Five-year-old Cleo had alternately laughed and squealed in anticipation before Tully had even begun her scary work. Erica, who had turned nine that year, was much more ladylike, practicing to be blase and determined that the old woman would not make her scream. And the rest of them could hardly wait to be scared witless.
„I never use mousetraps,“ the old woman said, as she led the parade of children into the dank basement by the light of a single candle. She held the flame below her face to make it seem evil when she grinned at them. „No, traps won’t do. Might catch a child or two by mistake and break your little fingers and toes. But no fear. The house likes you – all of you. But the house hates vermin. Kills ‘em dead, it does.“ Tully had bent low to hold her candle over the small moldering body of a field mouse underneath a fallen box. Another mouse was found crushed by a wrench that had dropped from a shelf of tools. „Looks accidental, don’t it? But look around you, my little dears. Did you ever see so many accidents in one place?“ And then she had laughed, high-throated, wicked, shining candlelight into corners, illuminating other tiny corpses caught and crushed in the circumstances of apparent mishaps.
So many of them.
Erica screamed.
Nedda glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. She should go upstairs now. Lionel and Cleo might come home at any moment.
After passing through the dining room, she walked toward the stairs at an odd angle so that she might avoid the prone and lifeless Mrs. Tully in her plain gray dress. Nedda began her ascent by hugging the rail and keeping to a narrow path so as not to tread on any part of her father’s body. She paused, as she always did. Farther up the staircase was her stepmother’s corpse. A small spot of blood marred the breast of a blue silk dressing gown, and the eyes were rolled upward, as if mortified to be seen in this unflattering sprawl of limbs.
Nedda lifted one foot, for she had just stepped on her father’s dead white hand.
Sorry, so sorry.
She looked down at his upturned face, his startled eyes, so surprised to be dying.
Behind her, she heard the familiar voice of Uncle James calling out to her from across the room and more than half a century, asking in a plaintive tone, „My God, Nedda, what have you done?“
Mallory climbed the stairs behind her partner. His new apartment was located on the floor above a saloon – Riker’s big dream. „My grandfather was never on the case,“ he said, „but the old man worked it on the side – worked it all his life. He visited every crime scene where an ice pick was used as weapon.“ After opening the door and flicking on the light, he waved her inside.
Mallory remained standing while her partner flopped down on the couch, raising a cloud of dust from the cushion. Every littered surface was filmed with gray, though he had only occupied this place for a few weeks. Where was he getting his dust supply?
„So your grandfather covered domestic disputes and bar fights?“
„Everything,“ said Riker. „Have a seat.“
„What for?“
Misunderstanding her, he stood up and, with no offense taken, swept the leather seat of an armchair to send his unopened mail and smaller, unidentified flying objects to the floor. „There you go.“
She sat down, careful not to touch the padded arms, for she could not identify what he had spilled there. Next, she flirted with the idea that be hod brought some of his trash from the last apartment, perhaps regarding this formidable collection of crushed beer cans as a homey touch. „Why would your grandfather cover the nickel-and-dime scenes? It’s not like he expected them to tie back to Stick Man.“
„My father thought that was strange, too.“ In Mallory’s honor, Riker walked about the room, bending low to pick up dirty socks and stuff them behind the couch pillows. „When Granddad retired, he lost access to crime scenes, so Dad collected all the details for him.“
„And now you do it.“ And when would they ever get to the reason why? She tapped one foot as Riker opened the refrigerator and pulled out two cold beers. Accepting one from his hand, she asked him again. „Why, Riker? What can you learn from garden-variety stabbings?“
„Every way you can stab another human with an ice pick.“ This time he eased himself down on the couch, cutting the dust fly by half. „The lead detective ruled out a pro in favor of a psycho, but not my grandfather. Gran developed a signature for Stick Man. Now this is something you won’t see in a rage killing. The pick was pushed into the body, perfectly level to pass through the rib cage. No false strikes, no bone chips ever. Just perfect. The picks were honed, narrow and needle sharp. Easier to pass through clothes and muscle. Then Stick Man made a little jog to the right and shredded the heart. That enlarged the entry wound. He eased the pick out. No blood fly that way. And he wiped the bloody end on the victim’s clothing. He could ‘ve slaughtered a battalion without getting a drop on his clothes. After Granddad retired, my father used his clout to pull hundreds of old autopsy reports, and they found matches. There was no other stab wound quite like Stick Man’s. He used that same MO for almost a hundred years. The cops caught him twice – and twice he died.“
A ghost story.
Mallory’s hands balled into fists. She hated ghost stories.
Nedda backed away from the staircase, then stopped – dead stop. What was that?
The million fine hairs of her body were on the rise as she sorted out the noises of the house. A light slap on glass came from the garden, where a leafy branch licked the panes of the doors. Elsewhere, a clock was ticking. She turned around, looking across the front room to the foyer and the burglar alarm. There was no glowing light to assure her that the alarm was working. She rationalized this away. The new housekeeper had not set the alarm before going out, and that was common enough. They never stayed very long, and few of them had found the time or inclination to memorize the daily change of the code that disabled the alarm upon reentering the house.
Was the door even locked?
Another noise, a knock, then a thud, was followed by the sound of breaking glass.
Nedda drifted across the room and down the hall toward the kitchen, the source of her fear. She could not stop herself, though her legs threatened to buckle and fail. She was like one of those elderly women on the hospital ward, driven by a compulsion she could not name, her limbs moving of their own accord.
On the kitchen threshold now, eyes on the cellar door, fascinated and afraid, she was moving toward it. One hand trembled on the knob, and she opened the door to absolute silence, that moment between one footstep and the next, the still vacuum of holding one’s breath. And now she heard another noise. By the dim light filtering downstairs from the kitchen, she saw a mousetrap at the edge of the first step. She wanted so much to believe that it was a rodent down there, a big one with enough weight to make the sound of crunching glass underfoot. But she was not so gifted at delusional thinking.
Nedda backed away from the door, keeping her eyes trained upon it as she reached out for the nearest drawer. This was where Bitty had found the old wooden ice pick the other night, the one used to satisfy the curiosity of Detective Riker. And now that pick was in Nedda’s hand.
She backed out of the kitchen, never taking her eyes off the door until she turned and ran light-footed down the hall, heading for the staircase. Bitty’s room on the floor above had a good strong bolt on the door.
Nedda gripped the banister, and stood there very still, one foot upon the stair. She shook her head. She could not hide; she could not take the chance. What if this intruder surprised the next innocent to come through the front door?