Death Mask
Carmine Gutierrez stared in horror as the door of Margarita's mausoleum slowly opened and a skeletal hand, nearly devoid of flesh, emerged. This gruesome appendage was followed by a decayed head covered with patches of long chestnut hair. As the decomposed corpse stumbled out the door on uncertain legs, it turned to face the terrified young woman, and the mouth of the eyeless skull opened in a soundless scream ....
Carmine woke from her sleep with a start, her brow beaded with perspiration, her heart pounding wildly in her chest and her face wet with tears. Once again she dreamt of her sister, who had been dead for the past nine years. Would the horrible nightmares never stop?
The light from the full moon streamed in through her open bedroom window and shone on her sister's framed photo. The picture, taken when Margarita was only twenty years old, captured the beauty of the young Hispanic girl before tuberculosis robbed her of life two years later. The dark eyes of her dead sibling stared at Carmine as though trying to communicate an urgent message from beyond the grave.
"What is the matter with me?" she asked herself as she turned over onto her other side, facing away from the photograph. "Margarita has been dead almost ten years. Why am I still having dreams about her every night?"
Carmine closed her eyes and desperately tried not to dwell on her beautiful sister whose life had been tragically cut so short. After more than two hours of tossing and turning, she fell back to sleep and remained in a peaceful slumber until the following morning.
The next day, on her way home from work, Carmine walked past the Holy Sepulcher Church Cemetery, where Margarita's remains had been interred. The grieving sister carried a small bouquet of fresh flowers but couldn't bring herself to enter the white stone mausoleum. Instead, she knelt on the ground outside the door and read the epitaph carved above the entrance: FOREVER YOUNG, FOREVER BEAUTIFUL.
Such a warm, tender sentiment, such a beautiful dream, yet such a hopeless, unattainable ideal, she thought sadly.
Margarita wasn't sleeping peacefully in her coffin, untouched by conquering death. Her angelic face was no more. The perfect features that had been hers in life must surely have rotted away after close to a decade passed.
Carmine had often heard it said that cemeteries were not meant for the dead but rather for the peace and consolation of the living. If that were so, why then didn't she feel any solace when she visited her sister's grave?
"I don't know why I bother coming here," she said with a heavy sigh, unaware that someone standing nearby had overheard her.
"I would assume the reason is either familial duty or guilt that you are still alive. Pick one."
Carmine was startled by the lighthearted comment. She recognized the face at once. It belonged to Alonzo Melendez, a young man with whom her late sister once worked.
"Neither," she insisted. "I come here because I sincerely loved my sister. But I don't feel any closer to her even though I know she is lying just inside that door."
"Are you sure?" the young man asked, his eyes alive with humor.
"Am I sure about what?"
"That your sister is inside the mausoleum. You know, I heard a rumor that some doctor exhumed one of his patients in this very cemetery."
"Why would he do that?"
"The story is that the young woman was so beautiful that the doctor fell in love with her, and despite his best efforts to save her life, death parted them. Then late one night he crept into the cemetery and stole her body."
Carmine stared at the young man's handsome face, trying to determine if he was teasing her. He, in turn, detected her uncertainty.
"I'm telling the truth. I heard the story from a man who heard it directly from the cemetery's caretaker."
"That doesn't make it true," Carmine argued. "A lot of crazy stories get passed around."
The two young people continued debating the matter as they exited the cemetery and made their way back to the Gutierrez house. During the long walk home, Carmine found her thoughts shifting from her deceased sister to Alonzo's dazzling smile.
* * *
For the next several months, Carmine was caught up in the exhilaration of a blossoming romance with the dashing Mr. Melendez. Her new-found happiness, however, did not dispel the frequent nightmares that still tormented her.
Then, one day while she was shopping for a pair of nylon stockings in the local department store, she noticed Dr. Heinrich Dreschler, the physician who had treated her sister's tuberculosis, buying a pale blue negligee.
"Your wife should be quite pleased with this one," the salesgirl told the doctor.
"I'm sure Margarita will be delighted," the doctor concurred.
Carmine raised her eyebrow. It was common knowledge in the small community that Dr. Dreschler's wife had taken the children and returned to Germany several years earlier. She suppressed a grin at the thought of the diminutive yet aristocratic-looking physician having a mistress.
"Hello, Dr. Dreschler," the young girl called. "Do you remember me?"
When the physician saw Carmine, he recognized her as his late patient's sister, and he instantly became flustered.
"Yes, of course. Good day, Miss Gutierrez," he replied with a stiff nod and hurried out of the store with the package tucked beneath his arm.
"The poor doctor must be embarrassed," Carmine remarked.
"I doubt it. He's always in here buying women's clothing, lingerie and hosiery."
"How odd!"
The salesgirl giggled.
"You'd never know it to look at him that he's one of those men who like to wear women's clothes."
"Maybe the items are for a sweetheart," Carmine offered.
"He always mentions his wife, but I know from the store charge accounts that her name was Gretchen, not Margarita."
Margarita! Carmine thought with a start.
Was it a mere coincidence that Dr. Dreschler had mentioned her sister's name when purchasing women's unmentionables? Could Alonzo's tale of a grave-robbing, love-struck physician be true?
