Winter House

by Carol O’Connell

  Riker interrupted her, leaning in, asking, „How did your dad read the scene that night? Did he take it for an accident?“

  Susan McReedy turned to Mallory with a raised eyebrow to ask if this interruption was necessary. Mallory only stared at her in silence, and the woman took this for an affirmative.

  „My father had two different theories, two years apart. That night, he figured it for an accident. The quarry pool was a good place to lose a car – a body, too – but leaving the headlights on would defeat that purpose, wouldn’t it? Now the door on the driver side hung open and angled down toward the water. So he figured the driver – Dad was guessing a teenage boy – ten wrecks out of ten were teenagers – well, he thought the driver must’ve dropped into the pool and drowned. That was assuming the crash didn’t kill him first. You could expect a corpse to bloat up with gas and rise to the surface after a while, but that one never did.“

  Mallory made a rolling motion with one hand to move the story back on track.

  „Well, a sheer drop like that one, you’d need a rope to get down to where the car was. Dad and my uncle were rock-climbing fools. They had all the gear in the trunks of their cars, and pretty soon, both of them were rappelling down that rock wall by the light of the neighbors’ flashlights. They worked for hours to free the girl from that car. One wrong move, the car would drop and the girl would be lost. Nothing has ever come out of that pool – except bloated dead bodies, animals mostly, and a few suicide jumpers.“

  „All the while they worked, they did a balancing act to keep the car from teetering off that outcrop of rock. Hooked their own lifelines onto the metal. They could’ve died that night. They didn’t care. They were going to carry that girl out if it killed them both to do it.“

  „So the ambulance crew lowered the stretcher, then Dad and Uncle Henry strapped her in. After they hauled her up, the ambulance driver took one look at that poor broken girl and told my dad she’d never make it. Well, Dad climbed into that ambulance and rode with her to the hospital, talking to her all the while, demanding that she survive. And she did. But it was a few years before she was mended. It was one operation after another. She was real brave – all that pain – years of it.“

  Riker asked, „What about the car?“

  „It fell into the quarry pool. Dad and his brother were on the way up when the car went down. It was that close.“

  „So your dad never traced the car?“

  „No need. He knew whose car it was while he was still up on the rim. It was stolen from my uncle’s parking lot. Uncle Henry had a little restaurant, the only one for miles around.“

  Riker exchanged looks with Mallory.

  „I know what you’re thinking,“ said Miss McReedy, „but you’re getting ahead of the story. You said every detail, right? Well, Dad figured the girl was at least eighteen if not older, full grown. She was a tall one. So that’s what he put in his report. If the doctors thought different they never said, or maybe they just couldn’t tell. She was so smashed up, poor thing. No part of her was whole. And she could never tell Dad anything helpful, not her name or who the driver was, nothing at all. The hospital called her Jane Doe. We called her our Jane. She lived at our house between hospital stays. Dad could never quite let go of that girl until the day he died, and his brother felt the same way. The three of them were forever tied together in a way that wasn’t quite like family. In some ways, it was a closer bond. I know that sounds odd.“

  „I understand it,“ said Riker.

  Mallory knew she had missed something important here, but she let it slide away, for it had nothing to do with her case.

  Susan McReedy was less annoyed with Riker when he asked about her father’s second theory. „I’m getting to that,“ she said. „The poor girl had gone through four operations before she was off the crutches for good. Then she wanted to earn her own keep. Two years had gone by. We thought she was at least twenty years old by then.“

  The woman reached down and pulled a paperback book from the carpetbag at her feet. „But I guess we all know better now. She was only twelve when we found her. Isn’t that right?“ Miss McReedy turned from Mallory to Riker. Her expression was almost a challenge to contradict her. She was satisfied by their silence and continued. „So she was just fourteen years old when my uncle gave her that little apartment over the restaurant. I wish that we had known she was just a little girl.“

  The woman stared at her shoes, overcome by sadness. Mallory and Riker kept their silence.

  „Everyone admired our Jane for working in the restaurant – so public and all. Customers tended to stare at her in all the wounded places that showed, but she soldiered on. Looked them all right in the eye as if her face were normal, good as theirs. That’s when we came to believe she was really on the mend.“

  Mallory stared at the cover illustration of the book in the woman’s hand. It was a reproduction of the Red Winter painting. A store receipt stood for a bookmark. This woman had only recently worked it all out.

  „I guess,“ said Susan McReedy, „I can put one thing and another together pretty well. First that New York author calls me a few years back. And then Mr. Butler – the same questions.“ The librarian held up the book when she said, „I’m sure you guessed – our Jane didn’t look anything like this on the night of the accident – or anytime after that. Her face was broken, nose, cheekbones, her jaw – and that child’s legs. Oh, Lord. They rebuilt her with steel pins and sewing needles.“

  Susan McReedy paused, but not to any dramatic effect. She was having difficulty going on with her story, and she had not yet come to the most important part. Riker was leaning forward to interrupt one more time. Mallory glared at him to warn him off.

