„No money,“ said Smyth, „but Alice was a very fertile girl. She produced eight siblings for Nedda. All those children ever meant to Quentin was an increase in his guardian allotments.“
„Bastard,“ said Riker. „So Cleo and Lionel take after their dad?“
„Oh, no, nothing like him. The two of them are moneymaking machines. They’re worth millions, but you’d think they’d spent their childhood as starving orphans. Rather mean-spirited about money.“
„And that’s why you give your daughter an allowance?“
„Yes. Bitty’s not up to working just now, but Cleo and Lionel probably think she’s malingering. Might’ve been more human if they’d inherited something of their father’s spirit in spending. And they’re not exacdy warm people. Poor Bitty.“
„But you knew all the quirks when you married into that family, right?“
„And I didn’t care. If you’d only seen Cleo when she was young – what a beauty. What put me off was the way she treated Bitty from the moment I brought that baby into the house. Not a maternal bone in my ex-wife’s body. The only thing that stirs Cleo is a rise in the stock market.“
„What about Quentin’s brother, James Winter? What did he do for money?“
„No idea. I only know that he never did an honest day’s work in his life. That’s what my father said. He liked to gamble, but the man had no real profession.“
Riker had begun to wonder if Sheldon was truly as drunk as he seemed. Was the man sharing or feeding information? Even lawyers stoned on cocaine were not so generous with the dark side of client histories.
„Did the police ever suspect James in the massacre?“ The detective already knew the answer to this one, but he was hoping to catch this man in a lie.
„The police cleared James almost immediately. He had nothing to gain from the murders. Since the trust fund was entailed to a charity, he could never inherit. And James was doing quite well in those days. He lived in a suite at the Plaza Hotel.“
„But you said Lionel caught him stealing from the trust.“
„Yes. I assume, in later years, James had a reversal of fortune. The theft only amounted to housekeeping money, fudging the figures and so on. Nothing major.“
„When did James Winter leave town?“
„I think it was the year Lionel turned twenty-one. Yes, the boy was preparing to take over the trust allotments when he noticed a few irregularities. That’s when his uncle James ran off. Probably wanted to avoid prosecution.“
Riker smiled to hide his deep disappointment. So James Winter was still alive years after Humboldt had been stabbed to death in a little town in Maine. A pity. Uncle James had been such a great candidate for a hitman, lots of cash but no visible means of support.
Their fresh beer had arrived via the maid at the back door. And when Smyth had finished two more bottles, Riker decided to take his best shot – before the attorney passed out. „I hate to bring this up, sir, but my partner still wants to see the trust documents. You think – “
„I told you – or was it your partner? No matter. No documents without a warrant.“
„But you’re the executor. The city attorney says that you can – “
„Can, but won’t. Matter of principle.“
Riker well understood the problem. „So it wouldn’t look good for the firm.“
„Damn right it wouldn’t,“ said Smyth. „For over a hundred years, we’ve been known for absolute discretion.“
And yet, the detective had just completed a tutorial on the Winter family faults.
„Okay,“ said Riker. „You got my word on this. We won’t tell anybody that your dad mismanaged the Winter children’s trust fund.“
The expression on Sheldon Smyth’s face could only be read as guilty surprise, and, in the absence of hot denial, Riker knew he was on to something.
„Hey, I’m a homicide cop. What do I care who diddled what? And the statute of limitations is on your side. But you don’t want a gang of cops at the door. I understand. You want discretion? You got it. How’s this. You like Charles Butler, don’t you? You trust him, right? Instead of us getting a warrant to haul everything downtown, suppose we look over the documents at his place, neutral ground?“
However drunken the man might be, when he smiled, the lucid face of the lawyer made a brief appearance, just popping out long enough to say, „If you could talk a judge into giving you that warrant, you’d have it by now. No deal.“
Sheldon Smyth’s eyes were closing, and Riker left him sitting there amid the litter of empty bottles, one more thing for the maid to clean up.
The quick rap on his door was somewhat annoying, but hardly loud enough to wake his houseguest. Charles opened the New York Times. The rap went on.
Most irritating.
He crushed his newspaper. Even if he had not recognized the impatient knock, almost a signature, he would have known it was Mallory.
Rap, rap, rap.
He glanced at his watch to see that she had allowed him a generous two hours to ply intimate secrets from Nedda, perhaps believing – so insulting – that he would never see through the ruse. Given time for reflection, he had come to understand his true role at the polygraph examination. Riker had as good as confessed, admitting that Charles would have been Mallory’s guest if Bitty Smyth had not insisted on his presence.
Rap, rap. Bang!
Eventually, she would go away. She had keys to the offices across the hall, but none to his apartment. Though now he heard the sound of metal on metal.
Oh, fool I.
When had she ever been deterred by the lack of keys?
His intruder was so stealthy, he never heard the door open. Mallory simply appeared at the end of the foyer. Her own surprise was fleeting – there, then gone. He rose from the couch, startled and speechless. Her preemptive strikes could be dazzling. He was stunned that Mallory was the first one to strike a pose of outrage and indignation. Oh, the very idea that she should have to break into his apartment when he was just sitting there all the while. All of this was in her face, deliberately written there for him to read.
