Winter House

Chapter 4

CHARLES BUTLER’S SUITE OF OFFICES WAS EQUIPPED WITH AN ultramodern kitchen, and Mallory was always upgrading the technology. Most of the appliances had secret lives of their own and functions that he could only guess at, but the one that he resented most was the high-tech coffeemaker. As a confirmed Luddite, he preferred his brew untouched by computer chips.

This morning he ground his own beans, as usual, percolated the coffee over an old-fashioned gas flame, then carried the cup and saucer across the hall to a door that bore the gold letters of Buder and Company on frosted glass. Once it had said Mallory and Butler, but again, the police department had frowned upon this flagrant breach of policy against using investigative skills in the private sector. The absence of her name on the door was at least an attempt at discretion.

Charles took a deep breath while fitting his key in the lock. He would only have six seconds to disable the burglar alarm, all the time that Mallory’s programming would allow him, and he was not likely to forget that – ever. The deafening siren had once jangled his brain and entirely cured his absentmindedness.

But the door was not locked.

Well, this was not a promising start to any day, not in New York City. Only two other people had keys: his cleaning woman, Mrs. Ortega, never came this early, and his business partner never came this late. He glanced at his wristwatch. Right about now, Mallory would be entering the SoHo police station, her only legally sanctioned workplace.

He pushed open the door and found that the reception area was in good order, and nothing appeared to be missing. The antique furniture in this room was costly, but burglars would probably prefer more portable items – like Mallory’s wildly expensive electronics.

He walked down a narrow hallway to the back rooms, moving at the leisurely pace of a man who is heavily insured. Mallory’s private office was dimly lit by the glow of a computer projection on a large pull-down screen. He stared at the wall-size portrait of a redheaded child standing nine feet tall. A smaller scale of this same picture appeared on three computer monitors, but for some reason, the detective felt the need to see this little girl blown up. So absorbed was Mallory that she had not noticed him yet.

Charles watched one painted image blend into another. In this new portrait, the red-haired girl wore the uniform of a private school, and she posed with her legs draped over the upholstered arms of a chair. Just a trace of white underpants was showing. Computer clicks and whirs announced the next painting, and this one was memorable. This was the jewel of the Quentin Winter collection, the only major work of art by an otherwise minor painter. This was the artist’s child, and she was naked. There was only a gentle swelling where breasts would be one day. More paintings clicked by in quick succession, and he felt like a voyeur watching Nedda Winter go through all the stages of her prepubescent life, nine feet tall on Mallory’s wall, a young giant.

„Do you see what I see?“ asked Mallory, without turning around.

So much for being able to walk up behind her unnoticed. After the next click, Mallory was once again bathed in the light of the famous Red Winter painting. He well understood her question. „Well, the artist wouldn’t be the first to paint his own child au nature!.“

„That bastard singled her out,“ said Mallory. „Nedda was one of nine kids. He painted a lot of nude women, but she was the only child.“

„You believe he molested his daughter based on nothing more than a painting?“

„I’m ninety percent sure.“

Charles did not care for the sound of that. He would prefer not to go to certain corners of Mallory’s early life, undoubtedly the source of her expertise. Turning to face the projection on the wall, he recalled a wallet photo that his old friend Louis Markowitz had carried, a small portrait of his foster child. At the age of the young girl on the wall, Kathy Mallory had possessed those same wary eyes. Her early days on the streets had been hard and hardening. Nedda Winter, however, had been a child of wealth and luxury. Not at all the same case, and this might argue for a troubled home life in Winter House.

And molestation?

His mind now poisoned, he had to wonder, against his will, if the title word red denoted the color of young Nedda’s hair or her rape.

Mallory switched on the overhead fluorescent tubes, and the room became entirely too bright. Light bounced off glass monitors, gleaming metal furnishings and electronic components. The carpet was an institutional gray, no doubt selected to disguise the wood floors as cement. She crossed the room, heading toward the steel blinds that hid the graceful lines of arched windows. Her computers were dead for the moment. When they were powered up, they hummed in communication with one another, and she with them. When the machines were alive, the psychological temperature of her private office was always ten degrees below a normal person’s comfort zone.

The viewing screen was raised with the press of a remote-control button and sent rolling back up into its metal cylinder near the ceiling molding. A cork bulletin board that spanned the entire wall was now exposed with all its papers pinned up at perfect right angles, and each sheet was equidistant from the next. Mallory’s pushpin style had machine precision.

If her lovely face was incongruous in these environs, what lay beneath was not. And what truly moved him, what touched him most, was that she could have no idea that this room exposed her personal quirks, her own clicks and whirs, all the most chilling departures from her fellow creatures. This office was Mallory naked for all to see – so vulnerable.

And what did she see when she looked at him? Was it something sad and pathetic? Or was he comical in her eyes?

They could never tell one another the truth. They were friends.

„All right,“ said Mallory. „Let’s say Quentin Winter molested his daughter. Could you make a case for the girl as a spree killer?“

„What? Nedda? I was under the impression that an outsider killed all those people.“

„An ice pick killed them,“ she said. „And that dead burglar the other night? He wasn’t killed with the shears. It was a pick to the heart, same as all the victims in the massacre.“

„I see the problem.“ He sat down at the edge of Mallory’s desk. „Back in the forties, did anyone suspect the child?“

„No, but I might.“

Ah, but then Mallory suspected everyone of something.

„So I gather,“ said Charles, „that the father had multiple stab wounds?“

„No. It was a single strike to the heart, all nine victims.“

Here he might point out that this indicated no rage, zero animosity, but Mallory had not asked him to point out flaws in her logic. And now he had to wonder if she was putting herself in Nedda Winter’s place. Perhaps this was the way Mallory would have done it – as a child – in cold blood, efficient and quick.

„Revenge,“ he said, mulling over this idea. „So she kills her father for molestation, and then she does in the witnesses – all those people? Nedda was what, twelve years old?“

„Very tall for twelve.“ Mallory powered up the computer to display the Red Winter painting, and there was the evidence in the child’s proportions relative to her surroundings. „And after the massacre, this girl didn’t wait around for the cops.“

„I thought the newspapers ran with the theory of a psychotic killer and a kidnapping.“

„So did the cops,“ said Mallory. „What of it? It’s my case now. This killer was cold and precise. You can’t see it, can you? A very cold little girl working her way through the house, stabbing all those people.“

He could, but it was a smaller version of Mallory, and he would be a long time getting that picture out of his head.

