Decaffeinated Corpse

The dead man wore a black dinner jacket, similar to the one Matt was wearing. I stopped breathing. He had hair like Matt’s, too, thick and black.

Joy slowly pulled away from me. Tears stained her cheeks. Her face was ghostly white. She saw the corpse and began to tremble.

“Mom... who is it?” she whispered in a little girl’s voice.

The teen crouched over the victim. “Dude’s dead, man.”

His skateboarding friends rushed up to join him.

“Dang, Z! Did you see that?!”

“That’s messed up!”

I heard other voices.

“Call 911! Get an ambulance here!”

A gray-haired gentleman rushed toward us, Burberry raincoat billowing in the wind. He’d come from the direction of the United Nations building. I held Joy by her shoulders, fixed her with my eyes.

“Stay right here.”

I waited until she nodded in response, then I approached the body. It seemed to take forever to walk those few steps. I circled around, moving into the street. Traffic was at a standstill, so I didn’t have to watch for cars.

Finally I saw the dead man’s broken face. I recognized him. It wasn’t my ex-husband, thank god. The corpse was Carlos Hernandez of the Costa Gravas delegation to the United Nations—the man my ex-husband had threatened to throw out of the building a little over an hour ago, in front of one hundred and fifty witnesses.

Twenty

In New York City, a dead man on the sidewalk always attracts a crowd, and one was forming now. Corpses attract sirens, too. I heard them wail in the distance.

Tearing my gaze away from the body, I hurried back to my daughter. Joy was hugging herself, shivering. I put my arm around her.

“Who is it?” Joy asked, her voice trembling. “It’s not... Dad—”

“No, no, honey. It’s no one you know.”

More people arrived. Soon it would be New York’s Finest, and the questions would begin. I took Joy’s arm.

“Come on.”

She resisted. “Where are we going?”

“Back upstairs, to the Top of the Tower. We’re going to find your father.”

Joy surrendered and I took the lead. We reentered the lobby, dodging a bellboy and the desk clerk; both were scrambling to join the mob outside. One of the elevator’s doors opened. The car was filled with faces I recognized from the party. They appeared serenely decaffeinated, all of them calmly chatting among themselves.

It was clear they hadn’t yet noticed Carlos Hernandez’s swan dive, and I wondered if the mood would be the same upstairs. If it was, I knew it wouldn’t be for much longer.

When we arrived at the Top of the Tower, the restaurant was less crowded, but far from empty. Ric was chatting with a reporter from the London Times. Monika Van Doorn, who’d been glued to Ric’s side since she’d arrived, was now nowhere in sight. Had she left? I looked around for my ex, but I didn’t see him. The booth where he’d been making calls was empty except for a few scraps of paper.

I noticed the heavy burgundy curtains were still drawn, blocking the view of the outside balcony. I crossed to the side of the room and stepped through a doorway. Misty rain beaded the veiled window behind me, and the winds were more tempestuous this far above the street. It was also very dark because the clouds had grown even thicker. My eyes needed a moment to adjust to the gloom. When they did, I paced the length of the narrow balcony.

I saw no evidence of a struggle, no blood or broken glass, no sign that anything violent had happened at all. I gripped the stone railing and leaned over the edge. Fighting a wave of vertigo, I spied the body directly below.

Presuming Carlos Hernandez fell straight down—and I didn’t see any ledges for him to strike or flagpoles to bounce off of—then he went over the side right where I was standing. That made me feel queasy, but I continued surveying the scene.

Three police cars and an ambulance had arrived by now. Men in blue cleared the sidewalk, redirected traffic, and cordoned off the area with yellow tape. While I watched, an unmarked police car with a magnetic bubble light on its roof double-parked next to a squad car. Two plain-clothed detectives stepped out. I knew it wouldn’t be long before they arrived at the Top of the Tower.

For a minute, I considered the possibility that Matt actually was responsible for what happened. If Carlos Hernandez had decided to confront Matt while they were alone out here, well... that would have been a mistake for Carlos. Tonight, Matt was as harried as I’d ever seen him. On top of that, I knew my ex could throw a punch because I’d seen him do it.

Did he kill Carlos Hernandez, perhaps accidentally, in a fit of fury, and then flee? It didn’t seem possible, yet I was sure there were many dead spouses who’d never imagined the person they shared their life with was capable of violence.

Just then, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Ahh!” I cried, jumping and turning.

“Mom, it’s me,” Joy said. “Calm down.”

“I’m calm. I’m calm. Just don’t sneak up on me like that again,” I said. “Did you find your father yet?”

Joy shook her head. “I didn’t see him. But what’s with Grandma tonight? She’s in a mood.”

“Forget your grandmother for now. We’ve got to find your father fast. The police will be here any minute. We’ve got to establish an alibi.”

“What?” Joy blinked. “Did you say alibi?”

“Before you arrived, your father threatened the man lying on the sidewalk down there.”

“Threatened how?”

“Your dad announced, quite loudly, that he wanted to throw the man out of the building.”

Joy glanced at the street below. “C’mon, Mom. You can’t think Dad had anything to do with that?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what the police think. Let’s go.”

Joy in tow, I reentered the building. No one in the room even glanced my way. They hadn’t noticed me go out, or come back in. It was easy to see how they might have missed Carlos Hernandez’s fatal swan dive. Whatever happened on that balcony had been masked by the heavy curtains.

But if the victim had screamed, wouldn’t someone have heard it? The noise in the room was relatively loud— laughter, boisterous conversations, and Gardner’s lively jazz piano. Still... I couldn’t see how a loud scream would not have been heard by someone.

Could Hernandez have jumped on his own? I wondered. Committed suicide for some reason? Or was he dead or unconscious before he went over the edge?

I massaged my temples to keep my headache at bay. It wasn’t working.

“You go that way, I’ll go this way,” I told Joy. “If you find Matt, bring him to me.”

I circled the room, scanning the faces in the crowd. I found Madame at a table with Dr. McTavish.

“Have you seen Matt?”

“Joy asked me the same question,” Madame replied. “What’s he done now?”

“Never mind.”

“Gonna make a bundle, Blanche,” Dr. McTavish muttered, draining a wine glass. That’s when I noticed the empty bottle on the table. He’d obviously snatched it off someone’s tray earlier in the evening when we were serving alcohol.

“That son of yours will be able to retire before he’s fifty. Move someplace where the weather’s always nice.