The Unknown Beloved(83)

“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.”

“Wasn’t he emasculated?” Cowles asked.

“He wasn’t aware of that,” she whispered. “I believe that happened . . . after.” She dropped the piece of cloth.

“Next,” Malone ground out. She thought he was going to march her out of the room after that, but he sat stoically, listening, holding her hands, and writing his notes as she continued.

For the most part, the images faded quickly, and nothing that remained was especially potent or powerful. Time had left its own layers on the cloth. But there was a whisper of cold she began to recognize, an icy fingerprint that glanced off her pulse.

Sometimes she felt nothing at all, and sometimes a snippet sprang to mind before it dissolved. She repeated each impression dutifully, resisting the need to sway or convince the two men who listened and doubted. She was not there for herself. She was not even there for Michael, though she cared far too much about what he thought. She was there for the nameless.

“He was good at cards,” she said after a particularly fruitless stretch. “But not good enough. He lost more than he won. But at least they never hid their faces.”

“Who?”

“The cards.” She changed her grip, trying to chase the impression, but it was gone, snuffed out.

“Got a name?”

She ran her fingers lightly over the inside of the shirt collar, where it would rub against the back of the neck. It was a place that often yielded something.