"Winter House" - читать интересную книгу автора (O’Connell Carol)Chapter 1THE HOUR WAS LATE. THE TRAFFIC WAS SCARCE. A FEW CARS crawled by at the pace of bugs attracted by house lights, five flights of electric-yellow windows. The narrow mansion was not a rarity in New York City, home to millionaires and billionaires. However, its nineteenth-century facade was an anachronism on this particular block of Central Park West. The steep-pitched roof was split by a skylight dome, and attendant gargoyles were carved in stone. Wedged in tight between two condominium behemoths, this dwelling was in the wrong place at the wrong time and regally unrepentant, though the police were at the door. And in the parlor, up the stairs and down in the cellar. So Nedda Winter sat quietly and watched them pass her by on their way to other rooms – and they watched her for a while. Soon they came to regard her as furniture, but she took no offense. She turned on the antique radio that stood beside her chair. No one reprimanded her, and so she turned up the volume. White hot jazz. Benny Goodman on the clarinet and other ghosts from the big-band era flooded the front room and infected the steps of people in and out of uniform, passing to and fro. Miss Winter repressed a smile, for that would be unseemly, but she nodded in time to the music. The house was alive again, drunk on life, though the party revolved around the dead man at the center of the floor. Miss Winter was well named. She had the countenance of that season. Her long hair was pure white, and her skin had the pallor of one who has been shut away for a long time. Even her eyes had gone pale, leached of color, bleached to the lightest tint of blue. She was so well disguised by time that the police continued to ignore her, demanding no apologies, nor any explanation for her long absence. They had even failed to recognize this house, an address that was infamous when the music on the radio was young. Fifty-eight years earlier, in the aftermath of another violent crime, which remained unsolved, a twelve-year-old girl had vanished from this house, and now the lost child, grown up and grown old, had come back home. The medical examiner’s vehicle was parked at the curb, and behind it was another van with the CSU logo of the crime-scene technicians. The front windows of the house were all alight, and the silhouettes of men and women moved across pulled-down shades and closed drapes. A warm October breeze of Indian summer rippled the yellow crime-scene tapes that extended down the stone steps to include a patch of the sidewalk. The tape did the restraining duty of a velvet rope for theatrical productions, though tonight’s audience amounted to only three stragglers, refugees from a saloon in the hour after closing time. Happy intoxication was in their stance and in their badly sung song, which was grating on the nerves of a uniformed officer. The spinning cherry lights of police units made the officer’s face alternately beet red and pale white as he waved off the drunks with a loud „Get the hell outta here!“ Charles Butler parked his Mercedes behind a police car and stepped out into the street, unfolding and rising to a stand of six feet four. Smooth grace in motion served as compensation for his foolish face. Bulbous eyes the size of hens’ eggs were half closed by heavy lids and pocked with small blue irises that gave him a look of permanent astonishment, and his hook of a nose might perch two sparrows or one fat pigeon. Otherwise, the forty-year-old man was well made from the necktie down and well turned out, though he had omitted the vest from his three-piece suit. He had dressed in a hurry. Mallory was waiting. Two uniformed policemen stood guard before the house, barring all comers from the short flight of stone steps leading up to the front door. As he approached these officers, Charles inadvertently smiled – a „I’m with him.“ At the sound of a familiar voice, Riker turned around with that crooked smile he saved for people he liked. „Hey, how ya doin’?“ The detective descended the short flight of steps to the sidewalk and gripped the larger man’s hand. „Thanks for coming out. I know it’s late.“ Indeed it was, and Riker had the appearance of a man who had slept away most of this night in his suit. But then he always dressed that way, prewrinkled at the start of every workday. The yellow light at the top of the staircase had the flattering effect of minimizing the creases in the detective ‘s face, making him appear somewhat younger than his fifty-five years. „My pleasure.“ Charles looked down at his friend of average height, feeling the need to apologize for looming over him. „Did Mallory tell you anything useful?“ „No, nothing at all.“ „Maybe it’s better that way.“ Riker motioned him toward the stairs, then led the way up. „Two women live here. One of them killed a man tonight. Simple enough?“ He flicked his cigarette over the railing. „Check ‘em out. We’ll talk later.“ When they passed through the open door, Charles heard music, vintage jazz, and he would not have been surprised to hear the clink of ice in cocktail glasses as they entered a din of conversation in the large foyer. They walked by a cluster of men wearing badges clipped to their suit pockets, and Detective Riker nodded to them in passing. „Those guys are settling a little problem of jurisdiction.“ He led Charles through a louder dispute between a woman in uniform and a man in a suit. Riker explained this one, too. He pointed to the young man with the folded stethoscope squeezed tightly in one raised fist. „Now, that’s one pissed off medical examiner. Mallory won’t release the body. She’s using it to rattle the ladies who live here.“ At the threshold of the front room, Charles had only time enough to blink once before entering a spatial paradox. The inside of the house appeared to be much larger than the exterior – a trick of cunning architecture. And some of the magic was done with a score of mirrors in elaborate silver frames ten feet tall. They created a labyrinth of rooms and flights of stairs and corridors where none existed. Thus, a dozen people were transformed into a mob, and each reflection added its own energy to the fray. The grand staircase was the focal point, a tenuous bit of engineering that seemed to have no secure supports as it curved up to a partial vista on a floor above the cathedral ceiling. Though the rest of the stairs spiraled out of sight, in mind’s eye, he was swept along with them, rushing round and upward through all the dizzying flights. Back to earth – a corpse lay on the floor, partially obscured by upright people, and Charles Buder, unaccustomed to crime scenes, was caught in a quandary of manners: perhaps he should have admired the dead man first, and maybe he should not be tapping his feet in time to the music of a clarinet. An even less reverent police photographer stepped over the body to speak with Detective Riker, who directed the close-up shots of the deceased. After snapping pictures in quick succession, and in time to the beat of a snare drum, the photographer departed to another room, giving Charles his first clear view of the victim. He had been prepared for something brutal and grisly, given that this case had attracted so much attention, but the man on the floor seemed to be merely resting – if one could only discount the pair of scissors protruding from the chest. The victim did not belong in this neighborhood of wealth. His pants were shapeless and dirty, the T-shirt stained with more sweat than blood, and a pointed object lay near one open hand. Thus laid out was the simple story of an icepick-wielding intruder felled by a homeowner who favored shears. What could possibly interest all of these - Following a cue