“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.
“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.