Chief Medical Examiner Edward Slope spent his lunch hour on a tree-lined street in suburban Brooklyn, conversing on the freak warmth of October, and lifting his face to the sun. Yes, he agreed with Rabbi David Kaplan that every day of Indian summer was a gift. They both turned their attention to the mystery crate at the center of Robin Duffy’s garage, while they waited for this charter member of the floating weekly poker game to join them.
„One more time, David.“ The doctor regarded the crate with grave suspicion. „It was dropped off the back of an unmarked truck in the dead of night… but you don’t think Kathy stole it?“
The rabbi shook his head. „No, and neither do you.“
In Edward Slope’s opinion, the rabbi was too gentle to see the worst in others. He also believed that this gentle man regularly beat him at cards by sheer luck and not by the cunning of a born poker player. And, in truth, neither did the doctor believe that Kathy Mallory had stolen the crate, but she might delight in this accusation.
Perverse brat.
And if the truth were fully told, Edward Slope, her principal detractor, loved her unconditionally.
A screen door slammed, and they turned to see a short bulldog of a man walking toward them and grinning widely. „It’s all settled,“ he said. „Charles thinks the game was canceled.“
Edward Slope was still grappling with the concept of a surprise poker game. He faced the open garage, his eyes passing over all the discarded hobbies of Robin Duffy’s experiment in retirement from his legal practice. What a failure. The walls were lined with tools for home improvements, a half-finished canoe from the boat-building class and the potted remains of a dead herb garden.
Kathy Mallory was another one who did not deal well with drastic life changes. She had grown up in this neighborhood and lived across the street with her foster parents. The old house had burned down, leaving a messy hole in
her landscape until another house had been raised on the same footprint of land. Every fourth week of the poker-game rotation, Edward had remarked on the progress of the builders, and, now that it was done, he could not claim to be shocked.
In the early stages of construction, he had recognized something familiar in the raw timbers, the bones of the house. The completed structure was exactly the same in every maniacal detail. This week, the shrubbery had been added, evergreens shaped the way Helen Markowitz had always pruned them. The young tree recently planted in the yard was different, of course – or was it? No, that tree was the same size when Kathy was a little girl. He recalled the night when Louis had come home with a birthday present for Helen, a genuine baby felon caught in the act of robbing a car. What a surprise. And the following week Edward had helped Louis to dig a hole and put a sapling into that same ground. This had long been the custom of the Markowitz family, planting a tree when a child was born – or snatched off the street during the commission of a felony.
Robin stood beside him now, admiring Kathy’s handiwork, as if what she had done was a normal thing. „The mailbox is the original. She saved it from the ashes.“
„What about… inside the house?“
„Just a few things,“ said Robin, „but the kid’s still working on it. Took her months to find Helen’s wallpaper pattern. The company went out of business, but she tracked down some rolls to a hardware store in Montana. The furniture’s a problem, too – all family heirlooms. Some of it dated back to the twenties. What a perfectionist, huh? Every piece has to be exactly the same. So she goes to estate sales on her days off.“ He glanced back at the crate in his garage. „That’s how she knew where to find the table.“ Robin entered the garage and selected a crowbar from the tools on the wall. „She says we can uncrate it to fit it through Charles’s door, but we can’t unwrap it yet. I think she’s afraid we’ll ding up the wood.“
Edward Slope had lost all interest in the surprise poker game. He continued to stare at the house across the street. He tried to imagine Kathy in there, restoring the furnishings of the dead to make her ghosts feel more at home. Or was it an act of pure defiance – creating this illusion that death had never come to her house? Either way, it was quite mad, but also tender, and this argued well for a human heart.
„Confidential?“ Mallory was outraged – genuinely this time – as Charles dragged her by the arm, and they moved inexorably down the hall to the elevator. „You don’t have patients!“ she yelled. „No practice!
You can’t claim protected status!“
„Yes, I can.“ Unperturbed, he pushed the button to bring the elevator.
He was so calm, as if forcibly dragging women around were an everyday thing with him. He would not release her arm while he waited for the elevator doors to open. „Nedda’s my patient,“ he said. „Anything she tells me is in confidence.“
„You’re making this up,“ said Mallory. „You don’t treat people. That’s not your line of work.“
„It is today.“ His head lifted to watch the lights of the elevator. „I think it might be my true calling. Who knows?“
„No, it’s just a stunt. You’re holding out on me – obstructing justice.“
„Well, that’s too bad.“
Something had gone very wrong with her day. Charles was turning against her, and Nedda Winter was responsible for this. Yes, it was Nedda’s fault, and he would see that once she had time to explain, to make up some new lie that he could believe in.
Mallory’s anger shut down, as if a switch had been thrown, a circuit closed. Charles’s hand was lightly covering hers, enclosing it in warmth. His grip tightened as he pulled her into the elevator with him, and she did not mind this. Human contact, flesh to flesh, was so rare in her life. She did nothing to encourage it, but when it came her way, her eyes closed to the slits of a purring cat. The elevator hummed with mechanical clicks and whirrs – her own song of the machine.
