Death Mask

CHAPTER SIX Hunt a Killer

By the time Molly arrived back home in Blue Ash, Sissy and Trevor were sitting in the yard (so that Sissy could smoke).

“Are you hungry?” asked Sissy. “There’s some hummus in the fridge.”

“No, I’ll just have a drink, thanks. I’m pooped.”

“How did it go, hon?” asked Trevor, pouring her a glass of wine.

“It was sad, as usual. Sad and horrible and pointless.”

“So how did it happen?”

Molly sat down. “The girl was going out to get a box lunch, that’s all. She got onto the elevator on the twenty-first floor. She went down to the nineteenth, and this guy from one of the realty offices got on, too. But on the next floor, they were joined by the perpetrator.

“They went down as far as the fifteenth, and then the perpetrator stopped the elevator and jammed it. He stabbed the guy from the realty office twenty-eight times, all over, including his face. Then he turned on the girl. She tried to fight him off, and then she tried to escape by pulling the doors apart, but the perpetrator stabbed her three times in the back.

“When she was pulling at the doors, though, she must have dislodged whatever it was the perpetrator had used to jam the elevator. It started to travel downward again, and at some point the perpetrator climbed out of it and escaped.”

“Jesus, there are some crazies around,” said Trevor.

“If you can’t even get into an elevator in a crowded office building without being attacked. ”

“Is the girl okay?” asked Sissy. “I mean, considering what she’s been through.”

“She’s still in shock, but she’s not as traumatized as I thought she would be. Some assault victims can’t say a single word that makes any sense at all. sometimes for weeks. Sometimes never.”

“Did she know the man who attacked her?”

“Unh-unh. She gave me a very vivid description, but he’s not the kind of man that you would want to know, believe me. She said he was tall, and kind of blocky, but it was his face that really made an impression on her. She said that his face was very red, almost like he was wearing a red mask.”

Sissy reached across the table and picked up the DeVane cards. She sorted through them until she found la Blanchisseuse, the Laundress. She passed it over to Trevor and said, “Just as the cards predicted. A red-faced man, high up on a ladder. Of course they didn’t have elevators when these cards were first drawn. A young woman, and a tub full of blood. In other words, a bloodbath.”

“Coincidence, Momma, coincidence. You’re always reading things into things when there isn’t anything there.”

“I don’t think so. Not this time. Another card predicted that somebody would create a likeness of a man with blood on his hands, and what do you think Molly has been doing this evening?”

“Was he really so red in the face?” asked Trevor.

“That’s how the girl described him.”

“Maybe he was wearing face paint. You know — trying to look like a demon, or Darth Maul out of Star Wars, so that he would scare people more.”

Molly shrugged. “Maybe. But he didn’t need to put on face paint to scare her. She was scared enough already. She was absolutely sure that she was going to die.”

“So what do the police think?” asked Trevor.

“Right now, nothing conclusive. They’re checking out the murdered guy’s background, in case this ‘Red Mask’ maniac knew him and bore him any grudges. He worked in realty, so that’s perfectly possible. CIS are going over the crime scene and asking a whole lot of office workers a whole lot of questions. But there’s not much more that they can do, not tonight.”

“Are you going to be on TV?” said Trevor.

“Not me. But my sketch is. Mind you, they’ve put it out on the Internet already.”