“Goddamn pirates,” he said. “You fuckers are no better than pickpockets.”
All I could do was try to lighten it up. “Hey, I’m doing my part,” I said. “I’m looking for a killer.”
“So I’ll ask you again,” the guy said. “Who’s been killed?”
“The guy you sold these books to.”
He blinked. The woman stood up and looked at me.
“You want to talk to me now?” I said. “Maybe we can get off on a better footing. I’m Detective Janeway. This is Detective Hennessey.”
The guy finally said, “I’m Val Ballard.”
He made no attempt to introduce the woman: wouldn’t even acknowledge her presence. I thought it was strange that neither had spoken directly to the other, but maybe that was just my imagination.
It wasn’t. She said, “I’m Judith Ballard Davis. The klutz you’ve been talking to likes to pretend he’s my brother. Don’t blame me for that.”
He ignored her fairly effectively: all she got for her trouble was a look of slight annoyance. I was beginning to see a pattern emerging in the hostility. He ignored her: she heaped insults upon him, but only through another person.
I said, to anyone who wanted to answer it, “Whose house is this?”
They both began talking at once. Neither showed any willingness to yield, and the words tumbled over themselves in indecipherable disorder.
“Let’s try that again,” I said. “Eeeny meeny miney mo.” Mo came down on her. That was a mistake, for Ballard began immediately to sulk, and in a moment he went back to his work. I’d have to warm him up, if you could call it that, all over again.
“The house belongs… belonged…to my uncle. Stanley Ballard.”
“And he died, right?”
“He died,” she said.
“When did he die?”
“Last month. Early May.”
“What’d he die of?”
“Old age… cancer…I don’t know.” She didn’t seem to care much. “When you’re that old, everything breaks down at once.”
“How old was he?”
“Eighty, I guess… I’m not sure.”
“He was your father’s brother?”
“Older brother. There was almost twenty years between them.”
“Where’s your father?”
“Dead. Killed in an auto accident a long time ago.”
“What about your mother?”
“They’re all dead. If you’re looking for all the living Ballards, I’m it.”
I looked at him. “What about you?”
“I told you what my name is.”
Something was slipping past me. “Are you two brother and sister or what?” I said.
Neither wanted to answer that.
“Come on, people, what’s the story? Do you inherit the old man’s estate?”
“Lock, stock, and barrel,” she said.
“Both of you?”
She gave a loud sigh. At last she said, “Yes, goddammit, both of us.”
“All right,” I said pleasantly. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? You inherit the house and all the contents equally, right?”
“What’s this got to do with anything?” Ballard said. “Whose business is it, anyway, what I inherit and what I do with it?”
