Charles would be wondering if Nedda’s burglar had died quietly. And now he must realize that she had never needed to ask these questions of the doctor. Who knew more about violent death than she did? Yes, at last, he understood that she was maligning Nedda Winter for his own sake.
Their eyes met across the table. Almost imperceptibly, he moved his head from side to side to tell her that this was not working.
The rabbi folded his cards, saying, „I’m out.“ He then went off to the kitchen in search of another cold beer.
Mallory leaned toward the medical examiner, saying, „So the hitman wasn’t a stranger to that family.“
„And that narrows it down,“ said Charles, „to a hundred gangland types who attended parties at Winter House.“
„Yeah,“ said Robin. „Nedda told us that Lucky Luciano came to dinner one night. Can you imagine that? But you can cross that bum off the list. His murders were messy.“
Mallory was thinking about a little boy, just four years old, and his drawing of a stick figure. She pictured a bit of blood and one tiny hole where the ice pick had pierced the paper and a child’s heart in one strike. There was only one scenario. In the moment before his death, the boy had been holding up that drawing, showing it to someone he knew, maybe someone he loved, saying a child’s ritual line, „Look what I did.“
The front windows were dark as Nedda climbed the stairs to the front door of Winter House.
Her hopes died.
Lionel and Cleo had no doubt bolted for the summer house in the Hamptons. There would be no family gathering, no reconciliation tonight.
She unlocked the door and opened it onto a dark foyer, calling out, „Bitty? Are you home?“
Upon crossing the threshold, she saw a dim light coming from the hallway that led to the kitchen, but the front room was pitch black. She was turning round with the intention of finding the wall switch for the chandelier when she heard the sound of footsteps rushing up behind her.
She could hear the voice of Uncle James coming from a long ways off and many years ago, yelling, „Nedda, drop the ice pick! Drop it now!“
Chapter 9
THE FRONT ROOM FLOODED WITH LIGHT FROM THE Chandelier. Lionel ran past her to the front door. Nedda had forgotten to turn off the alarm. She murmured apologies to her brother as he madly tapped the button pad on the foyer wall, entering the code that would prevent it from going off.
Crisis over.
And now that they were spared another visit from the NYPD, he said, „Neddy, we couldn’t reach Dr. Butler. We thought you might’ve gone back to the police station – possibly under arrest. We couldn’t get anything out of Bitty.“
Arrest? For which of her crimes? Did he mean the stabbing death of a man in this same room or the other man she had planned to kill in the park? Or was her brother alluding to the mass murder of their family members?
She turned to the sound of more footsteps. Cleo entered the front room, followed closely by her ex-husband. Sheldon was no doubt here by design; her brother and sister had no wish to be alone with her tonight. She was wondering where her niece might be hiding when a weak voice called down from the staircase, „Here. Up here.“
Four heads were turning, lifting to the sight of Bitty dragging herself to the edge of the stairs. In a childish gesture, one small hand raised slowly, as if to wave bye bye, and then she laid her head down on the floor and closed her eyes. Nedda was the first to reach her. None of them could wake her.
Charles was holding a rather mediocre hand of cards when he answered the knock at his door. His unexpected visitor was a stout woman from a more Luddite-friendly century. An old-fashioned carpetbag sat on the floor at her feet.
O pioneer.
She had the well-muscled arms of a woman who labored hard for her living, and the iron gray hair was bound in braids. Her walking shoes were sturdy, and the blue dress had great integrity, so plain and serviceable. He half expected her to produce a pitchfork or some other farm implement. She stared him down with great sensible brown eyes, then extended a hand to greet him, albeit somewhat reluctantly. The calluses on her palms fitted so well with the social slot he had created for her.
Later, he would learn that the hobby of her retirement years was rock climbing, hence the good muscle tone and calluses; that she hailed from a large city in the state of Maine, so much for the farm life; that she held advanced degrees in library science and was a denizen of cyberspace.
„Susan McReedy,“ she began, not one for unnecessary pronouns and verbs of introduction. „I don’t take you for a sneak, Mr. Butler, and I’ll tell you why. When I asked you blunt questions on the phone, you didn’t lie to me. You wouldn’t tell me the truth, Lord knows, but you wouldn’t lie. And I suspect that goes against the grain with you. So tell me straight out. Is she still alive?“
After escorting their new interview subject into Charles Butler’s private office, Riker sat down in an armchair beside the librarian from Maine.
Mallory regretted agreeing to second chair in this interview. Out in the hallway, her partner had argued that little old ladies were his forte, that they loved him on sight. This might well be true, but Susan McReedy was not little, nor did she look all that old, and she could probably take Riker down in two falls out of three.
Riker began with small talk and offers of coffee or tea. The woman from Maine tapped one shoe, barely tolerating this waste of her time. Off his game today, he had missed the other signs of her fidgeting fingers and lips pressed tight. He compounded his error by pausing a beat too long to allow her the full impact of his widest smile. Miss McReedy did not respond in kind. Her mouth dipped down on one side, and now both shoes tapped the floor with irritation. This baffled him. He must wonder what foot he had put wrong.
So obvious.
„You’re sure I can’t get you a cup of coffee?“
The woman only glared at him, finding him suspicious because of his engaging grin – too quick and easy, too professionally charming.
Mallory had a cure for excess charm.
She rose from the couch and moved into that narrow area between their chairs, too close to allow this woman any personal space – and closer. She put her hands on the arms of Miss McReedy’s chair and bent low until their eyes were level. Closer. „So your father was a cop? Was he a lousy cop? Didn’t he raise you right?“ Every inflection dropped out of her tone, and each word had equal weight when she said, „I – am – the – law. I don’t have time to mess with you. Start talking.“
Though Susan McReedy never twitched or blinked, she did smile in approval. „You want the whole story, or just the salient points?“
Riker stood up, conceding his chair to the new champion of senior-citizen interviews, and Mallory sat down, saying, „I want everything you’ve got on the red-haired girl. Don’t leave anything out.“
„All right. The girl’s hair wasn’t red the first time I saw her. It was shoe-polish black – dyed and cut real short.“ Miss McReedy had lost her edge, almost mellowing as she described the night, fifty-eight years ago, when two local boys had seen the yellow stalks of headlights beaming up beyond the rim of a bottomless quarry pool. „The car was hung up on an outcrop of rocks twenty feet below the rim, just hanging there, smashed to bits, all turned around and ready to fall another fifty feet to the water. When Dad and the neighbors got to the lip of the quarry, it looked like it was going down any second. There were six flashlights altogether, all aiming straight down through a broken windshield, and they could see the girl plain as day. So much blood. The twisted metal pinned her down on the passenger side. It was a sheer drop between the edge of the rock face and that car.“