Winter House

Chapter 10

LIEUTENANT COFFEY WAS IN THE DARK, AND HE WAS IN AWE. On the other side of the one-way glass, Nedda Winter was seated at the long table, passively watching a police aide, who laid out the polygraph equipment, the rubber tubes, the clips and their wires.

„So that’s Red Winter.“ Jack Coffey’s words were as soft as whispers in church. „When the lady came in, she told the desk sergeant that your polygraph exam was never finished.“

The lady?

Nedda Winter’s supporters were legion now.

„This was her idea, not mine.“ Mallory sat down beside the lieutenant.

„But no pressure, right?“ He kept his eyes on the woman in the next room. „I know her niece attempted suicide tonight. You didn’t make any threats against Bitty Smyth, did you?“

Even Bitty had champions.

When the police aide had departed from the interview room, Nedda Winter reached out for the transducer and attached this cardio device to her thumb. Next the woman bound herself with the rubber tubes that would record her breathing, and last she attached the clips to her fingers. Dragging her wires with her, she moved her chair back to the wall. After removing both her shoes, she sat there, very still, staring at the one-way mirror, the window for the two police sitting side by side – watching.

„All the years I’ve been on this job,“ said Jack Coffey, „I’ve never seen anybody do that before.“ He turned his eyes to Mallory. Unspoken was the question What did you do to that woman? He could never voice his suspicions. Contrary to policy, Mallory had failed to tape the previous polygraph examination. Now he was assuming the worst of her and only grateful that there was no proof.

Mallory’s hands curled into fists under cover of darkness.

Rising from his chair, the lieutenant said, „Lock up this room before you go in there. I don’t want anyone to see this.“ And he would not watch either, no stomach for it.

„Wait,“ said Mallory. „You think I’m a monster, right? So why dorityou take over?“ Her tone was pure acid. „Go on. Fix the old lady a nice cup of tea. Be her new best friend. See if she tells you anything useful – anything at all.“

Jack Coffey’s hand rested on the doorknob. He would not turn around, and he could not leave.

„But first,“ said Mallory, „you can take my badge.“ She rose from her chair and stepped closer to the window on the interview room, then leaned her forehead against the glass. „I’m so tired of everybody lining up behind Nedda Winter. What’s the point of me showing up for work anymore?“ Mallory reached into her back pocket and pulled out the leather folder that held her gold shield. „The old woman’s holding out on me, and that’ll get her killed. But what the hell. If she dies, she dies, right? And nobody cares who massacred her family. And Sally Winter – more old history. Who cares if that little girl’s body was stuffed in a hole like a dead dog? Not me – not you.“

Jack Coffey turned around to face his detective. „I know you’ll never let go of that badge, Mallory. You’re better at this than your old man when he was in his prime.“ He quit the room, closing the door softly, just to let her know, that, though she had cut him at the knees, there were no hard feelings.

And now that she had beaten Coffey, she glanced at the window on the interrogation room. One down and one to go.

She looked over her handiwork, this barefoot woman wired to a machine, every muscle tensing, bracing. They stared at one another. Nedda was blind to Mallory, but well aware that she was being watched from the other side of the mirror. The woman was waiting so patiently for the game to begin. She raised her head, as if to ask the young detective – When?

Kathy Mallory left the observation room, locking the door behind her, not out of deference to Jack Coffey’s wishes, but for the sake of privacy alone. She entered the brightly lit interview room, and Nedda Winter looked up with no reproach for what was about to happen to her.

Mallory knelt down on bended knee and lifted Nedda’s right foot in her hand, noting its fragile, paper-thin skin and the raised blue veins that came with age and a hard life. She gently slipped one shoe back on the woman’s foot and carefully tied the laces, not too loose, not too tight. When she had done the second shoe, she raised her face to Nedda’s. „The night you killed Willy Roy Boyd – you didn’t find that ice pick on the bar – in the dark. You had it under your pillow, didn’t you?“

Nedda nodded between wariness and surprise.

Mallory removed the metal clips and unfastened the tubes that bound the woman’s breast. „You never feel safe anymore, do you?“

„No. Not for a long time.“

„Not since you left the last hospital.“ Mallory walked back to the table and pulled out an ordinary wooden chair that had no wires. „Sit here.“ Fumbling with her list of rules for a life, she added the word „Please.“ When Nedda had joined her at the table, the detective said, „Suppose we just talk.“

And Nedda did.

