Genevieve Winslow was sixtyish with lilac-shadowed eyes, magenta lipstick, and hennaed hair streaming from beneath a wildly patterned green-and-chartreuse silk scarf. Her dress was loose, long, a print of wildly patterned red-and-blue silk, her footwear acid-green plasticsandals. Half a dozen bangles clinked on each arm. Her fingernails were polished pearlescent gray, the thumbs augmented with glitter. Black toenails showed themselves in the open toes of the sandals. Like tiny little mussels perched on pale rocks.
Despite all that flamboyance, her house was thinly furnished in tones of beige, gray, and white. Bare walls, functional seating, bright lighting.
Wanting to showcase herself?
She said, “Hi, ready for you!” and ushered us to a coffee table set up with salted nuts, crackers, and bottled water.
Before any of us could sit, she said, “Anything you want to ask is fine. I’m an open book.”
Alicia said, “We appreciate your initiating the welfare check on Ms. Matthias.”
“Just being a concerned citizen.”
“You were concerned about Ms. Matthias.”
“Is that her name? I just knew her as the strange old lady who lived down the block.”
“Strange how, ma’am?”
“Ma’am, eh?” said Genevieve Winslow. “Like in one of those western movies? OrDragnet—I met Jack Webb once. When I was waitressing at the Brown Derby. He was wearingthattie and flirted with me.”
We smiled.
Alicia said, “Ms. Matthias was strange…”
“She never talked to anyone, I call that strange. Most you could get out of her was when you passed by and tried to be friendly and said hi, she’d look down at the ground and give this kind of grunt.”
She demonstrated, producing a wet sound from deep in her throat. “Small little thing but she could sure grunt.”
I glanced at Milo. Stone-faced.
Alicia said, “So you knew her from seeing her on the block.”
“Not often,” said Genevieve Winslow. “I like to get my steps in every day. I’d go past her house and usually there’d be nothing but sometimes she’d be taking out the garbage. Or unloading groceriesfrom her car. The mail, too, she’d be out there picking it up like clockwork. That’s why when I saw it on the stoop I wondered if something was off. You hear about it all the time. Elderlies falling and no one’s there to help them.”
Alicia said, “Thanks. So you saw the mail and…”
“And nothing, Detective, end of story. And by the way I think it’s great they’ve got women doing the job. We have a lot to offer by way of sensitivity and deep perception.”
Alicia smiled. “The mail made you wonder…”
“Obviously,” said Genevieve Winslow. “It was unusual. Unusual makes me wonder. I knocked on her door, nothing, rang her bell, nothing, looked in a window, nothing—she’s got these opaque drapes, you can’t see inside. So I called 911 and they told me it wasn’t an emergency, next time try the non-emergency number but they’d put it through anyway. I thought that was rude, here I’m trying to help and I’m getting corrected.”
Alicia said, “Sorry for that. And again, thanks for calling.”
“So she’s not okay,” said Genevieve Winslow. “All those police cars and now detectives.”
“Unfortunately not, Ms. Winslow.”
“She’s totally gone?”
Alicia looked at Milo.
He said, “Afraid so. Have you ever seen anyone visiting Ms. Matthias?”
“Never. Not once.”
“Any deliveries?”
