Winter House

by Carol O’Connell

  Someone turned off the radio.

  Seconds passing, listening for footsteps.

  The door flew open. Clean air rushed in – and life itself – with the sound of heavy boots pounding toward her, flashlights blinding her. Eyes closing again, her body collapsed. Hands were lifting Nedda’s body off her back, then helping Mallory to rise, feet off the ground, strong arms enfold- ing her, carrying her out. She looked down to see the small fire by the door. It was nested in a hubcap. Another pair of boots sent it flying.

  Outside, gulping air, lungs burning, searing, eyes opening, almost blind for the stinging tears. A fireman set her down on the sidewalk, yelling, „Where the hell is that ambulance?“

  More firemen were dropping from the truck and running toward the house. And one carried Nedda Winter to the ambulance as it screamed up to the curb. No one but Mallory saw the small ball of feathers drop from the old woman’s coat pocket. The bird thudded to the sidewalk, weakly fluttering its wings. It rolled off the curb and into the gutter.

  Slowly, Mallory was bending down to this lame creature, reaching for it, when a fireman gripped her by the shoulders. Unable to speak, she pointed upward toward the door, then found the words, coughing, wheezing, to tell him there was someone else alive in there. Someone had turned off the radio. He shook his head, not making any sense of this, then let her go. Her knees buckled, and more hands were reaching out, breaking her fall, as she slumped to the ground and lay on her side. She opened her eyes to see the bird a few feet away from her face. It was struggling to breathe.

  She watched it die.

  Mallory was rolled onto her back, and her face was covered with a plastic mask attached to a tank of oxygen.

  A raggedy man knelt on the ground beside her. „Sorry about your hubcap,“ he said, as a paramedic covered his shoulders with a blanket.

  She recognized him as the derelict who had used Bitty Smyth’s cell phone to call out the fire engines. Beneath the blanket, he was shivering in shirtsleeves. To fuel his little signal fire, he had burned his coat.

  The corridor was filled with detectives from Special Crimes Unit. Riker knew that most of them had already pulled a double shift, yet they were pumped, jazzed on coffee and busy hammering firemen and paramedics, doctors and nurses for information, taking statements, doing paperwork and biting down on stale sandwiches from the hospital canteen. They were tying up loose ends and taking care of business – all for Mallory – one of their own. Every single one of those beautiful bastards had responded to the call of an officer down.

  But she would not stay down.

  Dirty and tired and stinking of smoke, Mallory was still working her case. Detective Janos, a brutal-looking man the size and shape of a refrigerator carton, hovered near her, sometimes stealing up behind her to gingerly replace the blanket around her shoulders each time she shook it off. The rest of the squad was giving her a wide berth. Had she been any other cop, they would be slapping her on the back, swallowing her up in bear hugs, and there would be a disgraceful exhibition of tears in the eyes of grown men. This scene of human warmth, tears and joy, was what Riker had wanted for Mallory.

  What a fantasy that was.

  One, she had no use for human contact; and, two, she was busy.

  The case was all but wrapped. The only enduring mystery of the night was a skinny little bum who roamed the halls, carrying soda cans and bags of potato chips – and wearing Mallory’s leather coat. He never strayed far from her, his only source of change for the vending machines. The bum approached her now, and she mechanically dipped into her pockets to give him more quarters.

  Her face was a bare inch from the glass window in the door to the intensive-care unit. Riker joined her there. Together, they watched Charles Butler bow down to the patient on the bed, holding Nedda’s hand so gently as he strained to catch her words. A doctor and two nurses were also in attendance and showing grave concern.

  Detective Mallory was persona non grata among these tender caregivers. Never mind that she had walked through fire to save this woman’s life.

  That’s my Kathy.

  She was always on the outside looking in, but she never whined about her lot, and he had to love her more for that.

  In one hand she clutched a paper bag. Mallory called its contents evidence – Riker called it a dead bird. The kid was clearly not herself tonight. She was entirely too patient as she waited her turn at the elderly patient on the other side of the glass.

