Riker leaned far forward in his chair, caught between surprise and confusion. „You heard right,“ said Charles. „She just told the truth.“ And he understood why. Nedda must believe in Mallory. Hang the damned machine.
„The examiner your niece picked out was a useless cheat,“ said Mallory, setting the deck on the table. „Bad card tricks are a hack’s game. He wanted you to believe that he could read your mind. Now me? I don’t care what you believe.“ She pointed to the waving lines at the top of the machine. „If you hold your breath, I’ll know.“ One long red fingernail moved down through the other lines. „If your heart beats a little faster, I’ll know. When you break a sweat, I’ll see it on the machine before it shows up on your face.“ She held up the sheet she had torn from the examiner’s machine. „His last question was inconclusive, so we’ll try it again.“ She wadded the paper into a ball and threw it across the room. Nedda Winter flinched, perhaps believing that it was aimed at her.
A good start.
Turning on the machine, Mallory said, „Now, let’s go for a ride.“ She picked up her pencil and watched the scrolling lines, asking, „Did you ever kill anyone? Yes or no.“
„Yes.“
Mallory consulted the spikes on the scrolling paper, making notes here and there. „You were very calm the night we came to your house, but now your heart is beating way too fast. Is the burglar the only man you ever killed?“
Nedda’s voice was not much above a whisper, asking, „What does this have to do with the – “
„ Yes, or no. If I knew your total body count, would I be impressed?“
Charles sank low in his chair. „I think I prefer the dark old days of thumbscrews and the rack. Does Mallory understand that she’s reading signs of stress – not guilt? Just being in the same room with her is enough to – “
„She knows,“ said Riker. „With a little preparation, a brain-dead Girl Scout can beat the box. But you can tell the truth and still fail the exam.“
„So it’s totally useless. Why would – “
„Nedda’s our only lead. We sent the Maine cops to Susan McReedy’s house to ask a few questions and check out her story. Seems the lady disappeared. Nedda’s all we got left.“ This was not entirely true. The last resort would be Bitty Smyth, who would lawyer up immediately. And then they would lose their leverage over the woman on the other side of the glass.
„I know you like Nedda Winter,“ said Charles. „Why can’t you do the interrogation instead of Mallory?“
„No,“ said Riker, „I could never do what she’s gonna do.“
Mallory turned off the machine. „This looks bad for you. I can’t help you if you hold out on me. So we have to clarify your response. Right now, all I know for sure is that the burglar wasn’t your first kill.“
The detective leaned far back in her chair. No need to consult the machine – Nedda Winter’s face said it all. The woman had just been assaulted with no bruising, no blood loss. All the pain was in her eyes, the mouth half open, hands clenching.
„So let’s clear up that previous death. Suppose you had an accident, ran somebody down in a car. That would explain the readings I see on this machine. Give me the circumstances, and then I can eliminate the last question.“ Nedda was flailing, arms raising, wires dangling from her body parts. She looked at her right hand, mechanized now, and she was horrified.
„All right.“ Mallory turned the machine on. „Let’s take an easy question, a throwaway. The other night at the dinner party, I understand your niece gave you an old pack of tarot cards. She said they were yours. Was that true?“
„You’ve been talking to Charles Butler.“ Nedda turned to the mirror. „Is he there now? Bitty said she’d picked him for the neutral observer.“
Charles turned to Riker. „When were you going to tell me that?“
„Never. No reason to. If Bitty hadn’t made you a condition of the test, Mallory would’ve asked you to come. The key word here is neutral. You’re Switzerland, Charles.“
„The hell I am.“
„Next question,“ said Mallory, „another easy one. Have you been reading tarot cards for a long time?“
„Yes. Wait.“ Nedda Winter erased her answer, wiping the air with both hands. „I mean… no. That was so long ago. I was a child the last time I saw that deck.“
„A child? Was this before the massacre?“
Nedda looked up in dumb surprise. Her mouth opened to speak, but she had no words.