She blanked the screen. „The only other option is a professional hitman with a money motive. Nothing personal, just a neat quick job. But there’s a hole in that theory.“

„All right, I see the stumbling block.“ And this time he found no fault in her logic. „If the children are the only ones who profit from the trust fund, then who paid for the – “

„No, that’s not it. I could work around that.“

„All right.“ A moment to regroup, thank you. „Professional killers don’t usually kidnap children.“

„They never do.“ She inclined her head, prompting him to continue.

„And it’s probably quite alarming to have one turn up in a house full of people.“ So far so good, no stumbles yet. „Whereas, a member of the family could move through the house at leisure, taking victims by surprise without alerting the entire household.“

She nodded to say, Now you ‘ve got it.

„Well, not to be argumentative.“ He held up his hands, even realizing that this was a defensive posture that said, Don’t shoot me, all right? It’s only conjecture. „Here’s another scenario. What if it was a professional assassin. And what if Nedda saw him in time to make a run for it?“ Charles knew he was making a mistake in offering his own theory, but he could not stop himself. „The killer would have to chase her down, wouldn’t he? Suppose he lost her outside, maybe in the park across the street? Then you’d have a little girl who thought she couldn’t go home again. Home was where the monster would be waiting for her. So the theory of a runaway child could – “

„It works for me.“ Riker stood in the open doorway, wearing a suit and tie of a different color; otherwise, it would not have been apparent that he had changed his clothes from yesterday. „Yeah. A runaway. Good work, Charles.“ The man smiled, and this was tantamount to squaring off against Mallory when he faced her and said, „I don’t think Nedda Winter killed all those people.“

Mallory’s arms folded across her breast in a warning sign that she was not happy with this division in the ranks.

Riker shrugged and lit a cigarette to say, Well, that’s just tough.

And now she turned on innocent Charles, who had only offered the most -

„So,“ she said. „I’m guessing Nedda didn’t volunteer any details about where she’d been for the past fifty-eight years.“

„No,“ said Charles. „Sorry. I never thought to ask.“

„Did you get us anything,“ asked Riker, „anything at all?“

„Maybe,“ he said. „Breakfast, anyone?“

Long ago, Bitty’s room had belonged to Robert the Reader, eight years old with thick lenses in his spectacles that made his blue eyes larger, more tender. Each time Nedda Winter entered this bedroom, she saw her brother sprawled on the window seat, a book held by small dead hands, a tiny hole in his pajamas and a bit of blood from his young heart.

Nedda sat down at the edge of the bed and lifted a glass to Bitty’s lips. „Just drink it, dear. You don’t want to know what’s in it.“

Her niece obediently swallowed a mixture of raw egg, milk and steak sauce.

„My father favored that hangover remedy,“ said Nedda.

„Was he a drunk?“

„Well, yes, dear, but, in those days, who wasn’t?“ She took the emptied glass and set it on the bedside table. „And he only drank after three o’clock. He had rules.“

„Was my grandfather a violent man?“

Ah, back to the theory of Edwina Winter’s murder. „No. The only thing that aroused any passion in him was a fight with my stepmother. Sometimes Lionel got a light swat on his backside. He was always getting in between his parents, trying to protect his mother. Not that she needed any help. She always had something heavy in her hand whenever she went after my father.“

„I can’t imagine Uncle Lionel as a boy.“

„I think you would’ve liked him then. He was the only one of the children who ever stood up to my father. He was a brave one. I loved him for that.“

„Did you love your father?“

„Yes, but Lionel loved him more. Sometimes I think he took those hits just to get Daddy’s attention.“

Bitty pushed her covers aside, then, after a grimace of pain, thought better of moving so rashly. She lay back on her pillow. „What about the others? Do you remember Sally?“

„Of course. She was the baby of the family, a newborn. She cried a lot. That’s why the nursery was at the top of the house. And she wasn’t well. I remember a steady stream of doctors marching up the staircase to examine her.“

„What was my mother like?“

„She was only five when I – left. A very loving child. Big sunny smile. Poor little Cleo. She must’ve thought that I’d abandoned her. And I suppose I did.“

„Aunt Nedda, I’m so sorry about last night. That business about your mother – “ She turned her face into the pillow.

„It’s all right, Bitty. I told you, I never knew my own mother. Your murder theory didn’t upset me at all. I know my father didn’t kill her. His second wife, Alice, was a copy of Edwina. What does that tell you?“

„He loved her?“

„Madly. Once, before I was born, they were separated for a week. They wrote to each other every day. Their love letters are in her trunk up in the attic. You should read them. I know all the lines by heart.“

A small voice screamed, „What?“ It was Rags. The lame cockatiel had left its cage and now worked its way up the bedspread, climbing toward its mistress by beak and claw.

„Poor thing,“ said Nedda. „What happened to him? Why can’t he fly?“

„His wing was crushed by the window sash. It just fell on him. No, it slammed on him. I saw it happen. Mother said the house doesn’t like birds.“

„No, it doesn’t,“ said Nedda. „Every year after the first frost, we’d find a dead bird outside on one of the window ledges. The house doesn’t like flies either.“ She stared at the dead dry insect on Bitty’s sill. „That’s what old Mrs. Tully used to say. She was the housekeeper when I was a little girl. Tully always said, ‘You might see a dead fly every now and then, but you’ll never hear a live one buzz – at least, not for long.’“

„Was she insane?“ Bitty’s hand flew up to cover her mouth, as if she had just committed a social faux pas, calling attention to an infirmity in front of a cripple. And now, realizing her blunder, she seemed on the verge of tears.

Nedda gave her niece a smile of reassurance, then dipped one hand into the pocket of her robe. „There’s something else we have to talk about.“ She withdrew a small worn box and held it up for Bitty to see. „Remember this? Last night at dinner?“ The box was heavily lacquered cardboard, not machine made, but one of a kind, handcrafted and painted with the tarot image of the hanged man.

