Dance Of Death

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?'