of upturned heads, his attention was drawn to the second-floor landing and the slender young woman standing there in blue jeans and an attitude of privilege. Blond curls, cut by a virtuoso, grazed the shoulders of a tailored blazer worn over a silk T-shirt. Arms folded, she affected the pose of one who owned all that she surveyed, even the people in the room below and, most particularly, the corpse. More formally, she was Detective Mallory and never Kathy anymore. She preferred the distancing surname even among those who knew her best. And, though Charles was her foremost apologist, he found the background music fitting. Louis Armstrong was belting out the lyrics of Savannah’s hard-hearted Hannah. – One cream white hand with red fingernails – call them talons – lighdy touched the banister as she slowly descended the grand staircase, circling in a wide arc, her eyes fixed on one face in the crowd. But not Two crime-scene technicians moved out of Charles’s way, and now he could see the object of Mallory’s fixation. A child? Detective Riker had told him that two women lived at this address. There had been no mention of this litde girl shivering like a whippet, that nervous, tremulous breed of dog that can never quite get warm, no matter what the temperature. No – wait. This was no child, but a tiny woman with a few silver threads in her dark brown hair, someone closer to his own age. Eyes cast down, this person presented herself at the bottom of the staircase in the manner of a penitent – or a volunteer for human sacrifice. Tall Mallory literally descended upon the smaller woman, rapidly closing the distance and causing the little householder to shrink even more. Before the small head could turtle into the cowl of a white robe, Charles noted one charming detail: the short brown hair was angled across the ears, creating the illusion that they were pointed in the elfin way. „That’s Miss Bitty Smyth.“ Detective Riker raised one eyebrow, as if expecting Charles to recognize the name. He did not. „Bitty? That’s a nickname?“ Riker shrugged and splayed one hand to say „She might be in shock.“ Charles watched on in helpless fascination as Mallory reached out to Bitty Smyth and gripped the woman’s thin arm. He was about to discount the possibility that Miss Smyth was the scissor-wielding homeowner when he turned to see the other resident of the house, a woman with long white hair and a green silk robe. She was barefoot and seated beside an antique radio, the source of the music. How amazing to find this old piece in working order. By the detail on its cabinet, he could date the radio back to the middle nineteen-thirties – the woman, too. He guessed her age at seventy or thereabouts. Her hand was on the dial, raising the volume. „That’s Miss Nedda Winter,“ said Riker. „She’s Bitty’s aunt.“ Again, something in Riker’s manner suggested that Charles should also know this person. She caught Charles staring at her, and he could only describe her expression as one of curious recognition. The old woman turned off the music. Her attention had quickly shifted to the young homicide detective who had hold of Bitty Smyth’s arm. Nedda Winter rose from her chair. She was taller than many of the men in this room, and her strides were long as she rushed toward her niece with an obvious plan of rescue. Riker, moving faster than his usual mosey, headed off Miss Winter. And now Charles was treated to a display that simply did not fit the man he knew. Playing the consummate gentleman, Riker extended one arm to the lady, as if she might need his support, then dazzled her with a broad smile and smoothly led her out of the room. Star treatment. Perhaps he Charles turned back to the interrogation of Bitty Smyth, who was now facing in his direction. A Bible was clutched to the tiny prisoner’s breast, and her large brown eyes rolled back as her lips moved in what he took for whispers of fervent prayer. Well, Mallory had that effect on people. His next impression was that Miss Smyth had disconnected from the solid earth and might fly upward if not restrained. As Charles drew nearer, he heard Mallory say that, no, she had not found Jesus and had no intention of being saved. The smaller woman’s head wobbled and nodded, perhaps in a fearful palsy, or maybe agreeing that this young policewoman was beyond salvation. „Charles.“ Mallory quickly dropped her hold on Bitty Smyth’s arm, as if caught in the act of beating a suspect. Supporting this illusion, Miss Smyth sank to an armchair, still nodding and trembling on the verge of a smile, so greatly relieved. The long slants of Mallory’s eyes were always the first thing one noticed – a strange bright shade of green not found in nature. She did not smile upon greeting him, and he had not expected that. Her expressions were usually deliberate or absent, a chilling idiosyncrasy. She had others. Though Charles Butler possessed a vast knowledge of abnormal psychology, Mallory sidestepped every attempt to classify her with any sense of confidence, as if she belonged to a separate species of one, a denizen of some unsentimental planet of perpetual cold weather. „Hello,“ he said, smiling and standing back a pace to take her in, as if he had expected her to have grown over the weekend. Her hand was on his arm, and, with the lightest of pressure, she was able to drag him down a narrow hallway and into a small boxy room all decked out like a tailor’s shop with the tools and machines of the trade. Racks of thread spools lined one wall, and a basket of mending sat on the floor near a dressmaker’s dummy. „A sewing room,“ she said, „without a single pair of scissors.“ „I think I noticed them back in the parlor.“ And here, wisely, he stopped, for Mallory’s eyes widened slightly to tell him that she did not appreciate his pointing out the obvious thing – the shears planted in the dead man’s chest. And neither did she care to be interrupted. Arms folding across her chest was all the warning he would ever get. „So,“ the detective continued, „this woman comes downstairs – in the Charles hesitated – always a good idea to tread carefully with her. There was only one logical conclusion, but he sensed a trap in the making. „Then it’s not a case of self-defense?“ „No, that’s exactly what it is,“ she said, somewhat impatient. „Self-defense. That much I believe.“ „No, that was just an afterthought.“ She closed the door, then leaned her back against it, as if to block his escape. „What can you tell me about those people?“ He shrugged. „Only their names. I just got here.“ She put one hand on her hip, a sign that she did not entirely believe him, but then it was her nature to be suspicious of everyone who did not carry a badge – and everyone who did. „You’ve never met them before?“ „No,“ said Charles, „I don’t know either of them.“ „Well, they know Detective Riker liked the kitchen best. Unlike the rest of the house, this room was built to human scale. The low ceiling made it cozy, almost cottagelike. He declined an offer of alcohol but allowed Nedda Winter to make him a glass of iced tea with thanks. She selected a lemon from a bowl of fruit. Knife in hand, she stood at the butcher block and smiled at him. It was almost a tease, as if to ask – did he object to her holding this dangerously pointed object? Riker’s mouth dipped on one side to say, He made a cursory inventory of the room, his gaze passing over a meat cleaver, then traveling onto a cutlery block of knives. A case bolted to the far wall contained a fire extinguisher and a small ax. With all the lethal weapons in this kitchen arsenal, a pair of scissors had been an odd choice to bring down an intruder tonight. Miss Winter made short work of the lemon, cutting a slice and draping it over the edge of a tall glass full of ice cubes. She stood at the table, pouring tea from a pitcher and saying, „Please sit down, Detective. Don’t wait on me.