In Death 20 - Survivor in Death

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.”
    “How long have you had the place?”
    “Six months, almost seven now. I’m a writer--well, working on that--so this is a good setup for me. You guys want something to drink or anything?”
    “No, but thanks. You knew the Swishers?”
    “Sort of, the way you do when you see the same people all the time. I knew the parents to nod to, like that. We weren’t really on the same wave.”
    “Meaning?”
    “They were totally linear, you know. Put the con in conservative. Nice. Really nice. If they’d see me out, they’d always ask about Mrs. Grentz, and if I was doing okay. Not everybody bothers with that. I knew the kids a little more.”
    She held up a hand, shut her eyes a minute. “I’m trying to put it in its place, to get to ‘they’re where their destiny took them to,’ that place. But Jesus!” Her eyes opened again, swam a moment. “They were just kids. And Coyle? I think he had a little crush on me. It was really sweet.”
    “So you saw them around the neighborhood.”
    “Sure. Coyle mostly. They didn’t let the little girl run around as much. He’d volunteer to run to the market, or walk with me there. Or I’d see him out boarding with some friends, and wave, or go out to talk.”
    “Did you ever see him with somebody you didn’t recognize from around the neighborhood?”
    “Not really. He was a good kid. Old-fashioned, at least from the way I was raised. Really polite, a little shy, at least with me. Way into sports.”
    “How about the comings and goings? Writers notice things, don’t they?”
    “It’s important to observe stuff, file it away. You never know.” Hildy twirled a hunk of her colorful hair around her finger. “And I did think of something I didn’t remember before, when the other cops came by to ask stuff. It’s just--I couldn’t keep anything in my head when I heard about it. You know?”
    “Sure. What do you remember now?”
    “I don’t know if it’s anything, but I started thinking about it this morning. That night. . .” She shifted, gave Eve a weak smile. “Listen, if I tell you something I did that’s not a hundred percent legal, am I going to get in trouble?”
    “We’re not here to hassle you, Hildy. We’re here about five people who were murdered in their beds.”
    “Okay.” She drew a long breath. “Okay. Sometimes, if I’m up writing late, or if Mrs. Grentz has been a particular pain--I mean, you got a load right? She’s funny, but sometimes she wears.”
    “All right.”
    “Sometimes, I go up on the roof.” She pointed a finger at the ceiling. “There’s a nice little spot up there, and it’s a place to hang out, look around, sit and think. Sometimes I go up there to, you know, smoke a little Zoner. I can’t do that in here. If Mrs. Grentz was to come down-- and she does