A memento mod from days in hell.

Nedda opened the box and pulled out the deck. The card of destruction, an image of a burning tower, was on the top. „Tell me where you found my tarot cards.“

The bookcases that lined Charles Buder’s library were fifteen feet tall, necessitating a ladder slanting from the top-shelf railing to the floor.

High in the air, he rolled along on its wheels as he searched for the volume that Mallory wanted. „A friend of my father’s gave it to me. He said my New York History section would be incomplete without it.“

Though he had never considered reading the book, it had been stored on the upper shelf with similar volumes. After perusing the first page, he had found the writing inferior, but it would have been bad manners and literary heresy to toss the book in die trash. Now where was it?

Well, this was embarrassing.

The book was not where it ought to be. A few years might have passed since he had placed it here, but how could it be lost? After generations of librarians had inculcated him with rules, he was virtually incapable of losing a book by placing it on a shelf out of order. Each volume’s spine was tagged with the Library of Congress number to ensure against such losses.

But now he noticed that none of the books on the top shelf were in their proper places.

No, this could not happen, not to him.

He glanced down at Mallory. She was staring at his recently delivered club chairs, six of them arranged in a circle. In their midst one might expect to find – oh, say, a priceless piece of furniture with a provenance dating back to 1846 and great historical significance. However, inside the wide circle of chairs there was nothing but his memory of a page from an antique catalogue.

She lifted her face to his. „Charles, you’ve been robbed.“

„No, I gave away my card table after I bought another one. It would’ve been delivered this morning… if not for a warehouse fire last night.“

He turned back to his problem of the lost book and discovered that the top shelf was free of dust. All was clear to him now. Apparently, his cleaning woman had actually dusted up here, fifteen feet in the air, then rearranged all the books by height so the line of the topmost shelf would not appear so uneven. Mrs. Ortega’s mania for neatness was second only to Mallory’s. Rather than undo all of the woman’s hard work, he politely memorized the new order of his books.

Mallory called up to him from the foot of the ladder. „So you thought a new table might improve your poker game?“

„No.“ Well – yes. Charles was not as crippled by magical thinking as some people, but historical memorabilia could be psychologically empowering. And in the game of poker -

„You know,“ she said, „you’d have to cheat to beat those bastards.“

He sighed.

She was right. Psychology would not save him. He had the wrong sort of face for the game, expressions that gave up every thought and emotion. Worse, he had inherited his mother’s deep red blush that made a lie or a bluff nearly impossible to pull off. Regrettably, he had been genetically programmed to be an honest man and a poor poker player.

The bastards, as Mallory affectionately called them, were the charter members of a very old floating poker game. Upon the death of her foster father, Louis Markowitz, Charles had inherited a seat in the game and three new friends. Next week, the poker game would have been in his apartment, played at an antique table once graced by a famous politician and world-class card player. „The table wasn’t exactly new. President Ulysses S. Grant once sat in on a game at – “

Oh, what the hell. That bit of history was burned to a crisp.

He knew that Mallory took a dim view of the weekly poker game. It was entirely too friendly for her tastes, only penny-ante stakes, or, as she would say, chump change. She also objected to wild cards that changed with the phases of the moon or the dates for recycled trash pickups. Once, she had complained that the game was a close cousin to an old lady’s Bingo night at church.

„This week,“ said Charles, „the game’s at Robin’s house. If you want to come, I’m sure they’ll all be happy to play by your rules.“

Apparently, fleecing her father’s old friends in a fast game of cutthroat, rob-and-run poker was hardly tempting. Fat chance, said her eyes. However, she did run one hand over the new chairs, approving the grade of leather.

He rolled the ladder down to the end of the wall, and his eyes locked onto the title he had been searching for. „Found it. It’s roughly a thousand pages.“

This news seemed to pain her. „Can you give me the gist of it?“

„I never read it.“ He looked down at his copy of The Winter House Massacre. „Not my sort of thing.“

„It’s that bad?“

„Well, the information should be sound enough. The author’s an accredited historian. Now I wish I had read it. Would’ve saved me some embarrassment last night.“ He climbed down the ladder to stand beside Mallory. „You might’ve warned me that Nedda was Red Winter.“

„Honest surprise worked better.“ She stared at the dust jacket and its single drop of illustrated blood „But I knew the story of Winter House.“ What New Yorker, born and bred, did not? „Where does the advantage of surprise come in?“

Mallory patiendy waited him out, and now he must admit that he had not even recognized the address while visiting the crime scene. And, like most people who believe they know all the details of historical events, he had not understood the significance of an ice pick in Winter House of all houses.

„Last night,“ she said, „it would’ve been suspicious if you knew who Nedda was.“

„She’s right,“ said a voice behind him.

Charles turned to see Riker walking across the library, a cup of coffee in hand and probably wondering when the rest of his breakfast would be ready. The detective lacked the patience for homemade croissants.

„Don’t feel bad,“ said Riker. „After fifty-eight years, only a cop would’ve made the connection to Nedda Winter – and not just any cop. It even took me awhile, and I was raised on that story. The only name most people knew her by was Red Winter.“

Mrs. Ortega’s vacuum cleaner preceded her into the library, and all conversation stopped. The wiry little woman with dark Spanish eyes and a Brooklyn accent said, „Pick up your damn feet,“ as she moved the sucking nozzle perilously close to Riker’s scruffy shoes. She switched the machine off just long enough to curl her lip while passing judgment on his suit. After pulling a wad of paper slips from her apron, she stuffed them into the man’s breast pocket. „Those are dry-cleaning coupons. You know what you have to do.“ And now the vacuum powered up to move back and forth across the rug.

Charles handed the book to Riker and raised his voice to be heard over the noise. „Here, a gift. Might be rather dry reading. This author is known for that.“

„I read it,“ said Riker.

„You what?“ The vacuum cleaner switched off, and Mrs. Ortega observed a moment of silent disbelief. Previously, this detective had only admitted to reading the sports pages. And never mind the book’s cover art. Lurid drop of painted blood aside, this was a thick book. She steered the vacuum cleaner out of the room with mutterings of damn miracles.

