Death Mask

CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Voice of Unreason

Sissy and Molly were about to push their way through the revolving door when three paramedics came bustling through, so they had to step back. As they did so, Detective Kunzel’s cell phone played “Hang On Sloopy.”

Detective Kunzel said “Kunzel.” Then, “Who?” Then, “Who is this?” Then he lifted his hand and called out, “Molly! Mrs. Sawyer! Hold up a moment!”

Reluctantly, they returned. The paramedics were already kneeling by the bodies in the elevator, double-checking that none of the three victims showed any signs of life. Sissy looked away, but not before she noticed Mary’s upswept eyeglasses, with congealing blood on the lenses, lying on the floor.

Detective Kunzel had switched his phone to speaker. A grating voice was saying, “ — too late now for one and all — ”

“It’s him,” mouthed Detective Kunzel.

Sissy said nothing, but stood closer so that she could hear the voice more clearly.

“What’s done is done, and it can’t be undone, no matter what. And it has to be done again, and again, until amends are made, and dues are paid, and justice is satisfied. No rest for the wicked, Detective. No rest for the guilty, neither.”

“What do you want?” asked Detective Kunzel. “If we knew what you wanted, maybe we could come to some kind of compromise.”

“You can’t compromise when it comes to justice. You can only take what’s due to you until justice has been satisfied.”

“So what do you believe is due to you? I’m pretty sure that we could work something out, if only I knew what it was.”

“Do you know what I lost, Detective? I lost my happiness. I lost everything that made me what I was. My self-confidence, my very identity. I lost me.”

“So what are you trying to tell me? That you’ve taken the lives of five innocent people, just because your ego took a bruising? That doesn’t sound like checks and balances to me.”

“You don’t think so? You wait. Tomorrow, even more innocents are going to meet their maker. And the day after that, even more again. It’s going to be a massacre, Detective, and the people of this city should be warned about it. You need to tell them that Red Mask is hell-bent on justice, and that none of them is safe.”

“Red Mask? That’s the name that we thought up for you. How about telling me your real name?”

“Red Mask will do fine. Red Mask is what you decided to call me. Red Mask is what I am.”

“How about a first name? I can’t call you Red Mask all the time, can I?”

“You can call me anything you like. I’m not choosy. You can call me the Elevator Murderer or the Butcher-Knife Maniac or the Scarlet-Faced Slasher. You can call me Sudden Death on Legs, if you want to. All’s I’m saying is, the people of Cincinnati should be warned what I intend to do to them.”

“Listen to me — ” Detective Kunzel began, but then they heard a sharp click, followed by a buzzing noise.

“Hey — are you still there?” Detective Kunzel demanded. “Red Mask? Are you still there?”

“I think he’s said all he needs to say to us,” Sissy put in. “For the time being, anyhow.”

Detective Kunzel said, “You guessed that he was going to call me, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t guess, Mike. I knew. It was forecast by the cards, very specifically.”

“I don’t suppose the cards told you his home address? Hey — sorry. I didn’t mean to be sarcastic.”

“Actually, no, you don’t have to apologize. The cards often give me a strong sense of where people live. Which neighborhood, anyhow — which general locality — even if they don’t actually give me a street number. But for Red Mask they’ve given me nothing. Not even which side of the river he comes from. And they haven’t explained his motive. They’ve told me what he’s going to do, yes. But they haven’t given me even the slightest inkling why.”

Detective Kunzel turned to the officers who were gathered all around him. “Anybody pick up anything from that conversation? Accent? Speech mannerisms? Anything at all?”

“Sounded local to me,” said Detective Bellman. “But he’s kind of sissy for a serial killer, don’t you think? All that stuff about losing his happiness. ‘I lost me.’ Sounded like something out of a woman’s magazine.”

“He’s educated,” said one of the uniformed cops. “He’s trying to talk tough and streetwise, but I’d lay bets that he’s been through college. It’s the words he uses. And he didn’t cuss once.”

“Age?”

“Difficult to say, but I think he’s younger than he’s trying to make out. Mid to late twenties, maybe. He’s straining his voice to make it sound gruff.”

“This I do not like at all,” said Detective Kunzel. “I prefer mad-dog psychos to educated misfits. Remember the Lincoln Penny Killer? Never caught him. Smartest serial murderer we ever had to deal with.”

“Who was he?” asked Sissy.

“Copycat killer. Historical copycat killer. Cut off three women’s heads to imitate the murder of a girl called Pearl Bryan in 1896 — Cincinnati’s most notorious homicide. Pearl Bryan’s head was never found. We never found these women’s heads, neither.

“It’s kind of a tradition when people visit Pearl Bryan’s grave they leave pennies with the Lincoln side up, so that poor Pearl will have a head when it comes to Resurrection day. The Lincoln Penny Killer always left a penny where his victim’s head had been. Kind of an intellectual joke.”

Sissy said, “If only we could find out why Red Mask is feeling so vengeful.”

“Who knows?” asked Detective Kunzel. “Look at Columbine. Look at that shooting at Virginia Tech. There wasn’t any why. The perpetrators had a giant-sized chip on their shoulders, that’s all.”

“I think I need to ask one of his victims,” Sissy told him.

“Please? Apart from that one girl — what’s her name, Jane Becker — all of his victims are dead. And Jane Becker’s told us everything she witnessed, which wasn’t very much.”

“Maybe the other victims saw more.”

Detective Kunzel’s eyes narrowed. “What are we talking about here?”

“A séance, I think you’d call it. I can talk to people who have passed over, Mike, especially if they feel an urgent need to explain what happened to them, which many of them do.”

“I see. Well, I guess you can try. But I can’t officially involve the homicide unit in anything like that.”

Sissy cocked her head to one side. “I wouldn’t expect you to. I’m just pleased that you don’t seem quite so skeptical anymore.”

“Hey — don’t think for one minute that you’ve made me a true believer. I still think that the future doesn’t happen till it happens, and I still think that when you’re dead, you’re dead. But after what you did here today — let’s say that I have more of an open mind. Maybe you can sense things that other people can’t. Maybe you can guess how tomorrow is going to turn out.”

“Who was Red Mask’s first victim?” asked Sissy.

“He was a Realtor called George Woods,” said Molly.

“Do you have an address for him?”

“Sure,” said Detective Kunzel. He took out his notebook, licked his thumb, and leafed through it. “Here you are — 1445 Riddle Road, Avondale. There’s a phone number, too. I mean, his address is no secret, it was in the papers, and the number’s listed in the phone book, but don’t tell Mrs. Woods that I gave them to you, will you?”

“I’ll be very discreet,” Sissy assured him. “She may not agree to my holding a séance, but I doubt it. In all my years I’ve only had a handful of out-and-out refusals. Most people will do anything to hear their loved ones again.”

Detective Kunzel turned to Molly. “Can she really do it? Like, if I wanted to talk to my pops.?”

“You always told me you hated your pops,” said Detective Bellman. “You always said he was a world-class word-I-can’t-use-in-front-of-present-company.”

“I did. I did. But I never got the chance to tell him to his face, before he died, and I would give anything to be able to do that.”

Three men and two women from the coroner’s office were wheeling in gurneys to take away the three victims in the elevator.

Sissy lifted the little silver and pearl cross she wore around her neck and said, “Good-bye, Mary, rest in peace. Please forgive me for letting you die in the dark.”