„Listen to me!“ Frustrated, Addison raised himself up on one arm. „She was lost for fifty-eight freaking years!“ He searched one detective’s face and then the other’s, only finding signs of disbelief. „She’s Red Winter. And I wasn’t planning to hurt her last night. I just wanted a photograph, some proof that it was the same woman I found in the nursing home. It was the Bangor Rest Home in Maine. She looks so different now. Six months ago, she was all bloated and yellow. But her eyes – those eyes.“
Riker pulled a small notebook from his coat, then fished the rest of his pockets until he found his pen. „So let me get this straight. You wanted to pass this woman off as Red Winter, and you needed a picture.“ He jotted down a few words. „A photograph you could sell to the tabloids?“ Riker looked up from his notebook. „You’re telling us you’re a con artist?“ He shrugged. „Okay with me, pal. We’ll add that to the charges.“
Riker and Mallory moved away from the bedside, as if they could not leave this man fast enough.
„Hey, wait a minute,“ said Addison. „Wait!“
They did not.
Bitty Smyth hung up the receiver on the kitchen wall phone, then faced her aunt with a smile. „The arrangements are done. I talked to Detective Mallory’s superior, a very nice man – Lieutenant Coffey. It took a bit of negotiating, but I got everything I asked for.“
„How handy to have a lawyer around the house.“ Nedda spooned scrambled eggs from a pan onto oven-heated plates. Behind her on the stove, bacon sizzled and hot water bubbled in the kettle. „You should go back to your father’s firm.“ And perhaps that would assuage her guilt over Bitty’s long sabbatical, all that time lost to the search for a long-lost child.
Her niece shrugged off this suggestion. „I lined up an independent polygraph examiner. Lieutenant Coffey said I wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the room during the examination, but I think I can get him to change his mind.“ Bitty sat down at the table and took up her fork, waving it in the air as a baton. „Good timing is very important in every negotiation. We’ll make a stand right before they – “
„No, Bitty. It’s better if I do this alone.“ Nedda picked up the teakettle before the whistle could startle her niece, then poured boiling water over the tea bags in their cups. „And then, this afternoon we might visit some real estate brokers.“ She sat down at the table and picked up a newspaper opened to listings for co-ops and condominiums. Several advertisements had been circled in blue ink. „I’m going to find a place of my own in – another part of town. I think Cleo and Lionel would like that.“
„But this is your house. No, Aunt Nedda. It’s all my fault. I’m the one who upset you. First that scene at the dinner party – and then last night. I’m so sorry. You can’t leave. You love this house.“
Yes, she did. But the house did not love anyone – not anymore. The house was sad and crazy and sick to death of love.
„It has nothing to do with you, Bitty.“ Nedda reached out to cover her niece’s small hand with her own. „You can come with me if you like. Call it a stepping stone to a place of your own. You can’t live with your mother forever, can you?“
The expression on Bitty’s face was one of instant sorrow, and Nedda realized that she had trod upon one of her niece’s many closet secrets. Though others seemed to underestimate this little woman’s complexity, Nedda never did. Sometimes even a simple conversation was like navigating a labyrinth with wrong turns aplenty. She had learned to avoid every path of discourse that led to pain, and now she folded the newspaper into her lap and out of Bitty’s sight.
The detectives had finished a leisurely breakfast in the hospital cafeteria. and now they were tying up a critical loose end: how to explain away Mallory’s behavior last night, the pistol whipping in Central Park.
They stood in the dark of a small room in company with a hospital physician, who flicked on a light to illuminate Joshua Addison’s X-rays. The doctor pointed to a fault line, saying, „Definitely a concussion. That’s why he can’t tell you what happened right before he lost consciousness. Judging by the wound, it looks to me like somebody hit him very hard with a – “
„A rock?“ asked Mallory, raising a plastic bag with said rock neady pocked with red. „Like this one? We found it underneath his head.“ She smiled so hopefully, as if she cared about this man’s opinion. „Or do you think he might’ve fallen and hit his head on the rock?“
„Yes, that would do it,“ said the doctor, who was young, who had no experience in forensics – who had never met Mallory before. „Yes, an accident.“
Riker had to wonder how she made her prop so realistic. He stared at the red fluid that spotted this rock taken from a construction site across the street. It looked’like real blood. He could well imagine her smashing it down on the nearest living creature that came to hand – so many small dogs in this neighborhood – but he hoped it was catsup from the hospital canteen.
Mallory glanced at the clock on the wall, a signal that they had killed enough time. They rode the elevator up to Joshua Addison’s floor for a final word with the private investigator. When they entered the room, the man in the bed had a worried look about him.
„Your story doesn’t check out,“ said Riker. „We called that nursing home in Maine. According to their records, this woman’s the wrong age.“
This was actually true. The sketchy records had overestimated Nedda Winter’s age by eight years.
„And one more thing,“ said Mallory. „Your name is on the nursing home’s discharge papers. They’ve got you listed as her next of kin. And they’ve never heard of Bitty Smyth.“
„Yeah,“ said Riker, „explain that one. Are you trying to con the Winter family out of some money?“
„Hell, no. The niece asked me to make the arrangements to move her aunt to a hospice in New York State. She wanted it done quietly.“
Mallory shook the bedrail to get the man’s attention. „Did the niece try to cut you out of the deal? Is that why you were stalking that old woman in the park?“
Addison could barely get out the word „No.“
„We ‘re just going by your own statement, pal,“ said Riker. „It looks like a scam to us.“
„Then it’s the niece, Bitty Smyth. It’s her scam. All I did was find – “
„Oh, yeah, I forgot,“ said Riker. „You did what thirty thousand cops couldn’t do. You found Red Winter.“
„Just one snag,“ said Mallory. „It’s not her.“
Riker tossed a yellow pad on the bed. „Make out a complete statement If we don’t find any more lies, we’ll sit on the paperwork lor a lew days. But if we find out that you passed this woman off as a member of the Winter family, then all the charges are solid, including fraud. And, pal, vv‹ r,:’ the newspapers – all ot ‘em.“
And that should neatly kill any idea of selling Nedda Winter to the tabloids. To further the impression that the detectives were bored with the improbable story of Red Winter’s return, Riker stretched out on the bed beside Addison’s. Before the private investigator had filled out half the sheet, Riker was snoring convincingly and sleeping soundly.
Half an hour passed before Mallory woke her partner, handing over the yellow sheets, one by one, as fast as she could read them. The handwritten lines of the statement were filled with every detail of the search for an old woman in the state of Maine. Joshua Addison had done hundreds of interviews looking for someone who would fit Bitty Smyth’s specific list of characteristics. For two years, the man had covered the entire state oi Maine.
Well, now they knew that Bitty had not been leaving town on religious missions. She had been visiting nursing homes up north. But how had the woman known that her aunt was hiding out in the state of Maine?