As an apology for literacy, Riker shrugged and said, „I had to read it. The massacre was my bedtime story when I was a kid.“ He hefted the book in one hand. „But this wouldn’t have helped you last night. The guy who wrote it never mentioned Nedda’s real name. He only calls her Red Winter.

So much for historians, huh?“ He opened the volume to the title page. „My copy’s autographed.“

When they were all seated around the table in Charles’s kitchen, the batch of oven-warm croissants quickly disappeared. The detectives had not paused to savor the buttery flakes; they had inhaled them with their coffee, then made short work of the crepes. Now and then, one of them would stop feeding to extract information from him, rather than relying on his recollection of events. Perhaps he was inclined to be too wordy, possibly trying their short – „At the time of the murders,“ said Mallory, keeper of the body count, „there were nine children and four adults living in Winter House.“

„And four children survived the massacre.“ Charles used a napkin to mark the book page that would allow him to recite their names in birth order.

„But there ‘re only three left,“ said Mallory. „You didn’t buy the story of Sally Winter as a runaway?“

„I didn’t say that. I said it didn’t quite ring true in all the details. Lionel had an odd reaction that I couldn’t put down to – Oh, how should I put this?“

„Put it briefly,“ said Riker. „If you weren’t such a good cook, Mallory would’ve shot you twenty minutes ago.“

She nodded, as if in agreement, while reading the marked passage on the youngest Winter child. „This author follows Cleo and Lionel from grammar school through the college years. He’s got dates of enrollments and graduations. But all he’s got on Sally is her date of birth.“ She looked up at Charles. „Could be another homicide. Did you question them about it?“

„Well… no. After Bitty’s little exhibition on the staircase, the rest of them were sliding into shock. It would have been rude to ask if they’d murdered Baby Sally.“

By the rapid clicking of Mallory’s pen, he deduced that a simple no would have sufficed.

„Good for Bitty,“ said Riker, who was apparendy allowed to make extraneous remarks between forkfuls of strawberry crepes. „I never thought she had it in her.“

„She had to get drunk to do it,“ said Charles. „She’s a passive-aggressive personality. It was wildly out of character to – “

„How aggressive?“ Mallory leaned forward, liking this detail.

„Oh, not in the physical sense. She’ll take a sniper shot from the woods, but it’s strictly verbal. I think Nedda was being truthful when she confessed to killing that burglar the other night. Bitty simply could not have done that.“

„I never thought she did,“ said Mallory, and her tone was a rather pointed reminder that she had said as much the other night and disliked repeating herself. „Bitty’s a mouse.“

Riker was more charitable. „But last night she nailed her whole family.“

„I’m guessing that was a tactic to get attention,“ said Charles. „Bitty’s emotional maturity is a bit stunted.“

„What gave her away?“ asked Riker. „Was it the prom dress or the teddy bears in her room?“

Charles ducked this sarcasm by filling his mouth with food. Last night, the significance of Bitty’s outlandish makeup and dinner dress had nearly escaped him. At first, he had believed that her mother must have engineered that fashion travesty. Later, he had realized his error. Cleo Winter-Smyth would never have taken that much interest in her daughter. The mother had simply neglected to save her child from ridicule. The absence of parental bonding would explain a great deal. And now he quietly cleaned his plate, having learned not to volunteer any more elaborate explanations.

Riker wore a satisfied smile as he laid his napkin to one side. „So it’s a dysfunctional family.“

„A bit more bizarre than that,“ said Charles, filling Riker’s coffee cup and instantly forgetting all his lessons in brevity. „There’s no real family dynamic. They’re like islands, all of them. I had the distinct feeling that Sheldon Smyth was only going through the motions of playing a father to Bitty. Same thing with Cleo and Lionel. Correct responses without any matching nuances in tone or expression.“

„I got it,“ said Riker. „Like a pack of aliens imitating a human family?“

„Exactly. It suggests – “

„You haven’t mentioned Nedda yet.“ Mallory tapped her pen on the table. „How did she fit in?“

„She didn’t. I’d say she was more of a watcher on the sidelines. Though I did see genuine affection for Bitty. And there was a bit of tension with her sister and brother. Nedda never exhibited any aberrant behavior-if that’s what you’re asking.“

„But she’s been away for a long time,“ said Riker. „We think she’s been institutionalized.“

„Well, I could be wrong,“ said Charles, „but in a case like that, you’d expect to see more signs of – “

„Vm positive“ said Mallory, „and I know it wasn’t prison. We ran her prints. No criminal record.“

Charles pushed back from the table. „So you think she’s been in an asylum all these years? Well then – that dinner party should’ve made her feel quite at home. But she was the normal one at the table. And quite charming.“

He could see that Riker was also rejecting Mallory’s idea of Nedda as a certified lunatic with a bloody past. This detective was Charles’s only ally in the theory of an innocent runaway child. The man seemed very much on Nedda’s side, wanting to believe in her.

However, when the subject turned to an old deck of tarot cards produced at the dinner table last night, a deck belonging to Nedda Winter, the light in Riker’s eyes simply died.

A light breakfast had revitalized Bitty Smyth, and now she climbed toward the top of the house, almost cheerful as she led the expedition to the attic.

Following close behind her niece, Nedda Winter pressed close to the banister to avoid treading upon the corpses of her stepmother and her father. On the third floor, they passed the door to Henry’s room, where the budding artist, four years of age, lay dead among his sticks of chalk and pencils and drawing papers. Her little brother Wendell, only seven when he died, lay on the floor of the next room.

Upward they climbed, passing a hall closet where her nine-year-old sister, Erica, huddled in terror and absolute darkness, listening for the footsteps of a monster and hoping that death would pass her by. Nedda trod quietly past this door and fancied that she could hear the beat of a child’s wild heart.

I’m so sorry.

The staircase narrowed as they approached the last landing below the attic. Here she skirted a small corpse on the stairs. Mary had escaped the nursery in a two-year-old’s version of mad flight, and she had died in a toddle down the steps.

