Death Mask

Building round about lunchtime today. Some knife-wielding crazy trapped her in an elevator and stabbed her three times in the back. She survived, but there was another guy in the elevator with her who wasn’t so lucky.

“She’s very shocked, very distressed, but the elevators in the Giley Building don’t have CCTV, and obviously we need a composite of the perpetrator as quick as we can get it. That’s why Lieutenant Booker wanted somebody with real sensitivity when it comes to asking questions, and there isn’t nobody with more real sensitivity than you.”

“Nice of you to say so. I’d be glad to do it. Do you want me to go over there right now?”

“Give you a ride, if you like. I can give you all the grisly details on the way.”

Sissy said, “Did anybody else see the killer?”

“No, ma’am. The young woman who was stabbed was the only eyewitness. We searched that building top to bottom, all twenty-three floors, and we’re still not sure how the perpetrator managed to escape. But over seven hundred seventy-five people still work there, and so it couldn’t have been too difficult for him to mingle with the crowds.”

“Or her,” Sissy corrected him.

“Well, sure. But this is not the type of attack that I would normally associate with a female perpetrator.”

“Not unless the young woman and the dead man were having an affair, and she was a jealous wife.”

“You sure have some imagination, ma’am,” said Detective Kunzel. “But right now I think we’d better stick to the empirical facts.”

“Sometimes the facts can be very deceptive,” Sissy countered him. “It’s insight, that’s what you need.”

“My motherin-law tells fortunes,” Molly explained. “She’s very good. She can practically tell you what you’re going to choose for dessert tomorrow.”

Detective Kunzel tried to look impressed. “Wow. We could use a talent like that. Maybe I can call on you, ma’am, if this cases reaches any kind of an impasse. Or if I need to find out a surefire winner for the Kentucky Derby.”

“You’re being sarcastic, Detective. But don’t worry, I’m used to it. My late husband was a detective in the Connecticut State Police, and he was a skeptic, too, when it came to fortune-telling. But I would be more than happy to help if you want me to. So long as you say please.”

“Please?”

Sissy was quite aware that “Please?” was the distinctively Cincinnati way of saying “Pardon?” or “Excuse me?” but she pretended that she didn’t.

“There,” she said. “You’ve managed to choke it out already.”

At that moment, Trevor came out into the yard holding Victoria by the hand. Sissy’s first and only granddaughter was nine years old now, very skinny, with huge brown eyes like her mother and long, dark hair that was braided into plaits. She wore a pink sleeveless top, and white shorts, and sparkly pink sneakers.

Trevor was so much like his late father, with a wave of black hair and clear blue eyes, although his face was rounder and not so sharply chiseled as Frank’s had been, and he hadn’t inherited Frank’s quick and infectious grin. He had shown no inclination to join the police force like his father, either. He was much more introspective and cautious, and he believed in calculating risks, rather than taking them. He was wearing a blue checkered Timberland shirt and sharply pressed khakis.

“Hey, Mike!” he said. “What are you doing here, feller?”

Detective Kunzel clapped him on the shoulder. “Hi, Trevor. Sorry about this, but we’ve come to borrow your talented young wife for an hour or two.”

“What is it? Missing person?”

“Homicide. We had a stabbing this afternoon, down at the Giley Building. One dead, one serious.”

“I heard about it while I was going to bring Victoria home from her party. Jeez.”

Sissy said, “Why don’t I take Victoria inside and give her a drink? How was your dance class, Victoria?”

“I was terrible. I kept do-si-do-ing round the wrong way.”

Sissy took her hand and led her into the kitchen. “I used to dance like that, too. Always do-si-do-ing round the wrong way. In fact I think I’ve spent my whole life do-si-do-ing round the wrong way.”

Victoria sat down at the large pine table, and Sissy poured her a glass of strawberry milk. “You want cookies?”

“I’m not really allowed, not before supper.”

“Well, your mom has to do some work for the police this evening, so I think what I’ll do is, I’ll take us all out for supper, and when you go out for supper you’re allowed cookies to keep your strength up while you’re waiting for your order to arrive. How would you like to go to the Blue Ash Chili and have one of those great big chicken sandwiches with all the cheese on it?”

Victoria’s eyes widened. “Can we really?”

“Sure we can. It’s about time we ate something unhealthy around here.”

Sissy was about to go to her room to fetch her wrap when Victoria said, “Grandma — you just dropped one of your cards.”

She looked down. One of the DeVane cards had slipped out of the pack — but somehow it had fallen edgewise, and it was standing upright in the crack between two of the wide pine planks that made up the tabletop.

“Well, that’s pretty neat, isn’t it? I’ll bet I couldn’t do that again, not in a million years!”

She hesitated for a moment, but then she plucked the card out of the crack and peered at it through her spectacles.

Une Jeune fille tombante, a Young Girl, Falling. It showed a girl in a yellow dress falling down a well. Her arms were upraised as if somebody had just released their hold on her, and her expression was one of absolute terror. Up above her, a man in a strange lopsided beret was grinning down at her as she fell and throwing roses after her, as if her falling were some kind of dramatic performance.

Below her, half submerged in the darkest depths of the well, a black creature was looking up at her expectantly, its teeth bared and its claws ready to snatch at her dress.

Sissy frowned at the card for a while, and then she tucked it firmly back into the middle of the deck. You’re just a card. Don’t try to get smart with me.

“Grandma?” asked Victoria.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“What’s the matter, Grandma? That wasn’t a horrible card, was it?”

“No, of course not. It was a very nice card, as a matter of fact. It was a little girl, jumping into some water. Hey — maybe it means that Mommy and Daddy will take you on vacation.”

But Sissy suspected that the card was yet another warning, especially since it had been brought to her attention in such an extraordinary way. How could a card fall edgewise like that and stick in the table? It was a warning that something bloody and violent was very close at hand, and that it was going to arrive amongst them sooner rather than later. The girl, falling down the well. The black creature, waiting to tear her to pieces.

“Daddy promised he would to take us to Disney World,” said Victoria, with a mouthful of Toll House cookie.

“That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?” smiled Sissy. She rested her hand on top of Victoria’s head. Une Jeune fille tombante.

The world at the bottom of the well was another world altogether, in which creatures could breathe, but humans would drown. The cards were telling her that whatever was coming, it was coming from someplace different and strange — a place of reflections, and shadows, where everything was back to front, and voices argued very late at night, in empty rooms.

Molly came in from the yard, followed by Trevor and Detectives Kunzel and Bellman.

“I’ll see you later, Sissy,” she said. She picked up a green crochet shrug from the back of one of the kitchen chairs and pulled it on. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be — maybe two to three hours, depending. You’ll take care of these two for me, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” Sissy assured her. “I’ll take care of them good. I’ll feed them and I’ll read them a story and I’ll make sure that they wash their teeth before I tuck them into bed.”