“It can also imply an investigation,” Doyle countered.
There was a sudden but subtle shift in the energy around them, something quantifiable but its calculation for measurement foreign to Larkin. It passed between them in a second. Like a loss of gravity, the crackle of electricity in the air before a storm, the tingle of blood rushing back into a limb after sleeping on it wrong, stuck in a loop of spins while waltzing.
It was there, and then it was gone.
But the look on Doyle’s face—he’d felt it too.
A partnership in art and investigation. A study in death.
Raising a thick eyebrow and holding the mask out to Larkin, Doyle asked again, his tone a touch more somber, “Why do you say it’s not a life mask?”
Larkin took a breath and then closed the distance between them. He accepted the mask and carefully studied the subject’s expression a second time. Eyes closed, facial muscles relaxed, a suggestion of a smile, as if in the subject’s final moment, all of the universe’s unknowns were revealed to him and he found the truth to be… a relief. “After death, if the body is kept in a reclined pose, the muscles of the face naturally follow the pull of gravity and create the illusion of a smile.”
“Sounds very Poe.”
“He preferred the imagery of worms feasting on human remains.”
“Nice,” Doyle said with a decidedly dry tone.
“Am I correct.”
“About Poe? You’ve clearly read more—oh, the mask, yes.”
Larkin handed it back and asked, “Why the magnet.”
“Before postmortem photography became readily available during the Victorian era, influential figures in society had their likeness cast after death. This memento mori was either left in its plaster form, or sometimes reproduced in bronze.” And with that, Doyle placed the magnet to the mask’s forehead, and the cat butt stuck, even through the plastic evidence bag.
Larkin raised his eyes and met Doyle’s. “Bronze isn’t magnetic.”
“This is cast iron,” Doyle agreed. “Painted to look like aged bronze.” He plucked the magnet free. “So to answer your question, no, this death mask is not from the nineteenth century. However, the artist appears to have gone to great lengths to replicate authentic death masks of the period.”
“Why be mindful of such details, only to fail at the final step.”
“It might have been practical. Cast iron is easier to work with than bronze. And you need to consider whether this was made locally—a workshop specializing in bronze might be more difficult to find in the boroughs.”
Larkin steepled his fingers together, turned on his heel, and began to pace in front of his desk. “This mask was found in the crate with the skeleton. If it’s indeed a cast of the victim’s face, then John Doe is contemporary.”
“That’s right.”
“Replicating the mask into metal is an extra step. Potentially a step with witnesses.”
“Plaster would have disintegrated the first time the crate got wet,” Doyle pointed out.
Larkin nodded as he reached the limits of the bullpen, turned, and walked past the desk again. “It’s purely speculation, but if the extra step was seen as worth taking in the perpetrator’s mind, perhaps they intended for the mask to weather time.” He paused and looked at Doyle. “Masks are typically buried with the deceased?” There was that note of repressed curiosity again.
Doyle shook his head. “In Western culture, these masks can be traced back to the fourteenth century in France and England. They were used as part of the funerary rituals of kings, but no, the masks were never intended to be buried with the deceased—not then and not through the 1800s.”
Larkin picked up his pace again. “Interesting.”
“I assume the remains are at the OCME?”
“Yes.”
“How good are you at sweet-talking?”
Larkin stopped, turned.
Doyle chuckled as he flipped his notepad shut. “I think you practice that face in the mirror.” He rolled his sleeves down, buttoned the cuffs, and pulled his suit coat on. “Put in a request with the ME for a cast of the skull. They don’t like doing it, so you’ll need to be exceptionally charming—”