  „So one day, all of us were going up to Bangor to see my grandma. But Jane wanted to stay behind. Well, my uncle closed the restaurant that weekend, and he guessed the girl wanted to spend her free time reading. Always had her nose in a book, that one – a habit she picked up in the hospital, I guess.“

  „Two days later, we came home and found her in that little apartment over the restaurant. She was sitting on her bedroom floor beside a dead body – a man with an ice pick in his chest. Flies everywhere, but our Jane didn’t seem to notice them – or him, either. She ‘d gone all the way crazy. Just rocking back and forth. I don’t think she could hear us when we spoke to her.“

  It was all too clear that Miss McReedy was seeing that tableau again, fresh as yesterday’s blood and blowflies.

  „And your dad,“ said Riker, „how did he read that crime scene?“

  „It was obvious. The man she’d killed – he’d broken into her place. No doubt about it. He broke down the bedroom door to get at her. It was off its damn hinge. She must’ve been so frightened.“

  „And,“ said Mallory, „she just happened to keep an ice pick in her bedroom.“

  „Yes, and that was the saddest part. That nearly killed my father. And that’s how he put the whole thing together.“ She fell silent for a moment.

  „So that’s when he worked out his second theory,“ said Riker, gently prompting her.

  Susan McReedy nodded. „It was an old ice pick he found in the dead man’s chest. The painted handle was flaking. It used to be in Uncle Henry’s restaurant. He told Dad he tossed it out just after our Jane moved in upstairs. The girl must have found it in the trash and kept it all that time. Dad saw flakes of that same color paint on the underside of her pillowcase. And that’s how he knew, for all that time, she’d gone to sleep every night with that pick underneath her pillow. All that time she’d been waiting for that man, the one who’d left her for dead at the quarry. She’d been waiting for him to come back and finish her off.“

  The retired librarian looked down at her hands as she folded the paperback book into a fat cylinder. „And then came the second theory of what happened at the quarry pool. Dad figured our Jane was the only one in the car when it went over the rim that night. So that was no accident. It was attempted murder. Da
d didn’t see the driver as a local man, nobody who lived in walking distance. He’d stolen that car because he’d be needing his own car to make a getaway. So he was a stranger, just like our Jane.“

  „After she killed that man with the ice pick – if Dad had only known – how young she was. Well, if he’d known, then I don’t think he would’ve let them take her to the hospital that day or any other day. From there she went to a state asylum. That made Dad and my uncle so crazy. They tried, time after time, to get her out of there and bring her home. But every time they got a new sanity hearing, she’d do something to mess it up. Once she slashed her wrists. Another time it was her throat. Finally, Dad had to let go of her. He came to understand – “ Susan McReedy’s hands were clasped tightly around her paperback and squeezing it. „This really hurt him – but he realized that our Jane felt safer in that place than home with us. He didn’t protect her when she needed him most. My father went to visit her every weekend until he died. Then the asylum was closed down for Medicare fraud, and the patients were scattered all over creation. Years later, I tracked one Jane Doe to a nursing home north of Auburn – but it wasn’t our Jane.“

  „All right,“ said Mallory, moving on, „your father must’ve traced the dead man’s fingerprints.“

  „Yes, he did. It took a while. No national data base in those days. The dead man had a record in three southern states, con games and stealing. Never killed anybody that we knew of. He was jailed under a slew of names, but never for any great length of time.“

  „What about Humboldt,“ said Riker, „remember that one?“

  „And all his other names.“ She bent down to the carpetbag at her feet and pulled out a thick envelope. Opening it, she emptied the file folders onto the coffee table.

  Mallory leafed through the decades of yellowed documents, one man’s search for a red-haired girl’s past, an ongoing inquiry that had lasted another twenty years after Nedda had killed Stick Man. And now she was staring at the original cards bearing the dead man’s fingerprints.

  „So,“ said Susan McReedy, regaining her poise, „you think that man, Humboldt, killed her family. You think that’s why our Jane took him down with an ice pick.“ She held tight to the paperback book with the painted image of a naked child, Red Winter, her Jane. „So she saw that – her family murdered. Twelve years old and she – “ Words had failed the woman from Maine.

  „Yeah,“ said Riker. „If the reporters get hold of this story…“ He knew that he would not have to finish that thought for her.

  The woman was nodding, saying, „I understand. We never talked, and I was never here.“ She turned to Mallory. „But could I see her – just a picture of her?“

  Mallory held up one finger to tell the woman to remain where she was, then rose from her chair and left the room – taking the files of Jane Doe along with her. When she returned, she held out a crime-scene photo, and not the one that pictured Nedda Winter seated near a more recent corpse. It was a simple shot of the old woman standing before the grand staircase, majestic, her face and body no longer broken as they were in Miss McReedy’s memories. „Here, take it. Keep it.“

  „Thank you.“ The woman stared at the image of her Jane grown old. „She looks good, doesn’t she? I never saw her face after – “ She looked up at Mallory, smiling at a sudden recollection. „My father paid for that, you know – after she was committed to the asylum. Three more operations with a plastic surgeon, and it cost the moon to do it. But Dad just had to finish putting her back together again.“ Miss McReedy became lost in the photograph once more. „Oh, what a pretty robe she’s wearing. And that looks like a real fine house.“