  She faced Riker, asking, „What’s the body count?“

  „One less than we figured. Bitty’s father was there all right, but he didn’t die inside the house. Looks like old Sheldon was the first one out the door. What a man, huh? A couple of patrol cops found him a few blocks away. He was dead. Looks like a heart attack.“ Riker held up a yellow pad lined with fountain-pen dollops of ink amid the flourishes of a witness’s old-fashioned penmanship. „We got this statement from an eighty-year-old priest. You’ll like it. It really classes up our paperwork for the night.“

  For this special occasion of wrapping a case, he donned the reading glasses that he never wore in public and read the priest’s observations on the death of Sheldon Smyth. „ ‘The poor man was terrified, as if the devil himself was after him. And he even smelled of smoke. Chilled me, it did. So he was running to beat the devil, all in a sweat from hellfire, when he clutched at his chest. His eyes rolled back to solid whites. Blind he was – and dead. I’m sure of it. That was the moment. Yes, it was. And here it gets strange. I swear to you, he was still running – stone dead – maybe three steps before he dropped to the ground.’“

  Riker quickly pocketed his spectacles. „It’s enough to make the fire a mitigating factor in his death. So, if you like Sheldon for hiring Willy Roy Boyd, we’re done. We’ve got three dead. Four if we count that little skeleton in the trunk. Bitty loses both her parents and her uncle in one night. I wonder what she’ll do now?“

  „Maybe she’ll grow,“ said Mallory.

  Riker shrugged. It was a good thing that Lieutenant Coffey had broken the news to Bitty Smyth. Mallory was no good at this part of the job, whether the newly made orphans were forty years old or four.

  „There was someone else in that house,“ she said. „You know who it was?“

  „No, kid. Everybody’s accounted for. The body count squares with what Bitty told us. Nobody else was in that house.“

  „Then who turned on the radio?“

  Oh, back to that again. „The firemen never found – “

  The ICU door opened, and Charles stepped out into the corridor. One look at his eyes and anyone could see that he was destroyed. Riker turned away. Charles’s strong personal attachment to Nedda was something he had never foreseen.

  And the damage of this night just went on and on.

  „Mallory,“ said Charles, „she wants to see you. But before you go in… she doesn’t know about Lionel and Cleo. That was my decision. So, please… you can’t tell her they’re dead. It’s just too much, too cruel. Nedda’s already in a world of pain. And I think she knows that she’s dying. She won’t take the morphine until she’s spoken to you.“

  Mallory did not have all night to wait for him to finish. The ICU door was closing on her back.

  Lieutenant Coffey made room for Charles Butler on the bench by the nurses’ station, then turned back to the chore of editing his senior detective’s report. He drew thick black lines through all the passages that incriminated – damned to hell – District Attorney Buchanan, who had dragged his heels on the protection order for Nedda Winter. The woman was not expected to live through the night; but Riker’s career was ongoing, and Jack Coffey planned to keep it that way. One more line was crossed out, and Detective Riker’s pension was saved.

  Mallory’s statement posed a different problem. The arson team had already interviewed her, and so he could not erase the passage about the radio. He added a line about oxygen deprivation. That would fix it.

  The lieutenant laid his pencil
down on the clipboard and turned to the sorry-looking man beside him. „Charles, you look like hell.“

  „I’ve been there.“ The man leaned far forward, elbows propped on his knees, and buried his face in both hands. „Mallory only told me six times that Nedda was in grave danger. I should never have been trusted to look after her.“

  „Hey, Charles, if it makes you feel any better, Mallory never trusted you to look after that woman.“

  The man’s hands fell away from his face, and Jack Coffey could only describe this naked expression in terms of a slaughterhouse steer stunned with a bat and awaiting the blade that would slit his throat.