„Did you get your tarot deck before the Winter House Massacre? Yes, or no“ Mallory drummed her nails on the table. „What’s the problem, Miss Winter? Too many murders? I’m talking about one massacre, your father, your stepmother, five small children, the nanny and the housekeeper – nine people. Did you get that tarot deck before they – “
„No!“ Nedda lowered her voice to a whisper. „No.“
Mallory switched off the machine. „All right. You didn’t hold out on that one, but now I’ve got another problem.“ She waited a beat, then asked, „Why did you come home again?“
The woman looked down at her hands, her head slowly moving from side to side.
The machine was switched on again. „Are you telling me it wasn’t your idea?“ She glanced at the readings, though she had no need of them since she already knew the answer. „That’s it, isn’t it? Someone else brought you home. Was it Lionel Winter?“ Mallory made a note below a spiking line. „No, not him. Was it Cleo Winter-Smyth? No. I’m getting odd responses here, Nedda. Your brother and sister – they didn’t welcome you back, did they?“ The spikes on the scrolling paper were climbing. „Not a very warm reception?“
Nedda shook her head. No, it was not.
And now Mallory leaned far forward. „Was it your niece? Did Bitty Smyth bring you home?“ The detective’s head dropped closer to the machine as she made the next notation. „Yes, it was Bitty.“ Mallory looked up. „And where did she find you?“
„In a hospice. No, wait. I’m sorry. The nursing home – I think. I wasn’t very clearheaded then. I was moved into a nursing home after a diagnosis of end-stage cancer. The hospice was the last place. I was taken there to die.“
„But you weren’t dying, and you knew it – even if your doctors didn’t.
Nobody comes back from the end stage. So, before the nursing home, you were in a hospital?“
Nedda nodded her head.
„But not a regular hospital, not a place where they would’ve cut you open to look for a malignancy. No expensive tests. Maybe a state asylum with a clinic? Nothing else fits, Nedda. A real hospital would’ve gone looking for that cancer. Did you want to die? Was that it? An asylum is junkie heaven – all those drugs. Did you steal medication from other patients? Is that why you had yellow skin and odd results in your blood work?“
Nedda nodded.
„How did Bitty Smyth know where to find you?“
Nedda looked up, genuinely curious, as if she had never considered this problem before. „A private investigator, I think.“
„No,“ said Mallory. „That doesn’t work for me. It’s a country of three hundred million people, six million square miles.“ The detective unfolded a dust jacket from one of the pulp books written about the murders at Winter House. It was illustrated with the Red Winter painting. „Do you see any resemblance between you and this little girl? No, even old family photographs wouldn’t have helped to find you. Don’t you wonder what Bitty’s hiding? Why would your niece zero in on the state of Maine? She was working with insider information, knowledge she could only get from her family. You know what this means? Your sister and your brother always knew where you were.“
Nedda moved her head from side to side.
„And they let you rot,“ said Mallory. „Do they hate you that much? They never wanted you back. Why? Do they believe that you slaughtered their family – parents, sisters, brothers? Do they want you dead?“
The old woman’s head tilted at an odd angle and her eyes were suddenly vacant, a
s if the detective had just turned her off with the same switch used to shut down the machine.
