Winter House

Chapter 5

nedda’s body remained at rest, there was no anxious wringing of hands, nor was there any furtive sign of panic – though she was alone.

The new housekeeper, the latest in a parade of transient hires, was out grocery shopping, and Bitty was off on some errand. Nedda had no idea where her brother and sister had gone. Lionel and Cleo had simply walked out the door without a word to her. And why not? She was dead to them. One did not consult with the dead about the day’s plans. The sadness of this slight never showed in her eyes. She continued to behave as if she were constantly being observed from all quarters of every room and would not betray any emotion that might be noted or charted.

Poor Bitty.

Her niece must have had great hopes for the first family reunion. Nedda recalled the startled faces of Cleo and Lionel on the day they had visited the hospice. What a grand surprise that had been. Bitty had dramatically thrown open the door to the private room and exposed their long-lost sister, whom they had always believed to be – hoped to be – dead. True horror had set in after their barrage of questions which only a true sister could have answered. Finally, Cleo and Lionel had been convinced that Nedda was no grifter, no fraudulent heiress, and they had asked, almost in unison, „Why did you come back?“

Nedda’s joyful face had frozen into a fool’s grin, and she had been trapped in that expression until her brother and sister had quit the room. How mad she must have seemed to Bitty in that next moment. Anguished crying – foolish smiling.

Mallory turned her small tan sedan eastward into the center lane of Houston at the optimum time for the greatest flow of commuter traffic. Riker sat beside her unaware that anything was amiss in their relationship.

She braked to a full stop and killed the engine. Vehicles in flanking lanes whizzed by, the drivers craning their necks at the odd sight of her stationary car in the middle of rush hour when all New York motorists went insane en masse. The yellow cab behind her screeched to a halt, and a long line of cars behind that one were also unable to change lanes. Mallory only stared at the windshield, as if checking it for spots and bugs, unruffled by the song of the city – drivers honking, putting great feeling into their horns, leaning on them for maximum noise, and the rising lyrics of shouted obscenities. In peripheral vision, she watched Riker’s head swivel in her direction, silently asking, What are you doing?

„You’re holding out on me.“ She never raised her voice to be heard over the hell choir of honking and screaming, and this forced Riker to lean toward her, straining to hear every word.

Good.

She had his attention now. „When Pinwitty mentioned Humboldt’s name, I know you recognized it, but you didn’t get it from a book or a – “

„Oh, sure,“ said Riker. „I know all of Stick Man’s names.“

Bastard!

While she waited for him to elaborate on this little throwaway bombshell of his, the trapped cars were stacked up all the way back to a grid-locked intersection. The horns had doubled their number and volume, and now a new note was added to the mix. She could hear the angry, tinny slams of compact cars and the heavy-metal sound of trucks as drivers left their vehicles, intent on laying some blame and taking some satisfaction out of her hide.

Yeah, right.

But one glance at Riker told her that he was a believer in road rage. A traffic jam like this one could make killers out of the best-tempered nuns.

„So tell me something.“ Mallory’s words were slow and dead calm, as if she had all damn day for this conversation. „When were you planning to share all these names?“

An old man stood on the cement strip that divided the traffic bound east and west. The elderly pedestrian had no stake in this event, yet he was as outraged as any of the drivers gathering around her car. He shook his fist and mouthed toothless angry words that were lost in the fray. Other men were massing near the windows on all sides. Riker held up his badge, as if that would fix everything.

Mallory slowly turned her head to glare at him, to warn him. He had better start talking and fast. The people surrounding this car were murderously angry, and this was definitely not the time for one of his long-winded stories.

And so Riker told her a story.

Charles Butler sat at his desk, reviewing paperwork on the latest client of Butler and Company. This one was the most brilliant to date – and the most troubled. The teenager had dropped out of college, descended into profound depression, and continued his fall by dropping off the planet. Mallory had found a lead with an illegal perusal-for-profit of police reports on missing persons. She had then tracked the boy down to a hole in the swamp at the edge of the world (her euphemism for a motel in New Jersey).

During the employment evaluation, all the right answers had been provided for every question on the personality profile, and that had been a clue to a problem; no one was so well balanced. However, the first warning had been the boy’s rolled down sleeves on an unseasonably warm day. Mallory had suspected drugs. Charles had believed the sleeves would hide the scars of an attempted suicide.

He looked up from his reading and noticed his copy of The Winter House Massacre lying on the end table by the couch. So Mallory had decided not to read it after all. Wise. What a deadly bore was history in the hands of a bad writer. He turned back to the matter at hand, reading his business partner’s most recent research on their young job candidate.

She had turned up a history of no less than six therapists, thus explaining how the youngster had sailed through all the psychological examinations – practice. Charles read the headings for each of Mallory’s documents; all of them had been raided from hospital computers in the tristate area. She could not have gotten them by any other means. Even at one remove from theft, it would be unethical to read this material. And what would Mallory’s foster father have said of this – theft of confidential patient files?

That’s my kid.

And Louis would have said that with great pride.

Thoughts of this dead man linked up with the image of Nedda Winter skirting her ghosts on the staircase the night of the dinner party. He had never mentioned that to Mallory as an indication of a mind gone awry. If that held true, then he must count himself as a loon and a half.

The brown armchair beside the couch was the most comfortable seat in this office, and yet he never sat there. It was Louis’s chair even now. That good old man had sat in this room on many a night when sleep was impossible because his wife was dead. In a way, all of Louis’s stories of life with the incomparable Helen Markowitz had been ghost stories. Had she not come alive in this room? After a time, Charles had also come to grieve for Helen, though he had never met her. And he still grieved sorely for Louis. He missed that great soul every day.

And Charles could see his old friend, clear as day, seated beside him now, gathering up hound-dog jowls in a dazzling smile. And was there just a touch of pity in the old man’s crinkled brown eyes? Oh, yes. Only Louis could fully appreciate Charles’s predicament with Mallory’s purloined documents.

As the former commander of Special Crimes Unit, Inspector Markowitz had made such good use of his foster child’s skill with computer lock picks.

Charles looked down at the raided information, poisonous fruit from Mallory’s hand. Well, it was definitely in a good cause – life and death – if his suspicions about their client proved true. He read every line of the stolen data and discovered that each of the boy’s psychiatric examinations had followed police custody for a suicide attempt on Halloween. And what were the odds that he might forgo his yearly wrist-slashing?

