Charles seated his companion at a secluded island table close to the wall and far from eavesdroppers. When he returned with their coffee in paper cups, he picked up the conversation begun in the corridor. „So you’re quite sure it was a suicide attempt?“
She nodded. „Bitty’s not a strong person. I remember when I was drowning in despair. I know all the signs. My own suicide attempt took years. I used to swallow pills that other patients spit out on the floor.“
„But your niece has a prescription for sleeping pills. No chance of an accidental overdose?“
„None. Bitty also has a phobia. She can’t swallow tablets. They have to be crushed in water before she can get them down. You see how unlikely it is that she could lose track of them.“
„Did you mention that to – “
„The psychiatrist? Yes. Bitty gave my name as next of kin. I’m sure my sister didn’t appreciate that.“
And consequently this would not be the time for any family meeting with the object of reconciliation.
„What triggered the attempt? Any ideas?“
„My fault,“ said Nedda. „Looking at this through Bitty’s eyes, I blame myself. She worked so hard to do this wonderful thing for Cleo and Lionel. She found their lost sister. It should have been a magnificent present. Poor Bitty. She couldn’t know that I was the last person they would ever want to see.“
„Why such animosity?“
„Because of the murders – their parents, their brothers and sisters. Every time they look at me, it hurts them more than knives cutting into their eyes.“
When Charles and Nedda returned to Bitty’s hospital room, her attending physician was waiting for them, saying, „It’s all settled. She’ll be with us for a few days.“
„And there ‘11 be a cop posted on the door,“ said Mallory striding into the room. She glared at the tiny woman on the bed as if this attempt at suicide had been a ploy simply to annoy her.
Charles could tell that Bitty was only feigning sleep this time, but he said nothing to give her away.
Mallory turned her attention to Nedda. „You should’ve called the police first. Now it’s too late. All the evidence is gone. No one told those idiots in the emergency room to save the stomach contents.“
The doctor was about to take offense at this, for she was referring to his idiots. But now, thinking better of that, with perhaps a keen eye for disturbing personalities who carried guns, he was edging away from Mallory and toward the door, then gone.
„There’s no mystery about her stomach contents,“ said Nedda. „Prescription sleeping pills. My niece took an accidental overdose.“ She lied nearly as well as her opponent. „Calling the police never entered my mind.“
That much was certainly true.
Oh, no.
Mallory was leaning over Bitty for a closer look, saying, „She’s faking. She’s awake.“
„That’s enough,“ said Nedda. „My niece needs rest, and you need to leave this room.“
The young detective was squaring off against the older woman when Charles appeared at Nedda’s side, lending support to the idea that Mallory should leave, and right now. It was an unsettling moment. Charles looked into Mallory’s eyes and roughly guessed her thoughts. She was wondering if he would humiliate her, if he would physically move her out of this room, laying hands on her for the second time in one day. And, no, he would not have the heart for that. But she chose not to give him the benefit of that doubt in her mind. She turned and left the room.
Mallory could commit any sort of bad act and depend upon him to feel the guilt.
How did she do that?
Riker sat with the family members in the reception area of the hospital. His pen moved across the page of his notebook, taking down their statements on Bitty’s overdose. „Any idea how many pills she took?“
„No, we never thought to ask,“ said Bitty’s mother. „It was quite a scene. Nedda was jamming her fingers down my daughter’s throat to induce vomiting. I was – “
„On the phone,“ said Lionel, finishing the sentence, „calling for an ambulance.“
Sheldon Smyth was being unusually quiet for a lawyer. Riker wanted to stick a knife in the old man by asking exactly when Cleo and Lionel had discovered that the law firm was ripping off their trust fund, but Mallory would shoot him for tipping their hand too soon.
He looked up to see his partner marching across the lobby, heading toward this little family with all the deadly resolution of a train on the way to a wreck. He turned back to Cleo, resident of a planet where people communicated via telepathy. The woman was staring at her brother. Something passed between them, and they were of one mind, Riker was sure of that, before their heads turned in unison to stare at Mallory.
These people were creeping him out.
This time, Bitty was not faking. She had fallen into a natural state of sleep, and there was no conversation between Charles and Nedda, neither of them wanting to disturb her rest.
But now the patient stirred, eyes opening to smile at her aunt. „I knew you’d come.“
„To the rescue?“ said Charles. „So you knew you were in trouble tonight.“
„I must have taken too many sleeping pills.“ All the signs of a lie were there, eyes shifting away from his, fingers fidgeting on the blanket, so uncomfortable in this falsehood.
„You’re not sure?“ He smiled to say never mind. „I heard your messages on my machine. It seems like you knew what was happening, but you waited for Nedda. Why not call an ambulance yourself?“
„I wasn’t thinking very clearly?“
Perhaps she had not believed that her family would have opened the door to an ambulance. That was one possibility, the one that Kathy Mallory would have liked best.
Mallory sat in the hospital lounge, facing Cleo and Lionel with the clear understanding that they were a unit. What they had suffered as children might have formed that weird bond. Or it might have developed while they were murdering their little sister, the only Winter child still unaccounted for. Bitty Smyth’s near death had expanded the possible scenarios for Sally Winter’s disappearance.
Where would two children hide a little corpse? Not in the hat closet that had so intrigued Mrs. Ortega. Children did not wall up bodies. They buried them as they buried family pets. The dead girl would have taken up no more ground than a good-size dog.
Child’s play.
Brother and sister sat together with the same body language, arms folded, eyes level and calm, meeting her gaze and awaiting the inevitable interrogation. She let them wait. Sheldon Smyth seemed sober now. The old lawyer was tensing, also bracing for an onslaught of questions. His brow was lightly filmed with sweat, though the hospital lounge was cool and dry.
This old man was going to be so easy to break.
She could watch the works of his brain churning behind his eyes, trying to anticipate her first question, heart racing. All three of them were waiting for her, wondering when she would begin the inquisition. The three of them were leaning slightly forward, expectant crows on a wire.
Mallory stood up and turned her back on the trio, then crossed the lobby in tandem with her partner – and without a single word spoken.
The documents raided from the Smyth firm gave Mallory’s private office at Butler and Company the look of a temporary warehouse, but one located in that other dimension where Chinese puzzle blocks were born.
She was stacking cartons of varied sizes to form an enormous cardboard cube at the center of the room.
While she explained that the outer shell was made with as-yet unread documents, Riker admired the walls of her structure from all sides. It was a maniacally efficient use of space, and very disturbing to a man who tossed discarded beer cartons into the corners of his apartment so he could readily discern the empties from the partially emptied.