Dance Of Death

She paused. The last thing was the jade mask, worth millions, carved from a single flawless block of deep green nephrite jade, with rubies and white quartz set in the eyes, and turquoise teeth.

"Lady," said the guard, interrupting her reverie, "I've got a break in fifteen."

"I'm aware of that," said Nora dryly.

She was about to reach for the mask when she heard the voice of Hugo Menzies at some distance, not loud but somehow riding above the din. "Wonderful work!" he was saying. "Marvelous!"

Nora looked up to see the bushy-haired figure picking his way down the hall, stepping fastidiously across a floor strewn with electrical cables, sawdust, pieces of Bubble Wrap, and other construction detritus. The omnipresent canvas fishing bag he used instead of a briefcase was slung over one shoulder. He was shaking hands, nodding in approval, encouraging as he went along, knowing everyone's name, from the carpenters to the curators. Everyone got a nod, a smile, a word of encouragement. How different from Ashton, chief curator of this exhibition, who felt it beneath him to talk to anybody lacking a doctoral degree.

After the meeting, Nora had been furious with Menzies for coming down on Margo Green's side. But it was impossible to stay angry with a man like Menzies: he so clearly believed in what he was doing, and she'd personally witnessed so many other ways, large and small, in which he'd supported the department. No, you couldn't stay mad at Hugo Menzies.

It was a different story, though, with Margo Green.

Menzies approached. "Hello, Frank," he said to the guard, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Nice to see you here."

"You, too, sir," the guard said, straightening up and wiping the scowl off his face.

"Ahh," said Menzies, turning to Nora. "That High Classic jade mask is one of my favorite objects in the entire museum. You know how they made it so thin? Polished it down by hand with blades of grass. But I expect you already knew that."

"As a matter of fact, I did."

Menzies laughed. "Of course. What am I thinking? Excellent work, Nora. This is going to be a highlight of the show. May I watch while you place the mask?"

"Of course."

She reached down and picked it up with her white-gloved hands, not without trepidation. Carefully, she placed it in the sand above the head of the body, where it had been found, adjusting it and making sure it was secure.

"A trifle to the left, Nora."

She moved it slightly.

"Perfect. I'm glad I was in time to see that." He smiled, winked, and moved on through the chaos, leaving in his wake people who were working all the harder, if such a thing were possible. Nora had to admire his people skills.

The case was complete, but she wanted to check it one more time. She ran through the list of items, matching them to the photograph. She had only one shot to get this right: once the case was sealed under bulletproof, shatterproof glass, it wouldn't be opened until the end of the show, four months later.

As she ran the final check, for some reason her mind wandered to Bill. He'd run off to Atlantic City covering some casino story and wouldn't be back for-she realized she wasn't sure when he'd be back. He'd been so vague. And it had all happened so suddenly. Was this what it was like to be married to a reporter? What had happened to the murder he was covering? And wasn't he on the city desk? She supposed that a casino story in New Jersey might qualify for the city desk, but still… He'd sounded so strange on the telephone, so breathless, so tense.

She sighed, shook her head. It was probably for the better, given that she'd hardly been able to see him with all the craziness surrounding the opening. Everything was, as usual, behind schedule, and Ash-ton was on the warpath. She could hear the chief curator's voice, pitched high in querulous complaint in some far corner of the hall.

The guard issued another ostentatious sigh behind her, breaking her reverie.

"Just a minute," she said over her shoulder. "As soon as we get this sealed." She glanced at her watch. Three-thirty already. And she'd been going since six. She was going to be working at least until midnight, and every minute she wasted now was a minute of sleep lost at the end of the day.

Nora turned to the foreman, who had been nearby, waiting for this moment. "Ready to seal the case."

Soon a group of exhibition assistants, under the foreman's direction, began fitting the monstrously heavy sheet of glass over the tomb, accompanied by grunts and curses.

"Nora?"

She turned. It was Margo Green. Bad timing, as usual.

"Hello, Margo," she said.

"Wow. Beautiful exhibit."

Nora saw out of the corner of her eye the scowling face of the guard, the gaggle of laborers sealing up the tomb.

"Thanks. We're really under the gun here, as you can see."

"I can." She hesitated. "I don't want to take up any more of your time than I have to."

Then don't, thought Nora, trying to maintain her fake smile. She had four other cases to mount and seal. She couldn't help but watch as the workers struggled to seat the glass. If they dropped it…

Margo stepped closer, lowered her voice. "I wanted to apologize for my snarky comment in the meeting."

Nora straightened. This was unexpected.

"It was uncalled-for. Your points were all well taken and totally within professional bounds. I was the one who acted unprofessionally. It's just…" Margo hesitated.

"Just what?"

"You're so damned… competent. And articulate. I was intimidated."

Nora didn't quite know how to answer this. She looked closely at Margo, who was reddening from the effort to apologize. "You're not exactly a pushover yourself," she finally said.

"I know. We're both kind of stubborn. But stubborn is good-especially if you're a woman."

Nora couldn't help but smile, this time for real. "Let's not call it stubbor

Margo smiled in turn. "That sounds better. Although a lot of people might call it plain old bitchiness."

"Hey," said Nora. "Bitchy is good, too."

Margo laughed. "Anyway, Nora, I just wanted to say I was sorry."

"I appreciate the apology. I really do. Thank you, Margo."

"See you around."

Nora paused, the case temporarily forgotten in her surprise, as she watched Margo's slender form make its way back through the barely controlled chaos of the exhibition.

TWENTY-THREE

Captain Laura Hayward sat in a plastic chair in the trace evidence lab on the twelfth floor of One Police Plaza, making a conscious effort not to glance at her watch. Archibald Quince, chief scientist of the fiber analysis unit, was holding forth: walking back and forth before a crowded evidence table, hands clasped behind the white lab coat one minute, then gesticulating the next. It was a rambling, repetitious tale, full of sound and fury, and yet it all came down to one easily grasped point: the man didn't have shit.

Quince paused in midstep, then turned toward her, his tall, bony frame all angles and elbows. "Allow me to summarize."

Thank God, Hayward thought. At least there was light at the end of the tu

"Only a handful of fibers were recovered that were foreign to the site. A few were stuck to the ropes used to bind the victim; another was found on the couch where the victim was placed, peri-mortem. We can thus reasonably assume a fiber exchange between the murderer and the murder scene. Correct?"