Graham Masterton - Death Mask

“He feels real.”

Molly looked at her sharply. “He’s too young for you, Sissy. Don’t start getting ideas.”

“For God’s sake, Molly. He’s my husband .”

They arrived outside the Becker home in Lakeside Park a few minutes before noon. The day was hot and brassy, with only a single cloud in the sky. The house was a large Colonial-style two story in pinkish brick, with sloping grounds of at least three-quarters of an acre, most of them given over to very dry grass. The sawing of cicadas was even louder than ever.

“Let’s hope she’s at home,” said Frank.

There were two vehicles parked in the driveway: a black Jeep Cherokee and a red Honda Civic. The Civic had a sticker in the rear window saying GLARING ANOMALIES.

“Glaring Anomalies?” said Frank.

“It’s a rock band,” Molly told him. “A few years after your time, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart . Everything’s a few years after my time.”

They went up to the front door, and Sissy pushed the bell. They waited for nearly half a minute before Jane Becker answered, wearing a baggy oversized T-shirt with ketchup stains on the front of it. She looked very white-faced, and her curly chestnut hair was tied up in a lime green nylon scarf.

“Yes?” she blinked.

“Hi, Jane,” said Molly. “Remember me?”

Jane Becker frowned at her, and then she said, “Oh, yes. Oh, sure . The sketch artist lady. Erm — what are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to talk to you a little more, that’s all. I guess you’ve seen on the news that they still haven’t caught this Red Mask character. I was wondering if maybe there was something else that you can remember about him. Something that might have slipped your mind the first time. You know — what with the shock and everything.”

“Well. I don’t think so.” Jane Becker peered around the front lawn as if she half expected Red Mask to come bursting out of the bushes.

“Do you mind if we come in for a moment? Would that be okay? This is my motherin-law Sissy, by the way, and this is Detective Frank Sawyer.”

Frank flashed his shield, without giving Jane Becker the time to see that it was Connecticut State Police, and not Cincinnati.

“I don’t really know what else I can tell you,” she said. “That picture you drew — that was so totally like him. Totally.”

All the same, without explicitly inviting them in, she opened the door wider so that they could step into the hallway, and then she led them through to the living room.

The house was cool and freshly decorated, with salmon-colored carpets and pale yellow couches and chairs. Over the fireplace hung an amateurish oil painting of a stone bridge with an improbably blue stream flowing underneath it. There were shiny brass firedogs in the fireplace, even though the logs were artificial and the fire itself was electric.

Frank said, “You’re absolutely sure that you’d never seen this Red Mask guy before he attacked you in the elevator?”

Jane Becker sat down next to the fireplace. “Never. He was a total stranger.”

“And you have no idea why he wanted to kill Mr. Woods?”

“None whatsoever.”

Sissy felt a prickling sensation in her fingers. She lifted her hand and saw that her mother’s amethyst ring had turned several shades darker. So the probability was that Jane Becker was lying. But lying about what, exactly? That Red Mask was a stranger to her, or that she didn’t know why he had murdered George Woods?

The prickling sensation was caused by more than her mother’s ring, however. It was the kind of sensation she felt when some potent or meaningful artifact was very close. She felt it whenever one of her clients brought her a loved one’s scarf or a pair of gloves, in order to help her to communicate beyond the grave. She felt it whenever she walked into a room and saw a photograph of a gone-beyonder. She always knew they were dead, even without being told.

Molly was saying, “ — anything about his hair, or his skin texture? How about scars? Did you notice any scars? Scars can be a real important clue, because they might have been caused by a sports injury or an occupational accident.”

Sissy turned slowly around and around, trying to locate where the prickling sensation was coming from. Frank held her arm and said, “Sissy? Are you okay?”

“Sure. I’m fine. It’s just that — ”

“I don’t remember anything else about him, except what I told you,” said Jane Becker. “He might have had a scar, but I really don’t recall. I was fighting for my life, remember.”

Sissy said, “May I use your bathroom, please?”

“Oh, sure. Along the hallway, second door on the right.”

“Thank you.”

Sissy left the living room. She walked slowly along the hallway, her ring hand raised, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

It’s here, Sissy. The answer is right here. It’s in one of these rooms.

She passed the dining room. There was nothing in there but a highly polished oak table and eight oak chairs, and it smelled airless, as if it wasn’t used very often. She reached the bathroom, which had a ceramic plaque on it with the legend, “The Littlest Room.” But as she turned the door handle, she felt the prickling on her back. There was another room opposite the bathroom, with its door half ajar.

She hesitated for a moment, listening. She could still hear Molly and Jane Becker talking, and so she pushed the door open a little farther. The room was a study, with a desk and a personal computer and shelves crowded with books. Whoever used this study, they weren’t particularly tidy, because there was an empty coffee mug on the desk, as well as a scattering of pens and CDs and torn-open credit-card bills. The computer’s monitor screen was surrounded by yellow Post-it notes. “Hairdrsr 8!!!” “Call Ken B. re ins. Claim!!!”

On the wall to the left of the desk there was a cork notice board crammed with postcards and Hudepohl beer mats and take-out menus and family photographs. Sissy slowly approached it, and now she could almost hear the prickling sensation as well as feel it, like the effervescence on top of a glass of soda.

Close to the center of the notice board, overlapped by a thank-you letter from a local children’s charity, was a postcard of a giant red-faced figure holding a triangular butcher knife in each hand. A triangular piece was missing from his right earlobe, as if his sculptor’s chainsaw had slipped. The caption read, “Butcher Buck, Borrowsville, IA.”

Sissy took out the thumbtack and turned the postcard over. “Butcher Buck used to advertise the Borrowsville Meat Packing Co., Inc., in Borrowsville, IA. Unusually for a giant roadside figure, he was made not of fiberglass, but a single red-crown oak tree, carved in 1957 by local artist Dean S. Ferndale II. Butcher Buck stood 32 ft. 7 in. tall and was estimated to weigh 6.3 tons. He was severely damaged by lightning in 1974 and removed.”

There was a message scribbled in ballpoint pen, too. “Hi, Rick & Family! Greetings from darkest Iowa! Lonnie says this looks like me when I’ve been lying in the sun too long! See you on the fifteenth! All best, Dave M.”

The card was dated May 12, 1993, so Jane Becker would have first seen it when she was very young. Young enough for it to frighten her.

Sissy went back into the living room. Jane Becker was saying to Molly and Frank, “I’m so sorry I can’t remember any more. All of those murders — they’re just terrible. I wish I could think of something that would help you to catch this guy.”

Sissy dropped the postcard onto the table beside her. “Who does this remind you of?” she asked her.