Dance Of Death

THIRTY-FOUR

Laura Hayward walked quickly through the museum's Great Hall, the early morning light casting parallel banners through its tall bronze windows. She strode through the bands of light with purpose, as if the physical act of walking would somehow prepare her for what was to come. Beside her, almost skipping to keep up, was Jack Manetti, head of museum security. Behind them followed a silent but swift phalanx of NYPD homicide detectives and museum personnel.

"Mr. Manetti, I'm assuming the exhibition has a security system. Correct?"

"State-of-the-art. We're just completing a full overhaul."

"Overhaul? Wasn't the exhibit alarmed?"

"It was. We've got redundancies built into each zone. Strange thing is, no alarm went off."

"Then how'd the perp get in?"

"At this point, we have no idea. We've compiled a list of everyone who had access to the exhibition space."

"I'll want to talk to them all."

"Here's the list." Manetti pulled a printout from his jacket pocket.

"Good man." Hayward took it, scanned it, handed it to one of the detectives behind her. "Tell me about the system."

"It's based on magnetic keys. The system keeps track of everyone coming and going after hours. I have a register of that, as well." He handed her another document.

They rounded the corner of the Hall of Ocean Life. Hayward walked past the great blue whale, hanging ominously from the ceiling, without even a glance.

"Any key cards reported missing?"

"No."

"Can they be duplicated?"

"I'm told it's impossible."

"Someone could have borrowed a card, perhaps?"

"That's possible, although as of now all cards except the victim's are accounted for. I'll be looking into that specific question."

"So will we. Of course, the perp might be a museum employee with prior access."

"I doubt it."

Hayward grunted. She doubted it herself, but you never knew- she'd seen more than her share of certifiable lunatics wandering around this old pile. As soon as she'd heard about this case, she'd asked to be assigned, despite still being busy with the Duchamp murder. She had a theory-no, call it more of a premonition-that the two were connected. And if she was right, it was going to be big. Very big.

They passed through the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, then stopped before the oversize portal leading to the Sacred Images exhibition. The door itself was open but taped off, and beyond, Hayward could hear the murmurings of the SOC team working the scene. "You, you, and you"-she jabbed her finger at detectives in turn- "pass the tape with me. The rest wait here and keep back the curious. Mr. Manetti? You come, too."

"When Dr. Collopy arrives-?"

"This is a crime scene. Keep him out. I'm sorry."

Manetti didn't even argue. His face was the color of putty and it was pretty clear he hadn't even had time for his morning cup of coffee.

She ducked under the police tape, nodded to the waiting sergeant, signed his clipboard. Then she entered the foyer of the exhibition, moving slower now, far more deliberate. SOC and forensics would have already gone over ingress and egress, but it was always good to keep an eye open.

The truncated group wound its way through the first room, past almost completed exhibits, stepping over the odd piece of lumber, and then into the exhibition's second room: the scene of the crime itself. Here a chalk outline delineated where the victim had fallen. There was quite a lot of blood. The SOC photographer had already documented the scene and was awaiting any special requests Hayward, as the investigating officer, might have. Two members of the SOC team were still on their hands and knees with tweezers.

She eyed the scene almost fiercely, her eye roving over the central pool of blood, across various splatters, bloody footprints, smears. She gestured to Hank Barris, the senior SOC officer. He rose, put away his tweezers, came over.

"What a damn mess," she said.

"The paramedics worked on the victim for a while."

"The murder weapon?"

"A knife. It went with the victim to the hospital. You know, you can't pull it out-"

"I'm aware of that," snapped Hayward. "Did you see the original scene?"

"No. The EMTs had already messed it up by the time I arrived."

"ID on the victim?"

"Not that I know of, at least not yet. I could call the hospital."

"Any witnesses to the original scene?"

Barris nodded. "One. A technician named Enderby. Larry Enderby."

Hayward turned. "Bring him in."

"In here?"

"That's what I said."

A silence ensued while Hayward looked around, body completely still, her dark eyes the only thing moving. She scrutinized the blood splatters, making rough estimates of trajectories, speed, and origin.

Slowly, a general picture of the crime began to come together in her mind.

"Captain? Mr. Enderby is ready."

Hayward turned to see a surprisingly young, pimply man with black hair and a ninety-eight-pound-weakling physique. A T-shirt, a Mets cap worn backward, and a pair of ratty jeans completed the picture.

At first, she thought his high-tops were dyed red, until she saw them closer.

A policeman ushered him forward.

"You were the first to find the victim?"

"Yes, ma'am… I mean… Officer." He was already flustered.

"You may call me Captain," she said gently. "What's your position at the museum, Mr. Enderby?"

"I'm a systems technician, grade one."

"What were you doing in the hall at three a.m.?"

The voice was high and quavery, ready to break. Always the timidest who find the deadest, Hayward remembered her former professor of forensic psychology at NYU joking. Hayward swallowed, tried to make her voice sympathetic. It wouldn't do to have Enderby crack up.

"Checking the install of the new security system."

"I see. Was security up and running in the hall?"

"Mostly. We're running some updated software routines, and there was a glitch. My boss-"

"His name?"

"Walt Smith."

"Proceed."

"My boss sent me down to see if the power had been cut."

"Was it?"

