„Stop it!“
„Maybe they committed the perfect murder. That little girl was – “
„Detective Mallory, please stop.“
„Now, the attempt on your life – that was a total screwup. But what about your baby sister? What do you suppose they did with her body? Don’t you care? We can’t find any trace of her dead or alive.“
Nedda’s hands rose to her head, warding off the words, her head making small jerking movements, hands rising like white fluttered wings, playing bird to Mallory’s cat.
The detective pushed her chair back from the table. Her work was done. She could roughly predict the moment when Charles Butler would come barreling through the door. Oh, and here he was now. Such a gentleman, and so angry.
Mallory joined Riker in the observation room. They watched the ongoing show from the dark side of the glass. Charles removed all the mechanical devices that had bound Nedda Winter to the chair and the machine.
„She’ll talk to Charles.“
„Yeah,“ said Riker, „but I’m not sure there’s anything left for her to tell.“
Her partner had been against this idea of replacing the niece with a brand-new confidant for the old woman, but he had come up with no better plan.
Nedda preceded Charles as he quit the interview room, slamming the door behind him, loud as a gunshot. Mallory, his unintended target, tensed every muscle in her body. She turned to face Riker, but he looked away, not wanting to meet her eyes anymore. These small things, the slam of a door, the turn of Riker’s head – they would remain with her for the rest of the day as a portent of things to come.
She was always losing people.
Edward Slope strolled up to the SoHo police station, and a uniformed officer rushed to open the door for him, though the younger man had no reason to recognize the chief medical examiner, a rare visitor in this precinct. Dr. Slope’s austere presence and excellent suit always commanded instant respect.
As he approached the front desk, he wore his eyeglasses riding low on the bridge of his nose, not caring that his vision was blurred. The doctor had finished a morning’s pro bono work at the free clinic two blocks away, and he had seen quite enough for one day – homeless people dying of old age in their thirties and forties.
Impaired vision or not, he could never have missed the physically imposing figure of Charles Butler – no more than he could fail to notice a Ko-diak bear in his shower stall. The man stood on the other side of the wide room, a head above the police officers gathered here and there in loose groups of twos and threes. Charles was deep in conversation with a tall white-haired woman and a child with pointed ears.
Well, that was interesting.
Dr. Slope raised his spectacles the better to see the latter as a more mundane person, a very small woman with a pixie haircut and ears that were disappointingly normal.
Ah, and now he had attracted Charles Butler’s attention. Dr. Slope had never before seen this man angry. Charles had always impressed him as the most congenial of oversized humans, one who seemed embarrassed when he dwarfed other people. Well, this was a sight to behold, the wide-shouldered giant marching toward him with such grim resolution, hands curled into fists – and all the surrounding policemen seemed to agree. Their heads were turning, sensing trouble. So impressive was Charles that, all about the room, hands were lightly resting on guns.
Chapter 7
WHEN RIKER FOLLOWED HIS PARTNER INTO LIEUTENANT Coffey’s office, the chief medical examiner was waiting for them. The pathologist was not a happy man, and neither was their lieutenant.
Dr. Slope fixed his eye on Mallory, reprimanding her with a cold stare, and Riker had to crack a smile. This was a reminder of her kiddy days when the doctor had suspected her of some new criminal act each time they met. Slope’s worst grievance against her was cheating at poker on those nights when Lou Markowitz had been on midget duty and taken his foster child along to the weekly penny-ante game. By Lou Markowitz’s account, his daughter had regularly cleaned out the doctor’s pockets, and this had set the tone for Slope’s relationship with Mallory down through the years.
„So, Kathy,“ said the doctor, absolutely fearless in this forbidden use of her first name, „what have you done to Charles Butler?“ Predicting her trademark line, I didn’t do it, he gave her no time to answer. „I saw Charles downstairs a few minutes ago. He all but slammed me up against a wall and demanded a prescription for Valium. And so, of course… I thought of you.“
Mallory’s only response was to fold her arms, shutting him out and making it clear that she was not going to play games with him today.
Slope’s expression was more suspicious than usual, and he was puzzled, too, as if he knew he had caught her at something; though, as yet, the doctor could have no idea what her most recent wrongdoing might be. „Nothing to say for yourself, Kathy?“
„Mallory,“ she said, correcting him as she always did, and her eyes were promising payback for breaking this rule.
Did the doctor care? Not at all.
Slope handed an envelope to Riker. „That’s the report on your corpse. Are we still calling him a John Doe burglar?“
„Yeah,“ said the senior detective. „We can’t afford any leaks to the media.“
„I can keep Willy Roy Boyd in paperwork limbo indefinitely,“ said Slope. „But it’s just a matter of time before somebody recognizes the corpse as Mallory’s lady-killer. I examined the wound to his heart. The sewing shears masked everything but the tip of another object, something sharper, narrower. It wouldn’t be inconsistent with an ice pick.“
„And what about the comparisons?“
„To Stick Man?“ The doctor took a bundle of yellowed papers from his medical bag. „Here – your grandfather’s notes. I must compliment him on that signature strike. Superb police work. I also read his summaries on the other autopsies. However, in this case, there was so much damage done by the scissors, there’s no way to find any sign of it on Boyd’s corpse. And nothing stood out in the old autopsy reports on the Winter House Massacre. Of course, with an exhumation, the absence of any chips to the bone would – “
„No way,“ said Jack Coffey. „I’m not spending money to dig up people who died back in the forties.“ He looked up at his senior detective. „I can’t believe you expected a Stick Man signature on Mallory’s perp.“
„I did,“ said Riker, „for about six minutes. But now I think Nedda was – “
„Nedda Winter?“ Slope stared at Riker. „That was the name Charles wanted on the Valium prescription.“ The doctor turned to Mallory with a fresh accusation on his face, though he could not name it – not yet.
Riker wished he could call his words back. So little got by Edward Slope. He could tell that the doctor was putting it all together now: the passage of time, a recent murder in Winter House, the old massacre investigation, an elderly woman he had met downstairs, someone with Mallory’s interrogation footprints all over her face and the doctor’s best guess at that woman’s age – Red Winter’s age.
„Oh, my God. You found her.“
Charles Butler’s mood had improved, perhaps due to drugs. After filling the Valium prescription at the pharmacy, Nedda Winter had insisted upon sharing it with him, rightly suspecting that his morning had been nearly as bad as hers.
He had already begun the work of undoing Mallory’s damage while collecting Nedda’s belongings at Winter House, and now he had provided a safe refuge for the woman so that she could do further mending. And, in part, he supposed that Mallory’s doomsday warning had spooked him. And Nedda, too? It had come as a surprise when she had accepted his offer of sanctuary so readily. He set her suitcase down inside the door of his guest room, and, upon turning around, noticed that his houseguest had been misplaced. He walked down the hallway calling out, „Nedda?“