He stood with his back to the railing, which was higher than one might expect, yet another design flaw, and he tried to imagine a scenario where he might go over the side; perhaps if the floor were slippery or he were to stumble. No, that would not work. His center of gravity would still be below the rail.
„Tricky, isn’t it?“ Bitty rested one hand on the smooth, round wood. „Now if it had broken, that would explain everything, but this is the original – perfectly sound. Give up?“ Without waiting for a reply, she turned her back on him to open a door into the blackness of a bedroom. She pointed to the spot where he was standing. As if commanding a very large dog, she said, „Wait there.“
The tiny woman was swallowed up in the shadows. Seconds later, she was rushing back into the light, running toward him, hands extended and palms flattened back, as if to push him. And she was fast. There was no time to grip the rail, nor even to raise his arms. Bitty stopped – dead stop – when her hands were a bare inch from his chest. She turned her smiling face up to his. „That’s the only way it could have happened. Quentin Winter murdered his first wife.“
„That’s enough,“ said Cleo, „I won’t have you saying these things about my father.“
„Why not?“ said her ex-husband. „Neither one of the Winter boys was a saint, not according to my father. It’s as good a theory as any.“
„And now – the other ghosts.“ Bitty was gleefully potted as she descended the stairs to a midpoint between the high ceiling and the parlor floor. She turned to look back at Cleo. „This was where your mother died.“ Bitty turned her eyes to Charles. „Alice was her name. The second Mrs. Winter was my grandfather’s favorite model. He was an artist, you know.“
All eyes followed the dramatic point of Bitty’s finger. „There was another body in the – “
„Stop! You weren’t there!“ Cleo yelled at her daughter. „You weren’t even born yet! You don’t know anything?“
Nedda Winter was not taking this well, either. She gripped the rail with a sudden need of support.
Had both these sisters witnessed the massacre of their family? Charles’s sketchy knowledge of this old story held no such detail.
Bitty was prattling on about the other deaths and where the bodies fell as she led the party down the staircase. „And then there was the baby,“ she said, almost as an afterthought. „A newborn. Sally was her name. She survived the massacre. What happened to her after that, Mother?“
Nedda paused on the last step and stared at Cleo, waiting on the answer to that question. Clearly, she had no knowledge of her baby sister’s whereabouts. How curious. Charles wondered if another of the Winter children had been… lost.
„Sally Winter.“ Sheldon Smyth was the first to reach the bar. „I haven’t heard that name in years.“ He smiled at Charles. „Everyone called her Baby Sally. I was just a boy, away at school when I heard the news. She ran off. Isn’t that right, Lionel? Isn’t that what the nanny told the police?“
„The nurse,“ said Cleo, „Sally had a nurse.“
„Quite right,“ said Sheldon. „As I recall, your uncle James fired that woman for stealing.“ He spoke to Charles, for the outsider would need a running translation. „James Winter was their guardian after the rest of the family was murdered. Yes, I remember him confronting the nurse about stealing.“
„You’re confused, old man,“ said Lionel. „It was Uncle James who was stealing.“
„Yes, of course,“ said Sheldon Smyth. „That’s why he left town so suddenly. If I remember correcdy, that was the year you turned twenty-one.“
Lionel turned his back on the man, then poured a double shot of whiskey from the bar and downed it quickly.
Nedda’s face had gone bloodless. She drifted back to the stairs, passing all of them by, and, without a good night to anyone. In dead silence, they all watched her climb and climb, then disappear behind a door on the floor above. Bitty, the living portrait of contrition and regret, trailed after her aunt.
Sheldon Smyth was quick to retrieve a briefcase from the floor of a closet, and now he made his retreat, backing up to the door, pleading an early appointment and urging his guest to stay on for a nightcap. The caterers were gone, and so were Cleo and Lionel. Charles opened the door to the dining room, hoping to find them there, to say good night and beat a hasty retreat.
Not there. Where then?
They had not gone upstairs. After searching the kitchen and the sewing room, he returned to the front of the house to find Cleo and Lionel standing by the entrance to the foyer. With only a nod to their guest, they turned around and left. Charles heard the front door close behind them. Well, this was a bit backward, the hosts leaving the house in advance of the guest. „A most unconventional dinner party,“ said Nedda Winter. He turned to see her standing behind the bar, uncorking a bottle of wine. „My family doesn’t entertain much anymore.“ She smiled, quite her old self again, such a charming smile. She tapped a button on a control panel next to the bar, and the sound system died off to blessed silence. „Ah, that’s better. I’d like to thank you for not asking me where I’ve been for all these years.“
„To be honest, I wasn’t sure that you were Red Winter. I don’t know the story as well as I thought.“
„Do you like jazz, Mr. Butler?“
Old-fashioned record albums had appeared on the bar, stacked up beside two wineglasses. Charles examined them one by one. Any audiophile could date them back to the middle of the last century. „This is a wonderful collection.“
„Unfortunately, they’re all warped and scratched. And all the records that my sister stacked up for the party are not my idea of music.“
„Mine either.“ He pulled a record from the album cover. It was made of hard plastic that predated vinyl, cassettes and magnetically encoded discs. And it was ruined. What a great pity.
Nedda turned away from him to study the control panel for the sound system. „I was hoping you could show me how to play the radio on this thing. It has a beautiful sound quality, and I know a station that only plays jazz from the thirties and forties. I tried to tune it in once, but that made Cleo cry. She said I changed the programming for all her favorite stations. She doesn’t know how to work it, either.“
„And neither do I.“ For a birthday present, Mallory had rewired his apartment with a similar sound system, and, yes, the sound quality was incredibly beautiful, but the control panel she had installed was equally daunting. „I have one at home, but it’s a different model and the buttons are color coded.“ Mallory had programmed his stations and painted the selection buttons with red nail polish.
He strolled over to the antique radio that she had played last night. „Well, we know this works.“
The front windows were open. The curtains blew inward, Duke Ellington and his band flowed out into the street.
Charles Buder was in Luddite heaven. He ended the evening painlessly, sitting outside on the stone steps. The warm wind of Indian summer ruffled his hair to the tune of rippling piano keys. They were finishing off the last bottle in a prolonged good-bye.
„I haven’t gotten soused on wine since I was twelve years old,“ said Nedda Winter.
„I gather your upbringing was rather liberal.“
„You have no idea.“ She looked up at the face of her house and smiled. „It was a party that went on for years. My parents were jazz babies, and they were never bothered by nice people from good families. Our guests were miles more interesting.“ She ticked off an impressive list of actors, writers, gangsters and gamblers who had passed out at the dining room table. „But I liked the chorus girls best. They gave me a taste for cold beer and taught me to curse.“ She produced a pack of cigarettes from the folds of her shawl. „And they taught me how to blow smoke rings.“ She blew one now and it hung in the still night air. „You don’t like my house much, do you?“