She began with the morning of the massacre, counting up the dead. „All those bodies. When I got to the top of the house and saw the nanny on the floor, I couldn’t go into that nursery. I didn’t want to see Sally’s body. I couldn’t find Cleo and Lionel, but I’d only searched the rooms upstairs.“

Returning to the staircase, she had stopped awhile by her stepmother’s corpse. „She was a silly, flighty woman, but I loved her so much. She was the only mother I ever knew. Then I sat down on the steps beside my father’s body.“

James Winter had entered the house as she was pulling the ice pick from her father’s chest. „Uncle James bundled me into the car, and we drove to a dingy little building in Greenwich Village. He left me there for days and days. Said he had to go back for the ice pick because my fingerprints were on it. When I saw him again, he told me it was no good. The police got to the house before he did, and they had the ice pick. He said they’d found the bodies of all the children, Cleo and Lionel too. And the baby was dead. They were hunting for me, he said. He cut off my hair and dyed it with shoe black. I stayed in that room for a long time. I don’t know how many days. I lost count. An old woman brought my food. Clothes, too – I think they were hers. She was very kind to me.“

„She’s the one who taught you to read the tarot cards,“ said Mallory.

„How did you know that?“

„I know almost everything. Just a few more loose ends. Go on.“

„One night, the street outside my window was full of police. I thought they’d come for me. The old woman came upstairs. She said we had to clean the place right away, and then I’d have to leave. If the police found any trace of me, she’d go to jail. We worked all night into morning, washing down the walls, the floor, the furniture. While she was downstairs, getting a suitcase for me, the police came and took her away. Later that day, Uncle James came back. We waited for dark, and then we drove up to Maine. He said he had a summer cabin there. When we crossed the state line, he stole a car from a restaurant parking lot and left his own car in its place. I remember a road into the woods. After that, all I have are missing pieces of memory – like Uncle James turning off the headlights. I thought that was queer. The road was so narrow, and the woods were pitch dark. We were driving blind. The last thing I recall was the car’s inside light coming on. I don’t remember the crash. When I woke up, I was in the dark, and the car was rocking. I was in so much pain. I turned on the headlights. They pointed straight up at the sky, and below me there was nothing but black space. I screamed.“

„A cop named Walter McReedy rescued you.“

„Yes. Later, he told me that the driver had drowned in the quarry pool.“

„You never told McReedy who the driver was?“

„I thought Uncle James was dead. Walter said the body would float up eventually, but it never did. And he never mentioned finding my uncle’s abandoned car in the restaurant parking lot. I could never ask him about it. I told him I couldn’t remember anything.“

„And that’s how you knew your uncle meant to kill you that night.“

„Yes. Uncle James must have jumped from the car just before it went over the edge. That’s why the inside light came on. And the police never found his car because he ‘d used it to drive back to New York. So I knew he’d tried to kill me. And he was still alive.“

„You couldn’t tell Walter McReedy the truth.“

„No, and I couldn’t go home again. I didn’t know that there was anyone alive to come back to. And the police had my fingerprints on the ice pick.“

„This pick.“ Mallory reached into her knapsack and pulled out a plastic bag containing the murder weapon. „There were only two fingerprints on the handle. That’s how the police ruled you out as a suspect. Thumb and index finger, the prints you left when you pulled the pick out of your father’s body. There’s no other scenario for the way they appeared on the weapon. Otherwise the pick was clean. So the lead detective figured the killer had the presence of mind to wipe that pick after using it to murder nine people – so why leave two clear prints behind on a murder weapon? The fingerprints cleared you. Those cops only wanted to find you and bring you home.“

Nedda bowed her head. „If I had known that Cleo and Lionel were still alive, I would’ve told Walter McReedy everything. But I believed Uncle James when he told me that their bodies were found in the kitchen. I never got to that room.“

Mallory leaned toward her, one hand resting on her arm. „You spent two years with the McReedy family.“

„Off and on – between surgeries. Most of the time was spent in the hospital.“

„The McReedys never talked about the Winter House Massacre? That was national news.“

Nedda almost smiled. „Once, there was life before television. You can’t imagine that, can you? But we had radio on a clear night, one station from Bangor that played gospel music.“

„You were famous.“

„But I wasn’t the Lindbergh baby – just the debris of a crime that happened somewhere else. The local paper was a two-page weekly newsletter. And the biggest news in that small town was the story of the McReedy brothers rescuing me and risking their lives to do it. Now you see why my uncle took me there to die.“

