"She hosted the very first one."
"No, dear," said a voice behind Mallory's chair. "Anne hosted the first one."
Mallory looked up into the bright eyes of a blue-haired woman with a perfectly round face.
"Anne?"
"Anne Cathery, the woman who died in the park," said the moon-faced woman.
"You're both aware of the connection?"
"The murders and the seances? Of course, we're aware. All of us." The wave of her hand included the entire room. "What's left of us. How could you fail to notice a thing like that? I swear, you young people must think we were all born with liver spots and Alzheimer's."
The mannequin leaned towards Mallory and said, more kindly, "It's all right, dear. You're supposed to take old women for doddering fools. You're young, that's your job. I certainly don't mind. I find it gives me an edge in all my dealings with your generation."
The round-faced woman winked at the mannequin 'Like that young financier you took for a ride last year?"
"Netted me a million in profit, April dear." She looked back to Mallory. "The young man assumed my position on the board of directors was some honorary title for the widow of the majority stockholder. But you seem more interested in murder than money. That speaks well of you."
"So you're not afraid."
"Of dying? I'd have to think on that, dear. Most days I'd have to say yes. But then, there are those days, you know? No, of course you don't. You're a child. You don't know the joys of incontinence and flatulence. I don't think Samantha Siddon much cared if she lived another year. She had lived too long, she thought, surviving her own children. Now there's a crime of crimes."
"Didn't she have a cousin?"
"Margot. Strange child. I don't think she cared for Margot very much. She used to brag on the child's visits every week, but I don't know that she enjoyed them. No, Samantha probably didn't mind dying."
"But a death like that…"
"There's an excitement to a quick ending," said the mannequin. "It's a momentous thing, death. But you wouldn't know that." She rested one paper-light hand on Mallory's. "You think you're immortal, don't you, dear? Of course you do."
The moon-faced woman sat down and well back in the couch cushions. Her plump feet did not quite touch the floor. "Well, anyway, the seances certainly made Samantha's last days more exciting. It was almost like a lottery. Or perhaps you'd prefer the more cliched analogy of a Bingo game. Ah, the Bingo parlor, God's little waiting room for the blue-hair set." The woman sighed. "And now it's another month to wait for the next one."
"The next seance?" asked Mallory.
"No, dear," said the mannequin. "The seance is once a week. She's talking murder. They're usually four weeks apart."
"Did anyone mention the seance connection to the police?"
"Oh, worst possible idea. Redwing wouldn't like it. It might cause a rupture in her karma. Artists are so fragile. You're not going to rat us out, are you, dear?"
Markowitz had taught her to scout the terrain. And now she was immersed in the land of canes and cataracts, blue hair and support hose, conspiracy and murder.
A bell tinkled in the hand of the maid.
The illusion of bird women stayed with Mallory as, from different points about the room, they rose in a flock and settled back to earth around the table with its white cloth, with whispers in the shush of material, creaks and shuffles of chairs, settling down and settling in. Mallory sat between Jonathan Gaynor and a woman with a bobbing head. Edith sat between this woman and their hostess. Redwing grasped the hands on either side of her, and the rest of the assembly followed suit in joining hands.
A dish with a black unlit candle sat at the center of the table beside a brightly painted statuette of a madonna and child. Piled in front of Redwing was a collection of objects. Markowitz's pocket watch was there, gleaming among other items, the rings with bright gems, a key, a ribbon-tied lock of gold hair so fine it must have belonged to a small child.
Heavy drapes were being drawn across the sunlit windows by the maid. As the room grew dark, the candle at the center of the table came to life, of its own accord, to provide all the light there was. And with that light came the sweet odor of incense which thickened and overpowered the perfumes of the women. A trick of the wavering candle flame made the tiny madonna statuette move in a flickering dance.
Redwing closed her eyes, and her head rolled against the back of the wing chair. "Our Father Which art in heaven," she said, and the gathering closed their eyes, all save Mallory, and repeated the words after her, all save Mallory.
Our Father, Which art in heaven,
Mallory only moved her mouth in the little heresy of the handicapped make-believer with severe limitations which stopped short of buying heaven.
Hallowed be thy name.
And it was only hour by hour that she kept at bay the realization that Markowitz was in that hole in the ground and feeding the worms.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.
In earth as it is in heaven.
Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, dead was dead, and a stiff was a stiff. All alone in the cold ground. Markowitz.
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass a0ainst us.
Never.
The boy stole up behind Redwing's chair and stood there with less life to him than the wavering statuette. Mallory was planning his incarceration in Juvenile Hall as quickly as she confirmed all the signs of a drugged child. It had always made her a little crazy to see someone strike a child, and this was worse. It called up some gray area of earliest memory which just as quickly slid away from her like a dream lost and beyond recalling. Not that she tried, for every good instinct said let it go.
The gramophone began to play. The music was classical, melding into Twenties tunes, and then to old Fifties-style rock'n'roll. Mallory lifted her chin only slightly in recognition of an album from Markowitz's basement collection.
Redwing plunged her hand into the pile of objects at the center of the table and pulled out Markowitz's watch. The music stopped.
Redwing held the pocket watch by its chain, and her eyes closed as the watch dropped lower and lower, finally lying flat on the table. The gold chain drifted from her splayed fingers. Redwing's eyes were rolling back in their sockets. Her hands pressed flat on the tablecloth. She began to rock slowly, gently at first, and then faster and faster, jerking violently now and shuddering into a spasm. She jolted the table, and her chair rocked on its four legs beating out a staccato rhythm. Suddenly, the rocking stopped, her body became rigid, leaning far back in the chair. She pressed her head into the upholstery and lowered her face until it made three chins below her open mouth.
Her face lifted and her eyes fixed on Mallory. She gathered up the flesh of her face into Markowitz's smile. The eyes all but disappeared in the merry slits melding into laugh lines at the outer edges.
Everyone else at the table was smiling. Markowitz had that effect on people. Only Mallory did not smile.
"Hey, kid, how're you doing?" said the voice of Markowitz, in his low octaves and Brooklyn accent.
Mallory and Markowitz stared at one another across the table.
"Don't call me kid," she said.
Markowitz laughed, and would not stop laughing. The table began to move, shuddering under Mallory's hands. She felt lightly drunk with the sound of his laughter.
The boy behind the armchair stepped out to the side in plain view. She watched the child going into a trance of his own. The table rocked, though Redwing's hands were splayed flat and the boy was not touching the table. The music had started again. Buddy Holly was singing about love and the roller coaster. The music couldn't be coming from the gramophone. The turntable wasn't moving, yet it came from that direction.