Defenseless, Bitty climbed the stairs. When she turned back, she saw her uncle picking up the bones of his little sister and gendy, reverendy placing them in the trunk.
Nedda was drinking Courvoisier in Charles’s front room when she began to beep. She pulled the pager from her pocket. „Bitty made me take this when we were at the hospital.“
„Horrible invention,“ said Charles. „I’d never own one. Pagers and cell phones. Those gadgets don’t make life easier for people. They simply make escape impossible.“
She looked at the glowing display of digits on the face of the pager. „And, of course, this number is Bitty’s cell phone.“
„Then I’ll give you some privacy,“ said Charles. „I have some work to do in my office across the hall. I might be awhile, so don’t wait up. Sleep well. See you in the morning.“
Nedda waited until he was gone, then rang Bitty’s number, charmed by the old-fashioned rotary dial on the antique telephone. She held the receiver to her ear and only counted one ring, before she heard Bitty’s voice. „Hello, dear. How are you feeling____________________What?… Calm down--Yes, dear, but why did you leave the hospital?… Why would they… Don’t upset yourself… No, of course I don’t mind--We’ll sort this out when I get there.“
Nedda found paper and a fountain pen in the drawer of a small writing desk. She left a note for Charles, explaining that Bitty needed her and that she might be gone for a few hours. Her next call was to the car service.
An unmarked police car stopped beside a recendy vacated stretch of curb outside of Charles Buder’s apartment building. The watchers were changing shifts, and all the attention of the man behind the wheel was devoted to the task of parallel parking. His partner stood on the sidewalk, directing the stop and starts of squeezing the car into a tight parking space. That done – a perfect job – they settled in for the last tour of duty on this plainclothes detail. When the custody order arrived, the old woman would be taken away by police from another division. It was going to be an early night, and they were both thinking ahead to cold beers and hot slices from Ray’s Pizza as the taillights of Nedda Winter’s limousine disappeared around the corner.
Harry Bell, the desk sergeant in the SoHo station house, looked up to see a rookie standing before him, though he should not have seen the youngster’s face for another five hours. The cop was supposed to be sitting in a chair outside of Bitty Smyth’s hospital room, an unauthorized posting that had drained the bank of favors owed to Detective Mallory.
„Peterson,“ said the sergeant, „you should be uptown. Guard duty at the hospital? Is it all coming back to you now?“
„I was relieved of duty,“ said Peterson, tacking on a belated „sir.“
„Now that’s funny, kid, ‘cause I don’t remember calling you back here. So whose idea was – “
„It was the family. They relieved me.“
„The Mafia? That family? Was gunplay involved?“
„No, sir.“ The boy made the mistake of smiling at his sergeant’s little joke instead of running for his life. „It was Sheldon Smyth. He’s the lady’s father – and he’s a lawyer.“
„Oh, well, that makes it okay.“ Sergeant Bell knew he could shoot this boy right now for just cause and get away with it. „I guess they changed the line of command. Now it’s lawyers giving orders to the uniforms – instead of their sergeants. Well, somebody should’ve told me.“
Harry Bell’s smile grew wide and wicked as the young cop’s face quickly reddened. The torture of raw recruits passed for sport on a slow night. That was what rookies were for. That was why God had made so many of them. „Tell you what, kid, why don’t you go upstairs and explain all of this to Detective Mallory? No, go ahead. She’ll understand. Ever met her?“
„No, sir.“
Perfect.
„Well, she looks like a babe, real pretty, but don’t let that fool you. Down deep, she’s a motherly type.“
Harry Bell watched the rookie drag his feet climbing the stairs to Special Crimes Unit. If the sergeant had been wearing a hat, he would have removed it and whistled a funeral hymn.
Winter House was dark when Nedda opened the front door. By the dim glow filtering in from the street, she could see the floor strewn with haberdashery and bits of plaster. Her niece’s frightened ramble on the telephone seemed more coherent to her now.