  „Yeah,“ said Riker, „a mansion.“

  The woman looked up from this treasure that marked the end of her own family quest. „This story doesn’t have a happy ending, does it?“

  „No,“ said Mallory. „Don’t expect that.“

  And now that Susan McReedy’s usefulness was over, the young detective turned her back and left the room and went to her own office, where she began to pin the contents of the Maine file to her cork wall. Fifteen minutes had passed, and she was not yet done marrying these pages to those in the file made by Riker’s grandfather when her partner sang out, „Hey, Mallory! You gotta hear this.“

  She walked into the reception room to find Robin Duffy and Riker bent over the answering machine. They were playing back the messages from Bitty Smyth slurring her words more with each call and asking when her aunt was coming back home.

  „Nedda’s gone,“ said Robin. „And so is Charles. A little while ago, Nedda called him on the phone in his apartment. He was off like a shot. Going to the hospital, he said. Something about an overdose of pills.“

  Cleo Winter-Smyth, her brother and her ex-husband were seated in the hospital lounge, and all three heads were slowly turning to follow the progress of Charles Butler’s march from the street door to the front desk. A nurse assured him that, yes, he was on the restricted list of visitors.

  He could feel three pairs of eyes on his back as he walked to the elevator. Apparently these family members had not made the cut. Curious.

  Riker folded his cell phone. „They’re all at the hospital. The whole family came in together. Sheldon Smyth’s there, too.“

  „Good.“ Mallory double-parked her car in front of Winter House. „Then there’s nobody home to mess with the crime scene.“

  According to Riker’s source at the hospital, the only crime had been an attempted suicide, but his partner loosely translated this to an attempted murder that would give them free access to the house without the tedium of chasing down a warrant.

  They climbed the short flight of stone steps to the front door. Mallory was unwrapping the small velvet pouch that held her favorite lock picks.

  „Hold it.“ Riker turned the knob. The door opened. „I’d say that speaks well for the family.“ He entered the foyer and looked around. „Nobody home. They were in such a hurry to get Bitty to the hospital, they forgot to lock up.“

  „Not quite. One of them stopped to set the alarm.“ She punched in the numbers and the glowing light went out.

  „How’d you know the code?“ He held up both hands. „Never mind, I never asked.“

  A door was closing on the floor above them.

  „There’s someone in the house.“ Mallory raced up the stairs and reached Bitty Smyth’s bedroom in time to hear the toilet flush and smell the vomit beneath a layer of cleaning solvent. The evidence was now swirling down the drain.

  A woman in a shapeless dress, hired help by the looks of her, emerged from the private bathroom to see Mallory standing there, angry.

  And the woman screamed.

  „You cleaned up after Bitty Smyth,“ said Mallory, unperturbed by the high-pitched wailing. „Who told you to do that?“

  „Police!“ the woman screamed. „Help! Police!“

  Riker was in the doorway, panting and reaching into his back pocket for the badge that would shut this woman up. He could not yet speak. Heavy breathing was all that he could manage.

  The woman screamed again, louder this time.

  Bitty had been drifting in and out of consciousness. When she was fully awake, the hospital’s resident psychiatrist ordered the room cleared. The two visitors retreated, going off in search of the cafeteria.

  Nedda relied on Charles to follow the signs and arrows that would lead them to hot coffee. He guided her into a brightly lit room of Formica tables, sparsely populated with people in street clothes, some sitting alone, others huddled in twos and threes. Only matters of life and death could account for the laymen gathered here at this late hour.

  Charles seated his companion at a secluded island table close to the wall and far from eavesdroppers. When he returned with their coffee in paper cups, he picked up the conversation begun in the corridor. „So you’re quite sure it was a suicide attempt?“

  She nodded. „Bitty’s not a strong person. I remember when I was drowning in despair. I know
all the signs. My own suicide attempt took years. I used to swallow pills that other patients spit out on the floor.“

  „But your niece has a prescription for sleeping pills. No chance of an accidental overdose?“

  „None. Bitty also has a phobia. She can’t swallow tablets. They have to be crushed in water before she can get them down. You see how unlikely it is that she could lose track of them.“

  „Did you mention that to – “

  „The psychiatrist? Yes. Bitty gave my name as next of kin. I’m sure my sister didn’t appreciate that.“

  And consequently this would not be the time for any family meeting with the object of reconciliation.

  „What triggered the attempt? Any ideas?“

  „My fault,“ said Nedda. „Looking at this through Bitty’s eyes, I blame myself. She worked so hard to do this wonderful thing for Cleo and Lionel. She found their lost sister. It should have been a magnificent present. Poor Bitty. She couldn’t know that I was the last person they would ever want to see.“

  „Why such animosity?“

  „Because of the murders – their parents, their brothers and sisters. Every time they look at me, it hurts them more than knives cutting into their eyes.“

  When Charles and Nedda returned to Bitty’s hospital room, her attending physician was waiting for them, saying, „It’s all settled. She’ll be with us for a few days.“