"No," she told herself firmly. "The man was my sister's doctor—that's all!"
Yet the seed of doubt had already been sewn.
* * *
When Alonzo noticed his girlfriend was preoccupied with other matters, he feared the worst: that another man had stolen her affections. Carmine, however, was quick to reassure him that such was not the case.
"It's my sister," she confessed. "I can't stop thinking about that story you told me the night we met in the cemetery."
She proceeded to describe the nightmares she'd been having and her bizarre encounter with Dr. Dreschler in the department store.
"I went to see him last week at his office," she continued, "pretending I suffered from migraines. From the moment he answered the door, Dr. Dreschler avoided looking me in the eye. I tell you I don't trust that man. What if the rumor you heard is true? And what if he stole my sister's body?"
"Then it'll be up to us to uncover the truth."
"How will we do that?"
"We'll begin by questioning the cemetery caretaker."
Earl Zerbey was an illiterate veteran who had suffered battle fatigue during the Great War and, upon returning home to Florida, was hired as a caretaker by the Holy Sepulcher Church Cemetery. His duties there were simple: he had to keep trespassers from defacing the headstones and destroying the floral arrangements left on the graves. To everything else, he usually turned a blind eye.
When Alonzo questioned him concerning the rumors he'd heard, Earl feigned ignorance.
"You can either talk to me or you can tell the police," Alonzo threatened. "I'd think twice about choosing the latter if I were you. Even if you don't go to jail for grave robbing, you'll surely lose your job, and a man without an education doesn't have many employment opportunities."
The intimidation worked. The caretaker admitted seeing a man leaving the cemetery late one night, carrying a woman's body.
"When was this?" Carmine asked.
Earl scratched his ear.
"I guess it was eight or maybe nine years ago."
"That was about the time my sister died."
"Do you know where the body came from?" Alonzo pressed.
Neither he nor Carmine was surprised when the caretaker reluctantly pointed to Margarita's mausoleum.
"What should we do now?" Carmine asked when they left the cemetery. "Go to the police and have Dr. Dreschler arrested?"
"We have no proof your sister's body was stolen, beyond the word of the caretaker. And even if the police believed him and opened your sister's crypt, we can't tie the doctor to the crime because Earl didn't see the culprit's face."
"It must be him. Who else would have taken Margarita?"
"I'm sure Dr. Dreschler is our man, but we can't prove it—yet."
Carmine cried in frustration.
"Easy, now," Alonzo said comfortingly.
"Why do you think he wanted her body?" she asked with great effort.
"Your sister was a very beautiful woman. Maybe he wanted to preserve that beauty by creating a death mask."
"What's a death mask?"
"It's a wax or plaster cast of a person's face taken soon after death. These masks were often kept as mementos of loved ones, and in Europe, they were made to capture the likeness of notable people such as royalty, great writers, philosophers, artists and the like."
"You think Dr. Dreschler made a cast of my sister's face?"
"It's just one possible explanation."
"And the women's clothing. Where does that fit into your theory?"
Alonzo shrugged, reluctant to share his other ideas with a young lady.
"I don't know. Maybe one has nothing to do with the other."
* * *
"Dr. Heinrich Dreschler?" Alonzo asked when the doctor opened the front door to his house.
"Yes. Who are you? What is it you want?"
The young man was a stranger to him. Dr. Dreschler was unaware of Alonzo's connection to the Gutierrez family, and therefore his suspicions were not aroused. Alonzo claimed he was a college student majoring in journalism and wanted to interview the doctor regarding his claim of being a German count. Appealing to Dr. Dreschler's hubris was a wise move on the young man's part, for Heinrich's vanity was such that he couldn't pass up the opportunity of preening like a peacock.
For more than twenty minutes, Alonzo asked the doctor questions and jotted down abbreviated answers in a small notepad. Then he cleared his throat and asked Dr. Dreschler for a drink of water. When the doctor left the room, the young man immediately opened several doors, looking for anything that would tie the doctor to Margarita. Although the door to the bedroom was locked, Alonzo opened one to a hall closet and found several large containers of paraffin and plaster of Paris mix.
"What are you doing?" the doctor asked angrily when he returned with the glass of water and saw Alonzo shutting the closet door.
"I'm terribly sorry. I was looking for the bathroom. I ...."
He theatrically covered his mouth with his hand, as though on the verge of vomiting.
"It's back here," the doctor quickly said, showing Alonzo the way to the bathroom, through the kitchen.
Once the door closed behind him, the amateur sleuth made several fake gagging sounds and then flushed the toilet. While he ran the water in the sink, he opened the doctor's medicine cabinet. Inside was an assortment of cosmetics including lipstick, mascara and nail polish. There were also more than a dozen bottles of disinfectants, perfumes and lotions.
Alonzo's search was interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Are you all right in there?" the doctor inquired.
The young man turned off the water and returned to the living room.
"It must have been that fish chowder I had for lunch," he lied. "Count Dreschler, would you mind terribly if I came back at a later time to finish our interview?"
"I have to work at the hospital the next few nights, but I'll be home on Friday evening."