The wall switch would not work, but the security alarm still glowed. She tapped in the code to disable it, then crossed the threshold into the front room, moving toward the staircase in total darkness. Her only weapon was beneath the pillow in her bedroom. She looked up at the sound of her name whispered from the second-floor landing. By the light of a candle, Bitty drifted down the stairs, pausing halfway with a finger pressed to her lips to caution silence. She lifted the candle high to light Nedda’s way as they climbed slow and stealthy toward Bitty’s bedroom.
Once they were behind a closed door, her niece said, „I called the police. They’re not coming. Maybe I put it badly. I might have seemed hysterical. I told them I was afraid to leave my room. The lights wouldn’t work. They already think I’m crazy. They said I should call an electrician.“
Scores of candles were alight on every surface and wavering with the drafts of the house. Nedda picked up a candlestick and walked back to the door. „I’ll go down to the cellar. I know where the fuse box is.“ But first she would go to her bedroom to fetch the ice pick.
„No!“ Bitty grabbed her aunt’s arm, pulled her away from the door, then slid the thick bolt safe home. „They’re all downstairs in the kitchen. They’ll see you.“
„They?“
„Uncle Lionel and my parents.“
„Why does that – “
„Please, Aunt Nedda.“
This was probably not the time for a rational conversation. She only wanted to end Bitty’s fear. „All right, dear. If that worries you, I’ll use the garden door to the cellar.“
„But one of them pulled out the fuses!“
„So I’ll put in new ones. There’s a big supply of them on top of the fuse box, a flashlight, too.“ Nedda put one hand on the doorknob.
„Don’t leave me alone.“ The look on Bitty’s face was pure anguish.
Nedda was wondering how much of this could be put down to hysteria, and then Bitty described the trunk of Sally Winter and its sad contents.
Hard news – as though her youngest sister had died only this moment, and the grief was new.
Sally, my Sally.
So the house, truly sickened, was coughing up its dead tonight.
„I know why the house has gone dark,“ said Bitty. „I’m supposed to have an accident on the stairs.“
The desk sergeant noted every head in the station house turning toward the stairs, and it was no surprise to see Kathy Mallory flying back to earth, her feet touching down on every third step. Apparently, young Peterson had confessed.
With eyes cast down, Sergeant Bell feigned interest in his paperwork. As the detective sped by his desk, he inquired after the health of his young rookie. „Did you kill him?“
He looked up to see the back of Mallory pushing through the door and into the street.
„I’ll take you back to Charles’s place in SoHo.“ Nedda looked through her purse by the light of a dozen candles, finally emptying it out on the bed to search for a scrap of paper with a phone number for the car service.
„Here, I found it.“ She picked up the telephone receiver and listened to a dial tone. „Well, the phone is still working.“
Bitty screamed and grabbed her aunt’s arm.
Nedda whirled around. On the far side of the room, the wastebasket was in flames. The fire climbed the curtains with astonishing speed, eating the lace, flames licking the ceiling and spreading along the wallpaper. Bitty was yelling and waving her arms. The bird ran from its cage, wings flapping in a fair imitation of his mistress. Nedda scooped up the bird and crammed it into a deep coat pocket, then grabbed her niece by the arm. „We hav
e to go, Bitty. We have to get everyone out of the house.“
Nedda slid back the bolt and dragged her niece into the hall, closing the door as the bedcovers burst into flames. They were at the edge of the stairs when she saw a march of three candle flames below and the glow of three disembodied heads floating in the dark. The small procession of Cleo, Lionel and Sheldon moved toward the staircase.
Smoke seeped out from under the door and, rising in a draft, drifted across Bitty’s face. „Oh, God!“ She broke free of her aunt’s grasp and ran up the stairs to the next landing.
„No, Bitty! Come back!“ Nedda gave chase as the little troop of candles had dwindled to two and climbed the stairs.
Bitty’s face was a picture of abject horror as she looked back toward her room. The smoke was escaping through the wide crack beneath the door and winding upward, following her up the stairs. Nedda caught up to her niece, but failed to get hold of her. Bitty’s hands were windmills to fend off all comers as she ran upward. The smoke went with her rising in her wake. She stumbled and would have tumbled back, but Nedda was behind her to break the fall. A gray cloud was forming below and billowing toward them, obscuring the stairs.
