Death Mask

“What did your lieutenant say when I asked you if I could search it?” asked Sissy.

“He said that you were welcome to look for any additional forensics. Provided, of course, you don’t tell anybody what kind of forensics we’re talking about. Especially the media.”

“Don’t worry,” said Sissy. “The words psychic resonance won’t even pass my lips.”

Detective Bellman said, “You pretty much convinced Mike that something psychic was going on, did you know that? I think it was when you heard that cleaner calling out to you from the elevator.”

“How about you?”

“Me — I’m a total nonbeliever. But I don’t believe in not trying out something just because I don’t believe in it. I’m not God, am I, so what do I know? Besides, I think that Lieutenant Booker is pretty keen to give it a try. He used a medium when he was stationed out at Shaker Heights, to look for some missing kid. The woman found the kid in two hours flat. Well, she found his remains.”

Trevor went to the back of his SUV and opened the hatch. “Come on, boy,” he said, and out bounded a large German Shepherd with pricked-up ears. Trevor clipped a leash on him.

“Okay if we take Deputy with us?” asked Sissy. “He’s a first-class scenting dog.”

Detective Bellman said, “Whatever. Sure. Good idea.”

They climbed the steps to the entrance of the Giley Building, where two uniformed officers with shotguns were standing guard. One of them untied the yellow police tape for them and unlocked the revolving doors.

“Officer Gillow here, he’ll come with you, just in case you run into any trouble. If you see or hear anything suspicious, no matter what it is, don’t try to be heroes, okay? Get the hell out of there, quick.”

Molly said, gently, “Did you speak to Betty yet?”

Detective Bellman nodded. “I went around to see her a couple of hours ago to tell her that Mike was gone. She didn’t say a whole lot. I think she’s like the rest of us. We can’t believe that Mike won’t be coming trundling back through the door, whistling that goddamned ‘Goin’ Courtin’.’ ”

“It’s so sad. He was such a great guy. Do you know what he used to call me? ‘Crayola,’ like it was my name.”

“I told him,” said Detective Bellman. “I told him he shouldn’t go up there on his own. We needed serious backup. Mike was always the first person to say don’t rush into things until you’ve checked them out first. But he wouldn’t listen. He went charging up those stairs like a bull, and that was the last time I saw him alive.”

As if he were offering his sympathy, Deputy came up to Molly and Detective Bellman and gave them a single sharp bark. He was a handsome dog, with intelligent brown eyes and a long-haired black and tan coat. He should have been good-looking: as reference for her painting of him, Molly had used three color photographs of the Cincinnati scenting-dog champion, Fritz.

It had taken her an hour to paint him and a further two hours before his image had eventually faded from her cartridge paper. As a precaution, they had shut Mr. Boots in the utility room while they waited for Deputy to make his appearance, in case the new arrival made him jealous. The last thing they had wanted was a dog-fight.

Even so, when Deputy had materialized in the yard and started sniffing at the cicadas, Mr. Boots had started to make that mewling sound in the back of his throat. Something strange was happening, and he knew it.

Detective Bellman patted Deputy’s head. “Good dog. You go sniff out those scumbags who killed my partner, okay? Then I’ll give you all the bones you can eat, I promise you. Forever.”

Officer Gillow pushed his way through the revolving doors first. He was a short, chunky young man with cropped ginger hair and bulging blue eyes. His expression was permanently pugnacious, as if he were bursting for somebody to challenge him or talk back to him or step out of line. Sissy tore open a roll of Life Savers Cryst-O-Mints because she didn’t want to confuse Deputy’s scenting with cigarette smoke. She gave one to Frank and then and she held the roll out to Officer Gillow. He stared at her as if she were offering him a hit off her bong.

They walked across to the center of the lobby. It was gloomy and silent, and the only sound was their footsteps on the polished marble floor and the clicking Deputy’s claws.

“Where do you want to start, sir?” asked Officer Gillow.

Sissy opened her purse and drew out a length of red cotton. It was Red Mask’s shirtsleeve, or — more accurately — a replica of Red Mask’s shirtsleeve. Molly had painted it at the same time as Frank’s Connecticut State Police badge, based on the description that Mr. Kraussman had given her. “Red shirt, like he was soaked in blood already.”

She bent down and held the sleeve under Deputy’s nose. Deputy sniffed, and growled, and shook his head.

“He sure doesn’t like that,” said Frank.

But quietly, Sissy said, “The most important thing is, he can actually smell it. If he was a real dog, he couldn’t.”

Deputy barked, and barked again, and then he started to pull at his leash, trying to head toward the elevator.

“Seems like he wants to go up,” said Frank. “All right with you, Officer?”

Officer Gillow unhooked his radio and said, “Char-lie, we’re taking the elevator. I’ll check back with you as soon as I know which floor we’re on.”

He pushed the button for the center elevator. The doors shuddered open and they stepped inside. Sissy looked at herself in the mirror. She thought she looked surprisingly unperturbed, considering what they were doing. But as Officer Gillow pushed the button to close the doors and the elevator began to rise, she thought she could see shadows in the mirror, standing around her. The shadows of Mary Clay, the cleaner who had died in the dark in this elevator, and her two companions.

We’re here. Please help us. We’re here. Don’t let us die in the dark.

They went past floor after floor, and at each floor Office Gillow opened the doors so that Deputy could sniff at the air.

“I’m beginning to feel that this mutt just likes riding on elevators,” said Trevor, as they stopped at the sixteenth floor. The doors opened and Deputy sniffed at the reception area, but stayed where he was.

“Onward and upward,” said Sissy.

But as they rose toward the seventeenth floor, Deputy began to grow increasingly agitated and to circle around the interior of the elevator, lashing his tail against the walls.

“What is it, boy?” Frank asked him. “Do you smell something? Red Masks, maybe?”

They reached the seventeenth floor. Deputy was jumping up and down now, scrabbling his claws against the elevator doors. Officer Gillow unholstered his gun before he pressed the button to open them.

“I want you all to stay way back,” he instructed them. “Any sign of trouble, and we’re out of here.”

With a series of squeaks, the elevator doors juddered apart. If Frank hadn’t had him on a leash, Deputy would have gone tearing off into the reception area and along the corridor before he could have stopped him. As it was, he reared up, panting and whining, half choked by his collar, and it took all of Frank’s strength to hold him back.

“Come on, boy, what can you smell?”

Deputy dragged Frank along the corridor into the main office, with all of its half-abandoned cubicles and worn-out carpets.

“Come on, boy, take it easy, boy.”

“What do you think he’s picked up?” asked Trevor.

“A trail, most like,” said Sissy. “This must have been where Red Mask was hiding out before — except real police bloodhounds couldn’t scent him, and I couldn’t sense him, either.”

She lifted her head and closed her eyes for a moment. She had no sense of Red Mask’s having been here, even now. Nothing at all, except the barely audible echoes of all the people who used to work in this office before it had closed down. Faint baby voices, from the family photographs. Fainter sounds of laughter from the vacation pictures. The plink-plink-plink of a glossy red beach ball bouncing along a concrete pathway, someplace long ago and very far away.

“Here — I think there’s something in here!” Frank called out. Deputy had reached a supply closet and was growling and scratching at the paintwork.