„Tell you what,“ said Mallory, rising from the table, „you think about it for a while.“ She ripped her long tract of paper free of the polygraph. „I have to review my readings. Maybe you’ll feel better when I get back.“
Riker was quick to disillusion Charles of the idea that Mallory was showing the woman any kindness. „Welcome to hell.“
„You have to stop this. She’s poisoning that poor woman against her whole family.“
„Can’t. It’s a big mistake to get between Mallory and a case. And we’re so close, Charles.“
„Close to what?“
„The only good result from a polygraph exam is a confession.“
„Confession to a mass murder? I’ll never believe that.“
Mallory stood in the doorway. „Maybe the killer was breaking in an apprentice. Does that make it a little easier to believe?“
„A twelve-year-old girl?“ Charles shook his head. „I don’t think so.“
„New York has a criminal class of children,“ said Riker. „Adults use them for robberies ‘cause the kids are too young to do time. They make the perfect little perps, and sometimes they carry lethal weapons.“
„And sometimes they kill people,“ said Mallory. „Now take that dead man on Nedda’s rug the other night.“ The detective was watching the glass window on the other room. „She killed that man in the dark. No hesitation marks. She just did him without even thinking about it. I say she’s had some practice.“
„She was protecting herself and Bitty.“
„And then,“ said Riker, „there’s history – the one you won’t find in Pinwitty’s book. There were three generations of hitmen with the same signature as the Winter House Massacre – so they had apprentices.“
„And,“ said Mallory, „the apprentices killed the masters. The ice-pick murders stopped when Nedda was a little girl, when she killed Humboldt.“
Charles’s attention was riveted to Nedda, and she was looking his way by chance. Was she searching the mirror side, seeking him in the looking glass, wanting an ally, needing a friend? „You can’t go on with this. I know what you’re doing. You’re cutting this woman’s legs out from under her. After you strip her of family support, the only one she’ll be able to turn to is you.“
„She’s safer with me than her relatives,“ said Mallory. „The one crime nobody expects me to care about is the death of Willy Roy Boyd. He was a piece of scum, but he was my piece of scum, and that’s the case I’m working here. Somebody hired him to kill a woman that night – probably Nedda. She’s key to everything. So I torture her a little and she lives… or I can let her go and watch her die. Pick one.“
„Find another way,“ said Charles. „This has to stop right now. You can see how fragile she is.“ And badly wounded. Indeed, Nedda had just been flayed to the bone of psyche.
Mallory returned to the interview room, but not to end the interrogation. She started up the machine again, and Nedda lifted her head, slowly, sadly, to face her interrogator.
„Let’s get back to the man you stabbed the other night.“ Mallory turned the machine on again. „Do you think your relatives hired that man to kill you?“
„No, of course not.“
„You don’t think they’re capable of murder?“
Nedda shook her head.
„Somebody hired him to kill you. Think about it, Nedda. Your brother and sister are always out of town when something happens. How many people knew you were back? And what happened to your baby sister? We can’t find any school records for Sally Winter. You think she lived long enough to go to school?“ Mallory looked down at the machine. „You’re heart is racing, Nedda.“
„Stop it!“
„Maybe they committed the perfect murder. That little girl was – “
„Detective Mallory, please stop.“
„Now, the attempt on your life – that was a total screwup. But what about your baby sister? What do you suppose they did with her body? Don’t you care? We can’t find any trace of her dead or alive.“
Nedda’s hands rose to her head, warding off the words, her head making small jerking movements, hands rising like white fluttered wings, playing bird to Mallory’s cat.
The detective pushed her chair back from the table. Her work was done. She could roughly predict the moment when Charles Butler would come barreling through the door. Oh, and here he was now. Such a gentleman, and so angry.
Mallory joined Riker in the observation room. They watched the ongoing show from the dark side of the glass. Charles removed all the mechanical devices that had bound Nedda Winter to the chair and the machine.
„She’ll talk to Charles.“
„Yeah,“ said Riker, „but I’m not sure there’s anything left for her to tell.“
Her partner had been against this idea of replacing the niece with a brand-new confidant for the old woman, but he had come up with no better plan.
Nedda preceded Charles as he quit the interview room, slamming the door behind him, loud as a gunshot. Mallory, his unintended target, tensed every muscle in her body. She turned to face Riker, but he looked away, not wanting to meet her eyes anymore. These small things, the slam of a door, the turn of Riker’s head – they would remain with her for the rest of the day as a portent of things to come.
She was always losing people.
Edward Slope strolled up to the SoHo police station, and a uniformed officer rushed to open the door for him, though the younger man had no reason to recognize the chief medical examiner, a rare visitor in this precinct. Dr. Slope’s austere presence and excellent suit always commanded instant respect.