The dead were invisible to Bitty, who resided solidly in the present. Nedda lived much of her life in the past, where the nanny on the hallway carpet was more recently deceased, the flesh still warm, and the bit of blood on her breast had not yet dried. Nedda looked down at the face of this teenager, Gwen Rawly, who had previously believed that she was immortal. The girl’s lips were parted, as if to ask Why? Beyond the young nanny’s body was the door of the nursery.

It was closed in the current century.

Bitty and Nedda paused beneath the great glass dome that crowned the fourth floor and divided the two attics. Here the stairs were split like a forked tongue. The steps curving to their right led to the north attic used for storage. Bitty climbed toward the south attic, a repository for personal effects of the dead. This was a family custom begun in the eighteen hundreds.

Following her niece, Nedda entered the narrow room of slanting rafters and the old familiar smells of rotting history and dust. It was illuminated by a row of small gabled windows, and appeared to be unchanged. Early memories were clear pictures in her mind, all that she had had to feed upon for so many years.

She looked at the trunks stacked in rows and representing generations of her forebearers. The contents were the odds and ends of life on earth. Her eyes gravitated to her mother’s trunk. As a child, she had spent many hours counting up the dresses, lace handkerchiefs, hairpins and such, souvenirs of a woman who had loved her, a woman who had died when Nedda was too young to memorize her living face. This morning, she passed it by, following her niece between the rows of the murdered Winters, adults and children.

„You know what this place reminds me of?“ Bitty reached up to pull on strings that switched on the overhead bulbs as she walked the length of the attic. „Early Christian catacombs, corpses stacked up like cordwood. Of course, there are no actual bodies.“

All the brass plates on this row of trunks had been polished by a ringer through the dust, the better to make out the letters etched in old-fashioned script. Nedda knelt on the floor to read the names.

Bitty squatted down beside her. „I couldn’t find a trunk for Baby Sally. It’s not in the north attic or the basement.“ She looked up at her aunt. „Sally had a trunk of her own, didn’t she?“

„Yes, dear, we all did. I remember Sally’s trunk was at the foot of her crib.“

There had been no family conversation on this subject, no catching up on one more death in the family. She had asked no questions of Lionel and Cleo, not wanting to open the door to any more sorrows. And she had thought it unnecessary. An early demise had been foretold for the baby on the day she was born. Her heart ailment had been some grave defect in the bloodline of Quentin Winter’s second wife, Alice.

„You might find this interesting.“ Bitty reached behind the row of trunks and pulled out a canvas sack, yellowed and cracked with age. „Have a look.“

Nedda opened the drawstring and emptied the contents onto the floor. Among the clothing was a little girl’s sailor suit of rotted fabric. The years had been unkind to these artifacts stored outside of the cedar-lined trunks. The next item retrieved from the pile was a christening gown, and it fell apart in her hands. All that held together was the little bit of material embroidered with Sally’s initials. Nedda’s hand passed over small moldy stuffed toys and books of nursery rhymes. She tenderly picked through the rest of the clothing in the varying sizes of a growing child who had lived for three or four years following the massacre.

Bitty folded the child’s clothing and placed it in the sack. „My father said Sally ran away the year that Lionel turned twenty-one. So she would’ve been ten years old. But where’s her trunk? Can you imagine a ten-year-old girl dragging her trunk with her when she ran away from home?“

„No,“ said Nedda, „I can’t.“

Sally had never run anywhere. A legion of heart specialists had all predicted a very short life of invalidism. Did Bitty know this? Nedda could not ask, and there were other questions that would never be answered. Had Sheldon Smyth lied about Sally running away from home, or had someone, Cleo or Lionel, lied to him? Nedda had lost the heart to go on with this disturbance of the dead. „Where is my trunk?“

Bitty stood up and walked to the end of the row of murdered children. One trunk had been segregated from all the rest and pushed to the wall. „This one. You were never legally declared dead, but I guess they gave up on you after a while.“ She opened the lid. „But this isn’t where I found your tarot cards.“

Nedda joined her niece by the wall and read her own name on a brass plate. In the context of this attic, it was like viewing her gravestone. She followed Bitty to the far corner of the attic, the resting place of an old standing trunk larger than all the others and plastered with travel stickers. What was this old piece of luggage doing in the attic of dead Winters?

Bitty opened it like a closet. „I found Uncle James’s passport in here, and that’s odd because he has a regular trunk like the others. It’s stored in the north attic.“

„This is a steamer trunk,“ said Nedda. „Your grandparents used it for ocean voyages.“ She examined the drawers that lined one side. In the last one, she found a jumble of bright colors, cheap, gaudy clothing that stirred a memory.

„I found a long red hair,“ said Bitty. „It was snagged in the tarot card box.“ She turned to look at the bottom drawer her aunt had opened. „That’s where I found the cards. And there were short red clippings in all of those clothes, so I wondered if your hair – “

„Yes, it was cut off… very short.“ Short as a boy’s. Nedda recalled her waist-long hair falling to the floor. The snip of the scissors – it seemed like only this morning. She had been sitting on a wooden chair in a small shabby room with tattered pulled-down shades while this mutilation covered the floor. The red strands had come alive, curling and writhing in the wake of a large cockroach moving through the pile of clippings. And Nedda had cried all the while, listening to the steady beat of rain against the window – the snip of scissors.

Bitty pulled a dress from the lower drawer. „Now this is the same size as the ones in your trunk, but otherwise nothing like them.“

Indeed, this was rather poor fare for the child of a wealthy family. Nedda well understood her niece’s curiosity. Unable to get any reliable information from her family, Bitty had produced the tarot cards at the dinner table, hoping for answers via surprise attack. And now this – gentle ambush.

„I had a theory about Sally,“ said Bitty, „I thought maybe – years after the massacre – you came back for her.“ Intrepid Bitty.

The detectives talked as they walked through Greenwich Village, breaking off their conversation whenever they were assailed by tourists with a wild, lost look about them. Grid logic was abandoned here, where West Fourth Street ran amok to bisect West Tenth Street. Two gray-haired people stood at this crossroad, unable to move on, gaping at the improbable street sign and willing it to make sense.

