Death Mask

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Drawing a Blank

Outside Ben’s room they came across Detective Bellman, talking to a pretty blonde female officer in uniform. Detective Bellman looked very tired. His mussed-up hair was even more chaotic than usual, and his hula-girl necktie was askew.

“Hi, Molly. You got your descriptions?” he asked.

Molly folded back her sketch pad so that he could see the two composites that she had drawn. Detective Bellman flicked from one to the other and said, “Sure looks like we got ourselves two Red Masks, don’t it?”

Sissy said, “You’re absolutely certain that one man wouldn’t have been able to carry out both of these attacks?”

“No way. The stabbings in the Giley Building took place at approximately a quarter after nine. The Four Days assault started at nine eighteen. Even Spider-Man couldn’t have made from the Giley Building to the Four Days Mall as quick as that. It’s way across the other side of Fountain Square.”

“Something’s very strange about this,” said Sissy. “I saw this TV program once about serial killers. Sometimes they have admirers who hero-worship them and commit more murders in the same way, don’t they? Almost like a tribute. But if these two attacks happened at pretty much the same time, that can’t have been a coincidence, can it? If there are two Red Masks, they must have worked this out together.”

“That’s just about the same conclusion that we came to,” said Detective Bellman. “These killings weren’t random. They were planned — premeditated.” He checked his watch. “Listen, we should get these composites back to headquarters so that you can finish them off and we can release them to the press. Do you need a ride?”

An hour later, in the brightly lit art studio on the fourth floor of Cincinnati police headquarters, Sissy stood by the window sipping a cup of weak lime tea, while Molly finished shading and coloring her composites of the two Red Masks.

“Look at this beautiful day,” said Sissy, looking down on Ezzard Charles Drive and the sparkling traffic below her. “You wouldn’t think, would you, that something so horrible had happened? Not today. This is one of the Lord’s good days.”

Molly said, “Bad things always happen on beautiful days. I’ve been to so many funerals, you know, and it’s never been raining, like it does on TV. The sun is always shining and I always look at the casket and think to myself, ‘Excuse me, recently deceased person, why aren’t you here to see this wonderful weather?’ But I think I’d have a hell of a shock if they answered me.”

The door opened and Detective Kunzel came in. He looked even more exhausted than Detective Bellman. One of his shirttails was hanging out and his chin was prickly with white stubble.

“Hey, Molly,” he greeted her. “How’s it going with the composites?”

“Hey, Mike,” said Molly, using her thumb to rub vermilion pastel onto Red Mask’s cheeks. “Can you give me five more minutes? I’d like to put a bit more depth into this.”

“It’s okay, Molly, you got time. The news bulletin isn’t scheduled to go out until quarter after one.”

He collapsed into a chair opposite Sissy and ran his hand over his short-cropped salt-and-pepper scalp. “How about you, Ms. Sawyer? Do you have any ideas? Right now, I could use all the help that I can get.”

“Oh, really? Even if it comes from beyond?”

“I don’t care if it comes from Indianoplace, so long as it gives me a lead.”

“Indianoplace?”

“Indianapolis,” Molly explained. “Where nobody never knows nothing about nothing. According to these know-all Cincy folk, anyhow.”

Detective Kunzel sniffed, and loudly blew his nose on a Kleenex. “Goddamned sinuses,” he complained. Then he said, “You want me to be totally frank with you? I don’t have any idea if we’re dealing with two perpetrators dressed up the same, working some kind of premeditated plan, or identical twins, or a guy who can be in two different places at the same time.”

“I really have no suggestions at all,” said Sissy. “None that make any kind of sense, anyhow.”

“Try me.”

“Well, if you look back into the early days of American spiritualism, in the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, there were several recorded instances of people being seen in different locations at the same time. But they were only visions, you know? They frightened people, for sure, but they didn’t hurt anybody, and they never caused anybody any harm. They would never have stabbed anybody. I didn’t think that spirits were capable if doing that.”

“I was only kidding, Ms. Sawyer. This has to be two different guys, right?”

“I don’t really know. I mean, probably. I mean, yes.”

“So how about motive? Any spiritualistic ideas on that?”

“I think Red Mask might have had a logical motive to begin with, but not any more. It seems to me like he’s taking his revenge on anybody and everybody. He’s angry at them simply because they exist. And he seems to have found an accomplice who feels the same way.”