Mallory nodded. „And all that time you spent with the McReedy family, you were waiting for James Winter to come back and kill you.“

„Yes. Twice I thought he was dead, and I was wrong both times. When I was fourteen, I thought I was being watched. No – I knew he was watching me.“

„Your uncle James.“

„Yes. I found cigarette butts at the edge of the yard, and sometimes I’d see them glowing in the dark from my window. I didn’t want Uncle James to come after me while I was living with the McReedys. I couldn’t lose my second family that way. So… when the family left town to visit relatives… I stayed behind.“

„You set yourself up as bait to draw him out.“

„I loved the McReedys.“ Nedda looked down at her folded hands. „The man came for me in the dark. He broke down my bedroom door. But I was ready for him. I’d been ready for two years.“

„You stabbed him with an ice pick you kept under your pillow.“

„Yes, but it wasn’t Uncle James. I sat next to the corpse all night long. When morning came, I never looked at the man’s face. I couldn’t bear to see him. I was still afraid of him – even then. Can you understand that?“

No, Mallory could not, but she nodded, saying, „You were only a little girl.“

„When the McReedys found me there with the body, I was sent to a hospital. They said I was in shock. I couldn’t speak for days. It took a long time for Walter McReedy to identify the corpse. He visited me in the hospital and told me that I’d killed a small-time criminal named Humboldt. I asked him over and over if that could be a mistake, and he said no, that was impossible. Fingerprints never lied.“

„So you stayed in the hospital to keep that family safe. You figured James Winter was always out there, waiting for another chance to kill you.“ This also explained the death of Willy Roy Boyd and the near-death experience of the private investigator in the park. It was Nedda Winter’s job in life, all her life, to protect the people she loved.

The detective laid two sets of fingerprint cards on the table. One had been found in Pinwitty’s stash of stolen evidence, souvenirs of a massacre. „These are your uncle’s elimination prints. The police took them on the day of the massacre. They wanted to rule out family members.“ The second set of prints had come from the New Orleans police; this was the fruit of Riker’s grandfather and his lifelong search for Red Winter. „This set of prints belonged to the man you stabbed in Maine. They’re a perfect match for James Winter.“

„That’s impossible.“ Nedda shook her head. „My uncle was alive for years after I stabbed Humboldt.“

„No, that’s the story you got from your family. And the real story? After two years as guardian, James Winter’s signatures were forged on all his checks. He was dead. You stabbed him to death when you were fourteen years old. He died in Maine the night he came back to kill you.“ She held up both sets of cards. „Walter McReedy was right. Fingerprints can’t lie. Your uncle and Humboldt were the same man.“

Mallory waited out a long silence in something close to pity or mercy – as close as she could come to these qualities. She had just told this woman that her life in hiding had been for nothing – that she could have gone home to grow up in her own house with Cleo and Lionel – her family. And now the truth was slowly, quietly killing Nedda Winter.

„If you like… I could get you a cup of tea,“ said Mallory, as if she had not just destroyed this woman.

Nedda reached out for the detective’s hand, but she must have sensed that her touch would be unwelcome, and she withdrew.

„These are just copies.“ Mallory slid the fingerprint cards across the table, making a little bridge to Nedda Winter with these sorry bits of paper. „You can keep them… if you like.“

The woman’s mouth opened wide to emit a strangled cry. She doubled over as if her great pain were physical and her wounds mortal. And then came the tears.

And now Mallory knew what she must do.

She left the room to fetch a cup of tea. The magical properties of this drink were writ large in her inherited rule book for life in Copland. Tea was a detective’s official bandage for grief and tears – so said her foster father. Coffee made people jittery, Lou Markowitz would say, and soda’s just as bad. Oh, but a cup of tea could soothe all the bloodless wounds, the killer pain that came with the worst news of life and death in New York City. Mallory had simply accepted this arcane lore and gave it equal credence with her store of instructions for the best way to bag blood-soaked clothing and the meaning of maggots in a ripe corpse.

Tea would fix Nedda Winter.

The three of them silently advanced down the hospital corridor, but Cleo and Lionel were not part of Sheldon Smyth’s united front. They had reservations, and Sheldon must have sensed this for he turned to his ex-wife, saying, „Cleo, we simply can’t leave Bitty here.“

„Why not?“

„It doesn’t matter now,“ said Lionel Winter. „The decision’s been made for us. Bitty isn’t going anywhere.“ He pointed to the end of the corridor and the police guard posted outside of his niece’s room.

