Winter House

by Carol O'Connell

  Mallory turned her attention to another large oil painting, as if she had needed this closer inspection of the two young men posed there. Charles Butler had described this portrait of the Winter brothers as a cartoon. She turned to face the curious stares of Cleo and Lionel, and then walked back to them, killing their hopes of a quick end to this interview. “Let’s talk about the day of the massacre.”

  Lionel was the first to recover from that little bomb. “There’s no possible relevance to—”

  “I’ll decide that. I don’t have much to work with. I can put in a request for the file and the evidence boxes, but the more I dig, the more chance of a leak to the news media. You want the reporters to know that Red Winter came home?”

  A suddenly alarmed Cleo reached out to her brother, stopping just short of physical contact. On some level, a silent conversation was going on between them, for now Lionel nodded in agreement with some unvoiced pact, and his sister lost that frightened look in her eyes.

  “Of course,” said Lionel, addressing the detective, “we’ll do whatever we can to avoid publicity. When we were children, we couldn’t go anywhere without reporters chasing us. Once, Cleo was nearly trampled in the street. After that, we were sent away to school, and all our summers were spent in the Hamptons. It was years before my sister could live in this house without nightmares.”

  Good.

  Mallory was satisfied that, under the threat of headlines, they would not be insulating themselves with a battery of lawyers. “You survived the massacre, so I’m guessing you two weren’t in the house that day.” She sat down again, crossing her legs, leaning back and making it clear that she had all day long to hurt them. “As I said before, you’re never home—when things happen here.”

  Cleo stood up and crossed the room, heading for the stairs and moving in the manner of one who has lost her sight, hands gripping the furniture until she found the banister. She climbed the stairs as slowly as an invalid.

  Mallory gripped the arms of her chair, as if preparing to pursue the woman, but this was only a threat of body language.

  “Please let her go,” said Lionel. “My sister was only five years old. She can’t remember the details of that day.” He looked down at his folded hands. “And I can’t forget them. It was a pure accident that Cleo and I survived. We didn’t plan to be gone that Sunday. I had a fight with my father and stormed out of the house. I’d only walked a few blocks before I realized that little Cleo was following me. She was crying. My father’s temper always had that effect on her. I took her to the park for a Punch and Judy show. You know—the puppets? Then I hired a rowboat, and we drifted around the lake for another hour or so. Neither of us wanted to go home.”

  “Were there any outsiders in the house when you left? I don’t mean the nanny or the housekeeper.”

  “I suppose it’s possible. Sometimes we’d wake up and find strangers asleep on the couches, people who’d passed out at some party the night before. But I don’t remember seeing anyone else in the house that day. Cleo and I were away for a few hours, two or three.

  “And Nedda? Where was she?”

  “She left the house before we did. She went to a brunch with the Smyth family. Sheldon may remember that. He would’ve been twelve years old then. I saw Nedda leave in the Smyths’ car late that morning, and I never saw her again. By the time Cleo and I came back to the house, it was all over. The baby was crying in the upstairs nursery. I remember that.”

  He fell silent for a few moments, and Mallory waited him out.

  “Cleo ran through the house, shaking all the bodies,” he said. “She doesn’t remember that—or she doesn’t want to. She came back downstairs crying. She had the baby in her arms. Everyone was asleep, she said, and maybe sick like Mommy and Daddy. Then she tried to wake up our parents. I yelled at her, this tiny little girl. They’re not asleep, I yelled. They’re dead! And then, I just stood there. I couldn’t move. It was Cleo who called the police that day. And then she rocked Sally in her arms until they arrived. The policemen couldn’t get the baby away from her. I remember the officers taking them out the door. I can still see them. Little Cleo, a baby with a baby in her arms.”

  “You thought Nedda killed them all, didn’t you?” This had no startling effect on him, but he did not answer her.

  Mallory let herself out.