“ As Riker setded into a chair, the woman pulled a frosty beer from the refrigerator and uncapped it. Now he revised his ideas of society matrons, for Nedda Winter drank straight from the botde, long swigs. „Beer,“ she said, pulling up a chair on the other side of the table. „Nothing like it on a warm night. They go together, don’t they?“ „Yeah.“ There was no false note in her voice and nothing ingratiating in her manner. He liked her style and her brand of beer. This was one of „Of course – “ She paused to study the bottle in her hand, then flashed him a wry smile. „If you „I can live with that.“ Riker reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of yellow-lined paper. „We’ve already got this statement you gave to the West Side detectives. But there’s just a few… Her gray eyebrows were on the rise. They were whimsical things, stray hairs growing this way and that. How old was she? So much hung on the year of Nedda Winter’s birth. The detective searched her face and found wrinkles enough to make her seventy – the right age for a legend – but he could not be certain, not in this world of plastic miracles where women of sixty passed for forty. There was evidence of surgery, anomalies in the planes of her cheeks and forehead, as if she had been badly broken long ago and put back together. She withstood this intense scrutiny with smiling pale blue eyes. Their directness appealed to him and also put him on his guard. She was looking past his smile. There was still some doubt about her identity. Or maybe he could simply not believe his own luck to find her in this house tonight. Blunt questions were not an option, not yet, and so he must go slowly with this woman. Intelligence lived in those quick blue eyes that missed nothing. As he took her measure, she measured him. „So why are all of these people still in my house?“ She set her beer bottle to one side. „The Riker settled on a half-truth. „They’re trying to reconstruct what happened here.“ „I told them what happened – several times.“ „Like I said, Miss Winter, there ‘re a few glitches in your statement. And then there’s the problem of the ice pick.“ Charles Butler followed Mallory into the front room, where the tall mirrors created an unsettling carnival effect. It was impossible to look anywhere without encountering one’s own reflection repeating two and three times. Yet Mallory managed it. He watched reflected copies of her negotiating the ocular maze with downcast eyes. Actually, this was a familiar phenomenon. She had always avoided every looking glass, even shunning reflections in shop windows. He once had a theory to fit her early history as a homeless child: she might see something ugly or worthless when she met herself in mirrors; self-esteem issues were the sad baggage of that background. However, he had retired this idea for another one that was truly eerie and almost akin to vampirism. She raised her eyes now, and there was no way she could fail to see her own reflection walking toward her from three directions. Yet, she lacked the instant catch-eyes response of every normal person. She appeared to see nothing at all, no recognizable form or proof of her own existence, and she moved on without pause. What a bundle of contradictions was this stunning young woman who could not enter any room unnoticed – invisible Mallory. He climbed the spiral staircase, following her black running shoes, Italian leather imports that might cost a week’s pay for the other civil servants in this house. He sometimes wondered if she did not delight in raising rumors that she might have an illegal source of income. And, of course, this was true. She was his business partner. They were headhunters. Halfway up the stairs, Charles discovered a design flaw. Because of the cathedral ceiling, this march of steps to the second floor was the length of more than two flights. The house had been made for appearances only and with no consideration for inhabitants of Nedda Winter’s age. Did that name sound more familiar to him now? He was distracted by Mallory as she explained that there were not enough ice picks in the house. But there had been an ice pick lying on the floor by the dead man. Surely the one was sufficient. And sometimes he wondered if she simply enjoyed sharpening her claws on his brain. He looked over the railing and down at the lavishly stocked wet bar by the foot of the stairs – and the silver ice bucket, which would so nicely complement the burglar’s expensive ice pick. He could not recall when he had last found a use for his own pick. Regrettably, the day of the old-fashioned ice block delivered by horse-drawn cart was long gone. Perhaps Miss Winter, like himself, had inherited one with the family silver. „Well,“ he began, picking his words more carefully this time, „I’m guessing – not assuming, mind you – that the ice pick near the body doesn’t belong to the burglar.“ So far, if he interpreted her silence correctly, he was on safe ground. „I suppose the man found the pick „Looks that way, doesn’t it?“ she said. And so, of course, his theory must be dead wrong. All right, the bedrock of logic was a bit shaky here. Mallory had already conceded self-defense, so either the pick belonged to the burglar or the man had found it in the house. One of these two things must be true – or not. He sighed. Mallory paused on the stairs and turned to face him. „The dead man wasn’t a burglar. He was a serial killer out on bail. I’m the one who arrested him. He always used a hunting knife. I found one strapped to his leg. He never had a chance to pull it out before one of those women stabbed him. There’s only one line in her statement that rings true. She said it was done in the dark. Now that part’s true. If the lights had been on, she’d never have gotten close enough to kill him.“ „This serial killer was out on bail?“ Dangerous, but he had to ask. „How is that possible?“ „Bad judge, good lawyer.“ Mallory glanced over the railing, looking down at the front room below and the dead man at its center. „So that ice pick was out of character for him – and one weapon too many.“ She resumed her climb. „Well,“ said Charles to Mallory’s back, „given his history with women, the very fact that he broke in with a knife strapped to his leg, that should be enough to – “ She paused on the second-floor landing to stare at him in a way that asked whose side he was on. „Neither one of those women knew he had a knife.“ Mallory turned her back on him and approached a door to the right of the stairs. „Odds are, they still don’t know.“ She rested one hand on the knob. „When Riker and I showed up, the West Side cops were still trying to get Bitty Smyth to unlock this bedroom door. I had better luck.“ Charles was not certain that he wanted more detail on this. „I told her to open up or I’d shoot off the lock. That’s when Bitty decided to come out.“ Mallory opened the door and waved him into the darkness ahead of her, saying behind his back, „And this is what she didn’t want the cops to see.“ What a flair she had for drama. The lights switched on, and, in the sudden bright light, Charles faced a wall lined with scores of photographs and saw his own face looking back at him from the picture frames. His eyes gravitated first to a shot taken when he was a child of ten. The backdrop was a birthday party in Gramercy Park. A neighboring frame held a small portrait with the gray grain of newsprint and a companion article about the youngest student ever to matriculate at Harvard University. Next was a picture of a child in cap and gown, inches taller than his graduating class of young adults. In successive photographs, he passed through puberty, collected more academic credentials and entered a prestigious corporate think tank. The caption of an old photo cut from The most recent picture of the lot was a candid photograph taken on the streets of SoHo. This one was framed in silver on the table beside Bitty’s bed. „So you have a stalker.