  The lieutenant rushed his words to explain all the failures of the night, naming the names in Riker’s original, unedited report and describing the precautions taken. „It was our job to keep Nedda Winter alive, not yours.“ He ended this litany with the officer who bungled the last watch. „Bad timing all around tonight, and everybody gets a piece of the blame – except you.“

  Nothing said had undone the damage to Charles Butler, for he was hearing none of this. The psychologist’s eyes were fixed on the window of the intensive-care unit, where Nedda, his only patient, lay dying.

  The old woman seemed so frail, so tired and older now by at least a decade. And, once more, she had been invaded by high technology. Wires ran from the bandages that taped electrodes to her flesh and connected her to monitors perched on a pole by the bed. Wavy lines charted every function of her body. Tubes ran in and out of her, carrying fluid to the veins of her bruised arm, and other liquids were carried away and emptied into plastic bags. Her eyes opened and closed in long slow blinks.

  As Mallory approached the bedside, Nedda asked, „Did the fire destroy the house?“

  „No, it’s still standing. Lots of smoke damage everywhere, but the fire was contained on the second floor.“

  „Poor house.“ She turned her eyes to the detective. „That night in the park – I always wondered – why did you return my ice pick?“

  „I thought you might need it.“

  „So you didn’t think I was paranoid, just a crazy old woman.“

  Oh, yes, Mallory had believed that this woman had been driven insane long ago, but now she said, „No.“

  „You’ve seen the trunk with Sally’s bones?“

  Mallory nodded.

  „You risked your life to save me tonight,“ said Nedda. „It’s greedy, I know… but I have a favor to ask.“

  „Name it.“

  „Mercy for Lionel and Cleo.“ Her words were more labored now. „See them as I do… as they were… children with no one to love them. All they ever had was each other. I promise you… they didn’t kill Sally… They could never – “ She coughed up a bit of blood, but stayed Mallory’s hand as the detective reached for the nurse’s call button. „Please, listen… Those three children shared a bond of abandonment… and loss. Can you understand that?“

  Mallory understood it too well. She was always losing people. „All right. I’ll never go near them. I promise. I’ll leave them in peace.“

  „No, Mallory… I want you to talk to them. Tell them about the massacre… what really happened. And tell them… I didn’t know they survived it.“

  The old woman faltered, drawing breath and creasing her face with deepening lines of great pain. What was it costing her to say these words?

  She reached out for Mallory’s hand and wound her weak fingers around it. „There’s a metal suitcase under my bed… Maybe it survived the fire. Find it. It’ll help you… make them understand that I never abandoned them… never stopped loving them.“ Her fingers tightened on the detective’s hand. „They’ll believe it… if it comes from you.“

  Mallory nodded. Of course they would. She was the one person who would never stand accused of insincere platitudes and lies of kindness. Nedda had chosen her messenger well – but too late. „I promise. I’ll tell them everything.“ The words sounded awkward and false, and she credited this to her lack of practice in her attempt to lie with good intention – to be kind.

  And yet she was believed.

  Nedda Winter’s mouth twisted between a smile and a grimace. „At least, at the end, I was there for Bitty… My life wasn’t really wasted. And I understand Walter McReedy so much better now… If saving Bitty was all that I had ever done with my time on earth… it’s enough. I finally found out what I was made of… and I was better than I knew.“

  The eyes closed, and the muscles of the face relaxed in the absence of pain, years fading off with the loss of agony lines. The lines of life signs on two of the bedside monitors went flat, and a third continued on with its recording of a body function displayed in electric-orange waves of light. But Mallory knew that the technology lied. There was no mistaking death for even the deepest sleep. It was the unnatural stillness that gave it away, that frozen quality of a bird photographed in flight.

  Good night, Red Winter.

  Mallory’s left hand was slowly rising, closing to a fist – a hammer. She rammed it into the wall above the bed, wanting the pain.

  This was not righd It was not fair!

  Again and again, she attacked and cracked the plaster as she counted up all of the dead on her watch. She was bleeding when the doctors came to take her away and to mend her broken hand.