  Though there were lots of chairs around the garden, Riker, a confirmed stoop-sitter, preferred his perch on the back steps of this mansion across the park from Winter House. The trees gave him shade from the sun of high noon. He reached into his deli bag and took out the last of his lunch, another cold bottle, and he handed it to Sheldon Smyth, who claimed to prize the detective’s cheap brand of beer above all the costly wines in his cellar.

  What bullshit.

  Smyth was playing the quintessential gentleman and putting the common man, Riker, at ease. But the old fart did it so well. And now that the day had warmed a bit, the lawyer removed his jacket and tie, following his guest’s example.

  So far, Riker had learned that, despite Sheldon Smyth’s profession and a pansy tolerance for beer, they had one thing in common. And now they played another round of I Hate Divorce Lawyers.

  “I should’ve tried harder to get custody of Bitty.” Smyth slurred his words.

  “Bet it cost you a bundle in child support and alimony.”

  “The settlement was staggering.” Smyth upended the last bottle. “Oh, dear,” he said, unable to extract another drop. The old man banged on the back door until a woman appeared in a maid’s uniform. He stood up, none too steady on his feet, to pull a wallet from his pocket. Upon opening it, he stared at the money inside, as if currency were a mystery to him.

  Riker smiled. This man had no idea what beer would cost.

  Handing a wad of bills to his maid, Smyth sent her out for replacement bottles. The man was under the impression that he had drunk only half the beer in the exhausted carton, never suspecting the detective’s great talent for nursing one drink indefinitely. They were on a first name basis now—Sheldon and Detective.

  “Sounds pretty cold,” said Riker, “the way your ex-wife treated your kid.”

  “Bitty’s adopted. I suppose that made a difference. But, at least my daughter didn’t inherit any of the Winter genes. My father disowned me, you know, when I married into that family. Cut me off. No job, no money. I had to live at Winter House for a while.”

  “What was your old man’s problem with the Winters?”

  “Oh, it dated back to Cleo’s father, Quentin, and his brother, James. Very disreputable, both of them. Neither one was worth anything, financially or otherwise. They broke their trust fund after their parents died. Spent all the money, and so fast. This is my father’s account, you understand. Winter House was in foreclosure when the younger brother, James, left town with a slew of debts. The older boy, Quentin, was a dilettante who fancied himself a great artist.”

  The word dilettante had to be repeated twice: first because Riker could not understand the man’s beer soaked speech, and the second time because it amused the detective to hear a lawyer stumble this way.

  “Quentin solved the money problem by marrying a wealthy woman. That was Nedda’s mother, Edwina.”

  As the old man rambled on, Riker learned that Quentin Winter had been livid when he discovered the terms of his late wife’s will. According to Sheldon’s father, Edwina had changed her will once a month, following fights with her husband. In the last version, all the money had been tied up in trust for Nedda and her siblings. Edwina Winter had been pregnant with twins when she died—hence the sibling clause. Within a month of his first wife’s death, Quentin Winter had married his favorite model, Alice, who was already pregnant with Lionel.

  “No money,” said Smyth, “but Alice was a very fertile girl. She produced eight siblings for Nedda. All those children ever meant to Quentin was an increase in his guardian allotments.”

  “Bastard,” said Riker. “So Cleo and Lionel take after
their dad?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like him. The two of them are money-making machines. They’re worth millions, but you’d think they’d spent their childhood as starving orphans. Rather mean-spirited about money.”

  “And that’s why you give your daughter an allowance?”

  “Yes. Bitty’s not up to working just now, but Cleo and Lionel probably think she’s malingering. Might’ve been more human if they’d inherited something of their father’s spirit in spending. And they’re not exactly warm people. Poor Bitty.”

  “But you knew all the quirks when you married into that family, right?”

  “And I didn’t care. If you’d only seen Cleo when she was young—what a beauty. What put me off was the way she treated Bitty from the moment I brought that baby into the house. Not a maternal bone in my ex-wife’s body. The only thing that stirs Cleo is a rise in the stock market.”

  “What about Quentin’s brother, James Winter? What did he do for money?”

