Carol O’Connell: Winter House

„So,“ the detective continued, „this woman comes downstairs – in the dark – sees the burglar. Then she runs to the other end of the house to look for the sewing shears. And the perp just stands there in the front room, waiting for her to come back and stab him to death.“

Charles hesitated – always a good idea to tread carefully with her. There was only one logical conclusion, but he sensed a trap in the making. „Then it’s not a case of self-defense?“

„No, that’s exactly what it is,“ she said, somewhat impatient. „Self-defense. That much I believe.“

„Right.“ Charles needed no mirror to tell him that he wore the comical face of a fool who has just discovered that it was not night but day. Hands in his pockets, he stared at his shoes. „I gathered from Riker that you wanted a psych evaluation of those two women.“

„No, that was just an afterthought.“ She closed the door, then leaned her back against it, as if to block his escape. „What can you tell me about those people?“

He shrugged. „Only their names. I just got here.“

She put one hand on her hip, a sign that she did not entirely believe him, but then it was her nature to be suspicious of everyone who did not carry a badge – and everyone who did. „You’ve never met them before?“

„No,“ said Charles, „I don’t know either of them.“

„Well, they know you. And they’ve known you for a long time.“ Her eyes were asking, accusing and demanding all at once, And how do you explain that?

Detective Riker liked the kitchen best. Unlike the rest of the house, this room was built to human scale. The low ceiling made it cozy, almost cottagelike. He declined an offer of alcohol but allowed Nedda Winter to make him a glass of iced tea with thanks.

She selected a lemon from a bowl of fruit. Knife in hand, she stood at the butcher block and smiled at him. It was almost a tease, as if to ask – did he object to her holding this dangerously pointed object?

Riker’s mouth dipped on one side to say, Yeah, right.

He made a cursory inventory of the room, his gaze passing over a meat cleaver, then traveling onto a cutlery block of knives. A case bolted to the far wall contained a fire extinguisher and a small ax. With all the lethal weapons in this kitchen arsenal, a pair of scissors had been an odd choice to bring down an intruder tonight.

Miss Winter made short work of the lemon, cutting a slice and draping it over the edge of a tall glass full of ice cubes. She stood at the table, pouring tea from a pitcher and saying, „Please sit down, Detective. Don’t wait on me.“

As Riker setded into a chair, the woman pulled a frosty beer from the refrigerator and uncapped it. Now he revised his ideas of society matrons, for Nedda Winter drank straight from the botde, long swigs.

„Beer,“ she said, pulling up a chair on the other side of the table. „Nothing like it on a warm night. They go together, don’t they?“

„Yeah.“

There was no false note in her voice and nothing ingratiating in her manner. He liked her style and her brand of beer. This was one of his people.

„Of course – “ She paused to study the bottle in her hand, then flashed him a wry smile. „If you do beat a confession out of me, the alcohol might argue for diminished capacity.“

„I can live with that.“ Riker reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of yellow-lined paper. „We’ve already got this statement you gave to the West Side detectives. But there’s just a few… inconsistencies.“ This word was a cop’s euphemism for lies and more lies. „A few things that need explaining.“ In other words, Try and talk your way out of this if you can.

Her gray eyebrows were on the rise. They were whimsical things, stray hairs growing this way and that. How old was she? So much hung on the year of Nedda Winter’s birth. The detective searched her face and found wrinkles enough to make her seventy – the right age for a legend – but he could not be certain, not in this world of plastic miracles where women of sixty passed for forty. There was evidence of surgery, anomalies in the planes of her cheeks and forehead, as if she had been badly broken long ago and put back together. She withstood this intense scrutiny with smiling pale blue eyes. Their directness appealed to him and also put him on his guard. She was looking past his smile.

There was still some doubt about her identity. Or maybe he could simply not believe his own luck to find her in this house tonight. Blunt questions were not an option, not yet, and so he must go slowly with this woman. Intelligence lived in those quick blue eyes that missed nothing. As he took her measure, she measured him.

„So why are all of these people still in my house?“ She set her beer bottle to one side. „The truth.“

Riker settled on a half-truth. „They’re trying to reconstruct what happened here.“

„I told them what happened – several times.“

„Like I said, Miss Winter, there ‘re a few glitches in your statement. And then there’s the problem of the ice pick.“

Charles Butler followed Mallory into the front room, where the tall mirrors created an unsettling carnival effect. It was impossible to look anywhere without encountering one’s own reflection repeating two and three times.

Yet Mallory managed it.

He watched reflected copies of her negotiating the ocular maze with downcast eyes. Actually, this was a familiar phenomenon. She had always avoided every looking glass, even shunning reflections in shop windows. He once had a theory to fit her early history as a homeless child: she might see something ugly or worthless when she met herself in mirrors; self-esteem issues were the sad baggage of that background. However, he had retired this idea for another one that was truly eerie and almost akin to vampirism. She raised her eyes now, and there was no way she could fail to see her own reflection walking toward her from three directions. Yet, she lacked the instant catch-eyes response of every normal person. She appeared to see nothing at all, no recognizable form or proof of her own existence, and she moved on without pause.

What a bundle of contradictions was this stunning young woman who could not enter any room unnoticed – invisible Mallory.

He climbed the spiral staircase, following her black running shoes, Italian leather imports that might cost a week’s pay for the other civil servants in this house. He sometimes wondered if she did not delight in raising rumors that she might have an illegal source of income.

And, of course, this was true. She was his business partner. They were headhunters.

Halfway up the stairs, Charles discovered a design flaw. Because of the cathedral ceiling, this march of steps to the second floor was the length of more than two flights. The house had been made for appearances only and with no consideration for inhabitants of Nedda Winter’s age. Did that name sound more familiar to him now? He was distracted by Mallory as she explained that there were not enough ice picks in the house.

But there had been an ice pick lying on the floor by the dead man. Surely the one was sufficient.

Enigma, thy name is Mallory.

And sometimes he wondered if she simply enjoyed sharpening her claws on his brain. He looked over the railing and down at the lavishly stocked wet bar by the foot of the stairs – and the silver ice bucket, which would so nicely complement the burglar’s expensive ice pick. He could not recall when he had last found a use for his own pick. Regrettably, the day of the old-fashioned ice block delivered by horse-drawn cart was long gone. Perhaps Miss Winter, like himself, had inherited one with the family silver.