On cue, Riker pulled a disposable camera from his coat pocket and snapped a close-up photograph with a burst of light in Addison’s eyes.
„You’re both nuts!“ Half blinded by the flash, the private investigator squinted at his accusers. „I never touched that woman.“
Mallory laid three photographs on the bedsheet. Riker knew that these pictures had been taken by his partner, though she had given him the gift of deniability by lying to him. Unlike all the other shots from Addison’s roll of film, these three had Mallory’s center fixation. Nedda Winter’s head was in the precise center of each frame, as if she had been shot through a gun sight. In the first one, the camera was facing the startled woman. In the next one, she was running away. The third shot, a personal favorite, had Nedda, still on the run, looking back over one shoulder – a documented chase.
„We have a lock on this case,“ said Mallory. „These shots came ixomyour camera.“ She laid the private investigator’s license on his pillow. „And you can kiss this good-bye. We’ve got you cold for breaking into that woman’s house.“ She pulled out an evidence bag with Officer Brill’s signature. It contained fragments of glass. „This came from a broken lightbulb in her basement. It’s your blood type, O negative.“
„Ordering a DNA test would be overkill.“ Riker smiled. „Real jail time, pal.“
„An old woman like that,“ said Mallory – as if she had ever been sentimental about old ladies. „You freak.“
„I was working a case.“
„We don’t think so,“ said Riker, more affably. „We like the pervert charge.“
„I was working for a client, and I can prove it,“ said Joshua Addison.
Riker was loving this. Normally it was like pulling teeth to get a client name from a private investigator. „Who’ve you got lined up? Your mother?“ He looked up at his partner. „Let’s book him. I’m tired. I wanna go home.“
„That old woman,“ said Addison, „I think she’s Red Winter.“
Riker feigned mild surprise. „You’re planning an insanity defense?“ He turned to Mallory in the guise of a translator. „Red Winter was a little girl, a kidnap victim. She disappeared maybe thirty years before you were even born.“ He looked down at the man on the bed. „And, last I heard, she’s still lost.“
„No,“ said Addison. „Her house is across the street from the park. She’s back.“
„You’re kidding,“ said Mallory. „That’s your story? You were waiting for her to come home?“
„You know,“ said Riker, leaning on the bedrail as he opined, „this job is definitely losing its edge. The perverts get dumber every year.“
„I was hired by Bitty Smyth,“ said Addison. „At the time, I didn’t know she was Red Winter’s niece. I had to do some checking. But now I – “
„Yeah, right,“ said Mallory. „The niece hired you to stalk her aunt.“
„No, she hired me to find her aunt.“
„This is too confusing,“ said Riker. „The lady wasn’t lost in the park. She just went out for a walk.“
„Listen to me!“ Frustrated, Addison raised himself up on one arm. „She was lost for fifty-eight freaking years!“ He searched one detective’s face and then the other’s, only finding signs of disbelief. „She’s Red Winter. And I wasn’t planning to hurt her last night. I just wanted a photograph, some proof that it was the same woman I found in the nursing home. It was the Bangor Rest Home in Maine. She looks so different now. Six months ago, she was all bloated and yellow. But her eyes – those eyes.“
Riker pulled a small notebook from his coat, then fished the rest of his pockets until he found his pen. „So let me get this straight. You wanted to pass this woman off as Red Winter, and you needed a picture.“ He jotted down a few words. „A photograph you could sell to the tabloids?“ Riker looked up from his notebook. „You’re telling us you’re a con artist?“ He shrugged. „Okay with me, pal. We’ll add that to the charges.“
Riker and Mallory moved away from the bedside, as if they could not leave this man fast enough.
„Hey, wait a minute,“ said Addison. „Wait!“
They did not.
Bitty Smyth hung up the receiver on the kitchen wall phone, then faced her aunt with a smile. „The arrangements are done. I talked to Detective Mallory’s superior, a very nice man – Lieutenant Coffey. It took a bit of negotiating, but I got everything I asked for.“
„How handy to have a lawyer around the house.“ Nedda spooned scrambled eggs from a pan onto oven-heated plates. Behind her on the stove, bacon sizzled and hot water bubbled in the kettle. „You should go back to your father’s firm.“ And perhaps that would assuage her guilt over Bitty’s long sabbatical, all that time lost to the search for a long-lost child.
Her niece shrugged off this suggestion. „I lined up an independent polygraph examiner. Lieutenant Coffey said I wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the room during the examination, but I think I can get him to change his mind.“ Bitty sat down at the table and took up her fork, waving it in the air as a baton. „Good timing is very important in every negotiation. We’ll make a stand right before they – “
„No, Bitty. It’s better if I do this alone.“ Nedda picked up the teakettle before the whistle could startle her niece, then poured boiling water over the tea bags in their cups. „And then, this afternoon we might visit some real estate brokers.“ She sat down at the table and picked up a newspaper opened to listings for co-ops and condominiums. Several advertisements had been circled in blue ink. „I’m going to find a place of my own in – another part of town. I think Cleo and Lionel would like that.“
„But this is your house. No, Aunt Nedda. It’s all my fault. I’m the one who upset you. First that scene at the dinner party – and then last night. I’m so sorry. You can’t leave. You love this house.“
Yes, she did. But the house did not love anyone – not anymore. The house was sad and crazy and sick to death of love.
„It has nothing to do with you, Bitty.“ Nedda reached out to cover her niece’s small hand with her own. „You can come with me if you like. Call it a stepping stone to a place of your own. You can’t live with your mother forever, can you?“
The expression on Bitty’s face was one of instant sorrow, and Nedda realized that she had trod upon one of her niece’s many closet secrets. Though others seemed to underestimate this little woman’s complexity, Nedda never did. Sometimes even a simple conversation was like navigating a labyrinth with wrong turns aplenty. She had learned to avoid every path of discourse that led to pain, and now she folded the newspaper into her lap and out of Bitty’s sight.
The detectives had finished a leisurely breakfast in the hospital cafeteria. and now they were tying up a critical loose end: how to explain away Mallory’s behavior last night, the pistol whipping in Central Park.
They stood in the dark of a small room in company with a hospital physician, who flicked on a light to illuminate Joshua Addison’s X-rays. The doctor pointed to a fault line, saying, „Definitely a concussion. That’s why he can’t tell you what happened right before he lost consciousness. Judging by the wound, it looks to me like somebody hit him very hard with a – “
„A rock?“ asked Mallory, raising a plastic bag with said rock neady pocked with red. „Like this one? We found it underneath his head.“ She smiled so hopefully, as if she cared about this man’s opinion. „Or do you think he might’ve fallen and hit his head on the rock?“