„I did,“ said Riker, „for about six minutes. But now I think Nedda was – “
„Nedda Winter?“ Slope stared at Riker. „That was the name Charles wanted on the Valium prescription.“ The doctor turned to Mallory with a fresh accusation on his face, though he could not name it – not yet.
Riker wished he could call his words back. So little got by Edward Slope. He could tell that the doctor was putting it all together now: the passage of time, a recent murder in Winter House, the old massacre investigation, an elderly woman he had met downstairs, someone with Mallory’s interrogation footprints all over her face and the doctor’s best guess at that woman’s age – Red Winter’s age.
„Oh, my God. You found her.“
Charles Butler’s mood had improved, perhaps due to drugs. After filling the Valium prescription at the pharmacy, Nedda Winter had insisted upon sharing it with him, rightly suspecting that his morning had been nearly as bad as hers.
He had already begun the work of undoing Mallory’s damage while collecting Nedda’s belongings at Winter House, and now he had provided a safe refuge for the woman so that she could do further mending. And, in part, he supposed that Mallory’s doomsday warning had spooked him. And Nedda, too? It had come as a surprise when she had accepted his offer of sanctuary so readily. He set her suitcase down inside the door of his guest room, and, upon turning around, noticed that his houseguest had been misplaced. He walked down the hallway calling out, „Nedda?“
„In here,“ she said.
He entered the library and found her seated in the circle of new club chairs. She seemed quite at home in this setting, but then, by her account, she had spent most of her life inside of books – a secondhand life she had called it.
„Is this where you do group therapy?“
„No,“ he said, „I’ve never had a patient practice. This is where I play poker.“ Charles sat down beside her and stretched out his long legs. „Now, in this big empty space, try to imagine a gaming table made in 1839.“
„Should I imagine the cards as well?“
„No, I’m not that far gone. I gave away my old card table so I’d have room for one I bought at an auction. The very next day, the antique table was destroyed in a warehouse fire.“
„An antique. You take your poker seriously.“
„And I always lose, but I love the game – and the company. When my friend Louis Markowitz died, I inherited his chair in a floating weekly poker game. Tonight will be the first time it’s ever been canceled.“
„Because of me?“
„Oh, no. I wasn’t the one who canceled the game.“
Nedda smiled. „Well, not to waste these wonderful chairs – if you can’t find the right table, you might open up a private practice. You’re a natural. I’m something of an expert in therapists, and I say you’ve got the gift.“ She looked around at the other chairs, which did indeed resemble a therapy group arrangement. „This was my life for decades, one hospital after another and more doctors than I care to remember.“
„Could’ve fooled me,“ he said. „You don’t strike me as someone who’s been institutionalized. But then, I suppose it makes a difference that you were never insane.“
„As I said, you have the gift.“
And now he picked up the threads of their earlier conversation. „So you believed that you could never go home again. But then you did.“
„Thanks to my niece. But now I think it would’ve been better if I’d never come back.“
„Well, a few criminal intrusions, a violent death – that’s quite a bit of trauma. But that’s not what you meant, is it?“
„No. You’re a good listener, Charles. You can hear things between the words. I meant that it would’ve been better if my brother and sister never had to set eyes on me again. I’m the intruder at Winter House.“
In this unguarded moment, there was more sadness in her eyes than he could bear.
Empathy was his strength and his weakness; it was what suited him to a therapist’s role and what prevented him from ever treating a patient. He would never be able to affect the professional detachment so key to the well-being of a therapist’s own mind. He was already dying by degrees, imagining every shock that Nedda Winter had born, the cost of every death – all the pain that she was feeling now and her terrible sense of isolation. And then he pulled back, emotionally and even physically. He rose from his chair and unconsciously rubbed his hands together, as if in the act of washing them clean of this woman. „Well, what you need now is rest.“
This was what he also told himself – this lie. In reality, he had just shut her down and shut her out. He knew it, and she knew it. Nedda was all alone again.