“ Mallory turned to the bureau and picked up a stack of three diaries, each with a flimsy lock that had been opened. „Take a look at these. I need to know if she’s dangerous.“ „You’re joking.“ Her chin jutted forward, and an angry line appeared between her eyes, an unsubtle reminder that she had no sense of humor. Mallory held out the journals. Charles recoiled as if she were offering something unclean. „This can’t be right, reading her personal – “ „This is a crime scene, Charles. I don’t need a warrant.“ And her subtext was unmistakable: she was the law; friend and business partner aside, he should not push his luck with her tonight. A third voice chimed in to say, „What?“ They looked over to the far corner of the room to see a bird emerge from a large cage on the floor. It was smaller than a parrot but somewhat larger than a parakeet. A comb of yellow feathers unfurled at the top of its head in a gesture of surprise. „It’s a cockatiel,“ said Charles. Mallory looked down at the bird, clearly regarding it as something that she planned to wipe off the sole of her shoe. Charles sensed that this was not their first meeting. The tiny creature was too quick to pick up on her hostility. It opened its beak wide, but not to scream. The posture reminded Charles of a baby bird begging for worms, or, in this instance, begging for its life. The cockatiel flattened its comb of yellow feathers and, head ducked low to floor, retreated behind the fringe of the bedspread. Charles, however, had nowhere to hide. He stared at the journals as Mallory pressed them into his hands. He shook his head. „Bitty Smyth impressed me as a very fragile personality. Reading her diaries would be rather like an assault.“ „Read fast and she’ll never know.“ Mallory turned away from him to rifle the contents of the closet shelves. He sat down on the unmade bed as he took in all the items of the room. Bitty’s interests were not limited to himself. His photographs shared a bit of wall space with the Virgin Mary, and small statues of saints decorated her dresser alongside lipstick tubes and other toilet articles. There was also a collection of equestrian figurines from a young girl’s horse-crazy stage of life, and stuffed bears abounded here. Apart from the religious themes, the underlying decor was that of a teenage girl, who was approximately forty years old. He opened the earliest of the diaries and read it as fast as he could turn pages. Even given his skill as a speed reader, this was a waste of time. All the famed diarists in history had written with posterity and an audience in mind, and so did damn near everyone else on the planet. Consequendy, the entries were usually absent anything as embarrassing as truth. In a matter of minutes, he was reading the final page of handwriting, small and neat, and not one line to support the idea of Bitty Smyth as an obsessive stalker. „I’m not in any of these diaries,“ he said. „Satisfied?“ „No.“ Mallory stood before the open closet, holding a sheaf of papers bound in clear plastic. „This is a Ph.D. dissertation – yours. Think she read it?“ Mallory held up a worn sock with a hole in it. „Or did she just want another souvenir like this one?“ She tossed the sock into his lap. „Your size, I think.“ Charles shrugged this off. „Bitty moved on to another obsession two years ago.“ He stacked the diaries on the bedside table. „All she wrote about were her religious retreats on the weekends.“ His Ph.D. dissertation flew across the room to join the holey sock in his lap, and he looked down at the cover sheet of this paper authored before he was out of his teens. The subject was prodigies, his own peer group. Charles rose from the bed, drawn to the wall of framed pictures and another sort of peer group – children ganged by age and social strata. „This one,“ he said, staring at the group photograph taken at his tenth birthday party. „This is the connection between Bitty and me.“ Mallory crossed the room to stand beside him as he pointed to the smirking face of one child in the crowd. „That boy is Paul Smyth. Must be a relative. I don’t remember meeting Bitty Smyth as a child, but I suppose she could have been at this party. Though… I don’t see her in the picture. Odd. She has the kind of face that never changes – gamine, all eyes. Maybe she was the one with the camera. The shot angles upward, a child’s point of view – a child smaller than the others.“ Mallory stepped closer to the photograph. „There must’ve been fifty kids at that party.“ „At least,“ said Charles. „So you don’t remember Bitty – very distinctive face – but you remember Paul Smyth, the ordinary-looking kid. He was a friend of yours?“ „Hardly.“ All of his childhood friends had been adults. „I didn’t even know most of these children.“ This had been a family experiment in social interaction with youngsters of normal intelligence. All such experiments had ended in disaster. Children were so good at sussing out and torturing the alien in their midst, the child with the freakish large brain. „But I knew Paul Smyth too well. He called me Froggy all morning.“ Of course Mallory would not ask why. So obvious. His bulging eyes did call to mind a bullfrog. „Froggy – only nickname I ever had. So „He gave you a frog?“ „A big one.“ The huge frog had leapt from the open gift box, initiating a scream from one of the mothers. For six seconds, that amphibian had been the only pet that Charles had ever owned. But then, of course, the other children had converged upon the creature and slaughtered it – slowly – smashing it out of existence under sandals and sneakers and patent-leather shoes. The frog-stomping had been the highlight of his birthday party, for normally the children were not encouraged to kill living things. Later in the day, they had turned their sights on him – froggy number two. „All right – back to Bitty.“ Mallory picked up the stack of diaries. „She’s a religious fanatic. I think I guessed that. What else can you tell me?“ Charles absendy stared at the stuffed toys on the bed. The teddy bears were quite old. A child – Bitty, no doubt – had loved the small leather noses off their faces, rubbed them all away with kisses. And then there was the little bird hiding beneath the bed, a metaphor for its mistress who shared the trait of extreme timidity. „I can’t believe this woman could kill anyone.“ „Bitty? Of course not,“ said Mallory, oh so casually. „It was the old woman who did the stabbing. Nedda Winter confessed to the first cop on the scene.“ Charles turned his eyes heavenward. He was „Because she’s a stalker.“ „No, Mallory, that’s not quite „I want you to talk to Bitty Smyth. You said you didn’t know her.“ Mallory stacked the journals on a closet shelf. „Well, now you do.“ He shook his head, but denial was futile. „You set me up!“ She raised one eyebrow in a silent acknowledgment of „You seriously expect me to make use of this woman’s personal diaries to interrogate her?“ „She won’t talk to cops. She just throws out quotations from the Bible.“ „It’s like biblical Tourette’s,“ said Mallory. „So just go down there and talk to her. Get her to open up.“ „I have no intention of – “ „You do it, or Her tone implied a threat. No – cancel that – it was a solid promise to do some damage to that fragile little woman downstairs. Bitty Smyth was most likely in shock, and Mallory would be best described as sociopathic on a good day – not that he adored her less for that. And, even understanding that emotional blackmail was Mallory’s idea of sport, he said, „All right.