Detective Kunzel raised his eyebrows. “Do you have any idea why?”

“Not really. Nothing that makes any sense.”

“Your cards aren’t telling you?”

Sissy shook her head. “Usually, the cards are very specific. But not this time — not about Red Mask. I might have to try some other form of divination, like coffee grounds, or fortune sticks.”

“Okay. if there’s anything you need, just let me know.”

He stood up. As he did so, his cell phone played “Hang On Sloopy,” and he rummaged around in his coat pockets until he found it.

“Kunzel,” he said. Then, almost immediately, he covered his cell phone with his hand and said, “It’s Red Mask.”

He switched on the loudspeaker so that Sissy and Molly could hear his conversation, too. It was the same Red Mask — harsh and indistinct, with a noticeable Cincinnati accent. He sounded even more pleased with himself than he had before.

“So, how are you feeling now, Detective? A little anxious, maybe?”

“Anxious? I’m not anxious, you sick bastard. I’m blazing mad. You and your friend, you’re nothing but a pair of sadistic morons. Me and my people, we’re going to hunt you both down, don’t you have any mistake about that, and we’re going to make sure that you get what you deserve. A nice fat bolus of potassium chloride, one for each of you.”

There was a pause. Then, “Friend? What are you talking about, Detective? I don’t have any friends. That’s the story of my life. I lost everything, including myself.”

“If you don’t have any friends, who stabbed all of those innocent people at the Four Days Mall this morning?”

“I did, Detective. It was me. The Glass Elevator Executioner.”

“Okay, then. Who killed those people at the Giley Building?”

“Guilty, I’m afraid. That was me, too. The Bloody Basement Butcher.”

“Not a chance. You couldn’t have committed both of those attacks. Not humanly possible.”

“You said it, Detective.”

Detective Kunzel took a deep breath. Then he said, “Listen to me, whatever you call yourself. What will it take for you to stop these killings?”

“Aha! You seriously want to know?”

“Of course I want to know. If you have a grievance — If there’s something we can work out between us, why don’t we try? I’ve said this to you before, haven’t I? You got a problem? I’m prepared to listen.”

“Is that what they taught you at negotiation school? Talk reasonable to your perpetrator and hold out an olive branch?”

“I want you to stop slaughtering innocent people, that’s all.”

“Oh, I will, Detective. I promise you.”

“Okay, then. When?”

“When the streets of Cincinnati are flooded with blood. When the cemeteries are too crowded to take any more bodies and the crematorium ovens are so clogged up with human ashes that their fires go out. Then I’ll stop. Maybe.”

Maybe was followed by an emphatic click, as Red Mask abruptly hung up. Detective Kunzel lowered his cell phone and said, “Shit.” Then he turned to Sissy and said, “Sorry, Mrs. Sawyer. Didn’t intend to offend you.”

“Don’t mind me, Detective. I would have said something a whole lot worse.”

“He’s taking the credit for both of those attacks. But he couldn’t have been in two places at once.”

“No, he couldn’t,” Sissy agreed. “On the other hand, I think he might have given us a very important clue.”

“Oh, yes? What, exactly?”

At that moment, however, Detective Kunzel’s cell phone rang again. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Right away, sir. Okay.”

He stood up and said, “Captain wants to see me, so I’ll have to catch you later. Molly, if you can finish up those composites quick as you can. And Mrs. Sawyer, if you can work on those theories of yours, wacky or not.”

He left, closing the studio door behind him. As soon as he had gone, Sissy said, “Where do you keep your originals?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your original sketches. Where do you keep them?”

Molly pointed toward a gray steel plan cabinet on the opposite side of the studio. “They’re all in there. Why?”

“Show me the second sketch you made of Red Mask. The one you drew when that young Jimmy Moulton and those three poor cleaners got killed.”

Molly went across to the cabinet and opened the third drawer down. She took out a yellow manila folder marked “Red Mask Composite/Kraussman” and the date that she had drawn it.

“Here,” she said, and handed it over.

Sissy opened it. It contained nothing but a blank sheet of white cartridge paper.

“Oh,” said Molly. “The media guys probably borrowed it to make some more copies and forgot to bring it back. They’re always doing that. Unless they put it in the wrong file.”

She took out the folder in which she had filed her first Red Mask composite, the one she had drawn from Jane Becker’s description. She opened it up, but that contained only a blank sheet of cartridge paper, too.

