„Good,“ he said, „I’m glad you approve. The next session is breakfast.“
Nedda glanced at her watch. „I wonder if Bitty’s asleep. I suppose it’s too late to call her at the hospital.“
„No need to worry about her. I think it’ll do Bitty good to be out of that house for a night. And you, too.“ He had made up the spare room and intended to bar Mallory from the door indefinitely, even if it meant laying his body down across the threshold. „Tomorrow night, we’ll have your brother and sister over here for dinner.“
„And that, of course, means group therapy.“
„And down the road, we’ll include your niece when she’s ready.“
„Charles, did you find it odd that Bitty never wanted to move out of Winter House and get a place of her own?“
„No, not at all. I don’t think she’ll be able to leave until she has her mother’s approval. I assume that’s the reason she went looking for you – to finally please her mother.“
„She got no thanks for that. With just a few words, Uncle James made me believe that I was the prime suspect. I’m sure he had an easier time convincing two younger children.“
„You’re quite sure he did that?“
„Yes. It was pretty obvious the first time I saw them at the hospice. Horrible, isn’t it? For Lionel and Cleo, I mean. No wonder they spent all their time at the summer house. And poor Bitty. Not the response she expected from them, but she couldn’t take back her gift. And now – this suicide attempt. I’ve been such a disappointment to her.“
Bitty Smyth stepped out of the Rolls-Royce. Her father and mother held her arms as they supported her – imprisoned her, and Uncle Lionel drove off to the parking garage with his precious car. Bitty looked up at the only home she had ever known and its dark parlor windows so like dispassionate eyes. Winter House did not care what transpired within tonight, not because it was inanimate, but because it had grown accustomed to the lack of love and the plethora of death.
Chapter 11
CLEO WINTER-SMYTH FUMBLED IN HER PURSE FOR HER OWN prescription sedatives. She handed the pharmacy bottle to her ex-husband. „Sheldon, you’ll have to crush these in water.“
„Why?“
„Because your daughter could never swallow pills.“
Bitty watched him amble off toward the kitchen. She was always startled by each reminder that her father knew less about her than strangers did. But now this pain was put aside. Uncle Lionel would be back from the garage soon, and this was rare and precious time, a few minutes alone with her mother. „I want to show you something.“ She retreated to the foyer closet, flung open the door and swept three hats from a lower shelf.
„No, Bitty, don’t do that.“ Cleo had the tone of one reprimanding a four-year-old as she came up behind her daughter and bent low to collect the fallen haberdashery. But now the hats dropped to the floor as her hands flew up to cover her face. „My God. It’s a mouse hole. But the house hates mice. How could this – “
„No, Mother. I drilled that hole myself. See how shallow the closet is? And the back wall isn’t cedar. All the other closets in the house – “
„Well, of course it’s shallow. It’s a hat closet. It’s always been a hat closet.“
„There’s no such thing. Aunt Nedda said this was a normal closet when she was a little girl. She said coats were kept in here.“
„Well, the house was rented out when we were children. One of the tenants must have changed it into a hat closet.“
„No, it’s a normal closet with a false wall. If you look through the hole – “
„Not a mouse hole,“ said Cleo. „Well, that’s a relief.“ Her eyes traveled over the exposed section of the wall. „You’re right. It’s not cedar. Looks cheap. I can’t believe I’ve never noticed that before. But then, it’s always been full of hats. There was a time when everyone wore them. So it made sense, you see, to have a place to – “
„It’s not a hat closet!“ This was Bitty’s attempt at yelling, but it came out as an impatient squeak. „It’s a hiding place.“ She hunkered down in front of the drilled hole. With more composure, she said, „If you shine a light in there, you can see a trunk. It’s just like the trunks in the attic. Did you ever count them, Mother? One for every dead Winter – except for Sally. Didn’t you ever wonder about Sally’s trunk?“
„The south attic? We never go up there. Why would we? Why would you? I don’t think I want to – Oh, no. Bitty, I asked yon not to do that.“
Hats were in flight once more as Bitty cleared one shelf and then another. Cleo ran about the foyer rescuing hats on the fly and yelling, „Bitty, stop! Stop it this instant!“ She reached high in the air to catch one with a wide brim sailing by like a Frisbee.
Bitty lifted one board from its moorings and then the next. She never heard the door open, but now Uncle Lionel was behind her asking, „What’s going on? Bitty, have you lost your mind?“
Bitty was laughing, though not hysterically. This was genuinely funny. She might be the only one in the house who could pass a psychological evaluation.
Cleo’s arms were wrapping round her daughter as she yelled, „You’re not well! You don’t know what you’re doing! This has to stop!“
Oh, yes – the terrible insanity of skimming hats across the foyer. Bitty wrestled free. She ran through the doorway and across the front room, aiming herself at the kitchen like a missile. She collided with her father. A glass of water fell from his hand and crashed to the floor. She circled round him, ducking his hand and almost slipping in the wide puddle. Upon entering the kitchen, she pulled open the glass cabinet that housed the fire extinguisher and the ax.
Bitty returned to the front room to enjoy one shining moment as the center of attention. The three of them were agape and staring at the fire ax in her hand. Her father was shaking his head, trying to make sense of this sight – his daughter armed with a lethal weapon. Ah, and now she discovered a new side effect as she walked toward them and they moved back.
Power.
She entered the foyer to stand before the closet. It was now bare of every shelf within her reach. She took one mighty swing of the ax to crack open the brittle plaster wall. Her second swing was too high, slicing through one of her mother’s hats and trapping the blade in the cut of high shelf.
Braver now, the trio entered the foyer, hands reaching out.
„Don’t you dare!“ Bitty pulled the ax free and turned on them.
Her mother held up her hands like a mugging victim. „It’s all right, dear. Everything is going to be all right.“
Bitty swung the ax again, putting another hole in the thin board of the closet’s back wall and raising a small cloud of white plaster dust.
„That’s enough,“ said her mother, sternly now, as if her forty-year-old child were merely acting up in front of company.
Bitty made another swing, wielding the ax with all her might. The wall cracked inward. She used the ax as a hammer to drive the shards of the wall back into a hollow space.
„That’s enough!“ said Cleo. „Stop it!“
Completing her very first act of open rebellion, Bitty pulled loose other sections of the ruined wall, working like a dervish to expose the small trunk on the floor behind it. As she gripped a brass handle and dragged it out, it became wedged in the opening. With one hard tug, the trunk came loose and flew backward with Bitty into the room, landing on its side and falling open to spill its contents at her mother’s feet.
A rotted nightgown, a yellow braid – a tiny skeleton.
If a doll had bones.
Lieutenant Coffey had been almost flattered – almost – when District Attorney Buchanan deigned to visit Special Crimes Unit at this late hour, having left a dinner party and one royally pissed-off campaign contributor during an election year. The dapper little weasel had come accompanied by an honor guard of five minions, all of them dressed in tuxedos and shiny shoes. There were rarely any of the female assistant DAs in his traveling entourage; they were much too tall in high heels. Buchanan liked to surround himself with small men, following the principle that no head should be higher than the king’s.