Nightbird by Edward Dee Page B

you tell her this?” Gregory asked.
    “About six-thirty, the evening she died. I called her from my office.”
    That call should bother him more, Ryan thought. It clearly upset her. After that call she’d contacted Danny.
    “Why didn’t you tell the officers in Mid-Town North about that six-thirty call?” Ryan asked.
    “They didn’t ask, and I assumed their main concern would be my later call and visit.”
    Winters crossed his legs and waited for the next volley. He seemed completely relaxed, a guy with all the answers. He ran
     his fingers along the crease in his shirt, which was the same dull orange as a duck’s feet. His socks matched his shirt.
    “We know you made a second call to Gillian at ten forty-five P.M. ” Gregory said, reading from notes. “What did you do between those two calls?”
    “I had dinner with Abigail Klass at El Bravado. I gave the other detectives all that information.”
    Ryan had just left a woman in such pain that she could hardly look at him. Winters seemed to be making a point of staring
     at them with each response.
    “We just want to clarify some details about that,” Gregory said. “She’s an old family friend, apparently?”
    “Abigail is a dear friend,” he said. “She’s the youngest sister of Paul Klass, who was my mentor and best friend in this business.
     Paul died from the complications of AIDS almost three years ago. Abigail is a well-known food writer. She was critiquing the
     restaurant, which was near my office, and she asked for my company. We were there for almost two hours. Then Abigail caught
     a cab, and I walked back to my office to call Gillian.”
    “I know you told the other detectives,” Gregory said. “But let’s go over the reasons why you made that second call to Gillian.”
    Winters retold his previous story with perfect diction, enunciating clearly, using his voice and hands to emphasize certain
     points. He said he’d decided he’d been too harsh with Gillian earlier. He’d try a new tack: positive reinforcement. He decided
     that some good news might turn her around. That was why he’d brought the dress. He was trying to show her what the future
     could hold for her.
    “That seems like a major change of strategy,” Ryan asked. “One moment you’re ready to fire her, the next you’re promoting
     her.”
    “I was never going to fire her.”
    “Unless she showed positive for drugs.”
    “I would have made my decision when and if that occurred. My only goal was to get help for her. I’m not the kind of man who
     gives up on people.”
    “So she gets this good news,” Anthony Ryan said, leaning toward Winters. “This encouraging news. She puts the costume on and
     jumps off the terrace.”
    “I had no idea,” he said. “I never would have left her alone that night if I’d had any idea she was that despondent. When
     I left she was wearing jeans and a gray silk blouse. She was certainly not in that costume.”
    “What the hell happened to her, Mr. Winters?” Ryan said. “You were the last one to see her alive.”
    “I have no idea what happened.”
    “How did you know the blouse was silk?” Gregory said.
    “Because I gave it to her,” he snapped.
    Ryan and Gregory had decided earlier they wouldn’t push the relationship issue at this point. And Winters certainly wasn’t
     pining or vulnerable; he wouldn’t crumble and admit to love lost. But in Ryan’s opinion, extramarital relationships were not
     about love and seldom about sex. They were about ego, and Winters had that in spades.
    “How would you characterize her mood when you left?” Gregory said.
    “Hopeful, I thought.”
    “Did you notice she’d been drinking?” Ryan said.
    “I told her I was not pleased with her drinking.”
    “You argued?” Ryan said.
    “I was displeased with her. I suppose that was evident in my tone.”
    “No matter how delicately you phrase it,” Ryan said, “it sounds like an argument to me.”
    “Your words, not mine,”