„Bitty, we have to go back through the smoke. Hold your breath.“
„No! No!“
Nedda warded off the swats from her niece’s flailing hands. Below her, she heard the bedroom door being opened. „No!“ she screamed. „Close that door! I’ve got Bitty. I’ll get her out. Save yourselves.“ The smoke was spreading and thickening, blotting out the landing below. She dragged her niece down into the smoke, the only way out. It cost her precious air to scream, „Cleo, Lionel! Get out! Get out of the house!“
Beloved faces were emerging from the black cloud, coughing, choking, hands reaching out. Bitty was loose again, running upstairs to where the air was still breathable.
„Fire!“ The homeless man banged on the glass door of the apartment building. He was in tears. „Fire! People are dying! Don’t you believe me?“ No, probably not. It was one of those upscale places where tenants walked toy dogs that ran on batteries for all he knew. The rich were a different species, and he had never suspected them of sanity or humanity. The doorman, with his white gloves and fake gold buttons, had been among these people too long. When he turned to the glass, he did not see the shabby madman crying outside in the cold, banging the door in frustration, trying to save a few lives. No, this man looked right through the bum, then turned his back, well insulated from the sounds of the street, the chill of the night air – the smell of derelicts and smoke.
„Bastard!“
The temperature was dropping, and the homeless man pulled up the collar of his threadbare coat as he ran back to the house next door. The tiny woman sprawled on the steps was rolling on her side. A cell phone fell from the pocket of her dress and clattered to the steps. The derelict grabbed it up to punch in the emergency number that would bring out the fire engines.
And now he was believed.
A small tan car pulled up in front of the house with a screech of brakes, followed by the slam of a door. A long-legged, green-eyed blonde was bearing down on him.
Oh, lady, what cold eyes you have.
In a split second, he identified her as a cop. For so many years he had been kicked awake by cops while huddled in doorways uptown and down, and, no mistake, this woman was one of them.
Big trouble.
He knew what an odd sight he was, a raggedy bum with a cell phone. He held out the phone to surrender it, yelling, „I didn’t steal it, okay? It fell out of her pocket.“ And this was followed closely by a silent prayer that he would not be hurt.
The cop was staring at the dark front windows. No flames were visible, but the reek of smoke was strong. And now she looked at him, actually saw him – spoke to him. „You called nine-one-one?“
„Yeah.“ He looked down at the woman who lay at his feet. „There’s more people in there. An old lady carried this one out, and then she ran back inside. She said to tell the firemen they were all upstairs. Don’t know how many – “
He watched the cop pull a penlight from the pocket of her blazer as she marched up the stairs to the door. A puny penlight. He knew it would be useless where she was going.
He called after her. „I tried to stop the old lady. Then I closed the door behind her. You never wanna feed oxygen to a fire.“
A fireman had told him that.
And now he watched the cop’s back as she disappeared into the house, and he gave her up for dead. He knew the odds against her ever finding her way back. It was the smoke that killed and not the flames. He had learned this the hard way in a flophouse fire, barely escaping with his life, but not all of his hair and skin.
Another smoke alarm went off – loud and piercing mechanical shrieks. Calling out to survivors would be a waste of air and effort. Mallory pulled her T-shirt up to cover her nose and mouth. She entered the dark front room on the run, heading for the staircase, guided by the thin beam of a penlight that lit up a stream of gray fog on the lower floor. She aimed her light at the stop of the stairs. The pathetic beam could not penetrate the thicker smoke flooding the second floor; it only bounced off a roiling, black, boiling upside-down sea, and she was going into it. Eyes tearing, shut tight, she pocketed the penlight and gained the second-floor landing as air exploded from her lungs. She hit the floor and sipped from the inch of air above the floor, then crawled along the carpet. She found the first body by touch, a man by the feel of him, and he was dead. Like a sack of sand, the corpse lacked the yield of an unconscious victim. This flesh was only a bag for meat and bone. And Mallory moved on.
