Adelaide turned and saw uniformed cops streaming out of City Hall and down the steps. It was like the cavalry coming to her rescue in an old Technicolor western. And she was overjoyed to see them. She whirled and ran toward her rescuers with her arms spread wide, dropping her crumpled jury summons. A big cop who looked like a young Gary Cooper was gazing deadpan at her. She veered toward him.
She fell sobbing into his arms.
“Arrest me!” she gasped. “Arrest me, please!”
They didn’t arrest Adelaide, didn’t charge her for inciting a riot, maybe because Barry and his-her-lawyers almost came right out and dared them to. Or maybe she was simply too cute to arrest.
But they did take her into protective custody, and she spent the night by herself in a tiny, smelly holding cell. The bed was hard as a plank, and it was impossible for her to sleep. The place was noisy, too. There were voices she couldn’t understand because of the way they echoed, and someone was snoring not far away. Now and then people came by to look in at her. Most of them were in uniform. They didn’t say anything, only looked.
But there was something in their expressions that Adelaide recognized, a kind of reserved awe. Only a few other times had people looked at her that way, the way they looked at real celebrities they knew were beyond their reach and envied. At stars.
In the morning, they drove her home under police escort. Some of the people on the sidewalk seemed to recognize Adelaide and waved. As the lead cruiser she was in slowed to take a corner, a woman began hopping up and down, mouthing her name. Ad-e-laide, Ad-e-laide. Three of the cops asked for her autograph, and she smilingly obliged and asked how the siren worked.
Her attorneys told her that next week, when she was due to appear in court in answer to her jury summons and wouldn’t be present, the police would issue a warrant for her arrest. She shouldn’t be alarmed. It was according to plan.
Scared as she was, she was also excited. She was sure, as she had been all along, that Barry was an absolute genius and one of the truly sweet men in her life.
Marge trusted Manfred Byrd enough to lend him a key to her apartment. That always seemed to Manfred to be the Rubicon, marking a client’s complete faith in him, the equating of decorator talent with honesty. A man less honest would take advantage of Marge.
She was having lunch with a friend, she’d told him, to discuss some sort of charitable contribution, and would meet him immediately afterward. Manfred thought it interesting that a woman could become suddenly very rich and give some of it away to those less fortunate. He didn’t completely understand the impulse, but he found it commendable.
Apparently her lunch had run later than anticipated. It was past two o’clock and he was alone in the unfurnished living room of her apartment. No matter. He could take the measurements he needed without her. He’d already decided that the sofa she chose would go well with the slightly burnt umber tint to the previously dead white walls. When he was finished, the room would be much warmer, and with a sense of order and stability, which was what Marge wanted.
Manfred took off his gray silk sport jacket, carefully folded it lining out, and laid it on the carpet. Then he removed his tape measure from his briefcase on the floor and prepared to go to work.
He was headed for the corner where the tall etagere was going to be, when a slight sound made him turn.
And there was a man with a gun.
Guns were not part of Manfred’s universe. All he could manage to say was, “Huh?”
There was something bulky on the gun’s barrel, and while Manfred knew next to nothing about firearms, he recognized it as a silencer. It was all he could stare at as the man moved toward him.
The gun didn’t waver as the man said, “Slip your jacket back on.”
Manfred quickly did as he was told, so hurriedly he might have heard a seam rip in the silk fabric. Dreadful sound.
“Now go out on the balcony,” said the very calm voice behind the gun. It might have been an invitation to step outside and admire the breathtaking view.
“No. You’re-”
“Outside!”
Manfred turned his back on the gunman, opened the French doors to the balcony, and reluctantly stepped outside. Though the day was calm, at this height there was a steady breeze. He couldn’t help but notice that fear was making his movements stiff. At the same time, there was an unreality about all of this.
He was shoved roughly from behind, stumbled forward, and caught himself on the waist-high iron railing just in time to keep from tumbling out into space. He gasped and began to turn around. He was dizzy, terrified.
The rudeness! This really shouldn’t be happening!
He was only halfway around when he was shoved again. This time he felt his right ankle grasped and lifted, and his perspiring hand slipped off the railing.
Along with the momentum of the shove, it was enough to tip the balance.
Manfred Byrd was airborne and for several seconds too astounded to be simultaneously frightened.
It’s all so fast!
Ten floors down he began to scream.
36
“Who the hell is she?” da Vinci asked.
Beam was standing. Nell and Looper were seated before da Vinci’s desk. Helen Iman, the profiler, was sprawled in a chair over by the computer. The usually organized office was more cluttered than Beam had ever seen it. Papers were scattered over da Vinci’s desk, a stack of file folders leaned precariously on top of the computer monitor. A crumpled yellow slip of some sort had missed the wastebasket. It was almost as if the job were getting away from da Vinci. The Adelaide effect, Beam thought.
He said, “She’s an actress who lives in the Village.”
Da Vinci raised his eyebrows in that way that made him look more than ever like young Tony Curtis. “Successful?”
“Not unsuccessful,” Beam said. “Sings, dances, acts…the whole package.”
“And cute enough to top a dessert,” Looper said.
The others stared at him and he nervously tapped his breast pocket where he used to carry his cigarettes.
“She certainly stirred up some shit,” da Vinci said.
“The kind she wanted,” Beam said, standing with his arms crossed. “She’s front page and leads the news all over town. And out of town. The rest of the country’s getting more and more interested in our predicament, thinking it might happen to them.”
“Do you think she’s the sort who could start a popular movement?” Nell asked.
All three men looked at her disbelievingly.
“She could start things moving that have never moved before,” Looper said.
Da Vinci looked over at Helen. “What do you think of our Adelaide?”
“Not exactly my department,” she said. Her voice was throaty and, in a quiet way, commanded attention. “But I’ll try. She’s self-involved, narrowly focused, clever, and not as dumb as she looks. Or at least she’s got somebody with brains directing her. Don’t let the cute act fool you. Could she start a movement? Think Joan of Arc.”
Da Vinci looked disgusted. This was a turn in the case he hadn’t counted on.
“This city’s gonna have an even tougher time getting anyone to serve on a jury,” Beam said, “unless we get ahead of the curve on this.”
“I’ve heard that advice somewhere before,” da Vinci said. “It seems to have more to do with surfing than homicide investigations.”
“It’s more or less worked.”