“Don’t tell me the media guys borrowed that one, too.”

Molly lifted up the sheet of paper and examined it closely. “No, they didn’t. This is the same sheet of paper I drew it on. Look — those are my initials in the bottom right-hand corner, MS, and a little picture of a saw, for Sawyer. And here are my initials on this Kraussman composite, too. Except there’s no composite on either of them, is there? They’re blank.”

Sissy pressed her fingertips to her forehead and momentarily closed her eyes. “It’s the same as the roses,” she said, slowly. “It’s exactly the same as the roses.”

“What?”

She opened her eyes again. “You painted the roses and they faded from the paper, but they grew for real out in the backyard.”

“You’re not saying that when I drew Red Mask — ”

“The same thing happened. I’m sure of it. You drew him, and your drawings came to life.”

“Oh, Sissy, that’s not possible. That simply can’t happen.”

“It happened with the roses, didn’t it? And those other flowers you drew? It even happened with that ladybug. And you drew Red Mask twice, didn’t you? So now we have three Red Masks, the original one who murdered George Woods and two more copies drawn by you. That’s how he was able to kill those people at the Four Days Mall at the same time as he was killing those people in the Giley Building.”

“I can’t believe it. It’s like some kind of a nightmare.”

“It’s not a nightmare, sweetheart. It sounds impossible, but it’s the only explanation that makes any kind of sense.”

“So where is he? Or them, if there are three of him?”

“I don’t know where the real Red Mask is. But I’d guess that at least one of your drawings is hiding someplace in the Giley Building.”

“But the police searched the Giley Building, didn’t they, with dogs? And you tried to find him there, too?”

“I know. But if he’s only a drawing, he doesn’t have a soul that I can sense and he doesn’t have a human scent that the dogs could pick up.”

She lifted up Molly’s sketch pad. Molly’s drawing of Red Mask stared back at her, his eyes dead and his expression unreadable. “I couldn’t sense him when I talked to that poor girl Chrissie, either. All I could feel was coldness, emptiness. Nothing at all. And what happened when I asked young Ben to pick out a card? He chose a picture frame with no picture in it.”

Molly said, “What about these two new composites? If the same thing happens — ”

“We’ll have to destroy them. Burn them. We can’t have five Red Masks roaming around the city. It’ll be carnage.”

“But what am I going to say to Mike Kunzel? He wants to put these out on the news in twenty minutes’ time.”

“Tell him you’re not happy with them. Tell him you spilled coffee on them, anything. He can always put out a copy of your first drawing of Red Mask. It’s the same man, after all.”

Molly hesitated. Then she ripped the two composites of Red Mask from her sketchbook and noisily crumpled them up. She held them over the metal wastebasket while Sissy took out her Zippo lighter and set fire to one corner. Molly dropped them in, and they watched them flare up and crumple into wrinkled black ash.

“I hope we’re not making a mistake,” said Molly.

“Better to be safe than very, very sorry,” said Sissy. “Besides, we’ll soon find out when we go looking for them.”

“Excuse me? When we go looking for them?”

“The police will go on hunting for the first Red Mask, won’t they? The real one? But how are the police going to find two living drawings? And even if they can, how are they to arrest two men who don’t really exist?”

“I don’t know, Sissy. But when it comes to that, how on earth are we going to find him, or them? And supposing we do, what then?”

“Like I told you,” said Sissy. “It’s the roses.” She opened her purse and took out her deck of DeVane cards. “The roses are the key to all of this. They have been, right from the start.”

“I don’t understand.”

“In every single card that I turned up since you painted that Mr. Lincoln rose, there are roses. They’re like a code. If we can work out what the cards are telling us, then I think that we’ll find out how to find Red Mask. Or Red Masks, plural.”

“Sissy — I don’t think that we should even think about finding them. Honestly, it would be way too dangerous.”

“If we don’t do it, who will? Who’s going to believe us? Can you imagine Mike Kunzel’s face if we told him that he has to go looking for two living sketches?”

As if on cue, Detective Kunzel came back into the studio with his mouth full of Whatchamacallit. “Those composites ready?” he asked. Then he coughed and waved his hand from side to side. “What the hell have you been doing in here? Building a campfire?”

“Sorry,” said Sissy. “Slight accident.”