Mallory sat in the front room of Winter House, sipping coffee and becoming acquainted with Nedda’s siblings. Riker had begged off on this interview, and she had only thought about his possible reasons in every other minute. And now she made her final judgment on her partner: he was losing the stomach for this case – and for her company.
„I don’t understand,“ said Cleo Winter-Smyth. „Why should Nedda be staying at Charles Butler’s house?“
„Was that your doing?“ asked Lionel Winter.
„No.“ Mallory put down the teacup. The time for good manners was fast passing. „It was Dr. Butler’s idea. He didn’t say why. Do you think he might have some reason to believe that Nedda wouldn’t be safe in this house?“
Brother and sister looked to one another for answers.
And now that she had knocked them off balance, Mallory continued, addressing Cleo. „Maybe it was something your daughter said to him? Is she here?“
„She’s not at home,“ said Lionel Winter.
Mallory understood his meaning. His niece was not at home to the police.
The detective pulled out a small notebook. „A few questions came up in our investigation. You had a younger sister who survived the massacre.“ She looked down at the notebook page. There was nothing written there. „Sally? Was that her name? I understand that she ran away from home.“
Cleo wore a frozen smile. „Oh, the dinner party. That’s what set Charles Butler off – all those stories.“ She spoke to Mallory, but would not look at her anymore. „Lionel and I were away at school when Sally left.“
„Yes,“ said the detective, „you’re always away when things happen in this house.“ She studied more blank pages in her notebook, then faced Lionel. „You fired Sally’s nurse shortly before the girl ran away?“
He nodded.
Mallory waited for him to fill in the silence with nervous explanations, but soon realized that this was not going to happen. He was simply tolerating her presence in the house. She went for the soft spot, moving her chair closer to his sister. She leaned toward Cleo Winter-Smyth. „But, ma’am, you said you weren’t here. Are you sure that Sally ran away? Who was looking after her if the nurse – “
„Our guardian.“ Lionel raised his voice. „He was looking after Sally that day. And yes, we’re quite sure that she ran away.“
While sister and brother were silently communing with one another, Mallory caught sight of Bitty Smyth’s reflection in a mirror that angled toward the grand staircase. The tiny woman was gripping the banister and shaking her head. Mallory pressed on with Cleo and Lionel. „So there must’ve been a report filed with Missing Persons. What year was that?“
Brother and sister were having identical reactions, and Mallory knew they were doing the math in their heads. This was the response of teenagers forced by a bartender to recall the date of a fictional birth on a fake driver’s license.
So much pressure counting backward.
Cleo fielded this one. „It was maybe fifty years ago.“ She turned to her brother. „Lionel?“
„Give or take a few years,“ he said. „Our guardian would have filed the report with the police.“
The detective appreciated guile. Prescient Lionel Winter had looked ahead to the next problem. When the police came back to tell him th
at no missing-person report had been found, then that bit of negligence could be blamed on a dead man, Uncle James.
Mallory added Sally Winter to the body count for Winter House. „That clears up most of my loose ends.“ She produced a yellow pad, the format for a murderer’s confession on a typical day in Special Crimes Unit. „If you could just write out the details and the dates in your own words. Then sign it – both of you.“
She waited out the minutes it took for Lionel’s terse written account of Sally Winter’s disappearance. Glancing at the mirror again, she caught sight of Bitty crouched below the banister rail on the second-floor landing – odd behavior for a lawyer. That little woman should be rushing down the stairs to caution her mother and her uncle against signing anything for the police.
Too late.
Lionel was done committing this small crime, the falsification of a police statement, and both signatures were on the page. Mallory read the carefully printed words. The faint erasure of numbers was barely visible in the margin. He had finally worked out a year that would match up with the dinner party conversation. „There’s something odd about this date. If Sally Winter ran away forty-eight years ago, she would ‘ve been just under ten years old. Now that’s odd. Most runaways are teenagers. I’ve never – “
„Sally might’ve wandered off,“ said Cleo. And she continued on in this classic mistake of explaining too much. „Our uncle wasn’t very good with children.“ The woman looked down at her folded hands, and the tone of her voice was more wistful now. „I had always hoped that some good Samaritan had found Sally – lost, maybe hurt. And maybe – “
Lionel Winter silenced his sister with one look.
