No need to ring the bell. The door was opened wide by a woman as tall as Detective Mallory, but much older. The hair was white, her eyes pale blue, and what a curious smile. „You’re from the temp agency?“
„Lucky guess, lady. Here, you gotta sign this.“ The smaller woman handed her a work order tapped out on Mallory’s computer and guaranteed to pass for the genuine article. „The name’s Ortega,“ she said. „You can call me Mrs. Ortega.“ And by the signature, she knew this was Nedda Winter.
And now the cleaning lady had to fend off more good manners, offers of tea and conversation, for God’s sake. But she was firm. „I only got a few hours.“ Mrs. Ortega powered up her vacuum cleaner and kept her mouth closed until, an hour later, she opened the door to the closet in the foyer. „What the hell?“
The shelves were narrow for a linen closet, and they were lined with women’s hats.
„It’s a hat closet,“ said Miss Winter.
„There’s no such thing,“ said Mrs. Ortega. „You know how many years I been cleaning houses like yours? Hell, even fancier than this one, and there’s no such a thing as a damn hat closet. This is a linen closet, and you never find a linen closet in a damn foyer. But that’s not what I was talking about.“ She leaned down and picked up one hat that had fallen from a lower shelf, then pointed to a hole in the wall. „What’s that?“
„A mouse hole, I suppose. Would you like a cold beer?“
Two blocks west of Winter House and two hours later, Mrs. Ortega was sitting in the front seat of Mallory’s car. „So I says to Miss Winter, you got real classy rodents here – that’s a nice round hole. Between you and me, Mallory? I’d say that mouse used a drill with a four-inch bit. And it was a damn tall mouse. That hole was two feet off the ground.“
Mallory nodded, hardly listening.
„The back of the closet was cheap plasterboard,“ said the cleaning lady, attempting to liven up her story. „Now that’s odd because the sides are cedar. It don’t make sense. You see the problem?“ No, she guessed that Mallory had lost interest in the closets of the rich, and Mrs. Ortega was still unclear about what service she had done to warrant a hundred-dollar bill on top of her regular cleaning fee. And so she felt obliged to elaborate, drawing on her vast reading in true-crime paperbacks. „You know that house has a history, right.“
Mallory’s face had no expression that the cleaning lady could read. Mrs. Ortega offered a hint. „The Winter House Massacre? Ring any bells?“
„That’s way before Mallory’s time,“ said Riker. „Mine, too.“ He had returned from his deli run. After settling into the backseat, he handed Mrs. Ortega her requested bagel and coffee. „Now here’s our problem.“ He held out a sheet of paper with the letterhead of Crime Scene Unit. „A rookie investigator has a note here. Suspicious hole in shallow closet.“
„Crime scene, huh? Another murder. Do you know how many – “
„Don’t get excited,“ said Riker. „It was a robbery.“
„Oh, sure,“ said Mrs. Ortega. „You two turned out for a robbery.“
„That’s right,“ said Mallory, pressing another large bill into the woman’s hand. „Is there a problem here?“
„Absolutely not.“ Mrs. Ortega pocketed the bill. „So this rookie – did he mention the seam around the closet hole?“ Well, that got their attention. „The backing on that closet is old and rotted. But the hole and the seam? Not so old. Somebody cut out a section and then put it back in place. There’s a ridge of glue around the seam for the patch. And there’s dust on that ridge.“
„Well, that tears it,“ said Riker. „Whatever got walled up in the closet, it’s long gone now.“
„Tell me about Nedda Winter,“ said Mallory.
„Real jumpy. Followed me everywhere, and it wasn’t like she thought I was gonna rob her blind. She just wanted the company. Didn’t wanna be alone. Thai, was my take. 1 cieaned her room. Hardly needed it. Very neat. No personal items. There’s a metal suitcase stashed under the bed. I thought that was her house, but she acts like a real polite guest who isn’t sure how long she wants to stay. So then the little one comes home.“
„Bitty Smyth.“
„Right. Soon as I saw her, I knew which room was hers. Never had to ask. It had to be the one with all the stuffed toys on the bed. Like a kid’s room. Now that’s because she’s so small. I bet people still pat her on the head. She ‘11 have teddy bears on the bed when she’s ninety years old. Well, as soon as she showed up, I left.“
„Good job.“ Mallory nodded to the police cruiser behind her car. „That officer will drive you anywhere you want to go.“
Mrs. Ortega looked back over her shoulder to the rear window and its view of a policeman in uniform, the same cop who had wrestled her for the cleaning cart. „Good. A rematch.“ As she closed the door of the car, she leaned down to the open passenger window. „Just one more thing, you guys. Instead of asking yourselves what was walled up in that closet, you might be wondering who. It was a damned big patch.“
No intruder could hide in the dark of an old house. Every creak of a timber and each footfall on the stair was kettledrum and timpani; moments of silence were suspect and fraught with tension – waiting, waiting.
Nedda rose from her bed and walked to the window. Evidently, Officer Brill had not been impressed by the most recent break-in. There were no police cars parked out front. She held the opera glasses borrowed from her mother’s old trunk in the attic. Raising the lenses to her eyes, she looked out over the park, bringing leaves into sharp focus and searching for a sign of movement among the branches.
Her brother and sister had not returned. They had been absent for yet another break-in, and she wondered what the police would make of that coincidence.
Cleo and Lionel spent so much of their time at the summer house, and Nedda blamed herself for making the town house unbearable. Ritty had offered another theory: they simply liked to drive; it was nothing for them to make the round trip in a day, only spending a few hours in one place or the other. Her niece believed that they used the summer house as an excuse, needing some destination for their drives, else they would drive in circles. The pair had longtime acquaintances, but no real friends to visit in the Hamptons.
But they had each other. And what of Bitty? She had no one but a lame cockatiel.
Nedda refocused the opera glasses and strained to see a man in the mesh of leaves. No, there was no one there, but she imagined him behind each tree. The wind was rising, and the branches lost more of their cover with every gust.
Waiting, waiting, anticipating.
She closed the drape and lit the lamp. Next, she sat down at the writing desk and picked up her pen. Nedda meant to explain her actions to her family, or that was her intention, but she could think of no way to begin her letter. Instead, she wrote the same line, over and over, filling both sides of a paper, then reaching for another sheet. If things should go wrong tonight, this might be the most eloquent explanation she could leave behind. Or was it a confession of sorts? Pages covered with her handwriting drifted to the floor as the hour grew late. Over and over again, she wrote the same line: Cra^y people make sane people cra^y.
Rising from the desk, she switched off the lamp and returned to the window. There were no pedestrians in sight, and the traffic was light to nonexistent. She focused the opera glasses. There, a face moving behind the trees near the stone wall, that low barrier between the sidewalk and the park. Nedda looked back at the clock on her bedside table. Officer Brill would have gone off duty hours ago. What would she say if she called the police station?
I see a pale face in the woods?
No, they would not send anyone to search Central Park for suspicious persons, not on her account. They would write her off as a crazy old woman, and perhaps this was true. She watched the wood across the way and saw him more clearly now, but just the back of him moving deeper into the foliage.