"Good. I'll come back at the end of the week," Alonzo promised, but he intended to return to the doctor's house before then.
* * *
"Wax and plaster of Paris?" Carmine echoed when Alonzo told her of his discovery during the visit to Dr. Dreschler's home. "Then he did create a death mask of my sister."
"There was a large quantity of both there. He must be using them for other things, as well. When I was in Dreschler's house, I noticed he kept the bedroom door locked. I think he has something in that room that he doesn't want anyone to see."
"Like a personal collection of death masks?" Carmine suggested.
"Possibly. I won't know until I get inside that room."
Carmine's eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
"When and how are you going to do that?"
"Dreschler told me he wasn't going to be home tomorrow night. While he's out of the house, I'm going to jimmy open the bedroom window and take a look inside."
"I'm coming with you this time."
"You might want to think about that. After all, are you willing to risk being arrested for breaking and entering to find out what the mad doctor has been hiding?"
Carmine smiled and nodded her head.
Late the following evening, Alonzo stood behind a large hedge in the cover of darkness, waiting for Dr. Dreschler to drive away.
"Come on, the coast is clear," he announced when the taillights of the doctor's '28 Buick sedan vanished from view.
The two young people moved swiftly and stealthily across the back lawn. Alonzo then used a crowbar he'd brought with him to force open the window.
"Ladies first," he said, and he gently lifted Carmine over the window sill.
He then hoisted himself up and followed her inside.
"Wait," he instructed, protectively holding on to his girlfriend's arm. "I brought a flashlight with me. Let me get it out of my pocket."
When the flashlight's beam illuminated a figure on the bed, both Alonzo and Carmine screamed with horror. Lying on a quilted bedspread, wearing a sheer blue negligee and matching peignoir, was the corpse of Margarita Gutierrez.
* * *
The local newspapers covered the macabre story in great length, and readers eagerly poured over accounts of Dr. Dreschler's attempts to preserve his patient's remains. Some of the less discerning newspapers described in graphic detail how the doctor filled the empty chest cavity with rags, replaced the decomposing skin with silk cloth dipped in a combination of wax and plaster, used the dead girl's own hair to fashion a wig and substituted her decaying eyes with glass ones from a doll. One intrepid reporter even claimed the conscienceless doctor shamelessly admitted to having enjoyed a sexual relationship with the preserved body.
Carmine and her parents were aghast not only that their loved one's final resting place had been disturbed but also that her mortal remains had been so vilely desecrated. Even after the body was removed from Dr. Dreschler's house, a local funeral home put the corpse on public display for three days, attracting more than six thousand curious onlookers.
To add insult to injury, the justice system failed to redress the wrongs done to the poor girl. It was decided that Dr. Dreschler had broken no law by living as man and wife with Margarita's corpse for nine years. The only charge brought against him was one of wantonly and maliciously destroying a grave and removing a body without authorization, a charge that was later dropped.
When Margarita's remains were finally returned to her family, the parents had them interred in a secret, unmarked grave where the besotted Dr. Dreschler would never be able to find them.
With her sister finally resting in peace, Carmine was no longer bothered by nightmares. She and Alonzo were later married and were able to put the whole ghastly incident behind them.
* * *
On the tenth anniversary of Margarita Gutierrez's death, Dr. Heinrich Dreschler walked through the empty rooms of his house like a ghost haunting the past. He opened his bedroom closet and buried his head in the clothes he had purchased for Margarita, inhaling her nearly faded scent. His eyes brimming with tears, he turned and looked at the mannequin lying on the bed. He had attempted to recreate his adored one's features from memory and had done a fair job, but he couldn't delude himself. It was just a plaster replica; it was not Margarita.
"Maybe if I make the lips a little fuller or the cheekbones a little higher, it will look more like my beloved," he cried in desperation.
He ran out into his kitchen and prepared another batch of plaster of Paris. Then he took it back to the bedroom and applied a thick layer to the mannequin's mouth, but the fuller lips made little difference.
"Perhaps it's the outfit."
Dr. Dreschler walked to the closet and removed a pale pink nightgown and matching robe. For some inexplicable reason, he removed his own clothing and placed the chiffon sleepwear over his naked body. Then he removed the synthetic wig from the department store dummy and placed it over his thinning gray hair. Finally, he pushed the mannequin onto the floor and lay down on the bed next to Margarita's photograph.
"My dearest darling, I can't live without you," he cried.
Moments later he covered his face with the plaster of Paris, sealing his eyes against the emptiness of the room and clogging his airways, thus cutting off his supply of oxygen.
After the doctor's body was discovered, it was placed in the mausoleum that once held the remains of the woman he loved more than life itself. The epitaph FOREVER YOUNG, FOREVER BEAUTIFUL carved above the entrance served as a poignant reminder of the doctor's illusive quest, that unattainable dream he had shared with billions of mortals down through the centuries.
This story was loosely based on the true story of Dr. Carl Tanzler (von Cosel), who lived as husband and wife with the corpse of his deceased patient, Elena de Hoyos.
No, this isn't a death mask from one of Salem's nine lives. It's actually a discarded peal-off facial mask.
