Nedda joined her niece by the wall and read her own name on a brass plate. In the context of this attic, it was like viewing her gravestone. She followed Bitty to the far corner of the attic, the resting place of an old standing trunk larger than all the others and plastered with travel stickers. What was this old piece of luggage doing in the attic of dead Winters?
Bitty opened it like a closet. „I found Uncle James’s passport in here, and that’s odd because he has a regular trunk like the others. It’s stored in the north attic.“
„This is a steamer trunk,“ said Nedda. „Your grandparents used it for ocean voyages.“ She examined the drawers that lined one side. In the last one, she found a jumble of bright colors, cheap, gaudy clothing that stirred a memory.
„I found a long red hair,“ said Bitty. „It was snagged in the tarot card box.“ She turned to look at the bottom drawer her aunt had opened. „That’s where I found the cards. And there were short red clippings in all of those clothes, so I wondered if your hair – “
„Yes, it was cut off… very short.“ Short as a boy’s. Nedda recalled her waist-long hair falling to the floor. The snip of the scissors – it seemed like only this morning. She had been sitting on a wooden chair in a small shabby room with tattered pulled-down shades while this mutilation covered the floor. The red strands had come alive, curling and writhing in the wake of a large cockroach moving through the pile of clippings. And Nedda had cried all the while, listening to the steady beat of rain against the window – the snip of scissors.
Bitty pulled a dress from the lower drawer. „Now this is the same size as the ones in your trunk, but otherwise nothing like them.“
Indeed, this was rather poor fare for the child of a wealthy family. Nedda well understood her niece’s curiosity. Unable to get any reliable information from her family, Bitty had produced the tarot cards at the dinner table, hoping for answers via surprise attack. And now this – gentle ambush.
„I had a theory about Sally,“ said Bitty, „I thought maybe – years after the massacre – you came back for her.“ Intrepid Bitty.
The detectives talked as they walked through Greenwich Village, breaking off their conversation whenever they were assailed by tourists with a wild, lost look about them. Grid logic was abandoned here, where West Fourth Street ran amok to bisect West Tenth Street. Two gray-haired people stood at this crossroad, unable to move on, gaping at the improbable street sign and willing it to make sense.
„I can’t believe we’re doing this.“ Annoyed, Mallory waved off this elderly couple, souring the message on their I-Love-New-York tote bags.
„It’s not much farther.“ Riker flicked his cigarette into a gutter. „And it’s worth the trip. This is the only place in town where you can find a tarot card reader and an ice-pick murder in one conveniently located square block. It’s the neighborhood where Stick Man screwed up royally – a killing close to home.“
Mallory opened her borrowed copy of The Winter House Massacre and removed the brochure she had used for a bookmark. It had been written by the same author, and now she reiterated the title with sarcasm. „A guided tour of murder in Greenwich Village?“
„The guy never made much money publishing the book. Bad writer if you ask me. So he makes a living with this walking tour.“
„If you’ve already taken the tour, why do we have to waste – “
„And there he is now.“ Riker nodded toward a small cluster of people on the sidewalk and their tour guide, a middle-aged, chinless, hairless man, who was barely five feet tall.
Martin Pinwitty was addressing his less than rapt audience of out-of-towners. Only tourists would politely listen to his monotonous drone while their eyes glazed over with fatigue. Any New York crowd would have left footprints on the author’s face by now. The man actually managed to bore them with the story of a mob-financed killing machine and details of murders by gun and baseball bat and, Riker’s personal favorite, the ice pick. The group’s interest was suddenly revived when Pinwitty told them that they were standing on the very site of an ice-pick murder. They all looked down at their feet, perhaps expecting to find bloodstains more than half a century later.
„They always do that,“ said Riker, hanging back with Mallory at the edge of the tour group.
„How many times did you take this tour?“ Something in her tone of voice implied that she had lost all respect for him.
„I check in once a year. This guy’s still doing research, and his spiel is always changing.“
Martin Pinwitty and his tour group walked a few paces down the sidewalk, and the lecture continued. „The victim was a reporter who covered the hearings on Murder Incorporated in the early forties. Now that investigation was over years before this murder took place. I believe the reporter had uncovered some new evidence on a professional assassin.“
Mallory glanced at Riker, who nodded, saying, „I think he got this part right.“
And the author droned on, saying, „The police made a very thorough search of this area. They spent days questioning all the residents on this block. And then it was the fortuneteller’s turn.“ He pointed to a narrow building across the street. „The woman’s storefront was right there.“
The tour group turned in unison to stare at a bodega with neon signs for beer and smokes. A drunk stood before its front window vomiting on his shoes. Yet this view held special charms for the sidewalk audience.
„The police took great interest in the fortuneteller,“ said Pinwitty. „She was the only one they brought in for questioning at the police station. And there she died. According to the obituary, it was a cerebral hemorrhage.“
„That’s wrong,“ said Riker, speaking low so as not to interfere with the dry static of the ongoing monologue. „It was way more interesting than that.“
„So what’s the real story?“
„This is secondhand. I was only a kid when I heard it, and this was more than twenty years after it happened. The detectives left the fortuneteller sitting on a bench for maybe five minutes while they freed up an interview room. When they came back for the old lady, the cop on guard duty was bending over her dead body. The uniform tells the detectives she was sitting up one minute, dead the next, and there was nobody near her when she keeled over. Well, they’re hunting for an ice-pick killer, right? And thanks to a slew of exhumed corpses in the early forties, they’re hip to the ice pick in the eardrum. It simulates a stroke. Well, sure enough, they shine a light in the woman’s ear and find blood from the pick. Now they interrogate the shit out of that cop.“
„The cop was dirty?“
„That’s what the detectives figured. Maybe the uniform took a few bucks to look the other way. Or maybe he did in the old lady himself. But no. According to the other witnesses, the cop just wasn’t paying attention when somebody stopped to talk with his prisoner. The old lady’s visitor was only there long enough to say hello and good-bye. A few seconds later, the old woman slumps forward. The cop jostles her shoulder and asks if she’s okay. That’s when she falls to the floor, stone dead. The killer walked right into a police station and killed this woman right under their noses. A real pro.“
„And the detectives covered it up.“
„You bet they did. This happened maybe ten or twelve days after the Winter House massacre. The newspapers would’ve crucified the whole department. So an ice-pick murder was passed off as a stroke and buried on the obituary page. Oh yeah,“ he said as an afterthought, „and that old lady was no crystal-ball gypsy. She only read tarot cards.“
„And she had a solid connection to the hitman.“
Riker nodded in Pinwitty’s direction. „He’s getting to that part now.“
The author pointed upward to a window on the second floor. „After the fortuneteller was taken away, that very night, in fact, that apartment was searched by detectives. On previous calls, the tenant had never been at home. That night they didn’t even bother to knock. Sadly, the tenant was gone and so were his things. No one was able to give the police a name or description. In fact, no one in the neighborhood could recall ever having seen the mysterious tenant even once, though he’d held the lease for years.“