And the doors opened too soon.
He pulled her along toward the street door, maybe heading for a quiet cafe down the block. They would talk, and he – „Next time you drop by the office,“ he said, „you might give me a call first. I can’t have you running into my patient in the hallway.“ He let go of her hand, opened the door and put her out in the street – like a cat.
The door slammed.
She looked upward at the sky, and her lips parted with nothing to say. A car pulled up behind her and Riker derailed her thoughts of abandonment.
„Hey, Mallory!“
She turned to see a police cruiser with a uniform behind the wheel and her partner at the rear window, grinning, saying, „It’s a raid, kid. You wanna come?“ He opened the door in invitation, then waved a folded sheet of paper. „I got a warrant for the Winter family trust – all the documents we can carry.“
Behind the cruiser were a police van and two more vehicles driven by uniforms. The cherry lights were all spinning, engines revving up to tell her that it was time to take this road show uptown; they had lawyers to menace, files to pillage, a mess to make, real carnage – what a party.
Nedda was standing at the stove, adjusting the gas flame, when Charles walked into the kitchen, lured there by the aroma of Colombian coffee.
„You know,“ he said, „you and I might be the only people in town who know how to brew coffee in a percolator.“
„I’ve never made it any other way.“
And with those words, this woman, thirty years his senior, had won his heart. He had not lied to Mallory. Nedda would be his patient, and every fear of subsequent damage to himself was put aside. She had inspired him to be a braver man – a better one. And so he picked up their cups and led her back to the library. Over the next hour, her eyes brimmed with tears, and he felt the anguish. He also took over her sense of isolation, and her great fear of being alone. And when she told him of her plan to find a place of her own, he could not bear the idea. He was drowning in Nedda’s loneliness.
„Tell me how you got that warrant,“ Mallory demanded. „I went to three judges, and they stopped short of spitting on me.“
„You didn’t pick the right one, kid.“ And, fortunately, Riker was not a graduate of the Kathy Mallory Charm School. He turned to watch the cityscape flying by his window, then looked back to see his own personal caravan cutting through traffic and ignoring red lights. „I’ve been saving this judge for a rainy day. He used to be a civil-rights attorney. Loves the poor, hates the rich. God bless his liberal, left-wing ass.“
No, I don’t think so, said the look on her face – smart kid – there had to be more to it than that.
„This judge,“ said Riker, „he’s a real old fart. Should’ve retired years ago. He remembers when this town was turned upside down looking for Red Winter, and he’s been waiting fifty-eight years for the end of that story.“
„You told him who Nedda was?“ Unspoken were the words You idiot.
Riker let this slide, still flush with the win of his warrant. He had pulled off the perfect marriage of Mallory’s love for money motives and his own bone-deep distrust of lawyers.
„Yeah, I told him everything – laid it all out, but don’t worry. This judge hates reporters more than cops. Now go back to the other day at the Harvard Club. You told Sheldon Smyth his daughter’s life was on the line, and he still wouldn’t give you a look at those trust documents. That was cold. Lawyers are almost human when it comes to their kids, but not old Sheldon. So today I got him smashed in his own backyard. Turns out he’s a flyweight drinker. I sort of accused his law firm of embezzlement. Now that should’ve pissed him off, right? But no. Drunk as he is, he says to me, ‘No warrant, no documents.’ And that’s when I know he’s got something to hide.“
Mallory’s eyes rolled up, searching the skies outside her window for winged pigs, flights of angels and other miracles. „And the judge thought that was enough for a warrant?“
„No. Can I finish my story now? So I’m in the judge’s chambers when he ph
ones Sheldon Smyth. Figures it’s just a misunderstanding. Maybe we can settle this without a warrant. Well, the lawyer’s still drunk when he takes the judge’s call. His Honor never gets out a word about the trust fund. Something on Smyth’s end of the phone pissed him off. The judge says to him, ‘Suck your what?’ And that was enough for a warrant.“
„I recommend more rest,“ said Charles. „A nap in the middle of the day is the world’s most underrated pleasure.“
„You’re right. I haven’t had much sleep lately.“ Nedda lifted the pan so he could admire the golden brown texture of her omelet. „And tonight I plan to have it out with Cleo and Lionel.“
„Why the rush?“
„It’s time – long past time.“ She turned off the stove burner and carried her masterpiece to the kitchen table. „And I’ll have a better chance with them if we’re not sharing the same roof.“
Ah, back to her plan for apartment hunting – one of the most stressful activities in New York City. Nedda would fail to thrive in any solitary existence, for profound depression would surely follow such a move.
„Well, fortunately, I own this apartment building.“ He pulled down plates from the cupboard and laid them out on the kitchen table. „And I have a vacant apartment. I think you’d like it here. But take my guest room for a few days. If things work out well with Cleo and Lionel, you may not need a place of your own.“
When they were seated, Charles agreed that, yes, steak sauce was an interesting accent for the omelet. And Nedda asked if he had forgiven Bitty for that little shrine in her bedroom. „My favorite is the shot of your birthday party. You must’ve made quite an impression on her that day.“
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