Death Mask

“What can I do?”

“You can face him, that’s what you can do. You can face him, and you can show him this postcard, and you can tell him that you made him up. He’s alive because he believes he’s alive. He’s alive because he’s convinced that he’s the image of a real person. He needs to be told that he was never real — that he was only a wooden statue, nothing more, and that even that wooden statue doesn’t exist any longer.”

“What?” said Jane Becker. “You seriously think I’m going to go right up to some homicidal nutjob and tell him that I invented him? You’re even crazier than I thought you were!”

“You’re the only person who can do it,” said Sissy.

Jane Becker stood up. “Listen,” she said. “I think you’d better leave.”

Molly said, “Jane! You have to come with us! You have to do this, or scores more people are going to be murdered!”

“If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to call the cops.”

“I am the cops,” Frank reminded her.

“Well, I’ll call your captain or whoever he is, and tell him that you’ve been harassing me.”

She came toward him, but Frank raised his hand to stop her. “We seriously need your help, Ms. Becker. I know this all sounds pretty darn bizarre — sketches that come to life, paintings that murder people. But there is an explanation for it, and it’s real. As real as I’m standing right here.”

“Are you going to leave or what?” Jane Becker demanded.

But Frank stayed where he was. “Let me ask you something, Ms. Becker. If Red Mask didn’t kill George Woods, then who did?”

“I don’t have to answer that. I’ve already answered that a hundred times.”

“No, you haven’t. You said it was Red Mask, but now you’ve admitted that Red Mask doesn’t exist. So who killed George Woods?”

“I don’t know. It was a man, that’s all. I can’t describe him.”

“I get the picture. Average height, average build, no distinguishing features?”

“That’s right. And he just started stabbing.”

“You said you didn’t know George Woods, didn’t you? Didn’t know the poor man from Adam.”

“That’s right. I never saw him before, ever.”

Sissy reached into her purse and took out one of the receipts from Jones the Florists.

“A dozen roses, every week for five weeks.”

Jane Becker tried to snatch it from her, but Sissy whipped it out of her reach.

“That’s private, you bitch!” snapped Jane Becker. “That has nothing to do with you!”

“Oh, I think it does,” said Frank. “Especially when so many people have been murdered, because of you. What happened between you and George Woods, Ms. Becker? You were having an affair, and the affair went sour? What?”

“An affair?” Jane Becker was quaking. When she had interviewed her in the hospital, Molly had thought how forgiving she was, how docile, considering what had happened to her. But now her mouth was tight with rage, and her eyes seemed even further apart, like those of a flatfish. “We weren’t having an affair!”

“Okay, then, maybe it was just a fling. ‘Remember the Vernon Manor. when our dreams came true.’ ”

“His dream. My nightmare.”

“What do you mean?”

Jane Becker had to take a deep breath to compose herself.

“It was a weekend seminar, okay? Realtors and lawyers, talking about property law and escrow and all that kind of stuff. George Woods hit on me from the moment I arrived, and he wouldn’t let me alone.”

“So what did you do?”

“I told him to back off, but he wouldn’t take any notice.”

She paused. Now her anger had given way to self-pity, and tears were sliding freely down her cheeks. “I told him to back off but he must have put something in my drink. Rohypnol, maybe. He never admitted it. I don’t remember him doing it, but he took me up to my room and he raped me.”

She took a deep breath, and then she said, “He raped me and he. abused me in every possible way you can think of. When I woke up the sheet was covered in blood. And he was still there, would you believe? He was still there, sitting on the end of my bed with a drink in his hand, smiling like the cat that got the cream.

“He had used a vodka bottle on me. Can you believe that?”

Sissy reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Sit down,” she said, gently. Jane Becker blinked at her for a moment as if she couldn’t understand what she was saying, but then she sat on the couch, and Sissy sat next to her.

“So there wasn’t any Red Mask, and there wasn’t any man of average height and average build?”

“No,” Jane Becker whispered.

“How did you do it? You managed to give yourself some pretty deep stabs in the back, didn’t you?”

“I saw it on some TV program once. It probably wouldn’t have worked with a really modern elevator, but the elevators in the Giley Building are so old and cranky.”

“So you stabbed George Woods, and then you fixed the knife between the elevator doors and stabbed yourself in the back three or four times, and when the elevator got down to the lobby the knife fell out from between the doors and nobody realized it was you?”

Jane Becker nodded. “I was so hyped up that it didn’t even hurt. In a funny way, I almost enjoyed it, stabbing myself. It was like I was punishing myself. Not for killing George — I didn’t deserve punishing for that. Killing George was justice. But I deserved to be punished for allowing George to do all those terrible things to me.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Sissy told her. “How could you have stopped him? He drugged you!”

“No, I was stupid. I should have realized right from the very beginning what he was like. I allowed him to ruin my life. I allowed him to steal who I was. Look at me now! I’m nobody! I’m nothing!”

Sissy stood up again, and went over to Molly and Frank. “Do you know who she sounds like? She sounds exactly like Red Mask. That’s who Red Mask is. Jane Becker’s need for revenge, made flesh.”

Jane Becker blew her nose again. “What happens now?” she asked. “Are you going to arrest me?”

“Well, not necessarily,” said Frank. “Maybe we can come to some kind of arrangement. If you come along with us when we go hunting for Red Mask, we’ll see if we can’t suffer from collective amnesia as far as you and George Woods are concerned.”

“Are you for real? Can you actually do that?”

Frank rested a hand on her shoulder. “Ms. Becker, you’d be surprised. I can do anything and everything, and a couple of other things besides.”

At that moment, Molly’s cell rang.

“Red Mask?” asked Sissy.

Molly shook her head. “It’s Yvonne, from next door.” She listened, and then she said, “Oh, no! Oh my God. When?”

“What’s wrong?” Sissy asked her.

“It’s Victoria. Yvonne was bringing her home from school. She was getting out of the car, and some guy grabbed her.

“She said it all happened so fast that she didn’t get a very good look at him, but he was wearing a black suit and a red shirt, and he must have been strong, because he lifted her clear off the ground.”

“Oh, please,” said Sissy. “Not Red Mask.”

“Sounds like him, doesn’t it?” said Frank. “Did your friend call the police?”

“First thing. Oh please, God, don’t let him harm her.”

“Call the police department yourself,” Frank told Molly. “Tell them where you are and give them your cell number. Then call Trevor. Tell him we’ll meet him outside the Giley Building.”

“The Giley Building? Why there?”

“Because that’s Red Mask’s home territory. That’s his lair, if you like. And I’ll bet you anything you like that he’s taken Victoria there.”