„I can’t believe we’re doing this.“ Annoyed, Mallory waved off this elderly couple, souring the message on their I-Love-New-York tote bags.

„It’s not much farther.“ Riker flicked his cigarette into a gutter. „And it’s worth the trip. This is the only place in town where you can find a tarot card reader and an ice-pick murder in one conveniently located square block. It’s the neighborhood where Stick Man screwed up royally – a killing close to home.“

Mallory opened her borrowed copy of The Winter House Massacre and removed the brochure she had used for a bookmark. It had been written by the same author, and now she reiterated the title with sarcasm. „A guided tour of murder in Greenwich Village?“

„The guy never made much money publishing the book. Bad writer if you ask me. So he makes a living with this walking tour.“

„If you’ve already taken the tour, why do we have to waste – “

„And there he is now.“ Riker nodded toward a small cluster of people on the sidewalk and their tour guide, a middle-aged, chinless, hairless man, who was barely five feet tall.

Martin Pinwitty was addressing his less than rapt audience of out-of-towners. Only tourists would politely listen to his monotonous drone while their eyes glazed over with fatigue. Any New York crowd would have left footprints on the author’s face by now. The man actually managed to bore them with the story of a mob-financed killing machine and details of murders by gun and baseball bat and, Riker’s personal favorite, the ice pick. The group’s interest was suddenly revived when Pinwitty told them that they were standing on the very site of an ice-pick murder. They all looked down at their feet, perhaps expecting to find bloodstains more than half a century later.

„They always do that,“ said Riker, hanging back with Mallory at the edge of the tour group.

„How many times did you take this tour?“ Something in her tone of voice implied that she had lost all respect for him.

„I check in once a year. This guy’s still doing research, and his spiel is always changing.“

Martin Pinwitty and his tour group walked a few paces down the sidewalk, and the lecture continued. „The victim was a reporter who covered the hearings on Murder Incorporated in the early forties. Now that investigation was over years before this murder took place. I believe the reporter had uncovered some new evidence on a professional assassin.“

Mallory glanced at Riker, who nodded, saying, „I think he got this part right.“

And the author droned on, saying, „The police made a very thorough search of this area. They spent days questioning all the residents on this block. And then it was the fortuneteller’s turn.“ He pointed to a narrow building across the street. „The woman’s storefront was right there.“

The tour group turned in unison to stare at a bodega with neon signs for beer and smokes. A drunk stood before its front window vomiting on his shoes. Yet this view held special charms for the sidewalk audience.

„The police took great interest in the fortuneteller,“ said Pinwitty. „She was the only one they brought in for questioning at the police station. And there she died. According to the obituary, it was a cerebral hemorrhage.“

„That’s wrong,“ said Riker, speaking low so as not to interfere with the dry static of the ongoing monologue. „It was way more interesting than that.“

„So what’s the real story?“

„This is secondhand. I was only a kid when I heard it, and this was more than twenty years after it happened. The detectives left the fortuneteller sitting on a bench for maybe five minutes while they freed up an interview room. When they came back for the old lady, the cop on guard duty was bending over her dead body. The uniform tells the detectives she was sitting up one minute, dead the next, and there was nobody near her when she keeled over. Well, they’re hunting for an ice-pick killer, right? And thanks to a slew of exhumed corpses in the early forties, they’re hip to the ice pick in the eardrum. It simulates a stroke. Well, sure enough, they shine a light in the woman’s ear and find blood from the pick. Now they interrogate the shit out of that cop.“

„The cop was dirty?“

„That’s what the detectives figured. Maybe the uniform took a few bucks to look the other way. Or maybe he did in the old lady himself. But no. According to the other witnesses, the cop just wasn’t paying attention when somebody stopped to talk with his prisoner. The old lady’s visitor was only there long enough to say hello and good-bye. A few seconds later, the old woman slumps forward. The cop jostles her shoulder and asks if she’s okay. That’s when she falls to the floor, stone dead. The killer walked right into a police station and killed this woman right under their noses. A real pro.“

„And the detectives covered it up.“

„You bet they did. This happened maybe ten or twelve days after the Winter House massacre. The newspapers would’ve crucified the whole department. So an ice-pick murder was passed off as a stroke and buried on the obituary page. Oh yeah,“ he said as an afterthought, „and that old lady was no crystal-ball gypsy. She only read tarot cards.“

„And she had a solid connection to the hitman.“

Riker nodded in Pinwitty’s direction. „He’s getting to that part now.“

The author pointed upward to a window on the second floor. „After the fortuneteller was taken away, that very night, in fact, that apartment was searched by detectives. On previous calls, the tenant had never been at home. That night they didn’t even bother to knock. Sadly, the tenant was gone and so were his things. No one was able to give the police a name or description. In fact, no one in the neighborhood could recall ever having seen the mysterious tenant even once, though he’d held the lease for years.“

Mallory nudged Riker. „So the fortuneteller’s storefront was a drop site for money, and the old lady brokered the hitman’s murders?“

„Yeah. Two different fortunetellers used the same location. They were both murdered, but Pinwitty doesn’t know that.“ Riker looked on as the author lost his audience. One by one, the escapees peeled off from the tour group. „But he did get a few things right.“ He looked up to the second-floor window. „When the detectives broke down the door, that apartment was clean, and I mean spotless. No prints anywhere. Ballsy, huh? Cops breathing down his neck, and he takes the time to wipe down the walls and the furniture.“

„And now we ‘ve got Nedda Winter with tarot cards at the dinner party,“ said Mallory. „You think Stick Man would kidnap a twelve-year-old girl to replace his old fortuneteller?“

„It’s a stretch. Remember, the girl disappeared from Winter House twelve days before the fortuneteller died.“

„If Stick Man thought the cops were closing in on his drop point, maybe he planned to break in the girl as his next tarot card reader – before he killed the old woman. Nedda was tall for twelve. She could’ve passed for a teenager.“

„Could be.“ In fact, Riker had already thought of this. But why would a hitman believe that a little girl might go along with that idea?

The spooky brat beside him read his mind. „Maybe,“ she said, „Nedda wasn’t all that broken up about the murders. Maybe she knew what was going to happen to her family before Stick Man showed up at the door.“

Riker gave this idea half a nod. „It’s possible.“ There were too many possibilities and they might all be wrong.