“ When the door had closed on the detective, a small voice from the darkness beneath the bed said, „What?“ Charles looked down to see the bird emerge from its hiding place. It limped badly on one leg and could not travel in a straight line, but veered in curving paths and circles. One of its wings was missing a full complement of flight feathers, and the raggedy tail feathers dragging along behind the creature were more proof of a walking bird, hence the cage on the floor to accommodate the handicap of being earthbound. He picked up a bottle of pills, the vitamin prescription of a veterinarian. He had nearly guessed the bird’s name – Rags. A second bottle of tablets carried the prescription of a doctor who catered to humans, and this one was filled with sleeping pills. He read the pharmacist’s date, then shook the bottle out in his hand and counted the tablets. All there. For the past month, Bitty Smyth had not required a sleep aid. Or had she been afraid to sleep? The bolt on the bedroom door was a great sturdy thing, thick as a steel cigar, and it had the shiny look of a recent installation. The woman was certainly afraid of something or someone. Detective Riker wondered if Miss Winter knew how many mistakes she had made tonight. He decided that a few of those errors must have occurred to her, for their suspicion was mutual as they stared at one another across the kitchen table. He smiled. And she smiled. „Well, ma’am – “ „Call me Nedda.“ „Unusual name.“ And unforgettable to Riker. His younger brother was called Ned. But Nedda was not the name that most people would know this woman by, not even those old enough to remember the lurid tabloid stories. Though given names were often passed down through generations of a family, he was certain of her identity now, and he planned to bludgeon her with it later on. „Maybe we can straighten out some of these loose ends,“ said Riker. „Then we’ll just pack up and get out of your life.“ He flipped through the pages of a small notebook, as if he might need this reminder. „You had a break-in last week. And, tonight, we find a body in your house – after another break-in. Now the ice pick next to the body – looks like he brought it with him.“ „But I shouldn’t jump to that conclusion?“ More pages flipped by. „Lucky guess.“ He looked up at her smiling face. „Did I mention that the guy on your rug was charged with three counts of murder? Now what are the odds that we wrap up three homicides and a break-in with minimal paperwork? You see, we almost never get this kind of happy ending. But we ‘d be willing to buy it if the guy brought that ice pick into your house. Now here’s the problem. It looks expensive. The trim is real silver.“ „Doesn’t really go with his ensemble, does it? The torn, sweaty T-shirt and all.“ „Where „No idea, Detective. I rarely drink hard liquor.“ „So you wouldn’t know if that was his ice pick or yours?“ „It’s a mystery.“ She placed an ashtray on the table as an invitation for Riker to pull out the pack of cigarettes that he had been longing for all night. Remembering his manners, he first offered the pack to the lady. „You smoke?“ She surprised him by accepting one, then bending down to his match flame. In answer to his question, she inhaled deeply and blew a perfect smoke ring. Riker found her entirely too cool for a woman with a houseful of police and a dead body on her living-room floor. He finished his iced tea, then casually perused the written statement that Nedda Winter had signed for the West Side detectives. „Ma’am? Does anybody else live in this house? I don’t see anything here about – “ „Yes. There’s my sister. Her name is Cleo Winter-Smyth.“ Riker’s pen hovered over his open notebook. „Is she one of those hyphenated people?“ „I’m afraid so. My brother, Lionel, lives here, too. But tonight they’re both at the summer house in the Hamptons.“ „Why don’t we give ‘em a call and ask where the ice pick is?“ „You could leave a message on their machine. They never pick up the phone out there. They have privacy issues.“ Riker turned toward the sound of heavy footsteps from the hallway. He was surprised to see the head of Forensics making a personal appearance. Heller, a great bear of a man, hovered in the doorway. A baby-faced technician stood by his side, and this was a new face. A trainee? The chief crime-scene investigator had always taken great pride in the hands-on training of his crews. This might explain his presence here tonight. The man owed none of the detectives any favors that would warrant turning out for a penny-ante burglary gone wrong. Heller remained in the hall as his new recruit entered the kitchen with a fingerprint kit. The younger man was shaking his head and muttering, „Why elimination prints? The perp’s dead.“ „Just do it, kid.“ Heller’s tone conveyed that he would deal with the youngster’s attitude problem later. He turned his back and ambled away down the hall. The rookie opened his kit on the table, then laid out his white cards, an ink pad and a roller. When he picked up Miss Winter’s right hand, he treated it as an inanimate object. Without a word spoken, no Nedda Winter looked up at the young man’s face, but the technician clearly did not see her. She bowed her head in resignation, understanding that she was invisible to him, all but the fingers of her captive hand. It was a revealing moment and not the response that Riker would have predicted, not at this posh address. Ensconced in a mansion, this grande dame was accustomed to indifferent manhandling by minions. And so he needed no psychiatrist to tell him that she had spent some time in an institution – a long time. Prison? Or the nuthouse? As her hand was being manipulated by the technician, so carelessly, impersonally, the sleeve of her robe slipped down her right arm, exposing a long and jagged welt of old scar tissue that told a story of a body torn to the bone. Riker rose quickly, knocking over his chair as he turned on the crime-scene technician. „Let her alone! Tell Heller I want someone else to do it.“ When the younger man only gawked at him, the detective yelled, „Get Bitty Smyth sat alone in the dining room, waiting for someone, anyone, to give her life direction, or that was Charles Buder’s impression when he sat down on the other side of the table. If he could caption the look on her face, her unspoken words would be – „I’m sorry,“ she said. „The police dragging you here so late and all. It was because of the pictures in my room, wasn’t it?“ His one and only stalker seemed not at all embarrassed about the shrine in her bedroom, and he wondered if this was a first warning sign. He gravitated toward the possibility of a harmless, almost magical fixation that would not interfere with the everyday function of her life. He preferred this to the darker diagnosis of an obsessive psychotic. For a moment, he was lost in her eyes, so large, so dark, the antithesis of his own small blue irises. Physically pulling away from her, he sat well back in his chair. It was his everyday job to observe people and pass judgments upon their mental well-being before marrying them to the proper think tanks, but there was something at work here that was quite beyond him for the present. Her face was heart shaped. He would not call it pretty, and yet he was charmed by it and leaning toward her once more without understanding why. Perhaps magical thinking worked both ways tonight, for he was reverting to his earlier impression of a pointed-eared elf. „I can’t imagine,“ she said, „what the police must have thought of my little gallery of photographs.“ „Yes, the pictures,“ he said. „I’m sure they assumed I was a friend of the family.