Death Mask

Maybe I am losing it. Maybe I am going bananas.”

Molly had bookmarked the album and now she opened it. Inside was a large color photograph of Frank standing on the shore at Hyannis. Sissy had taken it herself, only about two weeks before he was killed. His hair was ruffled by the ocean breeze, and he was grinning at her. She had forgotten how blue his eyes were.

“That’s good, that’s a good one. I like that.”

“I won’t draw him at the beach, though. I’ll draw him here.”

“Okay. Under the vine trellis, how about that?”

“I could draw him anyplace. In the living room, if you like.”

“I know. But when he materializes — if he does — it seems like something he should do without us all staring at him. Something private.”

Molly nodded. She understood what Sissy meant. She couldn’t guess what it would feel like for Frank, being resurrected through a drawing of himself, but she imagined that it would be momentous, both physically and emotionally.

“What are you going to say to Victoria?” asked Sissy, as they went back inside.

“I don’t know. We haven’t done it yet, have we? But if we do — I guess I’ll simply tell her the truth.”

“ ‘Victoria, this is your grandpa, who died long before you were born? Come and say hi!’ ”

“Sissy, you’re such a cynic.”

“No, I’m not. I’m a jelly, if you must know. I’m just trying to protect my feelings.”

Molly sat at her desk, and Sissy sat close beside her. Trevor stayed on the opposite side of the study, pacing up and down. Every now and then, he nervously cleared his throat, as if he were waiting for a job interview.

With the photograph of Frank at Hyannis propped up in front of her, and three smaller photographs showing his right and left profiles and a three-quarters view, Molly began to sketch. She had never met Frank, of course, but Trevor had told her so much about him that she felt she knew him well. His matter-of-fact attitude to life, his dry sense of humor. But she also knew that he had been dedicated to helping other people, particularly those who were helpless and down on their luck — and that didn’t only mean those who were victims of crime, but also the criminals themselves.

Frank Sawyer had done everything he could to help a nineteen-year-old drug addict named Laurence Stepney to turn his life around. One morning he had seen Stepney and another youth trying to break into a car in the parking lot of the Big Bear Supermarket near Nor-folk. He had walked up to Stepney and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. Without hesitation Stepney had pulled out a.38 revolver and shot him in the face.

“That’s it,” said Sissy, as Molly started to shade in Frank’s cheekbones. “You’ve really got him, you know? When you come to the eyes, though. I always thought that Frank looked a little long-sighted. like he was focused on something way behind you. My friend said that he always made her feel transparent, as if he could see right through her.”

Trevor came halfway across the room, leaned over to peer at Molly’s sketch pad, and then went back to his pacing. “This is not going to work, is it? I can’t see how this is possibly going to work.”

Sissy said, “Trevor. even if it doesn’t work, we’ll still end up with a very fine portrait of your father, and I can’t complain about that.”

“The whole thing’s nuts. I’m nuts for going along with it.”

“Trevor, I like you when you’re acting nuts. You’ve been so serious all your life. You were even serious when you were potty training.”

“For Christ’s sake, Momma.”

“Do you know why your father married me? He told me once. He said, ‘Sissy — you are the most irrational person I ever met. You’re completely crazy, and that’s just what I need in my life. A little bit of crazy.’ ”

“I’m sorry if I didn’t inherit any of that.”

“You don’t think so? I think you did. I think you’re more like me than you care to admit.”

Now Molly was filling in the shadows under Frank’s cheekbones and the lines around his mouth. She really was a remarkable artist, thought Sissy. Her portraits weren’t at all like photographs. In a way, they were much more real than photographs. They breathed life, and character. As she highlighted his lips, Sissy almost expected Frank to start talking to her. And as the drawing came nearer and nearer to completion, Trevor came back across the room and stood right behind her, staring at his dead father in fascination, but also in deeply suppressed pain.

“Okay,” said Molly, at last. She held the portrait up so that they could see it better. “All we can do now is wait and see if anything happens.”

“Well, I suggest we leave it for a while,” said Sissy. “Let’s sit down and have a drink, and say a prayer to whatever gods we happen to believe in.”

Molly washed her paintbrush and put it back into its jelly jar. Before she stood up, she sorted through her necklace until she found the brass and garnet ring, and squeezed it tight between finger and thumb.

“Saying a prayer to Vincent van Gogh?” Sissy asked her.

“Asking for his blessing,” said Molly. “If anybody knew what madness and fear and disappointment were all about, he did.”

They left the study and went back into the living room. Trevor filled up their glasses and they sat down and looked at each other, almost as if they had done something for which they should all feel guilty.

“Do you want to smoke, Momma?” Trevor asked her.

Sissy blinked at him in surprise. “You don’t mean that, do you?”

“What the hell. What difference is it going to make?”

“Well, thank you for your consideration,” said Sissy. “But your father’s coming back, and you know what he felt about my smoking.”

They sat in silence for five minutes longer. Then the phone warbled, making Sissy jump.

Molly picked it up and said, “Sawyer residence. Oh, Mike. How are you? I know, terrible. Victoria’s really upset. Well, and Trevor is, too. I know.”

She covered the receiver with her hand and said, “Mike Kunzel. He wants to know if I can draw him another composite.”

“Not if you’re wearing that necklace, you can’t.”

“Of course I won’t. And I don’t have to go downtown. Trevor saw the perpetrators as clear as anybody. I can do it here.”

She took her hand away from the receiver. “For sure, Mike. I can do that. Give me an hour, and I’ll e-mail it to you.”

She said, “Yes,” and then, “yes,” and then she held out the receiver for Sissy. “He’d like a word with you, too.”

“Me?”

Detective Kunzel said, “Hi, Mrs. Sawyer. How’s it going?”

“Well, we’re all very upset, naturally.”

“Last time that Red Mask called me on my cell phone, you said that he had given us a clue. But I never had the chance to ask you what it was.”

“No, you didn’t, and I have to say that I was kind of relieved. I didn’t think that you’d believe me, even if I told you.”

“Try me, Mrs. Sawyer. You never know. I’m supposed to be the most skeptical guy in the unit, but there are times when even us skeptical guys find ourselves clutching at straws. We’ve raided three addresses this afternoon, looking for red-faced men — one in Betts-Longworth and two in Over-the-Rhine. But the only red faces were ours.”

Sissy tried to choose her words with care. “Let me put it this way, Detective. You’ve heard about people having doppelgangers, exact doubles of themselves?”

“Go on.”

“I think that the two Red Masks who killed those people at the Giley Building and the Four Days Mall, and the two Red Masks who killed those people on the skywalk this morning — I think they could be doppelgangers, of a kind.”

“I don’t get it. You mean, like identical twins?”