Well, job placement was out of the question, but now he could make the proper referral for long-term therapy. Mallory may have saved the boy’s life with this information, stolen or not. Charles looked up at the armchair – Louis’s chair. His old friend, the dead man, shrugged, then splayed one hand to say, This is how it begins – the seduction.

Charles found himself nodding in agreement with a man who was not there. Yes, he had actually rationalized a breach of ethics, an unnecessary violation. In truth, Mallory’s theft had only supported his own suspicions. He was actually quite good at his craft, though he applied his skill to analyzing a potential client’s gifts and suitability for employment.

Retiring to the couch, he stretched out to finish his reading in comfort. He was surprised to turn a page and find Mallory’s job proposal for placing the boy in a remote scientific community. There, he would not be a solitary freak, but one of many such freaks, and he would cease his ritual attempts to kill himself every Halloween; this had been Mallory’s argument for selling an unbalanced job candidate.

Oh, of course. Never mind the fee. And here he countered with her own trademark line, „Yeah, right.“

Mallory, the humanitarian, had also secured the client on the profit side of this transaction. The New Mexico think tank was funded with a truly obscene amount of grant money. Best of all – and this was her final salvo – the personnel director had not balked at the disclosure of the boy’s suicidal ideation, and the project would provide long-term therapy.

Thus far, this was the only argument for job placement.

All that remained was the detail of signing off on Mallory’s paperwork.

He slowed his reading to a normal person’s pace, for his partner sometimes deviated from the standard boilerplate contract, and he had learned to go slowly and scrutinize every line before signing anything. True to form, she had named a staggering fee that he would never have had the gall to charge, and her conditions straddled a borderland between ethics and all that the traffic would bear. She had added a penalty clause, doubling their fee if the New Mexico project failed to keep the boy alive through Halloween.

Charles stared at the ceiling, averting his eyes from the laughing dead man.

Reading that final contract clause in the best possible light, Mallory was not actually planning to profit on a death. No, she only wanted to ensure the boy’s ongoing survival. He turned to face his memory of the late Louis Markowitz, who knew her best.

The old man lifted one eyebrow to say, But you ‘re not really sure, are you, Charles?

On a normal day, he would be madly rewriting the terms of Mallory’s contract, but now he simply bowed to the absurd and signed his name on the dotted line.

Done with the business of the day, he turned his attention to the telephone on the other side of the room, willing it to ring. He was looking forward to another conversation with Susan McReedy, the lady from Maine. Mallory had insisted that the woman would call again. The detective’s contracts were a bit dicey, but her instincts were superb. Yes, Ms. McReedy would definitely call back. He could see the woman clearly now, sitting by her own telephone, her hair gone to gray and her life as well, facing the tedium of her retirement years. This very moment, all of Ms. McReedy’s thoughts would be consumed by old acquaintance with a memorable icepick-wielding redhead.

He reached out to the near table and picked up his history book. As he turned the pages, he marveled anew that Riker could have ingested this dry text without the skill of speed reading and the mercy of a quick end. While scanning the pages, Charles revisited Mallory’s theory on a twelve-year-old girl’s involvement in the Winter House Massacre.

In a bibliophile’s act of heresy, he threw the book across the room. Next, he abandoned logic, replacing it with faith and feeling. He liked Nedda Winter. Between dinner at eight and the last bottle of wine in the early hours of a morning, he had come to think of her as a friend.

Head bowed over her plate, Nedda Winter finished supper in the kitchen, then disregarded the automatic dishwasher to clean her plate in the sink. She planned to retire early and spare her siblings one more encounter, though she craved their company, any company at all, rather than to be alone, that state where memory consumed her.

One benign recollection was of Mrs. Tully, wide as she was tall, the cook and housekeeper who had died in the massacre. This kitchen had been that old woman’s domain, and October had been Tully’s favorite time of the year. For weeks in advance of Halloween, she had always been allowed free rein to terrify her employer’s offspring. That last time, when five of the Winter children had only a few more days to live, they had all gathered in the kitchen, all except Baby Sally. The youngsters, rocking on the balls of their feet, had wafted back and forth between terror and delight. And then the long-awaited moment came when the housekeeper threw open the cellar door to absolute darkness and led them all down the stairs.

Five-year-old Cleo had alternately laughed and squealed in anticipation before Tully had even begun her scary work. Erica, who had turned nine that year, was much more ladylike, practicing to be blase and determined that the old woman would not make her scream. And the rest of them could hardly wait to be scared witless.

„I never use mousetraps,“ the old woman said, as she led the parade of children into the dank basement by the light of a single candle. She held the flame below her face to make it seem evil when she grinned at them. „No, traps won’t do. Might catch a child or two by mistake and break your little fingers and toes. But no fear. The house likes you – all of you. But the house hates vermin. Kills ‘em dead, it does.“ Tully had bent low to hold her candle over the small moldering body of a field mouse underneath a fallen box. Another mouse was found crushed by a wrench that had dropped from a shelf of tools. „Looks accidental, don’t it? But look around you, my little dears. Did you ever see so many accidents in one place?“ And then she had laughed, high-throated, wicked, shining candlelight into corners, illuminating other tiny corpses caught and crushed in the circumstances of apparent mishaps.

So many of them.

Erica screamed.

Nedda glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. She should go upstairs now. Lionel and Cleo might come home at any moment.

After passing through the dining room, she walked toward the stairs at an odd angle so that she might avoid the prone and lifeless Mrs. Tully in her plain gray dress. Nedda began her ascent by hugging the rail and keeping to a narrow path so as not to tread on any part of her father’s body. She paused, as she always did. Farther up the staircase was her stepmother’s corpse. A small spot of blood marred the breast of a blue silk dressing gown, and the eyes were rolled upward, as if mortified to be seen in this unflattering sprawl of limbs.

Nedda lifted one foot, for she had just stepped on her father’s dead white hand.

Sorry, so sorry.

She looked down at his upturned face, his startled eyes, so surprised to be dying.

Behind her, she heard the familiar voice of Uncle James calling out to her from across the room and more than half a century, asking in a plaintive tone, „My God, Nedda, what have you done?“

Mallory climbed the stairs behind her partner. His new apartment was located on the floor above a saloon – Riker’s big dream. „My grandfather was never on the case,“ he said, „but the old man worked it on the side – worked it all his life. He visited every crime scene where an ice pick was used as weapon.“ After opening the door and flicking on the light, he waved her inside.