“ He handed her a business card for Butler and Company. An earlier version of the card had born the name Mallory and Buder, but NYPD had ordered her to dissolve the business partnership. In Mallory’s version of compliance, she had removed her name from the stationery. Bitty Smyth never glanced at the card. „I was at your birthday party in Gramercy Park.“ „I know,“ said Charles, though he still had no memory of her. Granted, she would be inclined to remember She leaned toward him. „Wasn’t it your uncle who did the magic show?“ „No, he was my cousin, Max Candle. Old enough to be my uncle, though. So… how’s Paul? Forgive me if I don’t recall the relationship. Was Paul your – “ „My brother,“ said Bitty, „half brother. We have the same father.“ „So now you look after your aunt, is that right?“ He wondered if she had forgotten to breathe for a moment. Why should her aunt’s health be a touchy subject? „I’m told there’s a lot of medication in Miss Winter’s room. I assumed you were – “ „Yes, you must have been talking to the medical examiner. He wanted to give me a sedative, but I can’t swallow pills. Now what was I – Oh, Aunt Nedda. Yes. Endstage cancer.“ „But she appeared to be in rather good health.“ Bitty lowered her eyes with a modest smile, as if taking this as a personal compliment. „You should have seen her six months ago. Her skin was all yellow.“ „So she had a successful surgery, something like that?“ „No.“ And now he noticed something new in her eyes: the pupils were dilating. This was the unconscious tactic of a small child anxious to curry favor with an adult, and it usually worked, enhancing the unwitting adult’s concern and affection. It was a child’s act of self-preservation carried into adulthood. He wondered what other tactics she might have, both instinctive and deliberate ones for negotiating her way through a forest of taller beings. „How do you account for your aunt’s recovery? A miracle? Or the wrong diagnosis?“ This was a trick question, a trap, and he wondered if she had guessed that. She was staring at her Bible, reaching toward it and its pious explanations for all things miraculous, but then she pushed it away, electing not to play the Bible-thumping zealot, not with him. It occurred to him, in that moment, that the Bible and the journals were props for an illusion, rather like the trick of the eyes. More survival tactics? This intuition posed an ethical dilemma: either this woman was more vulnerable than anyone imagined, or she was a worthy adversary for Mallory. He decided to keep his silence. If he guessed wrong, Mallory might shred this woman into pieces. Ah, but what if he was right about Bitty? Well, in that event, Mallory would Police from the West Side precinct had gone, and so had Charles Butler. After Bitty Smyth had been shepherded off to the dining room, only the CSU technicians and their boss remained at the crime scene with Mallory and the dead man. The young detective looked past the foyer to the open door. The assistant medical examiner stood on the front steps smoking a cigarette. He looked her way, then tapped his watch to remind her that his people were still waiting to collect the corpse. She turned her back on him to make it clear that this was And now, not hurrying any, she strolled over to the foot of the stairs and slowly paced out the movements of Nedda Winter and her victim, guided by the old woman’s statement. Mallory ended her pantomime of a killing by hunkering down at the dead man’s side and running her fingers through his hair. She waved to a technician standing by the foyer entrance. „Kill the lights!“ He did, and now, in the etiquette of sudden darkness, no one moved or spoke. Streetlights glowed dully behind the drapes, only silhouetting the technician standing before them. All else was pitch black. She could not even see the face of the man nearest her, the dead man on the floor. Mallory smiled. Heller’s voice boomed across the void. „I know what you’re thinking, kid. She couldn’t have done it in the dark.“ „Yes, she could – and she „But he was only stabbed one time.“ Dr. Morgan, the medical examiner, had come stealing back into the house, and there was exasperation in every word. „There’s only one entry wound, one – “ „Stabbed twice,“ she said. And now they had a game. „Lights!“ yelled Mallory. And there was light. Heller entered the kitchen carrying a fingerprint kit and settled his massive bulk into a chair beside Nedda Winter. After introducing himself, he smiled as he held out one hand for hers, asking, almost courtly, „May I?“ Who knew that Heller was secretly a ladies’ man? She smiled, placing her veined and wrinkled hand in his, then watched absently as the head of Forensics did the grunt work of inking her index finger. Rolling it back and forth on a small white card, he said. „Sorry about the mess. Comes off easy enough. Taking prints is routine in a case like this.“ „No, it isn’t,“ she said, contradicting him without any trace of rancor. „Okay, call it a formality.“ Heller gently continued to make the black impressions on his fingerprint cards. „Nothing to worry about, ma’am.“ „Unless you’ve got a record.“ Riker smiled to let her know that he was not serious. And she smiled, not buying into that for one minute. He exhaled a blue cloud of cigarette smoke and stared at the window. He might have been innocently inquiring about the weather outside when he asked, „You never murdered anyone, did you, Nedda?“ „Oh, don’t get me started, Detective. We’ll be here all night.“ He liked sparring with this woman, and he was gradually losing his awe of her, though he had never been so close to a legend. If his father only knew who he was sitting with right now. And Granddad – how he wished that beloved old man had lived long enough to see this night. „We always fingerprint the householders,“ said Heller, as if she had never called this a lie and called it right. „You see, this is the way we eliminate – “ „No,“ she said, still smiling. „There’s no need for elimination prints. You don’t care what he touched or we touched, not in a burglary with a dead suspect.“ She turned to Riker. „Sorry. I’ve watched entirely too much television.“ Resignation was in her face when she turned his way. She knew why the cops had come to her door and why they had stayed so long. „Okay, you got us,“ said Riker. „We lied about the prints. But you can see why. We got problems here.“ He lit another cigarette and watched the smoke curl, wondering if he could turn her suspicions around. „Civilians have TV ideas about how this works, when a good taxpayer, like yourself, kills a criminal type – like our friend on the floor out there.“ Riker nodded in the direction of the crime scene down the hall, „You think the cops just show up as a courtesy. They take the dead body off your hands, maybe even clean up the mess for you. Then they write you an excuse note for a homicide.“ He waved this idea away with one hand. „Naw. When we find a body with a pair of shears stuck in the chest, we call it unnatural death. Doesn’t matter if the victim is scum – and, believe me, this guy would have to do some social climbing before we could call him anything as grand as scum. But he still gets a full homicide investigation. Now first we had to figure out which cophouse owns the crime scene. If the perp came to rob you, then the case goes to Robbery Homicide Division. If not, then it could go to the West Side cops. They showed up first, and it’s their turf. And then there’s me and Mallory. We ‘re from Special Crimes Unit. We might get the case ‘cause we had a prior interest in the dead man.“ „So how many detectives are fighting over the body?“ „Only one left standing out there.“ Heller turned his eyes to the hallway. „The body belongs to Riker’s partner, Mallory.“ „And I predicted that.