Mallory turned back to the author and his few remaining tourists. He had moved on down the street to the scene of another crime. She listened to the fading banter for another moment. „You said his research is an ongoing thing?“

At the bottom of the stairs, Lionel was waiting for them. Bitty shrank back, thinking of something better to do on the upper floor, and she retreated.

Sensible.

After last night, Bitty would not want a confrontation with her uncle.

Nedda accepted a cup of coffee from her brother’s hand. She was so absurdly grateful for this small gesture and hoping for something more, but he looked at her with such wariness. And hate? It was difficult to read Lionel’s thoughts anymore. As a child he had never been cold to her. There had been a bond between them once, the two eldest children against the confusing and sometimes violent world of their parents’ making.

When brother and sister were seated in the dining room, Nedda turned her gaze to the glass-paned doors that opened onto the back garden. It looked so mournful now, pruned back to a few shrubs and a single tree. Once, there had been a swing attached to the lowest bough. Her brother had preferred the higher climbs, the branches closer to the sky. He had been a beautiful, nimble boy with a sunbrowned face and perpetually skinned knees.

„And now,“ said Lionel, „you’re wondering about Baby Sally.“ Nedda shook her head. No, she had been hunting out of doors for some old memory to share with him, a common ground. She wanted only a bit of conversation and his company – nothing more.

„Cleo and I were away at school when Sally… when she left. I’ve given a lot of thought to that day. It was nothing that we did. We were – “

„Old history.“ Nedda dismissed the rest of his words with a wave. And now she wanted so much to reach across the table, to take his hand in hers and tell him how good it was to be home. However, in this moment, she was more the coward than Bitty. She anticipated Lionel shrinking away from her touch, withdrawing his hand and turning to ice.

Her own hands remained folded in her lap.

Martin Pinwitty was beside himself with happiness. Two genuine homicide detectives were visitors in his humble home – underscore the word humble. There was only one room, unless one counted the closet that housed a toilet, and Mallory did not. The bathtub, concealed by a broad wooden board, did double duty as a table, and the hide-a-bed sofa had been hastily folded away, one more sign of an impoverished make-do life.

Mallory could guess how much of this man’s meager income was daily sacrificed for stamps. Correspondence was piled on every surface that was not cluttered with page-marked books. The postmarks on his mail were wide-ranging, and a few envelopes had the return addresses of police departments in other states.

On the way to his apartment, Pinwitty had insisted on stopping at a bodega so that he might treat them to doughnuts on this special occasion, believing, as all civilians did, that this was a staple of every cop’s diet. And now both detectives, stuffed with Charles Butler’s croissants and crepes, ate their sugar doughnuts, while feigning gratitude and swilling tea that was unspeakably bad.

Riker shoveled more sugar into his cup. „So the reporter who died in the Village – that was the last ice-pick job?“

„For a professional assassin? Yes, I believe it was,“ said the author. „I have sources everywhere. If there’s an old unsolved murder with an ice pick, I hear about it. The pick was going out of vogue years before that man was murdered.“

After scanning one of Pinwitty’s files, a lengthy list of muggings and murders, Mallory set it aside, agreeing with Riker that this was an amateur investigation. „What about the freak who killed the Winter family? You think he retired after the massacre?“

„Oh, definitely,“ said Pinwitty. „That or he died. You know, once, I actually thought Red Winter had killed him. A man was stabbed with an ice pick in the state of Maine.“ He stood up and walked to a bookshelf crammed with texts, papers and manila envelopes. „I have a separate file for that one. Nothing ever came of it.“ He pulled out a folder and smiled. „I even went up to Maine for a few days to check it out.“

This piqued Mallory’s interest, for that little junket would’ve represented a lot of money for this impoverished little man.

Pinwitty settled into a chair and opened the folder on his lap. „I’ll tell you what made this incident so interesting. The victim of the stabbing was a man named Humboldt.“

Riker’s teacup was suspended in midair, all attention suddenly riveted to the author, and Mallory had to wonder what that was about.

Pinwitty continued. „Humboldt once shared a cell with a murder suspect in New Orleans. The cellmate was charged with the ice-pick murder of a politician.“

Riker’s cup clattered back to its saucer.

„Now this suspect – “ The author paused to bring the page a bit closer to his nearsighted eyes. „Oh, I don’t have a name for this one, but I know it began with an H. Well, no matter. Turned out the man was innocent. There’d been another murder while he was in custody. However, it occurred to me that Red Winter didn’t know that, and she might have mistaken Humboldt for the suspected ice-pick killer. Maybe she heard a confused report of the New Orleans murder. You see, the first time I heard this story – more like a rumor, actually – Humboldt was killed by a girl with red hair. I postulated that Red Winter might’ve hunted down the wrong man and killed the cellmate by mistake, believing that Humboldt was the one who murdered her parents.“

Mallory smiled. Ah, the penalties of bad scholarship – death. „And this happened when?“

„Two years after the massacre. I was originally led to believe that it happened much later than that. In any case, it wasn’t Red Winter who killed Humboldt. She would’ve been a fourteen-year-old child at that time. When I went up to Maine, I discovered that he was killed by a full-grown local woman.“

At the time of this ice-pick homicide, Red Winter would have been tall enough to pass for someone older. Mallory glanced at Riker, who nodded to say that this was also his thought.

Unmindful of their silent conversation, Pinwitty continued his thought, saying, „The stabbing wasn’t premeditated either. So that was another indication that my theory wouldn’t work. The police put it down to self-defense. It seems that the man broke into this woman’s bedroom and attacked her. However, I should mention that I got this information many years after the fact. Originally, I only had one source for the story, a very old man who later died in a nursing home. There was no police report on file.“

Mallory and Riker were both paying edge-of-the-chair attention.

