Page 177 of Forever Dead
He was right about that. Selena watched his shoes rather than his hands. Dark leather, polished, positioned close to her cane.
“You gave me Gein. What are you, a fan?”
Foss smiled. “And you still wanted my opinion.”
“You wanted me to recognize what you’d done.”
“I wanted to see whether you could.”
Selena watched his hands. He seemed more interested in her answer than in moving closer.
“Blethan sent you pieces of your own mask,” she said. “You knew what they were before we arrived.”
“Of course.”
“And you let us stand here discussing them.”
“I told you they might be human skin. I wondered what you would do with that.”
“The mask already existed when you killed Eleanor. Where did the skin come from?”
Foss looked at the cabinet.
“People who no longer needed it.”
“Graves, like Gein?”
“Gein had to dig for access. I worked in a mortuary.”
Selena kept her voice level. “You took tissue from bodies you examined.”
“Over a number of years.”
“And kept it after you retired.”
“Some things preserve very well.”
The room seemed colder. These were people whose deaths had placed them in his care. Their families might never have known anything had been taken.
“Who were they?”
“I kept records.”
“Names?”
“Case numbers. Dates. The brown notebook in the bottom drawer.”
His answer came with the same assurance he had used when showing them the slides.
Selena fixed the detail in her mind. If she got out, somebody would have to find those records and establish whether he was telling the truth.
Selena moved her right hand toward her jacket pocket.
“Leave it,” Foss said.
She stopped. Her phone was still inside, but she could not reach it without him seeing.
“Hands where I can see them.”