„Right,“ said Mallory, not bothering to disguise a tone of disbelief. However, Cleo’s last words had the ring of something true. „Well, I’ll check it out with Missing Persons.“
The detective stood up and walked to the foot of the stairs, pretending to admire a large painting hanging high above her on the second-floor landing. Below it, Bitty Smyth was crouching behind the rail. Startled, the little woman slowly rose to a stand. Though there was an ocean of air between them, with Mallory’s every step forward, Bitty stepped back. In this fashion, the smaller woman was driven to the wall. She edged slowly toward the door of an open room and disappeared. The door closed softly.
How much had the little eavesdropper learned over all the years of growing up in this house? Was this how Bitty knew where to look for Nedda, a woman who had disappeared long before she was born? What other conversations had she overheard this way?
Mallory turned her attention to another large oil painting, as if she had needed this closer inspection of the two young men posed there. Charles Butler had described this portrait of the Winter brothers as a cartoon. She turned to face the curious stares of Cleo and Lionel, and then walked back to them, killing their hopes of a quick end to this interview. „Let’s talk about the day of the massacre.“
Lionel was the first to recover from that little bomb. „There’s no possible relevance to – “
„I’ll decide that. I don’t have much to work with. I can put in a request for the file and the evidence boxes, but the more I dig, the more chance of a leak to the news media. You want the reporters to know that Red Winter came home?“
A suddenly alarmed Cleo reached out to her brother, stopping just short of physical contact. On some level, a silent conversation was going on between them, for now Lionel nodded in agreement with some unvoiced pact, and his sister lost that frightened look in her eyes.
„Of course,“ said Lionel, addressing the detective, „we’ll do whatever we can to avoid publicity. When we were children, we couldn’t go anywhere without reporters chasing us. Once, Cleo was nearly trampled in the street. After that, we were sent away to school, and all our summers were spent in the Hamptons. It was years before my sister could live in this house without nightmares.“
Good.
Mallory was satisfied that, under the threat of headlines, they would not be insulating themselves with a battery of lawyers. „You survived the massacre, so I’m guessing you two weren’t in the house that day.“ She sat down again, crossing her legs, leaning back and making it clear that she had all day long to hurt them. „As I said before, you’re never home – when things happen here.“
Cleo stood up and crossed the room, heading for the stairs and moving in the manner of one who has lost her sight, hands gripping the furniture until she found the banister. She climbed the stairs as slowly as an invalid.
Mallory gripped the arms of her chair, as if preparing to pursue the woman, but this was only a threat of body language.
„Please let her go,“ said Lionel. „My sister was only five years old. She can’t remember the details of that day.“ He looked down at his folded hands. „And I can’t forget them. It was a pure accident that Cleo and I survived. We didn’t plan to be gone that Sunday. I had a fight with my father and stormed out of the house. I’d only walked a few blocks before I realized that little Cleo was following me. She was crying. My father’s temper always had that effect on her. I took her to the park for a Punch and Judy show. You know – the puppets? Then I hired a rowboat, and we drifted around the lake for another hour or so. Neither of us wanted to go home.“
„Were there any outsiders in the house when you left? I don’t mean the nanny or the housekeeper.“
„I suppose it’s possible. Sometimes we’d wake up and find strangers asleep on the couches, people who’d passed out at some party the night before. But I don’t remember seeing anyone else in the house that day. Cleo and I were away for a few hours, two or three.“
„And Nedda? Where was she?“
„She left the house before we did. She went to a brunch with the Smyth family. Sheldon may remember that. He would’ve been twelve years old then. I saw Nedda leave in the Smyths’ car late that morning, and I never saw her again. By the time Cleo and I came back to the house, it was all over. The baby was crying in the upstairs nursery. I remember that.“
He fell silent for a few moments, and Mallory waited him out.