  “No idea. I only know that he never did an honest day’s work in his life. That’s what my father said. He liked to gamble, but the man had no real profession.”

  Riker had begun to wonder if Sheldon was truly as drunk as he seemed. Was the man sharing or feeding information? Even lawyers stoned on cocaine were not so generous with the dark side of client histories.

  “Did the police ever suspect James in the massacre?” The detective already knew the answer to this one, but he was hoping to catch this man in a lie.

  “The police cleared James almost immediately. He had nothing to gain from the murders. Since the trust fund was entailed to a charity, he could never inherit. And James was doing quite well in those days. He lived in a suite at the Plaza Hotel.”

  “But you said Lionel caught him stealing from the trust.”

  “Yes. I assume, in later years, James had a reversal of fortune. The theft only amounted to housekeeping money, fudging the figures and so on. Nothing major.”

  “When did James Winter leave town?”

  “I think it was the year Lionel turned twenty-one. Yes, the boy was preparing to take over the trust allotments when he noticed a few irregularities. That’s when his uncle James ran off. Probably wanted to avoid prosecution.”

  Riker smiled to hide his deep disappointment. So James Winter was still alive years after Humboldt had been stabbed to death in a little town in Maine. A pity. Uncle James had been such a great candidate for a hitman, lots of cash but no visible means of support.

  Their fresh beer had arrived via the maid at the back door. And when Smyth had finished two more bottles, Riker decided to take his best shot—before the attorney passed out. “I hate to bring this up, sir, but my partner still wants to see the trust documents. You think—”

  “I told you—or was it your partner? No matter. No documents without a warrant.”

  “But you’re the executor. The city attorney says that you can—”

  “Can, but won’t. Matter of principle.”

  Riker well understood the problem. “So it wouldn’t look good for the firm.”

  “Damn right it wouldn’t,” said Smyth. “For over a hundred years, we’ve been known for absolute discretion.”

  And yet, the detective had just completed a tutorial on the Winter family faults.

  “Okay,” said Riker. “You got my word on this. We won’t tell anybody that your dad mismanaged the Winter children’s trust fund.”

  The expression on Sheldon Smyth’s face could only be read as guilty surprise, and, in the absence of hot denial, Riker knew he was on to something.

  “Hey, I’m a homicide cop. What do I care who diddled what? And the statute of limitations is on your side. But you don’t want a gang of cops at the door. I understand. You want discretion? You got it. How’s this. You like Charles Butler, don’t you? You trust him, right? Instead of us getting a warrant to haul everything downtown, suppose we look over the documents at his place, neutral ground?”

  However drunken the man might be, when he smiled, the lucid face of the lawyer made a brief appearance, just popping out long enough to say, “If you could talk a judge into giving you that warrant, you’d have it by now. No deal.”

  Sheldon Smyth’s eyes were closing, and Riker left him sitting there amid the litter of empty bottles, one more thing for the maid to clean up.

  The quick rap on his door was somewhat annoying, but hardly loud enough to wake his houseguest. Charles opened the New York Times. The rap went on.

  Most irritating.

  He crushed his newspaper. Even if he had not recognized the impatient knock, almost a signature, he would have known it was Mallory.

  Rap, rap, rap.

  He glanced at his watch to see that she had allowed him a generous two hours to ply intimate secrets from Nedda, perhaps believing—so insulting—that he would never see through the ruse. Given time for reflection, he had come to understand his true role at the polygraph examination. Riker had as good as confessed, admitting that Charles would have been Mallory’s guest if Bitty Smyth had not insisted on his presence.

  Rap, rap. Bang!

  Eventually, she would go away. She had keys to the offices across the hall, but none to his apartment. Though now he heard the sound of metal on metal.

  Oh, fool I.

  When had she ever been deterred by the lack of keys?