Mallory remained standing while her partner flopped down on the couch, raising a cloud of dust from the cushion. Every littered surface was filmed with gray, though he had only occupied this place for a few weeks. Where was he getting his dust supply?

„So your grandfather covered domestic disputes and bar fights?“

„Everything,“ said Riker. „Have a seat.“

„What for?“

Misunderstanding her, he stood up and, with no offense taken, swept the leather seat of an armchair to send his unopened mail and smaller, unidentified flying objects to the floor. „There you go.“

She sat down, careful not to touch the padded arms, for she could not identify what he had spilled there. Next, she flirted with the idea that be hod brought some of his trash from the last apartment, perhaps regarding this formidable collection of crushed beer cans as a homey touch. „Why would your grandfather cover the nickel-and-dime scenes? It’s not like he expected them to tie back to Stick Man.“

„My father thought that was strange, too.“ In Mallory’s honor, Riker walked about the room, bending low to pick up dirty socks and stuff them behind the couch pillows. „When Granddad retired, he lost access to crime scenes, so Dad collected all the details for him.“

„And now you do it.“ And when would they ever get to the reason why? She tapped one foot as Riker opened the refrigerator and pulled out two cold beers. Accepting one from his hand, she asked him again. „Why, Riker? What can you learn from garden-variety stabbings?“

„Every way you can stab another human with an ice pick.“ This time he eased himself down on the couch, cutting the dust fly by half. „The lead detective ruled out a pro in favor of a psycho, but not my grandfather. Gran developed a signature for Stick Man. Now this is something you won’t see in a rage killing. The pick was pushed into the body, perfectly level to pass through the rib cage. No false strikes, no bone chips ever. Just perfect. The picks were honed, narrow and needle sharp. Easier to pass through clothes and muscle. Then Stick Man made a little jog to the right and shredded the heart. That enlarged the entry wound. He eased the pick out. No blood fly that way. And he wiped the bloody end on the victim’s clothing. He could ‘ve slaughtered a battalion without getting a drop on his clothes. After Granddad retired, my father used his clout to pull hundreds of old autopsy reports, and they found matches. There was no other stab wound quite like Stick Man’s. He used that same MO for almost a hundred years. The cops caught him twice – and twice he died.“

A ghost story.

Mallory’s hands balled into fists. She hated ghost stories.

Nedda backed away from the staircase, then stopped – dead stop. What was that?

The million fine hairs of her body were on the rise as she sorted out the noises of the house. A light slap on glass came from the garden, where a leafy branch licked the panes of the doors. Elsewhere, a clock was ticking. She turned around, looking across the front room to the foyer and the burglar alarm. There was no glowing light to assure her that the alarm was working. She rationalized this away. The new housekeeper had not set the alarm before going out, and that was common enough. They never stayed very long, and few of them had found the time or inclination to memorize the daily change of the code that disabled the alarm upon reentering the house.

Was the door even locked?

Another noise, a knock, then a thud, was followed by the sound of breaking glass.

Nedda drifted across the room and down the hall toward the kitchen, the source of her fear. She could not stop herself, though her legs threatened to buckle and fail. She was like one of those elderly women on the hospital ward, driven by a compulsion she could not name, her limbs moving of their own accord.

On the kitchen threshold now, eyes on the cellar door, fascinated and afraid, she was moving toward it. One hand trembled on the knob, and she opened the door to absolute silence, that moment between one footstep and the next, the still vacuum of holding one’s breath. And now she heard another noise. By the dim light filtering downstairs from the kitchen, she saw a mousetrap at the edge of the first step. She wanted so much to believe that it was a rodent down there, a big one with enough weight to make the sound of crunching glass underfoot. But she was not so gifted at delusional thinking.

Nedda backed away from the door, keeping her eyes trained upon it as she reached out for the nearest drawer. This was where Bitty had found the old wooden ice pick the other night, the one used to satisfy the curiosity of Detective Riker. And now that pick was in Nedda’s hand.

She backed out of the kitchen, never taking her eyes off the door until she turned and ran light-footed down the hall, heading for the staircase. Bitty’s room on the floor above had a good strong bolt on the door.

Nedda gripped the banister, and stood there very still, one foot upon the stair. She shook her head. She could not hide; she could not take the chance. What if this intruder surprised the next innocent to come through the front door?

Well, she would call the police.

And say what?

I hear noises in my house? My burglar alarm isn’t working?

The night of the break-in, she could not remember having the luxury of time to question what she should do next. Nedda looked down at the ice pick in her hand.

She could do it again.

Riker stood on a chair to reach the box at the back of his closet. He hoisted it down and dropped it on the floor at Mallory’s feet. „I was just a kid then. Every night after dinner, they’d spread all this stuff on the kitchen table. Mom called our kitchen the murder room.“ He lifted the box and carried it to his own kitchen table. „The earliest cases date back to the eighteen-hundreds, but they all used Stick Man’s signature. They ended in the forties, the year of the massacre.“

Somewhat mollified by Riker’s hasty disavowal of a ghost story, Mallory asked, „How many generations of hitmen?“

„Three.“ He sat down at the table and opened the box. „The first one was a crazy little bastard in Hell’s Kitchen. He worked for the Irish gangs. Started when he was only thirteen. Back in those days, they called him Pick. What really spooked the locals was the daylight killing. He ‘d walk up to a guy on the street at high noon and just do him on the spot.“

„Too crazy to worry about witnesses.“

„Right. And who wants to make an enemy of the neighborhood nutcase? So everybody knew who he was, even the local beat cop, and nobody talked.“

Riker pulled out a handful of yellowed papers and photographs, diagrams and scraps of paper with notes in faded ink. He tapped a picture cut from an ancient newspaper and preserved in laminate. „This is his mother. Smart lady. She was the broker for all his jobs. And – surprise – she read tarot cards. That was her front for the murder contracts, and she never did one day in prison. Well, her son was nuts, and I mean a real standout kind of crazy. But the mother paid off the cops when they started asking questions. Then one day, there’s a new commission to investigate police corruption, so the cops run out and pick up her son just for show. That closes a few dozen homicides in an afternoon, and the department really shines in the morning paper.“ He grinned at Mallory. „Don’t you love this town?“

„That’s when Pick died?“

„The first time? No, not yet. After the arrest, he was committed to an asylum. And that’s where he hooks up with his replacement – an orderly named Jay Holly.“

Riker had covered every inch of the table, laying out his files in stacks of a dozen folders, each one another death. „You won’t find this stuff in police reports or history books. Pinwitty’s research was pathetic next to Granddad’s.“ He found a mug shot from a New Orleans Police Department and handed it to Mallory. „That’s Jay Holly. He did a deal with the fortuneteller.“

„Wait – she put out a contract on her – “

„Her own son? Yeah. Her crazy son was too dangerous to keep alive. It was just a matter of time before his mother was tied to the murders.“ Riker shuffled through more papers, producing a list of assets: expensive homes and purchases beyond a fortuneteller’s means. „But the old lady didn’t wanna give up a good income. So she hired Jay Holly to kill her son in the asylum. Pick was smothered with a pillow.“ He pushed an old copy of the death certificate across the table.