„He won’t be a problem,“ said Sheldon. „I can get a court order if it comes to that. I’m not without friends in this town.“

„And family,“ said Cleo. Indeed, there were Smyth connections to all the major fortunes of New York City. They were prolific with their seed, all but sterile Sheldon. He had been forced to adopt his family’s bastards, Paul and Bitty, the cuckoo’s eggs planted in other people’s bloodlines.

„Bitty will be in my custody,“ said Sheldon.

„Weil see,“ countered his ex-wife. Lionel stood at her side to form a little wall of two that would brook no resistance. Cleo left her ex-husband to the chore of cowing the young policeman while, against the officer’s protests, she and Lionel walked into Bitty’s hospital room.

Charles Butler entered the interrogation room to find Nedda with her eyes red and swollen. Her face was wet with tears.

He held his arm out and she took it, allowing him to raise her from the table. As they moved toward the door, she did an odd thing, considering whom she was dealing with tonight. Nedda rested one hand on Mallory’s shoulder and lightly kissed her hair. The young detective never moved. She only sat there, rigid, unyielding – alone.

Charles and his elder companion strolled arm-in-arm out of the police station and down the narrow SoHo street, heading in the direction of his apartment building.

She corrected his premature judgment on her weeping. „Mallory has given me the greatest gift. I’ve never been so happy.“

Charles struggled with the image of Mallory as a bringer of gifts and joy. However, it was hard to argue with the evidence of this smiling woman at his side.

She pressed the precious fingerprint cards to her breast. „You know it was Bitty who told me that they were alive – my brother and sister. I had something to live for, someone to come home to. You can’t know how badly I wanted my family back.“ She paused in a pool of lamplight and studied her cards. „Now, thanks to Mallory, I can prove that I was innocent, and that I never abandoned them or stopped loving them.“

An hour later, Charles was still coming to terms with the gift, terrible and wonderful, that Nedda had received at the police station. Oh, the waste of all those years. Tonight, this woman glowed by candlelight that softened the evidence of age, and he could see what her alternate life might have been: far from the narrow confinement of hospitals, her intelligence and grace, wealth and beauty would have laid open the entire world for Nedda Winter. He found her lack of bitterness remarkable, and so he was the one who felt the profound sense of loss. They sat at the kitchen table, sharing a late evening repast of wine, a wide selection of cheeses and a generous assortment of oven-warm croissants stuffed with sweetmeats. Charles fobbed this off as snack therapy.

Stuffed with his good intentions of excess food, his houseguest pushed back from the table. „This is so charming – a psychologist who holds sessions in the kitchen. How wise. So cozy and secure.“

„Good,“ he said, „I’m glad you approve. The next session is breakfast.“

Nedda glanced at her watch. „I wonder if Bitty’s asleep. I suppose it’s too late to call her at the hospital.“

„No need to worry about her. I think it’ll do Bitty good to be out of that house for a night. And you, too.“ He had made up the spare room and intended to bar Mallory from the door indefinitely, even if it meant laying his body down across the threshold. „Tomorrow night, we’ll have your brother and sister over here for dinner.“

„And that, of course, means group therapy.“

„And down the road, we’ll include your niece when she’s ready.“

„Charles, did you find it odd that Bitty never wanted to move out of Winter House and get a place of her own?“

„No, not at all. I don’t think she’ll be able to leave until she has her mother’s approval. I assume that’s the reason she went looking for you – to finally please her mother.“

„She got no thanks for that. With just a few words, Uncle James made me believe that I was the prime suspect. I’m sure he had an easier time convincing two younger children.“

„You’re quite sure he did that?“

„Yes. It was pretty obvious the first time I saw them at the hospice. Horrible, isn’t it? For Lionel and Cleo, I mean. No wonder they spent all their time at the summer house. And poor Bitty. Not the response she expected from them, but she couldn’t take back her gift. And now – this suicide attempt. I’ve been such a disappointment to her.“

Bitty Smyth stepped out of the Rolls-Royce. Her father and mother held her arms as they supported her – imprisoned her, and Uncle Lionel drove off to the parking garage with his precious car. Bitty looked up at the only home she had ever known and its dark parlor windows so like dispassionate eyes. Winter House did not care what transpired within tonight, not because it was inanimate, but because it had grown accustomed to the lack of love and the plethora of death.