“ Riker turned his face to Nedda’s. „She was the catching detective on your dead man’s three murders. Too bad we can’t turn up your ice pick.“ He watched Nedda Winter’s body relax as she slid back into a comfort zone, believing that she was merely suspected of homicide. „Yes, I see the problem,“ she said. „You have to be sure the pick belonged to him before you can close out the case. As I said, I’ve never had any use for an ice pick.“ „Well, it’s a big house,“ said Riker. „You got a maid or a housekeeper?“ „There was a live-in housekeeper. My niece, Bitty, tried to save her soul, and she ran away from home. Now my sister, Cleo, deals with an agency. They send different people every week.“ Done with the fingerprinting, Heller gently wiped the ink from her hands, then filed his print cards away in an envelope. He was working on the identifying labels when he and Riker looked up to see Bitty Smyth hovering in the doorway, asking with her eyes if she might enter. „Come in, dear,“ said Nedda. „This is Mr. Heller, and you’ve met Detective Riker.“ For a moment, Riker believed that Bitty might curtsy, but instead, she held out her Bible as an offering, voting him the most likely soul to be in need of religion. „It’s a gift,“ she said, when he failed to take it from her. „You „My church is Finnegan’s.“ And Riker’s religion revolved around sacramental bourbon and beer. Finnegan’s was the cop bar beneath his Greenwich Village apartment. Free drinks, courtesy of his new landlord and barkeep, made it a religious experience every night. The tiny woman patted his head in the manner of rewarding a dog. „Bitty,“ said her aunt, „do you know where the ice pick is?“ „It’s on the floor beside the body.“ „No, dear. Where is The younger woman shook her head, uncomprehending. Suddenly, one pointing finger rose in the air as a divining rod, and she walked in a straight line to a drawer beside the sink. She pulled out an ice pick, then placed it on the table in front of Nedda and left the room. Heller followed after her, fingerprint kit in hand and calling out, „Ma’am? Miss Smyth? A minute, please?“ Nedda Winter studied the plain ice pick on the table. Its wooden handle was cracked and worn. „Doesn’t quite go with the silver ice bucket, does it?“ „No, ma’am, it doesn’t.“ And he had already found this one during an earlier search of the kitchen. Riker’s eyes were on the hallway when Mallory paused just outside the door, standing there in low conversation with the police photographer. She moved on down the hall, no doubt wanting pictures of a sewing room with no scissors. He turned back to face Nedda. „We’ll keep looking till we find the other ice pick – the good one.“ If she took this as a threat – and it was – she showed no outward sign. Leaning toward Riker, speaking in her dry way, she said, „Our Bitty is a soldier in the army of the Lord – in case that escaped your notice. She’s also very delicate. I hope you don’t see her as a woman who fancies dangerous men, maybe lures them home so she can murder them.“ „I like your sense of humor, Nedda.“ He had already surmised that if Bitty, the Christian soldier, were hanging nose to nose with a fruit fly, the fly would beat the living crap out of her. A shriek came from the front room, and now Bitty Smyth was screaming, „No fingerprints! No, you can’t Riker watched Kathy Mallory passing the kitchen doorway again, advancing on the front room with grim resolve. He was already feeling sorry for the smaller, weaker woman; the little soldier was indeed delicate in mind and body. Oh, yes, there would be fingerprints, and Mallory’s end of the conversation was not intelligible at this distance, but Riker could imagine the scene in the other room: his partner’s attitude conjuring up a faint aroma from the sulfurs of hell and maybe a little smoke; Bitty’s eyes growing wide and wild. „No!“ Bitty Smyth yelled. „I want a Bitty Smyth flitted about the room, staring into every face, silently begging for relief. She avoided looking at Mallory, whose eyes were green neon signs with the words Nedda Winter entered the room, followed by a more languid Riker, who hardly ever moved quite so fast as an old lady, though Mallory knew that her partner would not call this white-haired woman old; the litde lost girl of the nineteen-forties would only be fifteen years his senior. Deserting her niece, Miss Winter hurried past Mallory and disappeared into a small powder room in the foyer. Every pair of eyes was on that closing door. Dazed by this abandonment, even Bitty Smyth was quietly keeping watch. When the old woman emerged, she held a glass of water in her hand and moved toward her niece, smiling, extending the glass, then holding it to Bitty’s lips and urging her to drink. „Big gulps, dear. Everything is all right.“ Bitty Smyth stole a glance at Mallory, then shook her head slowly from side to side to say that this could not be true. „I’ve already given them my fingerprints.“ Nedda Winter settled her niece on the sofa. „There’s no harm in letting them take yours.“ Heller pulled up a chair alongside the couch and gently took the tiny woman’s hand and kissed it. Well, this was new. The only one more startled than Bitty was Mallory. The head of Forensics was not only doing the work of underlings tonight but he was also in rare diplomatic form, and Mallory disapproved. She preferred her interview subjects unhinged and easier to intimidate – less work. Before Heller had inked the third finger, Bitty Smyth’s head lolled back on the upholstery and her eyes closed. Mallory turned on the older woman. „What did you put in that water?“ „A sedative.“ Miss Winter opened her hand to show the label on the bottle. „This house almost qualifies as a pharmacy. These belong to my sister, Cleo.“ This civilian was surprisingly unruffled. Mallory decided to work on that. While Heller finished the fingerprinting process, one of the medical examiner’s underlings returned to remind the detectives that the meat wagon was still waiting for the corpse. Mallory shot him a look to tell him that he should get out of here – Nedda Winter searched the remaining faces, then turned to Riker. „Mr. Butler is gone?“ „Yeah,“ said Riker. „It didn’t take him long to check out the pictures in Bitty’s room.“ „Is he going to make any trouble for my niece?“ „I wouldn’t be surprised.“ Mallory glanced at the small woman asleep on the sofa. „By law, we had to warn him. We’re really scrupulous about that when we find the stalker at a crime scene with a dead body.“ „My niece is harmless.“ „You really believe that?“ Mallory opened her blazer, pausing a beat to display a very large gun and her authority in this room. „I’m surprised.“ Her hand passed over the weapon to dip into an inside breast pocket. She produced a wrinkled sheet of paper. „I found this in your bedroom wastebasket. It’s the same line written over and over again. ‘Crazy people make sane people crazy.’“ Mallory glanced at the small sleeper on the couch. „Was Bitty getting on your nerves?“ The older woman looked as if she had just been slapped. Mallory edged closer. „Need to take a pill, Miss Winter? I saw all that medication in your room.“ „I’m fine, thank you.“ „Sit down,“ said Mallory, indicating a chair close to the corpse. Nedda Winter shook her head, defying a direct order and electing to stand. „I’ve been sitting for too long.“ With a slight lift of one shoulder, she said, „You know – old bones.“ And so her dignity remained intact – for the moment. „Really?“ Mallory made a wide circle around Miss Winter, forcing the woman to revolve. „The medical examiner says you’re in very good shape for your age. Good hearing and coordination. No confusion at all. Now Dr. Morgan thought that was strange… considering all of your meds. He said the high doses should’ve created massive confusion bordering on dementia, but you’re pretty sharp.