Mallory glanced at the date, then picked up a column cut from a yellowed newspaper. „And five days after that, there’s another ice-pick murder. All right, I get it. She pays Jay Holly to make her dead son look like an innocent man. Now the old lady’s in the clear, too.“

„Yeah.“ Riker placed another file in front of her, another death. „And then – “

„The next day, she’s back in business,“ said Mallory, „as the new hitman’s broker. But the cops don’t bother her anymore.“

„My grandfather would’ve loved you, kid. Yeah, that’s the way he figured it. Jay and the old lady did real well, until she died – of a stroke. More likely it was murder. There was no autopsy. Granddad figured that must’ve been the first instance of the pick in the eardrum. Another fortuneteller took over the same storefront, and this one was young and good-looking. Then Jay Holly got caught in New Orleans. That’s where he hooked up with our guy in a holding cell.“

„Humboldt.“

„Yeah, but that wasn’t his real name.“ He handed her another sheet. „These are Humboldt’s aliases. He did time all over the South for fleecing women out of their savings. A real charmer. The last lady withdrew the charges. So Humboldt was about to get out of jail around the time Jay Holly was taken into custody.“

„They share a cell – they do a deal.“

„Yeah. So now Humboldt knows the style. The day he gets out of jail, there’s another ice-pick murder, same MO, and the cops release Jay Holly. Then Holly dies, but it’s not an ice-pick kill. Humboldt’s smarter than that. Jay Holly was found dead on a barroom floor. He’d been poisoned, and the cops had no leads on the man he was drinking with that night.“

„Humboldt goes back to New York and uses the same fortuneteller for his broker.“

„Right. And he keeps this one alive for a long time. She was an old woman before he murdered her in the police station.“

„Twelve days after the murders at Winter House.“ Mallory drummed her fingernails on the table. „And your father keeps working on this?“

„No, he stopped the night my grandfather died.“

„You think he could help us?“

„No, I could never ask Dad to do that. It’s a long story.“ Mallory’s face was a study in grim resignation.

There was no need to touch the light switch for the cellar. From the top of the stairs, Nedda could see shards of broken glass clinging to the socket of the hanging bulb. The last time she had visited the cellar, it was to help one of the housekeepers replace a biown-out kitchen tuse, and then her own head had cleared that bulb by only a few inches. So the intruder must be a tall one, over six feet.

The new housekeeper was also tall, but Nedda had no illusions about finding the woman down there on some innocent errand. However, this might explain why an intruder had dared to come in by the front door. He must have been watching the house. He would have seen them all leave and go their separate ways, perhaps mistaking the housekeeper for herself. And then, he must have heard approaching footsteps and fled for the cover of the basement.

Nedda raised the pick high. And, because she was afraid, she gathered dead brothers and sisters around her. Mrs. Tully, an animated corpse of formidable girth, led the procession down the cellar stairs.

Just like old times.

The kitchen light petered out beyond the bottom step. There would be a flashlight on top of the fuse box to her left. But now she saw the bright rectangle of an open door on the other side of the basement. Whoever had broken into the house was long gone. Beyond the threshold, ten steps led up to the backyard and escape. A breeze called Nedda’s attention to a high window. Its heavy wood frame was propped open with a stick. This was how the intruder must have gained entrance. As she drew close to the window, dead brothers and sisters walked with her, lending comfort. All of them looked up to see a field mouse at the window, testing the cellar air, nose high, whiskers twitchy. Its small pink hands were almost human as it gripped the wooden sill. The tiny creature was half in, half out. And, though the wind had ceased and there was no visible agency to move the propping stick, the stick did fall. The slamming wood frame broke the back of the mouse. Its mouth opened wide and, in surprise, it died.

Mrs. Tully laughed.

Nedda, in concert with the children, moved back from the window. By the good light of the open door, this small audience of the dead and the living could see wet drops of blood on the steps leading up to the backyard.

What had the house done to the intruder?

„My father doesn’t even know I have this stuff,“ said Riker. „You stole it from him?“

Riker shook his head. „I came by it the night Gran died. That old man literally worked this case right up to the end. He had coroners’ reports from six states, patching time lines and murder contracts together, but nothing after the date of the Winter House Massacre. So, it’s twenty years later, and the trail is as cold as it ever gets. That’s when Gran figures Stick Man must’ve died back in the forties, the year of the massacre.“

„Well, he was only off by two years,“ said Mallory, examining her nails, „if Nedda killed Stick Man in Maine.“

„Yeah. Too bad the Maine police weren’t on Gran’s radar. He might’ve closed out the case.“ Riker knew she was wondering when this family saga would finally end. He was always trying to connect with her on some human level, forgetting who and what he was dealing with.

„Your dad,“ she said, prompting him for an explanation of why this door was closed to them.

„Okay,“ he said. „Now remember, Gran and my dad worked this case together for years – from the day my grandfather retired until he died. Well, Granddad was always pumped. Dead or alive, he wanted to bring Red Winter home. All those nights at the kitchen table, looking at clues and kicking around ideas – that was the only time my father’s old man ever talked to him.“

And this family custom of stone silence had carried into Riker’s generation.

„The only time Dad was really happy was when he was rilling the kitchen with cigar smoke, emptying a whiskey bottle with my grandfather and talking shop. So it was hard to understand what Dad did when his old man died. That was the night my father brought home a twenty-two-year-old autopsy report on the second fortuneteller, the one who died after the Winter House Massacre. After Granddad read it, he got all excited. He couldn’t get the words out. He stood up, hugged my dad – for maybe the first time ever – then fell across the kitchen table dead.“

„Later that night, my mom was out on the porch, waiting for a hearse from the mortuary. And Dad was in the kitchen with his father’s corpse. I can still see him on the floor, crawling around on hands and knees, picking up all the papers that scattered when Gran had his heart attack. After my father had the whole file all bundled together, he dropped it into the garbage can and never talked about the case again.“

The files young Riker had rescued from the trash still bore faint stains of what the family had dined on that night.