„Oh, I know what you’re thinking,“ said the author. „I also thought it was odd. But this was a small town, more like a truck stop. And I couldn’t interview the residents because there weren’t any. A new highway project wiped out all the houses and public buildings. The records of births, deaths and taxes were relocated, but police records simply didn’t exist. You see, the town had a police force of one. That was Chief Walter McReedy. I thought he might have taken the records with him when he retired. So I hunted down his daughter, Susan. She was rather young at the time of this incident. Barely remembers it. Now the woman who stabbed Humboldt was a redhead, and Chief McReedy’s daughter agreed with that much, but after she had a minute or two to think it over, she couldn’t swear that red was the woman’s natural hair color. In fact, a minute later, she thought otherwise. She did recall that the woman was a local, but couldn’t remember her name. Susan McReedy thought the redhead might’ve been middle-aged, but then everyone seems old to a child of seven. At any rate, it was a wasted trip for me.“

Mallory held up her copy of The Winter House Massacre. „So there’s nothing in your book about Humboldt?“

„Well, no. What would be the point? He was only the cellmate of a man wrongly accused of an ice-pick murder. That doesn’t confer even a peripheral significance.“

But the author had failed to see the significance of Humboldt’s death by ice pick; he had tripped over this large messy fact and not seen it. Mallory was undecided: either Martin Pinwitty was more inclined to believe in coincidence than the average cop – or he had not told them everything. There was something not right about this little man. And she could say the same for her own partner.

After warding off more stale doughnuts and bad tea, the detectives escaped from the author’s apartment with the borrowed file on the incident in Maine. Riker paused on the stoop outside the building, as if unable to go on.

„Nedda killed Stick Man,“ said Mallory.

He hanged himself with a slow nod. Riker was definitely holding out on her, just as the daughter of the cop from Maine had held out on Martin Pinwitty.

On the drive back to SoHo, she waited for her partner to save himself, to explain how he had recognized Humboldt’s name, a name he had never read in any book.

And he said nothing.

Cleo appeared in the dining room with a coffee cup in hand, nodding in Nedda’s general direction as she sat down on Lionel’s side of the dining room table. The line of demarcation was always drawn this way – two united against one.

„Did you sleep well, Nedda?“

Her sister’s tone of voice might better fit the question Why aren’t you dead yet? After all, Nedda had unwittingly reneged on the prognosis, the virtual promise, of an early demise.

Cleo’s eyes narrowed. „Bitty’s not joining us this morning?“

„She had an early breakfast,“ said Nedda.

„She’s hiding, isn’t she?“ Not waiting for a response, Cleo rose from her chair and quit the room, followed by Lionel.

Nedda was left alone and lonely. The fantasy of her homecoming was in ashes. She pulled the tarot deck from her pocket and bowed her head as she spread the cards on the table, looking there for hope and finding the burning tower in every arrangement of painted images. An old woman had given this deck to a very young Nedda, tapping the box illustration of the hanged man and saying, „Memento mod, a reminder of your mortality.“ It had been a warning then, but the child had failed to recognize it as such.

Charles Butler politely ended his long-distance telephone call to Susan McReedy in the state of Maine, then replaced the receiver in its antique cradle and shrugged his apologies to the two homicide detectives seated on the other side of his desk. „Sorry. Miss McReedy wasn’t very helpful.“

„What do you think?“ asked Riker. „Is the lady holding out?“

„Oh, definitely,“ said Charles. „The fact that she was suspicious and guarded would indicate as much. And she had a few questions of her own. Where did I meet the redheaded woman? What name did she go by now? And how did I know the dead man was called Humboldt? She wasn’t very happy when I didn’t give her any answers.“

„You’re a shrink,“ said Riker. „Can’t you give us more than that?“

„Based on a telephone conversation?“ Charles sighed. He hated the word shrink, and it would not apply to him. Although he had the proper credentials and a special interest in abnormal bents of mind, he had never had a private practice and never treated a single patient.

Mallory leaned forward. „McReedy lied to Pinwitty, didn’t she?“ It was a mistake to encourage her idea that he was a human lie detector. Her belief was founded on the fact that he could always tell when she was lying. However, this time she was correct. Ten years ago, Miss McReedy had lied in her interview with the author. The proof was all here in the folder that lay open on his desk. Pinwitty had been a word-for-word recorder of conversations.

„Well, if we begin by assuming this woman wanted to mislead Pinwitty -“

„She did,“ said Mallory.

„Fine. Then the redhead who killed Humboldt was young, not middle-aged. I’d say the mystery woman’s hair was naturally red, not dyed. Otherwise Susan McReedy wouldn’t have made a point of mentioning that small detail – while pretending to forget the woman’s name or what had become of her. Rather difficult to misplace a local murderess in a small town described as a truck stop. And her defensive posturing on the phone might suggest a protective relationship with the missing redhead.“ He shrugged to say that was all he had. „So you’ll be going up to Maine to interview her?“

„No,“ said Mallory. „She ‘11 call you back. And when she does, you’ll get more out of her than we would.“

„And you know this how?“

„She didn’t brush you off,“ said Riker. „She asked a lot of questions. That means you’ve got something she wants.“

„And she’s wanted it for a long time,“ said Mallory.

„Good logic.“ Charles turned to the window, looking up to a blue October sky and wondering where his own logic had flown. How could he have been so far off the mark in his initial assessment of Nedda Winter? „I nearly forgot. I gave Miss McReedy a date for the stabbing. I was off by two days, and she corrected me. I think that was a slip on her part. What’s her profession? A teacher, something like that?“

„A librarian,“ said Mallory. „Retired.“

„Close enough. So Nedda Winter was a fourteen-year-old child when Humboldt was stabbed to death. You really believe that she – “

„Yeah,“ said Riker. „Everything fits. Ice picks seem to be her lifelong weapon of choice.“

Mallory leaned far back in her chair, and Charles was immediately on guard. If she were a cat, her tail would be switching like mad.

„You like Nedda Winter, don’t you.“ This was not a question. She was making an accusation, for Miss Winter was now solidly in the enemy camp. Mallory also turned a cold eye on Riker, no doubt suspecting him of the same treason.

„I do like her,“ said Charles. „Can’t say I thought much of the rest of Nedda’s relatives.“ Though Bitty certainly deserved his pity.

„You know it’s a dysfunctional family,“ said Riker, „when the one you like the best is a mass murderer.“