Her cap of red-gold hair, parted at the side and waving to her shoulders, was in deep contrast to the icy blue of her dress and the deep red of her lips. Her hands were clasped behind her back, drawing the eye to the shape of her bust and the pale length of her throat. She didn’t stand that way for effect, he knew. It was her habit, a way to avoid touching what might distract her.
Eliot cleared his throat but took a seat at the head of the table, steering clear of the boxes. David Cowles remained standing as well, across from Dani, and pulled the first box toward him. He picked through it, pushed it aside, and moved on to the next. He placed a pair of plain white underpants on the table—Malone knew immediately which victim they’d been found with—and read the case number off, his voice ringing with discomfort.
Dani didn’t want to embarrass Malone. She knew he’d put himself in a vulnerable position. The two men wouldn’t believe her, and he would bear the brunt of that disbelief. She would simply go back home to her life and her work, but this was his life and work, and yet here he was, sitting beside her, waiting for her to do her voodoo, as he liked to call it.
She reached for the pair of panties, her face hot and her fingers cold. She pressed the fabric between her palms and, like a stone dropped in a pool, allowed her own thoughts to ripple away and the cloth in her hand to pull her under.
“She never wore these,” she said at once.
“Who?” Ness asked.
She thought she knew; she’d read Michael’s lists, though now she wished she hadn’t, but she wasn’t getting the name from the cloth. “I don’t know,” she said truthfully.
“They were found with Florence Polillo, Victim Number Three,” Cowles told Ness.
“David,” Malone grunted.
David looked baffled, and Dani continued, searching the fabric for something more. “She put them in her coat pocket when she left home. She thought she might need them. But they were . . . new. She never wore them.”
“How do you know that?” Cowles interjected. “You aren’t even looking at them.”
“David, if you can’t shut up, we’re going to go. Okay?” Malone snapped.
His eyes widened. Michael hadn’t clarified what she could do, obviously, and the tension in the room was already palpable.
“People—all people—have an essence.” She attempted a brief explanation. “Like a . . . signature scent. The things they touch, especially for a long period of time, absorb that essence. You smoke in a room once . . . it fades. You smoke in a room every day? That scent never leaves.”
“You can smell Florence Polillo?” Cowles asked.
Malone vibrated beside her, but she didn’t think the man was being disrespectful. Not really. He’d just been caught unawares. Ness was observing silently, but his eyes, as blue and guileless as a child’s, were wide.
“Sort of,” she said. “It’s a bit . . . hard to explain. But these are new. So there isn’t much . . . there.”
“Can we proceed?” Malone asked. “This will go much quicker if you don’t interrupt. You’ll start to understand. And keep in mind, she’s helping us.”
Dani set the item down. When Cowles reached for it, she entreated, “Don’t put them back. Please. I’d like to come back to them, if I could.”
He shrugged and went on to the next item from a different box and read the evidence number. He turned over a large envelope, and a pair of men’s black socks slid out onto the table. Malone swore, and she sat down on the chair she’d pushed aside, a little weak in the knees.
Again, she knew too much. Edward Andrassy, the first victim, had been found wearing only his socks. She suspected these were his.
“Something else,” Malone barked, but Dani reached forward and took them. Holding a sock in each hand, she braced herself for something similar to the cold she’d felt in the drapes. But the socks had not been handled or worn in a long time. She bore down and was met with a weary haze.
“He was drunk. Or . . . dizzy. And he was tired.” She tried to look beneath the fog. “And his toes were cold. Dr. Frank put his socks back on when he begged.”
Sadness welled, but it was her own.
“Dr. Frank?” Ness asked.
“Yes.” She nodded. “That’s what he thought. He was grateful.” The impressions were brief, faint pinpricks in the night sky.
“What’s his name, Dani?” Malone asked softly.
“Andrassy. He’s proud of his name, but he’s not proud of himself.”
She felt a flash of fear, a tug on her wrists, and the smell of something sharp and chemical bit her nostrils before the ripples ceased. She cataloged each impression for the men. Eliot Ness was scribbling notes and David Cowles was frowning.
“You can smell it?” Cowles asked, still stuck on that word.
She looked at Malone, helpless, but then shrugged and nodded. It was too simplistic an explanation, but it worked.
“Scent fades. But imagine that you have gasoline on your hands when you touch someone’s coat. That scent will stay for a long time. Some things are like gasoline. Fear is like gasoline.”
She set the socks down.
“Hold my hands for a minute, Michael,” she asked, and he obeyed, engulfing her hands in his.
“And why do you do that?” Ness asked, surprise in every word, but she didn’t look at him.
“It . . . um . . . cleanses the palate,” Malone said, gruff, and he didn’t look at him either. The tips of his ears were a deep red, but he held her hands until she pulled away and moved on to the next items.
A small stack of clothing belonged to a man named Eddie. Eddie, who drove the ladies all over town. Victim #2, who’d never been named, whose checkered hat was found by Steve Jeziorski. She did her best to separate what she already knew from what the cloth told her and was confident in his name.
“The guy who wore those is Eddie too?” Malone clarified. “Not Andrassy?”
She picked up a bit of cloth she thought was a rag, and realized it was yet another pair of underpants, though just a piece.
“Ready Eddie,” she said, listening. “That’s how he thought of himself. The chauffeur. Steve Jeziorski gave you his cap.” She felt herself blanch.
“What?” Malone asked.
“I saw his . . . um. His male part. He was quite proud of it.”
The room was silent.
“Ready Eddie,” she murmured. “He was always . . . ready.”