„As much as your dad couldn’t stand the sight of that file,“ said Mallory, „that’s how much he loved your grandfather. It was just too much pain. That’s why he tossed it in the garbage can.“

Riker nodded. He had come to understand that over the passing years, but Mallory the Machine should not have been able to work it out – and so quickly. „But that’s not the reason I can’t ask for Dad’s help with this case.“

„I know.“ Mallory pushed her empty beer botde to one side. „It’s because now you understand why your grandfather was so excited he couldn’t talk. For those twelve days between the massacre at Winter House and the fortuneteller’s murder in the police station – Nedda was learning to read tarot cards.“

That was the pattern: a new fortuneteller to replace the old one. What other reason could a hitman have for stealing a child? And what a tall child; one who could pass for a woman, but so much easier to control – an heiress who could one day reappear to claim a fortune.

This last piece dropped into place so neatly, he could almost hear an audible click in the gears of Mallory’s mind.

Riker stared at her for what seemed like a very long time, perhaps no more than a minute, but how those seconds crawled along. She could still surprise him, and sometimes this caused him pain. He had watched her grow up, but he could never really know her. And, fool that he was, he was always tripping over himself each time he underestimated her – and yet he never learned.

He nodded now. She had gotten it right.

When his grandfather had felt the onset of a massive coronary, when joy had overpowered fear and pain, that must have been the moment when the old man realized that the stolen child could still be alive. Riker looked down at the sprawl of papers on his own kitchen table – the family tradition of fathers and sons.

„My father was a great cop. None better. That murdered fortuneteller was the key. If he’d gone on working this case, Dad would’ve followed through on Humboldt. He would’ve run him down to the ice-pick stabbing in Maine and a red-haired girl.“

Mallory nodded. „He would’ve brought Red Winter home forty years ago.“

„I can never tell him that.“

„We have to stop meeting this way. People will talk.“

„Yes, ma’am.“ Officer Brill gallantly strained to smile at this line, which had been an old one before Nedda was born. After opening the cellar door, he clicked on his flashlight, and she followed him down the stairs. The yellow beam roved over the broken glass on the floor. He had found one piece that he liked and put it into a plastic bag. „Is that blood on the glass?“

„Yes, ma’am, it is. Did you cut yourself?“

„Not my hands.“ She examined the backs of them. „And I had shoes on my feet.“

„You didn’t stab anybody, did you, ma’am?“

„No, I’m off that now.“

Officer Brill’s polite smile widened into a genuine grin. „Good to know.“ He looked up as he redirected the beam of his flashlight to the broken bulb overhead. There was more blood on one of the shards that still clung to the socket. „So, we’ll be looking for a tall man wearing a bandage on his head. That’s more of a description than we usually get.“

Back upstairs again, the patrolman accepted her offer of tea, but insisted on preparing it himself. He seemed at home in a kitchen. She guessed that he had a grandmother her age, and, during the course of their conversation, this proved true. The young man lived in the Bronx with a large extended family that included both of his grandparents. He spoke of them warmly as he pulled out a chair for Nedda and seated her at the table.

When the kettle released its steam in a shrill whistle, he was quick to kill the flame of the burner. As he poured hot water over the tea bags in their cups, he noticed the tarot deck on the kitchen table, and he smiled. „My grandmother spends ten dollars every Monday to have her fortune told.“

„Well, that’s cheap. She must know an honest fortuneteller.“

By the expression on the young man’s face, Nedda could tell that he considered this an oxymoron. How could a fortuneteller ever be honest?

„An old woman taught me to read tarot cards.“ Nedda unboxed the deck. „These belonged to her.“ She selected the card that most resembled the young policeman. „This is your significator, the Knight of Swords. It’s what you are. Now think about the problem that troubles you most.“ She shuffled the cards. „I’m guessing that’s me.“ After cutting the cards three times, she laid them out in three piles. „Put the deck back together and hand it to me.“

He did as she asked, and she knew it was only to humor an old woman, for he was a child of the new century, a firm believer in scientific explanations for everything.

She lifted one card from the top and laid it down upon the knight. „This covers you.“ And with the next card laid lengthwise, she said, „This crosses you for good or ill.“ In quick succession, she placed four cards at compass points all around the first three, then dealt four more cards in a row to one side.

„And now you’re going to tell me my future.“

„No, that’s for the fool,“ said Nedda, „the kind of person who seeks patterns that aren’t there – the sort who sees the Virgin Mary in a grocer’s deformed potato, then pays a ten-dollar admission fee to worship it. Given a fool’s nature, he deserves what he gets – a lighter wallet and nothing more.“

She covered the policeman’s hand with hers. „You’re not like that. You wouldn’t want to see the future, not even if you believed it was possible.“ No, this boy would never bow to the idea of a destiny writ in stone. „You already see a possible future – the one you can forge for yourself.“

Nedda pointed to the west card. „This is where that future begins, in your past. You became a policeman, not for the good pension plan, but because you wanted to help people. That’s your nature.“ She pointed to the south card. „This is the foundation of the matter. You’re exactly where you should be in the world. You like what you are, and that’s rare.“ Her hand drifted toward the north card. „You strive to create order out of chaos.“ Her finger landed on the east card, the immediate future. „And you will do this every day in small ways and big ones. But you already know that. You’ve made it your mission.“ She studied the remaining cards. „Now, if I’m right and your worry of the moment is me… T can tell yon that you’ll see me again.“

But would she be dead or alive?

„That was an easy one,“ she said. „I spend a great deal of my day at the windows. I’ve seen you drive by from time to time, probably more often than you should. You always slow down when you pass my house. I suspect that you keep an eye on me.“

A good guess. She had taken him by surprise.

Her hand drifted up to the last card dealt, the culmination of all that had gone before. „In this matter where our paths have crossed, we will each reap what we deserve. But then, that’s true for everyone. Hardly magic or psychic phenomena.“ She swept all the cards together. „J^{ust a to"}l^to keep you focused on the road ahead.“

He must have intuited that this card play was a ruse to keep his company a while longer, for he leaned toward her, saying, „Shock is a funny thing.“ He cleared their cups from the table and set them in the sink. „Sometimes it makes people weak in the legs. Sometimes they’re afraid to be alone. If you hear any noises, or if you just feel jumpy, you can call and ask for me. I’ll be on duty for another six hours.“

The cleaning lady entered into a street right of sorts, or so she would tell it later on, as she wrestled over a wire cart filled with her supplies. The young policeman insisted on carrying it up the stairs for her, and by brute strength he won.

