The Unknown Beloved(84)

“Robert Weitzel,” she said, grasping the whisper that brought a draft, gossamer and glancing. Then both were gone.

“You sure?” Malone asked.

She tried to confirm it, then shook her head. “I heard it, but it was faint.”

“Anything else?” he asked, but she shook her head again. “These things sat awhile in the sun and rain. Just like colors fade, so do memories.”

There were some boxes that held several items—shoes, belt, trousers, shorts, suitcoats—but the impressions from each tended to be the same, though some were easier to read. A pair of russet-brown oxfords in one such box flooded her thoughts with a burst of color followed by a persistent pricking sensation. She dropped the shoes with a yelp and tried again, careful not to press her palms so firmly against the soles.

“He has no pictures of the things he loves. The people he loves. So he put them on his skin. It was the way he carried them with him.”

“The tattooed man?” Ness asked.

“Yes.” She nodded eagerly. “Tattoos. He has plans for more. Many more.”

She searched through his other things, looking for clues that came in complete thoughts.

“He thought of himself as Chuck . . . and Grift. Sometimes Grift,” she added.

“Any idea about the initials, WCG?” Malone asked.

She listened, but the impression stayed the same. “Chuck and Grift.”

“The name William Charles Griffiths came up somewhere—a tip or a telegraph,” Malone said. “Make a note for your detectives to revisit that tip.”

Toward the end of the night, a grayish knit cap, tasseled and filthy, netted a name and a flash of insight that burned a little brighter and longer than the rest.

“She sang when she was alone. Hymns. She loves the hymns. She knew she shouldn’t. Sinner that she was. Hymns were for the believers. Sometimes she sang the hymns when she was with a man. Sometimes the men laughed, like she was singing their praises. Most of the time they made her stop. Hymns strip us down. Naked men don’t want their souls on display.” She spoke quickly, almost babbling, but she was trying to keep up with the swell before it crashed and receded.

“She has a son who’s all grown up, but she doesn’t tell anyone. They’ll think she’s old, and she needs to stay young and pretty . . . like her name. Rose. Her name is Rose Wallace. She looks better than the white girls. Her skin is holding up. Her figure too. But she feels old inside.”

The room was silent as she chased the current, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

“Why do you get more with some things?” Eliot asked.

“She liked this hat. Wore it often, I suspect. And hats don’t get laundered much . . . if at all.”

“None of these things have been laundered,” Cowles argued.

“No. But a hat isn’t laundered hardly ever. Even a knit cap like this. Washing doesn’t remove the ground-in memories, ones reinforced and layered over the years. But it can—and does—obscure details and specifics. If an item is freshly laundered, often I’m just left with a sense—not a specific scent—of the person who owned it.”

“So some things . . . reveal more?”

“Yes. Shoes. Coats. A hat one wears every day. Hats sit on our heads too, where thought is centered. A pillow can be quite telling. A handkerchief that is carried in the same pocket, year after year.” Malone shifted in his chair.

“And some fabrics reveal more. Cotton talks. It absorbs everything. Silk is a little more coy. It clings, but it’s fragile too, and the weave is very tight. Very small. It doesn’t absorb anything.”

“And leather?” Ness asked, intrigued.

“Leather takes time. It’s tougher. But I could probably get something from a belt someone’s owned for a while. Or a holster.”

“Even an empty one?” Cowles asked, his tone wry. “Eliot wears a holster but never carries a gun.”

“Let her hold your holster, Eliot. Maybe she can explain that one to us,” Malone said.

“I’m not letting her anywhere near me,” Eliot said, a small smile playing around his lips. “That was impressive, Miss Kos.”

“Thank you. Is there anything else?” She desperately hoped there was nothing else. Her head ached and her stomach was gnawing a hole in her back.

“Just one more. On January seventeenth, someone found some bloody women’s clothing in an empty lot on East Sixty-Fifth, not too far from Jackass Hill. There’s a coat among the items. People don’t abandon their coats. They don’t generally bleed on them either. We’ve been waiting for a body to turn up.”

“A body did turn up,” Cowles said. “Remember Victim Number Ten?”

“We don’t know if they’re even connected to the Butcher at all. But . . . maybe you can tell us something,” Ness said.

“All right.”

Cowles moved to the end of the table and took a black coat from a box. He set it in front of her and then added a black cloche hat beside it. Both were caked and stiff in areas, though with filth or blood, she didn’t know. She closed her eyes, trying to ease the pounding for one last look.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Dani,” Malone reminded her, his voice low. “And don’t forget to let go.”