„Cleo ran through the house, shaking all the bodies,“ he said. „She doesn’t remember that – or she doesn’t want to. She came back downstairs crying. She had the baby in her arms. Everyone was asleep, she said, and maybe sick like Mommy and Daddy. Then she tried to wake up our parents. I yelled at her, this tiny little girl. They’re not asleep, I yelled. They’re dead! And then, I just stood there. I couldn’t move. It was Cleo who called the police that day. And then she rocked Sally in her arms until they arrived. The policemen couldn’t get the baby away from her. I remember the officers taking them out the door. I can still see them. Little Cleo, a baby with a baby in her arms.“
„You thought Nedda killed them all, didn’t you?“
This had no startling effect on him, but he did not answer her.
Mallory let herself out.
Though there were lots of chairs around the garden, Riker, a confirmed stoop-sitter, preferred his perch on the back steps of this mansion across the park from Winter House. The trees gave him shade from the sun of high noon. He reached into his deli bag and took out the last of his lunch, another cold bottle, and he handed it to Sheldon Smyth, who claimed to prize the detective’s cheap brand of beer above all the costly wines in his cellar. What bullshit.
Smyth was playing the quintessential gentleman and putting the common man, Riker, at ease. But the old fart did it so well. And now that the day had warmed a bit, the lawyer removed his jacket and tie, following his guest’s example.
So far, Riker had learned that, despite Sheldon Smyth’s profession and a pansy tolerance for beer, they had one thing in common. And now they played another round of I Hate Divorce Lawyers.
„I should’ve tried harder to get custody of Bitty.“ Smyth slurred his words. „Bet it cost you a bundle in child support and alimony.“
„The settlement was staggering.“ Smyth upended the last bottle. „Oh,
dear,“ he said, unable to extract another drop. The old man banged on the back door until a woman appeared in a maid’s uniform. He stood up, none too steady on his feet, to pull a wallet from his pocket. Upon opening it, he stared at the money inside, as if currency were a mystery to him. Riker smiled. This man had no idea what beer would cost. Handing a wad of bills to his maid, Smyth sent her out for replacement bottles. The man was under the impression that he had drunk only half the beer in the exhausted carton, never suspecting the detective’s great talent for nursing one drink indefinitely. They were on a first name basis now – Sheldon and Detective.
„Sounds pretty cold,“ said Riker, „the way your ex-wife treated your kid.“
„Bitty’s adopted. I suppose that made a difference. But, at least my daughter didn’t inherit any of the Winter genes. My father disowned me, you know, when I married into that family. Cut me off. No job, no money. I had to live at Winter House for a while.“
„What was your old man’s problem with the Winters?“
„Oh, it dated back to Cleo’s father, Quentin, and his brother, James. Very disreputable, both of them. Neither one was worth anything, financially or otherwise. They broke their trust fund after their parents died. Spent all the money, and so fast. This is my father’s account, you understand. Winter House was in foreclosure when the younger brother, James, left town with a slew of debts. The older boy, Quentin, was a dilettante who fancied himself a great artist.“
The word dilettante had to be repeated twice: first because Riker could not understand the man’s beer soaked speech, and the second time because it amused the detective to hear a lawyer stumble this way.
„Quentin solved the money problem by marrying a wealthy woman. That was Nedda’s mother, Edwina.“
As the old man rambled on, Riker learned that Quentin Winter had been livid when he discovered the terms of his late wife’s will. According to Sheldon’s father, Edwina had changed her will once a month, following fights with her husband. In the last version, all the money had been tied up in trust for Nedda and her siblings. Edwina Winter had been pregnant with twins when she died – hence the sibling clause. Within a month of his first wife’s death, Quentin Winter had married his favorite model, Alice, who was already pregnant with Lionel.
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