And desolation. As Aunt Nedda would say, „Poor house.“
Bitty eased herself over the low stone wall and sprinted across the wide boulevard, dodging traffic, her fugitive brown eyes darting left and right. She raced up the front steps and faltered with the keys, dropping them twice before she could undo the locks. Finally, she opened the door to an acrid smell of stale smoke and mildew. Three days later, the air was still dank from the water hoses. Fearing an electrical fire, she hesitated to turn on the foyer light. Fear of the dark finally weighted her decision to flip the wall switch. The lights flickered on and off.
And Bitty sucked in her breath.
Vandals.
The smoke-stained walls of the foyer had suffered fresh damage. They were cracked by huge nails driven into the plaster with great force. Each nail staked a sheet of paper.
Senseless violence.
As she scanned the papers, Bitty fancied that she could hear the echo of every nail hammered in anger: BANG! – a fire marshal’s diagram of her bedroom, the point of origin for the blaze; BANG! – another diagram showing the location of the cellar fuse box; BANG! – an official finding of arson.
Impossible.
The fire had been the pure accident of a candle falling into a wastebasket. Neither she nor Aunt Nedda had been near the candlestick when it had fallen off the bureau.
BANG! – a drawing of the cellar that marked the place where the pulled-out fuses and the spares had been hidden; BANG! – a forensic report on a flashlight recovered from the ashes of a bedroom closet; its round head matched to paint chips and a circular pattern of dust on the fuse box in the cellar.
BANG, BANG, BANG! A score of documents led to the end of the wall and turned a corner.
Bitty screamed.
No, no, no!
Rags. This was too cruel. Her pet cockatiel had been staked to the next wall, one nail for each tattered wing, and, for a few moments, the flickering lights gave the dead bird the illusion of flapping feathers and flight.
BANG! – beside Rags’s tiny carcass was Mallory’s witness statement. The detective had found three prone victims trapped above the fire’s point of origin. Most damning were the final words: The only survivor will inherit millions.
BANG! – an application to freeze the assets of the Winter fortune in probate limbo.
Though the house was utterly silent, absent all but imaginary hammers, Bitty’s hands rose up to cover her ears.
And then she held her breath – the better to listen.
She heard no voice or footfall, yet Bitty knew that she was not alone in the house. Creeping toward the threshold of the front room, her eyes were slowly adapting to the soft remains of sunlight slanting through the parted drapes and falling from the skylight dome at the top of the house. Now she could see every detail of a workman’s scaffolding inside the curve of the blackened staircase. It was a network of wooden planks and buttressing metal rods swirling upward.
Mallory, dressed in dusty blue jeans, a T-shirt and a gun, hung there in midair.
Bitty blinked.
No, the detective stood on a high platform at the center of this giant skeleton of wood and steel, a suitcase resting at her feet, so like a woman waiting for a train or a bus to pass by high in the air. And so patiently – as though Mallory had been waiting there all this time, days and days. One crippled hand in a plaster cast dangled at her left side. Her hair and clothes bore a darker dust of ashes that had come down from the second floor with the metal suitcase, the one that Aunt Nedda had kept under her bed.
Always locked.
The detective picked up the suitcase, held it high over her head and sent it crashing to the floor below. It fell open, disgorging leather-bound journals, the sort that came with small locks and keys – decades of diaries.
„I like money motives,“ said Mallory. „And now… you have one.“
Bitty was shocked into a calmer state than she could otherwise have managed. She moved farther into the room, drawn along, as people are drawn to accident scenes. The lawyer in her was surfacing, and it wanted a look at those diaries. At last, she stood before the scaffolding, believing that there was hardly any fear in her voice when she forced a smile and looked upward, saying, „What a droll sense of humor.“
„I’m not known for that.“
Still smiling, Bitty splayed her hands. „But I haven’t committed any crimes.“
„No?“ Mallory bent down to pick up two electrical cords. „Let’s count them.“ In a sleight of her one good hand, she joined the cords together, plug and socket. The room flooded with light from all quarters, brilliant spotlights, a dozen or more white-hot suns perched atop high poles. Bitty covered her face with both hands and closed her blinded eyes.
When she could see again, she turned in the direction that every light was focused upon. All the mirrors had been taken down from one wall. It was covered over with hundreds of papers and nails and cracks running jagged down the plaster. After a full minute of stunned silence, she looked back over one shoulder. The detective had not changed her stance, but was she at least one platform lower – closer?
„How did you get these trust documents?“ Bitty strived to convey a suspicion of theft. „No judge would ever sign a warrant to raid a law firm for – “
„Your father didn’t tell you? Why doesn’t that surprise me?“ Mallory stepped off the narrow wooden plank and dropped to the wider platform below. This time, her running shoes made noise with contact. „Old Sheldon didn’t like you much, did he? Well, maybe you pissed him off when you tried to blackmail his law firm.“
„You can’t be – “
„You threatened him with a very old crime.“ Mallory pointed to the wall. „Right below the trust documents, you’ll find the warrant for your father’s safety-deposit box. That’s where I found the restitution agreement for the embezzled trust fund. It proves that the law firm stole money from the Winter children. That was my partner’s favorite piece of evidence – proof of lawyers robbing orphans.“
Bitty turned to face the scaffold, one hand shading her eyes from the bright lights. „I swear to you, I never – “
„You knew. When you worked in your father’s firm, you had lots of time to study the trust fund documents. I also found a copy of his will. Two years ago, he cut you off without a cent. That’s how I know you didn’t leave on sabbatical. He fired you. I’ve seen the firm’s financials – yours, too. He paid you hush money – your allowance. That’s what he called it – ten percent of your old salary. You actually made less money as a blackmailer.“ The detective’s smile was derisive. „You just couldn’t stand up to him, could you? He called your bluff, and you folded. You crept away with a few pathetic crumbs like a good little mouse.“
Mallory stepped to the edge of the platform.
Bitty’s head snapped left toward the distraction of a faulty pole light blinking on and off. When she turned back to the scaffold, Mallory was gone, and this silent piece of work was more alarming than the sound of the crashing suitcase. Could Mallory have dropped to earth from such a high place without making the slightest noise?
Or could she fly?
„I know everything now,“ said Mallory.
Bitty jumped. Her heart banged. Her eyes went everywhere. Where had -
„When blackmail didn’t work, you came up with a new swindle.“
Bitty slowly revolved, her eyes alternately squinting at bright lights and peering into shadows. „I have no idea what you’re – “
„I know how you found your aunt.“ The detective stood under a spotlight at one end of the wall, as if she had simply materialized there. „It was a job that generations of good cops couldn’t do. That bothered me from the beginning.“