„In here,“ she said.
He entered the library and found her seated in the circle of new club chairs. She seemed quite at home in this setting, but then, by her account, she had spent most of her life inside of books – a secondhand life she had called it.
„Is this where you do group therapy?“
„No,“ he said, „I’ve never had a patient practice. This is where I play poker.“ Charles sat down beside her and stretched out his long legs. „Now, in this big empty space, try to imagine a gaming table made in 1839.“
„Should I imagine the cards as well?“
„No, I’m not that far gone. I gave away my old card table so I’d have room for one I bought at an auction. The very next day, the antique table was destroyed in a warehouse fire.“
„An antique. You take your poker seriously.“
„And I always lose, but I love the game – and the company. When my friend Louis Markowitz died, I inherited his chair in a floating weekly poker game. Tonight will be the first time it’s ever been canceled.“
„Because of me?“
„Oh, no. I wasn’t the one who canceled the game.“
Nedda smiled. „Well, not to waste these wonderful chairs – if you can’t find the right table, you might open up a private practice. You’re a natural. I’m something of an expert in therapists, and I say you’ve got the gift.“ She looked around at the other chairs, which did indeed resemble a therapy group arrangement. „This was my life for decades, one hospital after another and more doctors than I care to remember.“
„Could’ve fooled me,“ he said. „You don’t strike me as someone who’s been institutionalized. But then, I suppose it makes a difference that you were never insane.“
„As I said, you have the gift.“
And now he picked up the threads of their earlier conversation. „So you believed that you could never go home again. But then you did.“
„Thanks to my niece. But now I think it would’ve been better if I’d never come back.“
„Well, a few criminal intrusions, a violent death – that’s quite a bit of trauma. But that’s not what you meant, is it?“
„No. You’re a good listener, Charles. You can hear things between the words. I meant that it would’ve been better if my brother and sister never had to set eyes on me again. I’m the intruder at Winter House.“
In this unguarded moment, there was more sadness in her eyes than he could bear.
Empathy was his strength and his weakness; it was what suited him to a therapist’s role and what prevented him from ever treating a patient. He would never be able to affect the professional detachment so key to the well-being of a therapist’s own mind. He was already dying by degrees, imagining every shock that Nedda Winter had born, the cost of every death – all the pain that she was feeling now and her terrible sense of isolation. And then he pulled back, emotionally and even physically. He rose from his chair and unconsciously rubbed his hands together, as if in the act of washing them clean of this woman. „Well, what you need now is rest.“
This was what he also told himself – this lie. In reality, he had just shut her down and shut her out. He knew it, and she knew it. Nedda was all alone again.
Mallory sat in the front room of Winter House, sipping coffee and becoming acquainted with Nedda’s siblings. Riker had begged off on this interview, and she had only thought about his possible reasons in every other minute. And now she made her final judgment on her partner: he was losing the stomach for this case – and for her company.
„I don’t understand,“ said Cleo Winter-Smyth. „Why should Nedda be staying at Charles Butler’s house?“
„Was that your doing?“ asked Lionel Winter.
„No.“ Mallory put down the teacup. The time for good manners was fast passing. „It was Dr. Butler’s idea. He didn’t say why. Do you think he might have some reason to believe that Nedda wouldn’t be safe in this house?“
Brother and sister looked to one another for answers.
And now that she had knocked them off balance, Mallory continued, addressing Cleo. „Maybe it was something your daughter said to him? Is she here?“
„She’s not at home,“ said Lionel Winter.
Mallory understood his meaning. His niece was not at home to the police.
The detective pulled out a small notebook. „A few questions came up in our investigation. You had a younger sister who survived the massacre.“ She looked down at the notebook page. There was nothing written there. „Sally? Was that her name? I understand that she ran away from home.“
Cleo wore a frozen smile. „Oh, the dinner party. That’s what set Charles Butler off – all those stories.“ She spoke to Mallory, but would not look at her anymore. „Lionel and I were away at school when Sally left.“
„Yes,“ said the detective, „you’re always away when things happen in this house.“ She studied more blank pages in her notebook, then faced Lionel. „You fired Sally’s nurse shortly before the girl ran away?“
He nodded.
Mallory waited for him to fill in the silence with nervous explanations, but soon realized that this was not going to happen. He was simply tolerating her presence in the house. She went for the soft spot, moving her chair closer to his sister. She leaned toward Cleo Winter-Smyth. „But, ma’am, you said you weren’t here. Are you sure that Sally ran away? Who was looking after her if the nurse – “
„Our guardian.“ Lionel raised his voice. „He was looking after Sally that day. And yes, we’re quite sure that she ran away.“
While sister and brother were silently communing with one another, Mallory caught sight of Bitty Smyth’s reflection in a mirror that angled toward the grand staircase. The tiny woman was gripping the banister and shaking her head. Mallory pressed on with Cleo and Lionel. „So there must’ve been a report filed with Missing Persons. What year was that?“
Brother and sister were having identical reactions, and Mallory knew they were doing the math in their heads. This was the response of teenagers forced by a bartender to recall the date of a fictional birth on a fake driver’s license.
So much pressure counting backward.
Cleo fielded this one. „It was maybe fifty years ago.“ She turned to her brother. „Lionel?“
„Give or take a few years,“ he said. „Our guardian would have filed the report with the police.“
The detective appreciated guile. Prescient Lionel Winter had looked ahead to the next problem. When the police came back to tell him that no missing-person report had been found, then that bit of negligence could be blamed on a dead man, Uncle James.
Mallory added Sally Winter to the body count for Winter House. „That clears up most of my loose ends.“ She produced a yellow pad, the format for a murderer’s confession on a typical day in Special Crimes Unit. „If you could just write out the details and the dates in your own words. Then sign it – both of you.“
She waited out the minutes it took for Lionel’s terse written account of Sally Winter’s disappearance. Glancing at the mirror again, she caught sight of Bitty crouched below the banister rail on the second-floor landing – odd behavior for a lawyer. That little woman should be rushing down the stairs to caution her mother and her uncle against signing anything for the police.
Too late.
Lionel was done committing this small crime, the falsification of a police statement, and both signatures were on the page. Mallory read the carefully printed words. The faint erasure of numbers was barely visible in the margin. He had finally worked out a year that would match up with the dinner party conversation. „There’s something odd about this date. If Sally Winter ran away forty-eight years ago, she would ‘ve been just under ten years old. Now that’s odd. Most runaways are teenagers. I’ve never – “