„I don’t tip cops!“ yelled Mrs. Ortega in Brooklynese. „Suits me fine,“ the young officer countered with his Bronx accent. „Chump change ruins the line of my uniform.“ And now that he had settled her cart by the front door to the mansion, he tipped his hat and left her standing there agape and with no comeback line.

No need to ring the bell. The door was opened wide by a woman as tall as Detective Mallory, but much older. The hair was white, her eyes pale blue, and what a curious smile. „You’re from the temp agency?“

„Lucky guess, lady. Here, you gotta sign this.“ The smaller woman handed her a work order tapped out on Mallory’s computer and guaranteed to pass for the genuine article. „The name’s Ortega,“ she said. „You can call me Mrs. Ortega.“ And by the signature, she knew this was Nedda Winter.

And now the cleaning lady had to fend off more good manners, offers of tea and conversation, for God’s sake. But she was firm. „I only got a few hours.“ Mrs. Ortega powered up her vacuum cleaner and kept her mouth closed until, an hour later, she opened the door to the closet in the foyer. „What the hell?“

The shelves were narrow for a linen closet, and they were lined with women’s hats.

„It’s a hat closet,“ said Miss Winter.

„There’s no such thing,“ said Mrs. Ortega. „You know how many years I been cleaning houses like yours? Hell, even fancier than this one, and there’s no such a thing as a damn hat closet. This is a linen closet, and you never find a linen closet in a damn foyer. But that’s not what I was talking about.“ She leaned down and picked up one hat that had fallen from a lower shelf, then pointed to a hole in the wall. „What’s that?“

„A mouse hole, I suppose. Would you like a cold beer?“

Two blocks west of Winter House and two hours later, Mrs. Ortega was sitting in the front seat of Mallory’s car. „So I says to Miss Winter, you got real classy rodents here – that’s a nice round hole. Between you and me, Mallory? I’d say that mouse used a drill with a four-inch bit. And it was a damn tall mouse. That hole was two feet off the ground.“

Mallory nodded, hardly listening.

„The back of the closet was cheap plasterboard,“ said the cleaning lady, attempting to liven up her story. „Now that’s odd because the sides are cedar. It don’t make sense. You see the problem?“ No, she guessed that Mallory had lost interest in the closets of the rich, and Mrs. Ortega was still unclear about what service she had done to warrant a hundred-dollar bill on top of her regular cleaning fee. And so she felt obliged to elaborate, drawing on her vast reading in true-crime paperbacks. „You know that house has a history, right.“

Mallory’s face had no expression that the cleaning lady could read. Mrs. Ortega offered a hint. „The Winter House Massacre? Ring any bells?“

„That’s way before Mallory’s time,“ said Riker. „Mine, too.“ He had returned from his deli run. After settling into the backseat, he handed Mrs. Ortega her requested bagel and coffee. „Now here’s our problem.“ He held out a sheet of paper with the letterhead of Crime Scene Unit. „A rookie investigator has a note here. Suspicious hole in shallow closet.“

„Crime scene, huh? Another murder. Do you know how many – “

„Don’t get excited,“ said Riker. „It was a robbery.“

„Oh, sure,“ said Mrs. Ortega. „You two turned out for a robbery.“

„That’s right,“ said Mallory, pressing another large bill into the woman’s hand. „Is there a problem here?“

„Absolutely not.“ Mrs. Ortega pocketed the bill. „So this rookie – did he mention the seam around the closet hole?“ Well, that got their attention. „The backing on that closet is old and rotted. But the hole and the seam? Not so old. Somebody cut out a section and then put it back in place. There’s a ridge of glue around the seam for the patch. And there’s dust on that ridge.“

„Well, that tears it,“ said Riker. „Whatever got walled up in the closet, it’s long gone now.“

„Tell me about Nedda Winter,“ said Mallory.

„Real jumpy. Followed me everywhere, and it wasn’t like she thought I was gonna rob her blind. She just wanted the company. Didn’t wanna be alone. Thai, was my take. 1 cieaned her room. Hardly needed it. Very neat. No personal items. There’s a metal suitcase stashed under the bed. I thought that was her house, but she acts like a real polite guest who isn’t sure how long she wants to stay. So then the little one comes home.“

„Bitty Smyth.“

„Right. Soon as I saw her, I knew which room was hers. Never had to ask. It had to be the one with all the stuffed toys on the bed. Like a kid’s room. Now that’s because she’s so small. I bet people still pat her on the head. She ‘11 have teddy bears on the bed when she’s ninety years old. Well, as soon as she showed up, I left.“

„Good job.“ Mallory nodded to the police cruiser behind her car. „That officer will drive you anywhere you want to go.“

Mrs. Ortega looked back over her shoulder to the rear window and its view of a policeman in uniform, the same cop who had wrestled her for the cleaning cart. „Good. A rematch.“ As she closed the door of the car, she leaned down to the open passenger window. „Just one more thing, you guys. Instead of asking yourselves what was walled up in that closet, you might be wondering who. It was a damned big patch.“

No intruder could hide in the dark of an old house. Every creak of a timber and each footfall on the stair was kettledrum and timpani; moments of silence were suspect and fraught with tension – waiting, waiting.

Nedda rose from her bed and walked to the window. Evidently, Officer Brill had not been impressed by the most recent break-in. There were no police cars parked out front. She held the opera glasses borrowed from her mother’s old trunk in the attic. Raising the lenses to her eyes, she looked out over the park, bringing leaves into sharp focus and searching for a sign of movement among the branches.

Her brother and sister had not returned. They had been absent for yet another break-in, and she wondered what the police would make of that coincidence.

Cleo and Lionel spent so much of their time at the summer house, and Nedda blamed herself for making the town house unbearable. Ritty had offered another theory: they simply liked to drive; it was nothing for them to make the round trip in a day, only spending a few hours in one place or the other. Her niece believed that they used the summer house as an excuse, needing some destination for their drives, else they would drive in circles. The pair had longtime acquaintances, but no real friends to visit in the Hamptons.

But they had each other. And what of Bitty? She had no one but a lame cockatiel.

Nedda refocused the opera glasses and strained to see a man in the mesh of leaves. No, there was no one there, but she imagined him behind each tree. The wind was rising, and the branches lost more of their cover with every gust.

