Death Mask

Sissy and laid his hand on her shoulder. “How are we going to explain this, Momma?”

“All we can do is tell the truth. Whether they believe us or not, that’s up to them.”

“I just want to say that — Everything I used to say about your psychic stuff — ”

Sissy reached up and patted his hand. “You don’t have to say a word. Even I find this hard to believe, and me, I’ve had conversations with real live dead people. It’s like a dream, isn’t it? Your father, and everything. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and I’ll be back in my bed in Connecticut.”

A half dozen police officers and two young paramedics came weaving their way between the cubicles. The paramedics immediately started work on Officer Gillow, cutting off his shirt, while two of the police officers came up to Sissy and Molly and Trevor. One of the officers was big bellied, with a brush mustache. The other was round faced with flaming red cheeks and looked far too young to be a cop.

“What the hell happened here?” asked Brush Mustache.

Before anybody else could answer, Sissy said, “We were looking for forensic evidence.”

“You were looking for forensic evidence?”

“That’s right. We were checking this office for latent scents when the suspect appeared without any warning and attacked Officer Gillow.”

“You were looking for forensic evidence?” Brush Mustache repeated. “You?”

“Well, not just me. Me and my son and my daughter-in-law.”

“It was authorized by Lieutenant Booker and Detective Bellman,” Molly put in. “I’m an accredited CPD sketch artist, and my motherin-law. she has special forensic expertise.”

The officer turned to Molly, in her flowery blue gypsy blouse and her tight designer jeans. Then he looked Sissy up and down — a seventy-one-year-old woman with wild hair and silver bangles and a black and silver dress with moons and stars on it.

“Special forensic expertise?” he said. “I’ll bet.”

“We had a scenting dog with us,” Trevor explained. “He tracked Red Mask to that closet. Officer Gillow kicked down the door and all hell broke loose.”

“That the dog there?”

Trevor nodded. “Red Mask stabbed him to death, and then he went for Officer Gillow. He was like a crazy person. A lunatic.”

The officers looked around the ash-strewn office. “So where is he now? This Red Mask character?”

“He disappeared,” said Sissy, promptly.

“Okay — which way did he go?”

“I couldn’t exactly say. There was so much confusion, you know. Stabbing, shouting. It was like he vanished into thin air.”

“Did you see which way he went?” Brush Mustache asked Trevor, as if Trevor was his last hope of getting a sane answer.

“I, um. No. Not really.”

“So what’s all this fire damage, all this ash?”

“Some paper caught light, that’s all. It got a little out of hand.”

“Some paper caught light? I see. How did that happen?”

“Listen,” said Sissy. “Is Detective Bellman with you?”

“Detective Bellman took the elevator, so he’s trapped between floors. The engineers reckon at least a half hour before they can get it working again.”

“I really need to talk to Detective Bellman. He’ll understand what happened here.”

Brush Mustache jammed his notebook into his breast pocket. “Okay, ma’am. That’s fine by me, so long as you don’t mind sticking around to make a statement. But you will stick around, won’t you? You won’t leave the building?”

“Of course not. I’ll wait in the lobby.”

Brush Mustache and his red-cheeked partner went across to examine the black scorch marks on the office carpet. One of the burns distinctly resembled the outline of a man with one arm outstretched.

Trevor said, “Are you going to be okay with the stairs, Momma? It’s seventeen flights down to ground level.”

Sissy picked up her purse. As she did so, she lifted her head and frowned.

“Momma? We can always wait till they fix the elevators.”

“Actually, sweetheart, I think I’m going to go up first.”

“Up? What the hell for?”

“If I remember rightly, George Woods used to work on the nineteenth floor, didn’t he, Molly?”

“Yes,” said Molly. “He was a Realtor for Ohio Relocations.”

“I’d like to go up and take a look-see.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m not so sure that I understand, either. I have one of my tingles, that’s all. George Woods told a deliberate lie during my seance.”

“So?”

“It’s very rare for gone-beyonders to tell lies, even to spare the feelings of the loved ones they’ve left behind. I told Frank about it, and he was interested to know what George Woods was lying about, too.”

As Sissy and Molly and Trevor walked across to the stairwell, Brush Mustache called out, “Can you manage all those stairs, ma’am?”

“I’m not an invalid, Officer. I walk ten miles a day, as a rule, and I smoke forty cigarettes down to the filter.”

“Nothing like a healthy lifestyle, ma’am.”

As they went through the door, Trevor said, “Listen, I need to go to the office to pick up some paperwork. Why don’t I catch you later? I can take a cab home.”

“In other words, you don’t want to be involved in what I’m going to do now?” Sissy asked him. “Okay. if you feel like you have to.”

Trevor lifted both hands. “Momma. psychic investigation, I can put up with. But when it comes to real serial killers. I don’t think I really want to know. Especially when you’re going to go poking around in somebody’s private office. I have my job to think of here.”

Sissy tapped her forehead so that the little bell on her index finger jingled. “Sorry, Trevor. There’s a little voice inside of me someplace, and it’s telling me to go upstairs.”

“Yes, Momma. I believe you, Momma. But all I can say is, don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want you ending up in the women’s reformatory, at your age. Molly — make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid.”

Trevor kissed her on both cheeks, and kissed Molly, too. Then he took the left-hand staircase and went down. Sissy and Molly took a quick look around to make sure that nobody was watching them, took the right-hand staircase, and went up.

“Christ on a bicycle.” Sissy found it much harder to climb up two flights of stairs than she had imagined. On the landing of the eighteenth floor, she stopped to take a rest, tilting against the railings, trying to get her breath back.

“What’s happened to me, Molly? I used to bound up stairs like a mountain goat.”

“I hate to say this, Sissy, but forty years and forty Marlboros a day can take their toll on you.”

“I don’t believe it. They’re just building stairs steeper than they used to, when I was a girl.”

“The Giley Building was completed in 1931. You weren’t even born in 1931.”

“Don’t split hairs.”

They carried on slowly climbing until they reached the nineteenth floor. Sissy tried the door to Ohio Relocations, and to her surprise it was unlocked.

“This is very handy indeed,” said Sissy, as she opened it up and peered into the offices. “I thought I would have to use my lock-picking skills.”

“You can pick locks?”

“A very smooth conjuror taught me — amongst other things. All you need is the right kind of hairpin.”

“The staff probably left in a panic, after that last attack. Forgot to lock it.”