Death Mask

“But I enjoy having visitors. When you get to my age, most of your friends are dead, and your children are all too busy.”

She turned toward Molly and said, “It suits you, dear — the necklace. I think I only wore it once. I never liked it. Too flamboyant for me.”

“So it wasn’t yours, originally?” Sissy asked her.

Edwina Branson shook her head. “My late husband Felix gave it to me. He brought it back from France after World War II. I used to teach European history, you see, at Miami University in Oxford, and Felix thought that I would find it interesting.”

“Do you know anything about it? Who it used to belong to?”

“He said that some woman in Paris gave it to him, in exchange for chocolate. Well, I hope it was in exchange for chocolate. She said that it was called a ‘necklace of fortune.’ None of the charms on it are worth very much, but every one of them is supposed to have belonged to somebody famous.”

“Such as?”

“The woman didn’t know who all of them were. But the little crocodile allegedly came from Alexandre Dumas, who wrote The Three Musketeers. He used to wear it on his watch chain. And those earrings were brought back from Devil’s Island by Alfred Dreyfus, after he was pardoned. This ring here, with the small red stone, that used to belong to Vincent van Gogh.”

“Surely this is worth a fortune,” said Molly.

“Not really. None of the charms are particularly valuable, and there’s no proof at all that any of them are genuine. Felix and I did quite a lot of research into them, but we couldn’t find any way to authenticate them. No certificates, no letters. No bills of sale. All we had was the word of a French woman who wanted chocolate.”

She was silent for a moment, and then she said, “These days, I don’t take much of an interest in history, not like I used to. History does nothing but take away the ones you love.”

“You say this ring was supposed to have belonged to Vincent van Gogh?”

Edwina Branson lifted up the ring between finger and thumb. “It’s only brass, and the stone is only a garnet. But if it really is Van Gogh’s ring, there’s quite an interesting story behind it. You know that Van Gogh shot himself, don’t you?”

Molly nodded. “I learned all about him at art college.”

“I’m afraid I only saw the Kirk Douglas movie,” Sissy confessed.

“Well, Van Gogh went out into the countryside one day and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. But he didn’t die straight away. He managed to walk back to the inn where he was staying, and it was two more days before he finally passed away. I looked all this up on the Internet, and I came across a letter from Van Gogh’s brother, Theo. Apparently — because he had no money — Vincent gave his ring to the serving girl at the inn who took care of him while he was dying.

“Vincent told the girl that, whatever she did, she must never give the ring to another artist, because it had madness in it. He said something like, ‘je suis deux personnes. there are two of me, the good and the evil, and this ring can separate us, and allow my evil self to walk where it will.’ He had a split personality, didn’t he? And I guess that this was his way of describing how he felt.

“Funny thing, though. According to Theo, a local farmer saw Vincent propping up his easel before he went around to the back of this chateau where he shot himself. But only a few seconds afterward, he saw Vincent for a second time, with his pistol in his hand, ‘almost as if there was another Vincent following the first, intent on shooting him.’ ”

Sissy gave Molly a meaningful look but raised her fingertip to her lips to indicate that Molly should say nothing.

Edwina Branson picked up another charm, a tiny citrine brooch with a single pearl dangling from it. “I can tell you the story behind this one, too. This used to belong to Marie Curie. It was given to her by her first boyfriend, just before she left Warsaw to go to Paris. He hoped that she would be persuaded to stay in Poland and marry him. Think what a different world it might have been if she had! No radioactivity! But then — no X-rays, either.”

Sissy said, “Even if this necklace isn’t genuine, it’s a fantastic conversation piece. I’m surprised you didn’t want to keep it.”

Edwina Branson let the citrine brooch drop. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to put you off it or anything, but I never liked it. That’s why I only wore it once. I felt as if I had dead people hanging around my neck.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Trevor Says No

“No,” said Trevor. “Absolutely not. You’re nuts even to think it.”

“But it could be the only way,” Sissy told him.

“Have you heard yourself? You want to bring Dad back to life? Not that I believe for a single second that you actually can.”

“We showed you the roses.”

“All right, you showed me the roses. But what kind of proof is that? You could have thrown the real roses away and painted some more.”

“But we didn’t. They’re the same roses.”

Trevor clamped his hands over his ears to show that he didn’t want to listen to any more of this lunacy.

“I don’t care if they are the same roses. You expect me to believe that Molly’s two sketches came to life and murdered all of those people? Drawings can’t hurt people, Momma. Only people can.”

“Those drawings are people. But they’re drawings, too, which is why we need your father to hunt them down.”

“You’re nuts,” Trevor repeated, in total exasperation. “I mean, where’s your respect? Where’s your morality?”

“What difference does it make, if we can’t actually do it?”

“It makes all the difference in the world, Momma. Look.”

Trevor took a silver-framed photograph of his father from the bookshelf. Thin faced, serious, with that same diamond-shaped scar on his cheek.

“This is Dad we’re talking about. My father and your husband. This is the man who loved us and looked after us, and who died in the line of duty. This is not some — some superhero out of a comic book.”

“I know that, Trevor. But think of all the innocent people who have been killed already. Do you think your father would have allowed that to happen, if he thought that he could stop it?”

“Momma, read my lips. Dad is dead. Dad doesn’t know anything about this Red Mask character, and never will. He’s in the Morningside Cemetery on Squash Hollow Road, and that’s where he’s going to stay. At peace. Undisturbed. Not chasing homicidal drawings all around Cincinnati.”

Sissy took a deep breath. Victoria had gone to her bedroom, supposedly to finish her homework, but they could hear her chatting and laughing on the phone to her friend Alyson.

Molly finished wiping the dishes. She said nothing. Trevor was her husband, and Trevor was Frank Sawyer’s only son, so if he was adamant that he didn’t want his father to be resurrected, there was nothing she could do.

Sissy said, “These Red Masks, they’re going to kill many more people, you know that, don’t you?”

“So your cards say.”

“Yes, they do. And so far they’ve been absolutely right.”

“So far they’ve been totally confusing. And if you think I’m going to allow you to bring Dad back to life simply because you imagine that you can see his face reflected in some goddamned dish — ”

“But you don’t believe that it’s possible.”

“It isn’t! How the hell can it be? But it’s sacrilegious enough, just thinking of doing it.”

Sissy sat down on the end of the couch. “That’s your last word, then, is it?”