“ „Thank you.“ Once more Mallory looked down at the sleeping niece. „Does Bitty know that you flush all those pills every day?“ She noted just the barest inclination of Nedda Winter’s head, a small gesture of congratulation. And now this old woman must understand that Riker’s interrogation had been merely a friendly little warm-up. „And your color surprised Dr. Morgan, too. According to your niece, your skin turned yellow in the end stage of cancer. But now you look entirely too healthy.“ Mallory stopped circling her interview subject. They stood toe-to-toe. „Can you explain that?“ „Doctor-patient confidentiality,“ said the old woman. „The state of my health isn’t open to police scrutiny.“ „Wrong.“ Mallory turned her back on the older woman. „I can ask you anything I want.“ And that was true. She could legally And with this more polite invitation, this consideration for her comfort – The detective moved behind the woman, leaning down close to her ear and saying, „I like money motives.“ Mallory rounded the chair in time to catch the trace of a smile. „I never touched the man’s wallet,“ said Nedda Winter. „I did. He had a lot of cash. But you told the responding officer there was none missing from the wall safe. You were positive about that.“ She signaled Riker to bring in the patrolman waiting outside on the steps. After sitting down in an armchair on the other side of the corpse, she proceeded to ignore the old woman, turning all her attention to the pages of a small notebook. The young officer entered the front room. He smiled at Miss Winter, and one finger tapped the visor of his hat in a mock salute. Mallory caught his eye, and, with a look that promised something nasty, she put an end to all that friendliness. He stood at attention, all properly lined up on the side of Mallory and the law. The detective turned back to her notes, saying, „You remember Officer Brill, don’t you? He shows up for all of your break-ins.“ „Yes, I remember him. But that first one was only an attempted burglary.“ Mallory kept her eyes on the notebook. „According to Officer Brill, your relatives were out of town for that one, too. What a coincidence.“ She looked up at the staircase and the small device well concealed in the woodwork. „Oh, and the tape cassette is missing from your security camera. Another coincidence? Don’t look at Officer Brill. He’s not a friend of the family. He’s with us.“ But not for much longer. With only a nod, she sent the man back to his post outside the front door. Nedda followed the young officer with her eyes, clearly sorry to see him go. „We’ll start over.“ Mallory accepted a yellow pad from Riker, then pulled out a pen and clicked it absently. „You said you stabbed the burglar with the scissors.“ „Yes.“ Miss Winter pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her robe. „This makes the fourth confession of the evening. I stabbed him with the scissors.“ „But „I never said it wasn’t mine.“ She shook a cigarette loose from the pack. „I only said I couldn’t identify it.“ And now she searched her pockets for a light. „Maybe he found it here in the house.“ „In the dark? According to your statement, the lights were off. You didn’t turn the lights on until it was all over. How could he find that ice pick in a strange house in the dark?“ „I believe I saw a small flashlight on the floor by the – “ „Yeah, a penlight.“ Riker stepped forward with a lit match for her cigarette. „That was his. We found his fingerprints on the case and the batteries – the Mallory leaned forward. „While you’re changing your statement, some advice – don’t fool with the lights, okay? If the lights had been on, he would’ve pulled his knife, and you’d be the dead body on the floor tonight.“ She leaned down to raise one pants leg of the corpse and exposed the long hunting knife in a leather holster strapped to his leg. Now the old woman was taken by surprise, but it passed quickly. „You see the problem, Miss Winter? Too many weapons. If he had a knife, why would he waste time hunting for a – “ „All right, I lied. After I realized that he was dead – and he had no weapon – well, none that I could see – I put the ice pick in his hand. I thought it might make the police more sympathetic. But it „That’s the only thing you’ve said that I believe.“ „I’m sorry I misled you.“ Mallory looked down at her notes again, as if the next question mattered not at all to her. „Are you sorry enough to take a polygraph exam?“ „Yes, of course, if you wish.“ „That’s good,“ said Riker. „Now explain this.“ He held up a small plastic bag to the light of the chandelier so that she could clearly see the key inside. „We found dirt in the front door lock, and we found this key in the potted plant on the stairs outside. Our boy put it back after he opened the door. Didn’t you wonder why the alarm went off for last week’s burglary, but not tonight’s?“ He nodded toward the corpse. „This guy knew the code to turn off the alarm. You know what that means?“ „We have an endless parade of temporary help. I suppose one of them set us up for a robbery.“ „No, that doesn’t work for me.“ Mallory nudged the corpse with the toe of her running shoe. „Someone wants you dead, Miss Winter. This man was a murderer, not a burglar. He grabbed his victims off the street. Never broke into a house before, and he didn’t break into this one, either. So tell me – who benefits from your death?“ „My death would make no difference to anyone.“ Riker stared at the little woman on the couch. Bitty Smyth had begun to snore. „So maybe your niece is the target. Now that should make you real eager to help us out with this investigation.“ „And if you don’t,“ said Mallory, „we ‘ve got you for tampering with evidence, obstruction of a homicide investigation and making false statements to the police. Does that worry you?“ „My medication causes confusion,“ said Nedda Winter, throwing the young detective’s own words back at her. „And there go your charges.“ „Nice try,“ said Mallory. „But that only tells me you’ve got secrets that’ll get you killed – you or your niece. What about your brother and sister? They were out of town for both break-ins.“ „Nothing odd about that. Lionel and Cleo spend most of their time out of town.“ Mallory left her chair to stand over the unconscious Bitty Smyth. Her long red nails grazed the sleeping woman’s hair. „Does Bitty know secrets, too? Let me put it another way. Would you trust your niece with a secret?“ Nedda Winter rose to stand beside the detective. The cigarette, tightly clutched in her hand, had gone dark and smokeless, and now she broke it in half. Mallory never took her eyes off Bitty Smyth, her hostage in this interview. „All the doors in this house have old-fashioned locks and keyholes, except for your niece’s bedroom. She’s got a dead bolt and a slide bolt. Your brother and sister are always out of town. Why?“ She looked up at Nedda Winter. „Is your whole family afraid of you?“ Riker stepped forward to deliver the blow that he had been waiting for all night long. „Mind if I call you Red?“ Nedda Winter smiled, perhaps in relief, now that it was finally out. Bitty Smyth woke in the night, but not in her bed. The windows of the front room were looming rectangles of dull light. There was no other detail to be seen. By touch, she recognized the knitted afghan that always draped the sofa. Her aunt must have covered her with it as she lay sleeping. Bitty pulled it up to her chin, taking a little comfort from this thin protection of wool. And now she played the childhood game of ferreting out the monsters in the shadows. A dark silhouette passed by one window, the shadow of someone |
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