How many survivors? How many rooms in this house?
Lungs bursting, she ducked her head to sip more air from the floor, strained through her silk T-shirt. The smoke alarms were deafening. More of them were going off in sequence as the smoke climbed upward through the house.
And this was happening in seconds that were hours long.
She would never find the others. The alarms were maddening her with their screaming urgency. She wished – they – would – just – stop!
And they did.
The smoke alarms were shutting down one by one. Were their plastic covers melting in the heat? Now she could hear the flames, the crack and dull roar, but not see them. Above her, there was a shriek that was not mechanical – not human.
The pet bird.
That creature could not have lasted six seconds in this lethal atmosphere. Someone had to be sheltering it from the poisoned air. Mallory crawled toward the sound of the screaming cockatiel, and her groping hands met the next flight of stairs. Coughing, choking, she rose to a stand, found the rail and took the stairs three at a time, stone blind, to the next landing. Back down to the floor, crawling again, drinking air from the ground and finding it poisoned. Coughing, coughing. On her right side, a door opened into the hall, slamming into her shoulder, and two bodies tumbled out. Mallory sucked better air from the closet floor as her hands passed over the two women wrapped in one another’s arms – one living, Nedda by the long braid, and one dead, Cleo. Mallory pulled the sisters apart, then yanked up Nedda’s coat to shelter the woman’s face from the smoke. Crawling on all fours, she dragged the unconscious Nedda, feeling her way, following the margin of wood floor between the carpet and the railing.
Which way? Was she turned around? Where was the dead man’s body?
Down below, where the music was.
Someone had turned on a radio. She heard the slurry static of changing channels, and now a saxophone was calling her down, luscious siren notes. She moved away from the rail, dragging her burden with her, and found the first stair. Rising, she lifted Nedda onto her back in a fireman’s carry and made her way down, falling, kneeling at the last step on the second floor. Diving down to the ground again for air, all smoke now, coughing, coughing, choking, starved for air, muscles weakening, then shot. The music swelled up all around her, the stab and jab of horns rising to the high
notes. Wake up! Get up! Get up! On hands and knees, she crawled with Nedda on her back. Moving toward the music, she found the landmark of the dead man’s body.
She put her mouth to the carpet and sipped all the oxygen there was, then pulled back the sheltering coat and covered Nedda’s mouth with her own.
She kissed her with a breath of air, then rose to stand, lifting the woman again, so heavy – too heavy. Mallory fell, and Nedda rolled off of her and away. The heat was sapping strength from arms and legs.
It would be over soon. She was already half dead.
The single notes of a clarinet were falling down the scale, laughing, taunting. Trumpets screamed high, and the slap of a bass beat with the rhythm of her heart. A sly trombone sang, Go, girl! The sax was back, luring her away from the heat. This way. Then a shout of horns. This way out! This was the sound of adrenaline. She was rising, lifting Nedda onto her back. Down the stairs. So many stairs. The fire was behind her. She could hear it spit and crack. The heat was at her back. Pitching forward now, and falling. One wild hand found the railing, and she leaned all of her weight against it. This eased the heavy burden on her back. Down-stepping, now, half sliding.
Only seconds going by.
Hours of stairs.
She lost the precious air in her lungs before she touched down on level ground. She fell on her knees, and the sharp pain revived her. The music was loudest here. The most lethal air was above her, but she was drinking smoke from the ground, coughing, choking, lungs on fire. She could not get up one more time. Music all around her, no direction. Up was down, and there was no longer a concept of forward or back. The way out was lost. The door was on the moon. She opened her eyes, stinging, burning, hoping for a sliver of street light from the front windows to orient her position in the room. Instead, she saw the glow of flames, a small fire that lit up the brass knob of the door. A signal fire to light her way? Yes, and she was up on all fours, crawling toward it, the heavy weight on her back pressing her kneecaps down on knife points. Paying dearly for every foot of ground.
Winter House Page 29