"Yeah. It was. Someone had cut a power cable."

Hayward glanced at Barris.

"We know about it, Captain. It appears the perp cut the cable to kill the emergency lights, the better to ambush the victim."

"So what is this new security system?" she asked, turning back to Enderby.

"Well, it's multilayered and redundant. There are motion sensors, live video feeds, crisscrossing infrared laser beams, vibration sensors, and air pressure sensors."

"Sounds impressive."

"It is. For the past six months, the museum's been upgrading the security in each hall, one after another, to the latest version of the system."

"What does that involve?"

Enderby took a deep breath. "Interfacing with the security contractors, reconfiguring the monitoring software, running a test bed, that sort of thing. All on a rigid schedule calibrated to an atomic satellite clock. And it has to happen at night, when the museum's closed,"

"I see. So you came down here to check the power failure and found the body."

"That's right."

"If you can manage it, Mr. Enderby, could you look at the scene here and describe for me exactly how the victim was lying?"

"Well… the body… the body was lying just as it's outlined, one arm thrown out like you see. There was an ivory-handled knife sticking out of the small of the back, buried to the hilt."

"Did you touch or try to remove the knife?"

"No."

Hayward nodded. "The victim's right hand, was it open or closed?"

"Ah, it seems to me it was open." Enderby swallowed painfully.

"Bear with me, Mr. Enderby. The victim was moved before the photographer arrived, so all we have is your memory."

He wiped his brow with the back of his hand.

"The left foot: turned in or out?"

"Out."

"And the right?"

"In."

"Are you sure?"

"I don't think I'll ever forget. The body was kind of twisted a little."

"How so?"

"Kind of lying facedown, but with the legs almost crossed."

The act of talking seemed to be helping Enderby get a grip on himself. He was turning out to be a good witness.

"And the blood on your shoes? How'd that happen?"

Enderby stared at his shoes, eyes widening. "Oh. I… I rushed over and tried to help."

Hayward's respect for the young man went up a notch. "Describe your movements."

"Let's see… I was standing there when I saw the body. I stopped, ran over. I knelt, felt for a pulse, and I guess that's when I… stepped in the blood. I got blood on my hands, too, but I washed that off."

Hayward nodded, adding those facts to her mental reconstruction.

"Any pulse?"

"I don't think so. I was hyperventilating, it was hard to tell. I don't really know how to read a pulse too well. First I rang security-"

"On a house phone?"

"Yes, around the corner. Then I tried mouth-to-mouth, but within a minute, a guard arrived."

"The guard's name?"

"Roscoe Wall."

Hayward nodded to one of the detectives to note this.

"Then the paramedics came. They basically pushed me away."

Hayward nodded. "Mr. Enderby, if you could just step aside with Detective Hardcastle for a few minutes, I might have more questions."

She returned to the first room of the exhibition, looked around, then walked slowly back. A thin scattering of sawdust on the floor, despite having been stirred up, retained traces of the struggle. She bent to examine the small sprays of blood. A mental splatter analysis helped finalize her general understanding of what had happened. The victim had been ambushed in the first exhibit room of the hall. Perhaps he'd even been followed from the opposite end of the exhibition-there was a rear door, she'd been told, although it had been found secured and locked. It looked like they had circled each other for a moment. Then the killer grabbed the victim, twisted him sideways; struck him with the knife while moving fast in a lateral motion…

She closed her eyes a moment, visualizing the choreography of murder.

Then she reopened them, zeroing in at a tiny spot, off to one side, that she'd noticed in passing on her initial circuit of the room. She walked over and stood looking down at it: a drop of blood about the size of a dime, a quiet little drop that appeared to have fallen vertically, from a stationary subject, from a height of about five feet.

She pointed at it. "Hank, I want this entire drop taken out, floorboard and all. Photograph it in situ first. I want DNA on it, yesterday. Run it against all the databases."

"Sure thing, Captain."

She looked around, her eyes traveling on a tangent from the chalk outline, through the lone drop of blood, to the far wall. There she saw a large dent in the new wooden floor molding. Her eyes sharply narrowed. "And Hank?"

He looked up.

"I think you might find the victim's own weapon behind that exhibit case."

The man rose, walked over, peered behind.

"I'll be damned."

"What is it?" Hayward asked.

"A box cutter."

"Blood?"

"Not that I can see."

"Bag it and run every test in the book. And run it against that spot you just took out. You'll find a match, I'll bet my last dollar."

As she stood there, somehow unwilling to take her eyes off the scene, another thought occurred to her. "Bring Enderby back."

A moment later, Detective Hardcastle returned, Enderby in tow.

"You said you gave the victim mouth-to-mouth?"

"Yes, Captain."

"You recognized him, I assume."

"Her, not him. Yes, I did."

"Who was it?"

"Margo Green."

Hayward stiffened, as if coming to attention. "Margo Green?"

"Yes. I understand she used to be a graduate student here. Anyway, she'd returned to be editor of…"

His voice faded into the background. Hayward was no longer listening. She was thinking back half a dozen years to the subway murders and the famous Central Park riot, when she was a lowly T.A. cop, and to the Margo Green she had met back then-the young, feisty, and deeply courageous woman who'd risked her life and helped crack open the case.

What a shitty world it was.