Death Mask

“Ha!” laughed Detective Kunzel.

“Momma,” Trevor protested. “For Christ’s sake, already.”

CHAPTER FIVE Red Mask

They had moved Jane Becker into a private room next to the trauma-surgery unit. As Molly made her way along the corridor, one of the fluorescent lights was flickering, which made her feel as if she were walking through one of those Japanese horror movies, like Ring.

A uniformed cop was sitting on a chair outside her door, reading Cosmopolitan. “All they had,” he explained, as Molly gave him a smile.

“I’ll bring you a Penthouse, next time I come,” she told him.

The room was painted a neutral magnolia, with a large framed poster of “Blue Grass Country” hanging on the wall. The venetian blinds had been closed, but Molly could see the glittering lights of Bethesda Avenue through the slats.

A young woman with curly chestnut hair was propped up in bed. Although she was very pale, she had one of those faces that Molly called “sweetly pretty.” Her pert little nose had a sprinkling of freckles across it, like cinnamon. Her eyes were mint green and her lips were bow shaped and very pink. But her left cheek was swollen with an angry red bruise, and she had butterfly stitches on her left eyebrow. Both of her hands were swathed in white muslin bandages, and Molly could see that underneath her pink flowery hospital gown, thick padded dressings had been applied to her shoulder blades.

As Molly came in, a large black nurse was checking her saline drip.

“You the artist lady?” asked the nurse.

“That’s me.”

“Here,” said the nurse, and maneuvered an armchair to the side of the young woman’s bed. “But make sure you don’t go tiring her out none. Her blood pressure’s way too low, which means she’s still in shock.”

“I’ll be fine, honest,” the young woman assured her in a high, off-key whisper.

“Oh, yeah? In my experience it’s the ones who insist they’re going to be fine is the ones who keel over the quickest.”

Molly propped her leather-bound sketchbook against the side of her chair and hung her satchel of pencils and pastels over the back of it.

“Molly — Molly Sawyer,” she smiled. “I can’t shake your hand, but hi.”

“Hi,” said the young woman. “Jane Becker. Very nearly the late Jane Becker.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Molly asked her. “The police want a likeness as soon as possible, but I can always come back tomorrow morning.”

Jane Becker emphatically shook her curls. “He killed that poor man, right in front of me, for no reason at all. Stabbed him and stabbed him and stabbed him, and then he started to stab me. I mean — why? I didn’t even know him, and I don’t think that man knew him either.”

“Well, the police can’t think of any reason why he should have attacked either of you,” said Molly. “The man who got killed was a Realtor. George Woods, that was his name. He worked for Ohio Relocations on the nineteenth floor. Forty-one years old, with a wife and two little girls aged seven and five.”

“I’m so sorry.” Jane Becker’s eyes were crowded with tears. “Somehow it makes so much worse, doesn’t it, knowing what his name was? He wasn’t just a dead man, he was George Woods.”

“Yes,” said Molly. She tugged a Kleenex out of the box on the nightstand and handed it to her. “But doesn’t that give us all the more incentive to find the guy who murdered him? Think of George Woods’s family. Think of his girls. He’s never going to see them grow up, and they won’t even remember him. Let’s try to give them some justice, shall we?”

Jane Becker nodded. “I’ll help you. I promise. I can picture that man so clearly. Like he’s there.” She reached out with one of her bandaged hands as if he were standing right beside Molly and she could actually touch him.

Molly sat down, with her sketchbook on her knees.

“Before you start trying to describe the man who attacked you, Jane, I’d really like to know a little about you.”

Jane Becker blinked at her. “Me? I’m just a legal secretary who got into an elevator and got stabbed by some psycho.”

“I know. But I want to see that man through your eyes. Different people see things in completely different ways, especially when they’re highly stressed. If you go to court, for instance, and you listen to five eyewitnesses, you wouldn’t believe that they were all describing the same crime. The perpetrators were Hispanic. The perpetrators were black. The perpetrators were white guys wearing black hoodies. They drove a blue Buick or a gray Oldsmobile or a silver Accord. They had guns, they had knives, they had baseball bats. They ran off east, they drove off west.”

“Okay. I understand. But I don’t know what I can tell you.”

“You can start with how old you are.”

“Twenty-five last April. Aries, although I never behave like an Aries. Like, I’m not exactly the assertive type.”

“You’re single?”

A second’s pause. “Yes, I’m single.”

“Do you live by yourself?”

“For a while I did — almost eighteen months. But last October I moved back home with my mom and my dad. Oh, and my annoying younger brother Kevin.”

“And home is where?”

“Lakeside Park. I’ve lived there all my life. I went to Villa Madonna Academy and then to Thomas More.”

Molly thought: quiet, conservative neighborhood, not too expensive, with mostly traditional homes. “What made you move back?” she asked.

“I had an apartment on Elm Street, in the city. I loved it, but it was way too expensive.”

“Okay. You like music?”

“Oh, sure. Imogen Heap, she’s my favorite. ‘Have You Got It In You?’ And Tori Amos.”

“And reading?”

“Danielle Steel. I love Danielle Steel. And The Lovely Bones. That was the last book I read.”

“How’s your social life? Are you dating at all?”

“I go out with guys sometimes. But mostly in a gang from the office, you know? There’s nobody special, not at the moment.”

“Did you ever have anybody special?”

Jane Becker suddenly coughed, and coughed again, and reached over for a glass of water. When she had recovered, she said, “I don’t understand the question. I mean, what does that have to do with my being attacked?”

“Jane — it’s only background. It helps me to visualize the man who stabbed you in the same way that you do. You perceived him with your emotions, with who you are, as well as your eyes.”

“Can’t I just describe him to you?”

“I’m sorry,” said Molly. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Sure — let’s get down to business and see if we can’t bring this guy to life.”

She folded back the first page of her sketchbook and picked out a soft sepia crayon. “What struck you about him the most? I mean — if you had to describe him to me in three words, what would you say?”

“His face. He had such a bright-red face. It was so red, it was practically scarlet. It was like he was badly sunburned, or maybe he’d been drinking. And he had eyes like slits, and a mouth like a slit, too. It was almost like he was wearing a red mask.”