As he approached the front desk, he wore his eyeglasses riding low on the bridge of his nose, not caring that his vision was blurred. The doctor had finished a morning’s pro bono work at the free clinic two blocks away, and he had seen quite enough for one day – homeless people dying of old age in their thirties and forties.
Impaired vision or not, he could never have missed the physically imposing figure of Charles Butler – no more than he could fail to notice a Ko-diak bear in his shower stall. The man stood on the other side of the wide room, a head above the police officers gathered here and there in loose groups of twos and threes. Charles was deep in conversation with a tall white-haired woman and a child with pointed ears.
Well, that was interesting.
Dr. Slope raised his spectacles the better to see the latter as a more mundane person, a very small woman with a pixie haircut and ears that were disappointingly normal.
Ah, and now he had attracted Charles Butler’s attention. Dr. Slope had never before seen this man angry. Charles had always impressed him as the most congenial of oversized humans, one who seemed embarrassed when he dwarfed other people. Well, this was a sight to behold, the wide-shouldered giant marching toward him with such grim resolution, hands curled into fists – and all the surrounding policemen seemed to agree. Their heads were turning, sensing trouble. So impressive was Charles that, all about the room, hands were lightly resting on guns.
Chapter 7
WHEN RIKER FOLLOWED HIS PARTNER INTO LIEUTENANT Coffey’s office, the chief medical examiner was waiting for them. The pathologist was not a happy man, and neither was their lieutenant.
Dr. Slope fixed his eye on Mallory, reprimanding her with a cold stare, and Riker had to crack a smile. This was a reminder of her kiddy days when the doctor had suspected her of some new criminal act each time they met. Slope’s worst grievance against her was cheating at poker on those nights when Lou Markowitz had been on midget duty and taken his foster child along to the weekly penny-ante game. By Lou Markowitz’s account, his daughter had regularly cleaned out the doctor’s pockets, and this had set the tone for Slope’s relationship with Mallory down through the years.
„So, Kathy,“ said the doctor, absolutely fearless in this forbidden use of her first name, „what have you done to Char
les Butler?“ Predicting her trademark line, I didn’t do it, he gave her no time to answer. „I saw Charles downstairs a few minutes ago. He all but slammed me up against a wall and demanded a prescription for Valium. And so, of course… I thought of you.“
Mallory’s only response was to fold her arms, shutting him out and making it clear that she was not going to play games with him today.
Slope’s expression was more suspicious than usual, and he was puzzled, too, as if he knew he had caught her at something; though, as yet, the doctor could have no idea what her most recent wrongdoing might be. „Nothing to say for yourself, Kathy?“
„Mallory,“ she said, correcting him as she always did, and her eyes were promising payback for breaking this rule.
Did the doctor care? Not at all.
Slope handed an envelope to Riker. „That’s the report on your corpse. Are we still calling him a John Doe burglar?“
„Yeah,“ said the senior detective. „We can’t afford any leaks to the media.“
„I can keep Willy Roy Boyd in paperwork limbo indefinitely,“ said Slope. „But it’s just a matter of time before somebody recognizes the corpse as Mallory’s lady-killer. I examined the wound to his heart. The sewing shears masked everything but the tip of another object, something sharper, narrower. It wouldn’t be inconsistent with an ice pick.“
„And what about the comparisons?“
„To Stick Man?“ The doctor took a bundle of yellowed papers from his medical bag. „Here – your grandfather’s notes. I must compliment him on that signature strike. Superb police work. I also read his summaries on the other autopsies. However, in this case, there was so much damage done by the scissors, there’s no way to find any sign of it on Boyd’s corpse. And nothing stood out in the old autopsy reports on the Winter House Massacre. Of course, with an exhumation, the absence of any chips to the bone would – “
„No way,“ said Jack Coffey. „I’m not spending money to dig up people who died back in the forties.“ He looked up at his senior detective. „I can’t believe you expected a Stick Man signature on Mallory’s perp.“
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