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Or maybe it came out exactly as he’d intended.
     “Miss Stetson,” he said, “if this is what it looks like, a burglar surprised during the commission of a felony, then we’re
     looking for a needle in a haystack. Because it would’ve been a random thing, you see.”
    “Yes.”
    “On the other hand, if this is someone who wanted your grandmother dead, who came into the apartment with the express purpose
     of killing her …”
    “Nobody wanted her dead,” Priscilla said.
    “How do you know that?”
    “She was already dead. No one even knew she existed. Why would anyone go to the trouble of shooting her?”
    “But someone did, you see.”
    “A burglar then. As you said.”
    “The problem with that is nothing was stolen.”
    “What was there to steal?”
    “You tell us.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “There didn’t seem to be anything of value in the apartment—but was there? Before he broke in?”
    “Like what? The Imperial Czar’s crown jewels? My grandmother didn’t have a pot to piss in. Whatever she got from welfare,
     she spent on booze. She was drunk morning, noon and night. She was a pathetic, whining old bitch, a has-been with nothing
     of value but her memories. I hated her.”
    But tell us how you really feel, Carella thought.
    He didn’t much like this young woman with her inherited good looks and her acquired big-city, wiseass manner. He would just
     as soon not be here talking to her, but he didn’t like burglaries that turned into murders, especially if maybe they weren’t
     burglaries in the first place. So even if it meant pulling teeth, he was going to learn something about her grandmother, anything
     about her grandmother that might put this thing to rest one way or another. If someone had wanted her dead, fine, they’d go
     looking for that someone till hell froze over. If not, they’d go back to the squadroom and wait until a month from now, a
     year from now, five years from now, when some junkie burglar got arrested and confessed to having killed an old lady back
     when you and I were young, Maggie. Meanwhile …
    “Anyone else feel the way you do?” he asked.
    “How do you mean?”
    “You said you hated her.”
    “Oh, what? Did
I
kill her? Come on. Please.”
    “You okay, Priss?”
    Carella turned at once, startled. The man standing at his elbow was one of the two Priscilla had been heading to join when
     they’d intercepted her. Even before he noticed the gun in a holster under the man’s jacket, Carella would have tapped him
     for either a bodyguard or a mobster. Or maybe both. Some six-four and weighing in at a possible two-twenty, he stood balanced
     on the balls of his feet, hands dangling half-clenched at his sides, a pose that warned Carella he could take him out in a
     minute if he had to. Carella believed it.
    “I’m fine, Georgie,” Priscilla said.
    Georgie, Carella thought, and braced himself when he saw the other man getting up from the table and moving toward them. Hawes
     was suddenly alert, too.
    “Because if these gentlemen are disturbing you …”
    Carella flashed the tin, hoping to end all discussion.
    “We’re police officers,” he said.
    Georgie looked at the shield, unimpressed.
    “You got a problem here, Georgie?” the other man said, approaching. Georgie’s twin, no doubt. Similarly dressed, down to the
     hardware under the wide-shouldered suit jacket. Hawes flashed
his
shield, too. It never hurt to make the same point twice.
    “Police officers,” he said.
    Must be an echo in this place, Carella thought.
    “Is Miss Stetson in some kind of trouble?” Georgie’s twin asked. Two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and bone draped in
     Giorgio Armani threads. No broken nose, but otherwise the stereotype was complete.
    “Miss Stetson’s grandmother was killed,” Hawes said calmly. “Everything’s under control here. Why don’t you just go back to
     your table, hm?”
    A buzz was starting in the room now. Four big guys surrounding