Winter House (30 page)

„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.“

C
leo 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.

R
iker 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.

B
itty 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.“

W
hen 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.“

„And there ‘11 be a cop posted on the door,“ said Mallory striding into the room. She glared at the tiny woman on the bed as if this attempt at suicide had been a ploy simply to annoy her.

Charles could tell that Bitty was only feigning sleep this time, but he said nothing to give her away.

Mallory turned her attention to Nedda. „You should’ve called the police first. Now it’s too late. All the evidence is gone. No one told those idiots in the emergency room to save the stomach contents.“

The doctor was about to take offense at this, for she was referring to
his
idiots. But now, thinking better of that, with perhaps a keen eye for disturbing personalities who carried guns, he was edging away from Mallory and toward the door, then gone.

„There’s no mystery about her stomach contents,“ said Nedda. „Prescription sleeping pills. My niece took an accidental overdose.“ She lied nearly as well as her opponent. „Calling the police never entered my mind.“

That much was certainly true.

Oh, no.

Mallory was leaning over Bitty for a closer look, saying, „She’s faking. She’s awake.“

„That’s enough,“ said Nedda. „My niece needs rest, and you need to leave this room.“

The young detective was squaring off against the older woman when Charles appeared at Nedda’s side, lending support to the idea that Mallory should leave, and right now. It was an unsettling moment. Charles looked into Mallory’s eyes and roughly guessed her thoughts. She was wondering if he would humiliate her, if he would physically move her out of this room, laying hands on her for the second time in one day. And, no, he would not have the heart for that. But she chose not to give him the benefit of that doubt in her mind. She turned and left the room.

Mallory could commit any sort of bad act and depend upon
him
to feel the guilt.

How did she do that?

R
iker sat with the family members in the reception area of the hospital. His pen moved across the page of his notebook, taking down their statements on Bitty’s overdose. „Any idea how many pills she took?“

„No, we never thought to ask,“ said Bitty’s mother. „It was quite a scene. Nedda was jamming her fingers down my daughter’s throat to induce vomiting. I was – “

„On the phone,“ said Lionel, finishing the sentence, „calling for an ambulance.“

Sheldon Smyth was being unusually quiet for a lawyer. Riker wanted to stick a knife in the old man by asking exactly when Cleo and Lionel had discovered that the law firm was ripping off their trust fund, but Mallory would shoot him for tipping their hand too soon.

He looked up to see his partner marching across the lobby, heading toward this little family with all the deadly resolution of a train on the way to a wreck. He turned back to Cleo, resident of a planet where people communicated via telepathy. The woman was staring at her brother. Something passed between them, and they were of one mind, Riker was sure of that, before their heads turned in unison to stare at Mallory.

These people were creeping him out.

T
his time, Bitty was not faking. She had fallen into a natural state of sleep, and there was no conversation between Charles and Nedda, neither of them wanting to disturb her rest.

But now the patient stirred, eyes opening to smile at her aunt. „I knew you’d come.“

„To the rescue?“ said Charles. „So you knew you were in trouble tonight.“

„I must have taken too many sleeping pills.“ All the signs of a lie were there, eyes shifting away from his, fingers fidgeting on the blanket, so uncomfortable in this falsehood.

„You’re not sure?“ He smiled to say never mind. „I heard your messages on my machine. It seems like you knew what was happening, but you waited for Nedda. Why not call an ambulance yourself?“

„I wasn’t thinking very clearly?“

Perhaps she had not believed that her family would have opened the door to an ambulance. That was one possibility, the one that Kathy Mallory would have liked best.

M
allory sat in the hospital lounge, facing Cleo and Lionel with the clear understanding that they were a unit. What they had suffered as children might have formed that weird bond. Or it might have developed while they were murdering their little sister, the only Winter child still unaccounted for. Bitty Smyth’s near death had expanded the possible scenarios for Sally Winter’s disappearance.