Waiting, waiting, anticipating.

She closed the drape and lit the lamp. Next, she sat down at the writing desk and picked up her pen. Nedda meant to explain her actions to her family, or that was her intention, but she could think of no way to begin her letter. Instead, she wrote the same line, over and over, filling both sides of a paper, then reaching for another sheet. If things should go wrong tonight, this might be the most eloquent explanation she could leave behind. Or was it a confession of sorts? Pages covered with her handwriting drifted to the floor as the hour grew late. Over and over again, she wrote the same line: Cra^y people make sane people cra^y.

Rising from the desk, she switched off the lamp and returned to the window. There were no pedestrians in sight, and the traffic was light to nonexistent. She focused the opera glasses. There, a face moving behind the trees near the stone wall, that low barrier between the sidewalk and the park. Nedda looked back at the clock on her bedside table. Officer Brill would have gone off duty hours ago. What would she say if she called the police station?

I see a pale face in the woods?

No, they would not send anyone to search Central Park for suspicious persons, not on her account. They would write her off as a crazy old woman, and perhaps this was true. She watched the wood across the way and saw him more clearly now, but just the back of him moving deeper into the foliage.

Nedda disrobed to stand naked before her closet, moving hangers hunting for something night black. When she was dressed, she reached beneath her pillow to grab up the wooden handle of the ice pick. With great stealth she slipped down the hall to the stairs, finding her way in the dark, descending slowly, minding the steps that made noise. The alarm light was on in the foyer. She tapped in the number code to disarm it, then found the switch to turn off the light above the outside stairs.

Charles Butler returned home from a charity auction, his wallet lightened by a donation, but no purchases had been made aside from cocktails at the bar. None of the antique furniture had remotely resembled the gaming table of his dreams. And now he had less than a week to replace the one that had been destroyed. Before he could insert the key into the lock for his apartment, he saw the lighted glass of the door to Butler and Company.

Mallory? She liked the late hours.

He entered the reception area and saw a light at the end of the hallway, but it was his own office and not hers. Charles found his cleaning woman fast asleep and slumped over a book in her lap. Now that was odd. Oh, wait – not odd at all. She had been reading the book on Winter House, and that would put anyone to sleep.

He put one hand on her shoulder. „Mrs. Ortega?“ When her eyes opened, he said, „I’ve never known you to work so late.“ He glanced at his watch. „It’s after midnight.“

This took some convincing. She had to look first at his watch then her own. „I’ll be damned. I couldn’t clean your office this afternoon,“ she said. „I had to do an errand for Mallory. I didn’t think you’d mind if – “

„Oh, but I don’t mind. So what sort of errand did you do for Mallory?“

„I can’t tell you.“

„Ah, sworn to secrecy. I understand.“ He walked to the credenza behind his desk and returned to join her on the couch, holding a bottle of sherry and two glasses. „However, it wouldn’t count if I guessed, would it?“

Undecided, she accepted a glass and allowed him to fill it – several times in quick succession.

He pointed to the book in her lap. „I’m guessing it’s something to do with Winter House.“

„Maybe,“ she said, and then she smiled. „Are you a betting man?“

„You know I am.“ Indeed, he never tired of losing at poker. „What’s the wager?“

She held up the thick volume. „I know what happened to Red Winter.“

„Fascinating.“ Charles dipped the decanter to refresh her glass. „Twenty dollars and a limo ride home to Brooklyn?“

„It’s a bet. I say Red Winter was never lost. That kid never even left her own house. The body was walled up in the foyer closet. That’s my theory.“

„Really.“ He filled her glass again. Mrs. Ortega had a high tolerance for alcohol, and it might take awhile to get the entire story.

Nedda stood on the sidewalk in a long black leather jacket and slacks.

She felt cold – exposed. A single car rolled by, and she turned away from the headlights, hiding the ice pick in her side pocket. She ran full out to cross the boulevard. When had she last run for her life or any other reason? It made her young again. The wind hit her face and picked at the loose weave of her braid. She approached the low stone wall as a twelve-year-old girl and easily scaled it, her feet hitting the broken branches and cracking dead leaves on the other side. And now she played the child’s game of statue, quieting her heart the better to hear a stranger’s footfall.

She was terrified, exhilarated – alive.

This was a better plan than waiting for him to come for her. They were old friends now, she and Death. It got easier each time they met. And this time, she had selected the meeting place. Her head snapped right with a sound of a dry stick broken underfoot, and she walked that way, pushing branches to one side, going deeper and deeper into the wood and losing the light of the path lamps.

„Red Winter,“ said a man’s voice just behind her back.

Her hand closed around the ice pick in her pocket. She turned around to face him, but there was no one there.

„My God, it’s really you.“ A tall figure stepped out of the foliage. Only a shadow and only his voice discerned his sex. „Red Winter. You don’t remember me, do you?“ He clicked on a flashlight and shined it on his own face, making it ghoulish with sharp shadows riding the planes of his cheeks and the deep eye sockets. Yes, he was a tall one, and, just as Officer Brill had predicted, he wore a bandage high on his scalp where the lightbulb’s broken glass had scratched him.

„We met when you were very sick,“ he said, in a surprisingly normal voice, hardly threatening. „You made a nice recovery, didn’t you?“

She had not expected this – a civilized conversation replete with polite inquires on the state of her health. Had they met in a hospital? There had been so many of them over the years. And then there had been the nursing homes and finally the hospice. Her grip on the ice pick remained very tight.

„No,“ he said, lowering the flashlight. „You wouldn’t remember, would you? You were really out of it then.“

And now she must pin that down to one of three places. They might have met in the last hospital where her health had severely declined, or the nursing home where her life would have ended if not for Bitty. Or was it the hospice?

The man was coming closer, his white hands dangling from the arms of a loose flannel jacket that might conceal any number of weapons.

„Were you a patient, too?“ she asked, as if this might be a normal chat with some acquaintance who had slipped her memory.

„Me? In a nursing home?“ He actually smiled. „Not likely.“

No, he was only thirty years old at the outside. So he had met her in the Maine nursing home.

He placed his flashlight in the crook of his arm, shining its light on the trees behind him, and freeing both hands to open the buttons of his jacket. Did he have a gun? An ice pick could not beat a bullet. He was one step closer, his right hand still concealed.

His backward-shining beam spotlighted another figure in the wood, a lovely face with the luminous skin of a haunt.

