„I suppose it makes me nervous.“
„Yes, I noticed that. But it didn’t bother you the other night, did it? Not with all those policemen, all that activity – and this music on the radio.“
„Well, no.“
„Oh,“ said Nedda – big smile, „how the house loves a good party. I’m afraid we put on a rather poor show tonight. Not nearly enough people – and that dreary music.“ She caressed the wrought-iron railing. „Poor house. It was made for a wilder nightlife.“
Though he would not describe the crime scene as a wild party, he took her point. „So, tonight, I’m seeing the house out of context. The interior – that was actually designed tor large gatherings, wasn’t it?“
She nodded and refreshed his glass with more wine. „My father’s work. He gutted the front room years before I was born. The staircase was the main event. It works best with a hundred people lounging on the steps, slugging back whiskey and tapping their feet to very loud music. Late in the evening, the music was live. Musicians came by from every club in town. Jam sessions till sunup. Piano men and men with horns, women with voices that could belt out a song to bring the roof down. Everyone in motion, dancing, even when they were sitting down. Now the mirrors – Daddy hung them up to create a bigger crowd than the house could hold. He even slanted the walls to give the mirrors more scope.“
„That’s why you can never avoid the multiple reflections?“
She nodded. „You could never escape my father’s illusion. All that energy. The people and the music fed the house.“ Her hand rubbed the stone step she sat upon. „Poor house. Now it’s starving – dying for the next big party.“
As Charles lit the last of her cigarettes, he glanced at his watch, startled to realize that another hour had passed. He liked this woman tremendously. However, he knew she must be tired. With some regret, he rose to take his leave, to see her safely behind the door, and to lose the pleasure of her company.
Lionel Winter loved one thing in all the world, the 1939 Rolls-Royce – the Wraith. In the last two years of production before the war, only 491 had ever existed. The Wraith had been his father’s car, and it was in near-perfect running condition. The ride was smooth and utterly quiet. He paid lavish tips to the garage attendant for a little magic from an aerosol can that always made the leather smell like new – like 1939, the year when he had sat upon his father’s lap and steered the Wraith down city streets. Whenever he drove this car, he lived in that year.
Tonight, however, it was difficult to escape the twenty-first century, and all his thoughts were centered upon his niece. What was she playing at? Since Bitty had abandoned the practice of law at her father’s firm, she had become more and more peculiar, or so it seemed on those days when she appeared in his line of vision. Most of the time, he hardly noticed her. He could not entirely blame the wine for the night’s disaster. How long had she been harboring these suspicions, and how much could she really know?
Flying down the Henry Hudson Parkway, boats on the water, the town alight – electric – New York at night. How he loved to drive, always shuttling between the summer house and town. That was his whole life, going nowhere with great speed and always alone.
His solitary thoughts turned to Nedda. Why was she still alive? At the hospice, an ancient doctor had virtually promised him that his older sister would be dead before the month was out, that no tests were necessary to tell him that there was no hope of a cure. All the signs of end-stage cancer had been there, her skin a ghastly yellow, her belly bloated, and the rest of her body wasted. And yet, months later, Nedda had come home to Winter House, and there she resided – in splendid good health.
Doctors were so untrustworthy. Hardly science, was it?
Obviously, his older sister had been woefully misdiagnosed. So she lived – in his house – and every day Nedda summoned up the gall to look him in the eye. Every smile in his direction was a mockery. And now she was using Bitty, turning his niece against her own family. Lionel’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, and the car accelerated down the parkway. He sped past the taillights of slower cars, the electric yellow windows of tall buildings and bright reflections on the river, going faster and faster.
Why did you come back, Nedda?
Uncle James had promised them, over and over, that their sister would never return to Winter House.
He turned toward the passenger seat to look at his sister in her own neighboring galaxy on the other side of the car. Her face was bathed in dim light from the dashboard.
„Cleo? You don’t remember very much, do you? When we came home from the park that day… and found them all dead.“
„No.“ She shivered slightly, as if awakening and shaking off dreams. „No, I don’t.“
That was not surprising. His sister had been only five years old when the two of them had come home to find their parents’ bodies sprawled on the stairs. And the dead housekeeper – what was her name?
No matter. He could not remember the nanny’s name either. Oh, but the others, his brothers and sisters. He saw them now, white and still.
His parents were his most vivid memory. What a picture for the family album: little Cleo clinging to their dead mother, the corpse warm to the touch, and by that warmth, still giving comfort to one of her children – but not to Lionel. While standing on the stairs, only inches from his father’s body, he had been a zillion miles distant from that scene, wishing himself to the moon and listening in on the world from a great distance.
Listening to a memory now – truly a long way off – he could still hear Cleo’s sad little conversation with the police on the telephone, numbering and naming the dead, then ending by asking them so innocently, „Are you coming?“
Lionel looked at his mask of a face in the rearview mirror, then glanced at his sister’s mask before turning back to stare at the windshield.
Alone again.
Chapter 4
CHARLES BUTLER’S SUITE OF OFFICES WAS EQUIPPED WITH AN ultramodern kitchen, and Mallory was always upgrading the technology. Most of the appliances had secret lives of their own and functions that he could only guess at, but the one that he resented most was the high-tech coffeemaker. As a confirmed Luddite, he preferred his brew untouched by computer chips.
This morning he ground his own beans, as usual, percolated the coffee over an old-fashioned gas flame, then carried the cup and saucer across the hall to a door that bore the gold letters of Buder and Company on frosted glass. Once it had said Mallory and Butler, but again, the police department had frowned upon this flagrant breach of policy against using investigative skills in the private sector. The absence of her name on the door was at least an attempt at discretion.
Charles took a deep breath while fitting his key in the lock. He would only have six seconds to disable the burglar alarm, all the time that Mallory’s programming would allow him, and he was not likely to forget that – ever. The deafening siren had once jangled his brain and entirely cured his absentmindedness.
But the door was not locked.
Well, this was not a promising start to any day, not in New York City. Only two other people had keys: his cleaning woman, Mrs. Ortega, never came this early, and his business partner never came this late. He glanced at his wristwatch. Right about now, Mallory would be entering the SoHo police station, her only legally sanctioned workplace.
He pushed open the door and found that the reception area was in good order, and nothing appeared to be missing. The antique furniture in this room was costly, but burglars would probably prefer more portable items – like Mallory’s wildly expensive electronics.