Winter House

„All right, I burned it to protect Aunt Nedda. I thought she’d killed an unarmed burglar.“

„Nice touch, Bitty. Always a good idea to work a little truth into the lie. I believe you burned the tape, but that’s not what I meant. Your car service logged the trip to the summer house the next morning – a very early ride. You showed that videotape to Cleo and Lionel, didn’t you? You wanted them to see Nedda’s handiwork with an ice pick – the same kind of weapon that slaughtered their family. It must’ve destroyed them to watch that film. Too bad you don’t have the tape anymore. It might’ve come in handy at your trial. The state will say you burned incriminating evidence. Boyd was dead before the lights came on, but maybe the tape showed you pulling out the ice pick and driving a pair of shears into his corpse.“

„I didn’t do that.“

„Bitty, I never thought you could do it. But will the jury believe you? Now – just take it a little further. The autopsy proves two strikes and two different weapons – maybe two killers. Maybe Boyd wasn’t quite dead when he was stabbed the second time. The prosecutor might argue that you were afraid Boyd could identify you as the one who hired him.“

„That’s not true.“

Mallory arched one eyebrow. „So?“ She looked down at the journals in her hands. „When the jury reads these diaries – Nedda’s little dream – they’re going to hate you, Bitty. They’re going to kill you, too. On the night before the fire, Nedda called you from SoHo. She was pla

The detective busied herself with picking up all the spilled diaries and putting them back into the suitcase. „Let’s see. More crimes. Oh, right – the night of the fire? You turned out the lights at the basement fuse box.

There was an old flashlight kept on that box. The arson investigator found it in your closet. Did you think you’d have time to plant the flashlight in someone else’s room after your aunt died?“

„The fire was accidental.“

„I know. So what were you pla

„But you know it was an accident.“

„The fire was where it all went wrong, wasn’t it? The smoke and flames. You panicked. You ran up the stairs instead of down. Yes, I believe it was an accident. You’d never take that kind of risk. But, once again, Bitty, will the jury believe you?“

Mallory paced the floor, snapping her fingers. „Stay with me, Bitty. Do the math. Willy Roy Boyd counts as the first murder charge. When the arson investigation is finished, the body count will stand at five.“ She ripped a sheet from the wall. „This is the autopsy report on your father. It links the trauma of the fire to a fatal heart attack. Every death by arson is murder.“

„It was an accident!“

The detective smiled, and Bitty grasped the irony before it was voiced.

„After years of pla

The wave of Mallory’s hand encompassed all the chaos of the wall and the suitcase of diaries. „Now you might remember this from a law class you didn’t sleep through. The DA calls it a preponderance of evidence. The sheer weight of it is enough to crush you to death. And there’s more. Juries love things they can hold in their hands, like the fuses and the spares you hid by the garden door. That’s what really sealed the arson finding. Then there’s the pack of diaries.“

„Aunt Nedda was insane. She had a history of – “

„No, according to Dr. Buder, all those diaries were written by a per-fecdy sane woman. So – things the jury can hold on to. There’s the flashlight – and the fire ax with your fingerprints on it.“

„You know why my prints are on the ax. I used it to – “

„Yeah, right. Little Sally Winter’s bones. That was another nice touch, Bitty. Some malicious slander to paint Cleo and Lionel as the kind of people who could murder a child. Why not Nedda? What you don’t know is that your mother was on the phone with my partner before the fire broke out. She was making plans to surrender the trunk to the coroner’s office in the morning. Cleo and Lionel only wanted to know how long it would be before the family could bury that little girl’s remains. That was all they cared about. Finally – a proper burial for Sally Winter.“

„You know I used that ax to get Sally’s trunk out of the closet.“

„Right, that’s what you said in your statement, but we only have your word on that. Your mother never mentioned you. So the DA will argue that you used that ax to keep those frightened people from escaping a burning house.“

„No, there was a witness who saw Nedda carry me out. I was unconscious. I couldn’t have stopped anyone from leaving if – “

„A witness? You mean the homeless man who called in the fire? The arson team went looking for him. Turns out someone bought him a train ticket to a warmer climate. Now where was I? Oh, right – the prosecutor’s closing remarks. He’ll paint a picture of you swinging that ax, scaring those poor people, driving them up the stairs and then setting the fire to trap them there. When he’s done with the jury, they’ll want to climb out of their box and kill you with their hands.“

„Is that what you’d like to do?“

„No.“ Mallory shrugged. „It’s all the same to me – nothing personal, just a job.“ She handed Bitty a small white card. „This has your Miranda rights. You’re under arrest. Read the card fast, Bitty. We have to go.“

„I know what you’re doing, Detective. So transparent. You want to scare me into a plea bargain – a guaranteed conviction instead of risking a lost trial.“

„No, I’ve never known a lawyer to confess to anything. And I’m counting on that. So is the district attorney.“

„You expect me to believe that all this – this spectacle – and what you did to my bird, nailing him to a wall – that was just fun for you?“

„Yes,“ said Mallory, „that’s exactly what it was.“

Bitty wished that this young woman would not smile. It was so unsettling. And those eyes. It crossed her mind that the detective might be seriously disturbed. Or was this calculated – just another part of the show?

„Now,“ said Mallory, „I’ll tell you what’s going to happen to you, and that’ll be fun, too. The courts might unfreeze just enough money for a reasonable criminal defense. They will not give you millions of dollars to buy legal talent. When your cut-rate attorney sees the trial going sour, he’ll try to plead you out on the weaker case, the murder for hire, one death – Willy Roy Boyd. You’d be Nedda’s age when you got out of prison, but you’d be alive. Here’s the snag. Once the trial has started and all the facts are out, the DA can’t accept a plea on a lesser charge. He’s a political animal – it’s an election year – the voters would crucify him. You see the beauty of it, Bitty? You won’t plea-bargain until your case is sinking. But the DA can’t settle for less than mass murder and the death penalty, not if he’s wi