  Chapter 12

  SLEEPLESS, CHARLES BUTLER HAD TAKEN TO BAREFOOT WAN-derings at all hours. It was five o’clock in the morning when he padded down the narrow hall of Butler and Company to the office in the rear.

  Mallory’s computer monitors were all aglow, and her knapsack lay on the desk alongside the remains of a take-out meal. The half-filled coffee cup was still warm. He faced her cork wall and the penultimate symptom of a neat-freak spiraling out of control – a violent sprawl of paperwork. Her case elements were pinned in a horizontal splatter pattern. How many hours had she spent on this? All night long? Yes, her loss of sleep was apparent in the abandonment of perfect alignments. The wall was so messy that, at first, he thought this must be Riker’s work. But no – there was a rudimentary order in the chaos. However primitive, this linear progression was very un-Riker-like and all Mallory. Her signature ruthlessness survived in the single-minded march of data across the wall.

  When would she ever let it go?

  When would he?

  Charles sat down at the desk and covered his face with both hands, somewhat surprised to discover that he had grown a three-day stubble of beard. And how many days had he worn this bathrobe?

  Grief and profound depression were exhausting him. Guilt was even more tiring, and he was not yet done second-guessing his time with Nedda Winter. That was the horror of hindsight: there were always a hundred different paths that one might have taken to a different outcome. What truly drove him mad was that he had not listened to Mallory. How many times had she warned him that Nedda might die? Accidental death or not, if he had only kept Nedda close, she would be alive.

  At odd moments, tears streamed down his face. He had no control over them. Before him, there was always a picture of Nedda happy in the realization of a simple little dream, Nedda free of sorrow and pain – what might have been. He laid his head on the desk. He would never take on another patient.

  Her burden was more difficult, more death than he was accountable for. Unaccustomed to failure, Mallory had never acquired the emotional muscles necessary to pick herself up when she tripped and fell from grace. How well he could empathize with that, but he could not help her. Spliced together, he doubted that he and she would make one complete and healthy human. The other impediment was their friendship. Friends did not call attention to one another’s bloodstained souls and psyches.

  Half the contents of her knapsack had been spilled across the desk blotter. He picked up a bottle with the hospital’s pharmacy label. It was filled with pain medication prescribed for her broken hand. There was no need to count out the tablets; he knew that she had taken none of them. Mallory would not want to dull her beautiful brain, not
while she was obsessing over all the details of one terrible night gone awry. However, he was also assured that she was not suffering, not likely to pay much attention to the aching throb of broken bones and damaged muscle. To paraphrase an old song from his youth, she did not have time for the pain.

  And so – he felt the pain.

  Thus crippled, he picked up her pen and passed an hour writing letters to Mallory, long sorry lines of apology, taking all the blame for Nedda’s death. And then he had the good sense to lay down the pen. How unfair to burden her with his own obsession. Charles smashed the pages into the pockets of his robe, then rose from the chair to stretch his legs. He walked the length of the giant bulletin board, a disaster zone on several levels.

  Well… maybe not.

  At first, her pushpin style had been perfect in every alignment of paper, and then, as she had continued down the wall, pinning up new documents, they hung increasingly askew, as if she had become more and more agitated in her rush from one end of the wall to the other. The new configurations of diagrams and photographs, text and sundry bits of paper were laid out like a jigsaw puzzle without any helpful irregularities in the pieces. He had only the gist of the thing: neither of them could quite let go of Nedda Winter. And, truly, it seemed impossible that such a person could be removed from the planet by a freak accident. Mallory’s linear paper storm relentlessly moved on down the wall toward that same conclusion.

  At the very end of the wall, a report from the fire marshal knocked everything else out of his head. This was not possible. He read it twice. There were no portable radios in Winter House, none that would work without current, and the antique radio in the front room had not been in working condition for many years.

  Oh, no. Madness was a recent thing with him, and there was nothing wrong with his memory.