“What did you see?”

“World going to hell in a handbasket.” She dipped her chin, unfolded one of her bony arms to slap a gnarled hand on the arm of the chair. “Sex and violence, sex and violence. Won't be any pillar of salt this time out. Whole place, and everything in it, is going to burn. Get what you ask for. Reap what you sow.”

“Okay. Can you tell me if you heard or saw anything unusual on the night the Swishers were killed?”

“Got my ears fixed, got my eyes tuned. I see and hear fine.” She leaned forward, the tuned-up eyes avid. “I know who killed those people.”

“Who killed them?”

“The French.”

“How do you know that, Mrs. Grentz?”

“Because they're French.” To emphasize her point, she slapped a hand on her leg. “Got their der-re-airs kicked the last time they made trouble, didn't they? And believe me, they've been planning a payback ever since. If somebody's murdered in their own bed, it was the French who did it. You can take that to the bank.”

Eve wasn't sure the little sound Peabody made was a snicker or a sigh, but she ignored it. “I appreciate the information,” Eve began, and started to rise.

“Did you hear someone speaking French on the night of the murders?”

At Peabody's question, Eve sent her a pitying look.

“You don't hear them, girl. Quiet as snakes, that's the French for you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Grentz, you've been very helpful.” Eve got to her feet.

“Can't trust people who eat snails.”

“No, ma'am. We'll let ourselves out.”

Hildy stood just outside the doorway, grinning. “Buggy, but somehow fascinating, right? Mrs. Grentz?” She lifted her voice, moved into the doorway. “I'm going on down.”

“You get my bagels?”

“All put away. See you. Keep walking,” she instructed Eve, “and don't look back. You never know what else is going to pop into her head.”

“You got a few minutes to talk with us, Hildy?”

“Sure.” Still carrying the market bag, Hildy led the way out, down the stairs, and around to her own entrance. “She's actually my great great aunt--through marriage--but she likes to be called Mrs. Grentz. The mister's been dead thirty years. Never made the acquaintance myself.”

Though below street level, the apartment was bright and cheerful with a lot of unframed posters tacked to the walls and a rainbow scatter of rugs on the floor. “I rent from her--well, her son pays the rent. I'm a kind of unofficial caretaker--her and the place. You saw upstairs? That's nothing. She's loaded. Wanna sit?”

“Thanks.”

“Seriously loaded, like millions, so I'm here to make sure the security's always on, and that she doesn't lie around helpless if she trips over some of that furniture and breaks her leg. She's got this alarm deal on.” Hildy pulled a small receiver out of her pocket. “She falls, or if her vitals get wonky, this beeps. I do some of the marketing for her, listen to her crab sometimes. It's a pretty good deal for the digs. And she's okay, mostly, sort of funny.”