Mallory.

The young detective was only a few yards away. Holding a very large gun in one hand, she crept closer with no clumsy breaks of twigs underfoot, but padding like a cat, taking her own time in Nedda’s elongated sense of seconds expanding in slow motion.

The man was pulling his hand from the folds of his jacket. What was that dark object in his hand?

Mallory was smiling as her gun hand was rising. The young policewoman was enjoying this moment, and a moment was all it was before Nedda heard the connection of heavy metal on bone. The man made less noise when he dropped to the ground.

A uniformed policeman stepped out of the woods in the company of Detective Riker, who hailed her with a broad smile and, „Hey, Nedda. How’s it going?“

Mallory waved one hand toward the younger of the two men. „You remember Officer Brill.“

„Yes, of course,“ said Nedda. „He comes to all of our crime scenes.“ She smiled at the patrolman. „How nice to see you again.“

„Evening, ma’am.“ Officer Brill tipped his cap, then turned to the chore of helping Riker pick up the fallen man. They carried the unconscious body up the path that would lead them back to the stone wall. A police car was waiting for them, its red lights spinning through breaks in the trees.

Nedda was left alone with Mallory, who was slow to holster her gun. „What brings you out so late, Miss Winter?“ The young detective circled around Nedda, then dropped her voice to a whisper behind the older woman’s back. „Hunting?“ Louder, Mallory said, „Not enough action back at your house?“

All Nedda saw was the flash of one white hand before she felt a light tug on her jacket. The movement was so quick, there was hardly time to be startled before she realized that the detective had just robbed her pocket of the ice pick.

„Brill was so worried about you,“ said Mallory. „And he even knows how good you are at taking down violent criminals.“ She glanced back over one shoulder, perhaps wanting the assurance they were alone – without witnesses. „Incidentally, that man had a gun, but it was still holstered behind his back.“ The detective held up a small camera. „This is what he had in his hand. So it’s lucky I interrupted you before you killed another unarmed citizen.“

Lucky indeed. Nedda jammed both hands into her pockets, not wanting this young woman to see her tremble so.

The detective was looking down at the ice pick resting on the flat of one palm, then the camera in her other hand. She seemed to be weighing one thing against another. „I don’t know who to charge tonight. It’s a real crap-shoot.“

„If you don’t mind a suggestion?“

„Go for it.“

Nedda looked to the shadows where the police and their prisoner had disappeared. „It might be better if you charge him – since you cracked his skull.“

„Good point.“ Mallory held up the camera. „You run pretty fast, Miss Winter. Yes, we were watching you from the woods. Nice sprint.“ She held up the camera. „Three more shots left on the roll.“ She pointed through the trees toward a path that was well lit. „I want you to run that way – fast as you can.“

When Nedda hesitated, Mallory said, „Do it. Now!“

And Nedda ran. She stumbled the first time she heard the click behind her. She had been shot with the camera. She looked back over one shoulder to the startling sight of Mallory running behind her and shooting her again.

„That’s good! Now stop!“

Nedda halted on command – like a pet – and turned around to see the detective removing a roll of film from the camera.

„If anyone should ask,“ said Mallory, „my prisoner took those last three pictures.“

„You’re asking me to falsify -

„You’ve got a problem with that? Would you rather visit the local station house and explain what you were doing in the woods with a concealed weapon?“ Mallory rested one hand on her hip. It was a gesture of total disbelief. „I see you at the window every night. Always looking out at the park. You’re holding out on me. That man – you were waiting for him to show up. Am I right?“ Mallory held up the ice pick. „You want to talk about this now? No? Then meet me downtown in six hours.“

„What do you want me to do? Make a statement or – “

„You didn’t get my message? You agreed to take a polygraph exam, Miss Winter. I set it up for this morning. Were you planning to back out?“

„No, I’ll be there.“

The detectives rode in the back of the patrol car with their unconscious prisoner propped up between them. Mallory was going through the man’s wallet.

„This is trouble,“ she said, holding up a private investigator’s license issued in the state of Maine.

„So now we know he’s got a permit for the gun,“ said Riker. „Damn. Too bad you didn’t shoot him, kid. Fat chance we can keep Nedda out of the papers now.“ He rolled back one of the prisoner’s eyelids and waved his hand back and forth between the man’s eyes and the car’s dome light. „The pupils don’t react. I think you might’ve caught a lucky break. He’s not gonna wake up anytime soon. Maybe never.“

„Okay, you win!“ Annoyed, Mallory leaned toward the driver. „Cancel the SoHo station. Aim this car at the nearest hospital.“

The prisoner transport swerved off Seventh Avenue and rolled into the emergency entrance for Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village.

Riker, sarcastic alarmist, gave her no credit for knowing how to pull her shots. She had not hit the man all that hard, and he would certainly live. Also, and this was a bonus, a prolonged awakening worked in her favor. She could have the photographs developed before the man regained consciousness.

Nedda parted company with Officer Brill on the stairs outside her front door. She entered the house by herself despite his kind offer to come inside with her. After crossing the room in the dark, aided by memory alone, her hand closed on the banister, and she made the long climb to the second-floor landing with time enough for deep regret to settle in.

Why had she ever gone into the park?

The man with the camera was most likely a reporter, and now irreparable damage had been done. Cleo and Lionel would have to bear the consequence of her little walk in the woods tonight. Very soon, perhaps in the early morning hours, they would be accosted by microphones shoved in their faces, cameras and questions to fend off.

Gone was every hope for reconciliation.

She entered her room and switched on the bedside lamp, then examined the disarray of her clothing. Her leather jacket was scored with the scratches of tree branches, her slacks were ripped open in places, and dirt caked both her shoes. She turned to the only mirror in the room.

What a fright.

Strands of hair had escaped the braid in wild profusion. A branch had sliced into her neck and broken the skin. She touched the wound and her hand came away with drops of blood on it. She removed her jacket, then jumped when the ice pick fell to the floor. Mallory must have covertly slipped it back into her pocket, but why would an officer of the law do such a thing?

Behind her, there was a sudden intake of breath. Realizing that she was no longer alone in this room, she whirled around to see her small niece standing in the open doorway, all eyes and staring at the weapon on the floor – the blood on Nedda’s fingers.

„Oh, God,“ said Bitty, „what have you done?“

The elder woman started at these words – echos – of Uncle James, her first accuser. Bitty was back stepping into the hall, and Nedda bowed her head, so sorry, so utterly destroyed.