  His intruder was so stealthy, he never heard the door open. Mallory simply appeared at the end of the foyer. Her own surprise was fleeting—there, then gone. He rose from the couch, startled and speechless. Her preemptive strikes could be dazzling. He was stunned that Mallory was the first one to strike a pose of outrage and indignation. Oh, the very idea that she should have to break into his apartment when he was just sitting there all the while. All of this was in her face, deliberately written there for him to read.

  Chief Medical Examiner Edward Slope spent his lunch hour on a tree-lined street in suburban Brooklyn, conversing on the freak warmth of October, and lifting his face to the sun. Yes, he agreed with Rabbi David Kaplan that every day of Indian summer was a gift. They both turned their attention to the mystery crate at the center of Robin Duffy’s garage, while they waited for this charter member of the floating weekly poker game to join them.

  “One more time, David.” The doctor regarded the crate with grave suspicion. “It was dropped off the back of an unmarked truck in the dead of night . . . but you don’t think Kathy stole it?”

  The rabbi shook his head. “No, and neither do you.”

  In Edward Slope’s opinion, the rabbi was too gentle to see the worst in others. He also believed that this gentle man regularly beat him at cards by sheer luck and not by the cunning of a born poker player. And, in truth, neither did the doctor believe that Kathy Mallory had stolen the crate, but she might delight in this accusation.

  Perverse brat.

  And if the truth were fully told, Edward Slope, her principal detractor, loved her unconditionally.

  A screen door slammed, and they turned to see a short bulldog of a man walking toward them and grinning widely. “It’s all settled,” he said. “Charles thinks the game was canceled.”

  Edward Slope was still grappling with the concept of a surprise poker game. He faced the open garage, his eyes passing over all the discarded hobbies of Robin Duffy’s experiment in retirement from his legal practice. What a failure. The walls were lined with tools for home improvements, a half-finished canoe from the boat-building class and the potted remains of a dead herb garden.

  Kathy Mallory was another one who did not deal well with drastic life changes. She had grown up in this neighborhood and lived across the street with her foster parents. The old house had burned down, leaving a messy hole in her landscape until another house had been raised on the same footprint of land. Every fourth week of the poker-game rotation, Edward had remarked on the progress of the builders, and, now that it was done, he could not claim to be shocked.

  In the early stages of construction, he ha
d recognized something familiar in the raw timbers, the bones of the house. The completed structure was exactly the same in every maniacal detail. This week, the shrubbery had been added, evergreens shaped the way Helen Markowitz had always pruned them. The young tree recently planted in the yard was different, of course—or was it? No, that tree was the same size when Kathy was a little girl. He recalled the night when Louis had come home with a birthday present for Helen, a genuine baby felon caught in the act of robbing a car. What a surprise. And the following week Edward had helped Louis to dig a hole and put a sapling into that same ground. This had long been the custom of the Markowitz family, planting a tree when a child was born—or snatched off the street during the commission of a felony.

  Robin stood beside him now, admiring Kathy’s handiwork, as if what she had done was a normal thing. “The mailbox is the original. She saved it from the ashes.”

  “What about . . . inside the house?”

  “Just a few things,” said Robin, “but the kid’s still working on it. Took her months to find Helen’s wallpaper pattern. The company went out of business, but she tracked down some rolls to a hardware store in Montana. The furniture’s a problem, too—all family heirlooms. Some of it dated back to the twenties. What a perfectionist, huh? Every piece has to be exactly the same. So she goes to estate sales on her days off.” He glanced back at the crate in his garage. “That’s how she knew where to find the table.” Robin entered the garage and selected a crowbar from the tools on the wall. “She says we can un-crate it to fit it through Charles’s door, but we can’t unwrap it yet. I think she’s afraid we’ll ding up the wood.”

  Edward Slope had lost all interest in the surprise poker game. He continued to stare at the house across the street. He tried to imagine Kathy in there, restoring the furnishings of the dead to make her ghosts feel more at home. Or was it an act of pure defiance—creating this illusion that death had never come to her house? Either way, it was quite mad, but also tender, and this argued well for a human heart.