Dance Of Death

It said something about Margo, Nora thought-that she was a more interesting person than she first appeared. And she had a lot more money than Nora had expected. This was no cheap apartment, and in a co-op building, no less.

Margo's voice echoed out of the kitchen. "Sorry to abandon you, Nora. I'll just be another minute."

"Can't I help?"

"No way, you relax. Red or white?"

"I'll drink whatever you're drinking."

"White, then. We're having fish."

Nora had already been savoring the smell of salmon poaching in a delicate court bouillon wafting from the kitchen. A moment later, Margo came in carrying a platter with a beautiful piece of fish, garnished with dill and slices of lemon. She set it down, returned to the kitchen, and came back with a cool bottle of wine. She filled Nora's glass and then her own, then sat down.

"This is quite a di

"I just thought, with Bill away on assignment and the show coming up, maybe you needed a break."

"I do, but I didn't expect anything quite this nice."

"I like to cook, but I rarely have the opportunity-just like I never seem to have time to meet guys." She sat down with a wry smile, brushing her short brown hair from her face with a quick gesture. "So how's the show going?"

"This is the first night in a week that I've gotten out of there before midnight."

"Ouch."

"We're down to the wire. I don't see how they're going to make it, but everyone who's been through this before swears they always pull through in the end."

"I know how that goes. I have to get back to the museum tonight as it is."

"Really?"

Margo nodded. "To put the next issue of Museology to bed."

"My God, Margo. Then you shouldn't be wasting time making me supper."

"Are you kidding? I had to get out of that dusty old heap, even if only for a few hours. Believe me, this is a treat for me as well." She cut a piece of salmon and served Nora, then served herself, adding some spears of perfectly cooked asparagus and some wild rice.

Nora watched her arrange the food, wondering how she could have been so wrong about a person. It was true Margo had come on rather strong in their first few encounters, brittle and defensive, but outside of the museum she seemed a different person, with a largeness of spirit that surprised Nora. Margo was trying hard to make up for her nasty comment in the staff meeting, going beyond the generous apology she had already made to treat Nora to a home-cooked di

"By the way, I just wanted you to know that I'm going ahead with that editorial. It may be a lost cause, but it's just something I feel I have to do."

Nora felt a sense of admiration. Even with Menzies's support, it was a gutsy move. She herself had gone up against the museum administration, and it was no cakewalk-some of them could be extremely vindictive.

"That's awfully brave of you."

"Well, I don't know about bravery. It's sheer stupidity, really, I said I was going to do it, and now I feel like I have to, even though the trustees have already ruled against me."

"And your first issue, too."

"First and perhaps last."

"I meant what I said earlier. Even though I don't agree with you, I support your right to publish. You can count on me. I think everyone in the department would agree, except maybe Ashton."

Margo smiled. "I know. And I really appreciate that, Nora."

Nora sipped the wine. She glanced at the label: a Vermentino, and a very good one. Bill, an inveterate wine snob, had taught her a lot over the last year or two.

"It's tough being a woman in the museum," she said. "While things are a lot better than they used to be, you still don't see a lot of female deans or departmental heads. And if you look at the board of trustees, well, it's basically made up of socially ambitious lawyers and investment bankers, two-thirds of them male, with little real interest in science or public education."

"It's discouraging that a top museum like this can't do better."

"It's the way of the world." Nora took a bite of the salmon. It was good, just about the best she'd tasted.

"So tell me, Nora, how did you and Bill meet? I knew him at the museum back when I was still a student. He didn't seem like the marrying sort. I was fond of him, despite everything-though I'd never let him know that. He was quite a character."

"Fond of him? When I first saw him, I thought he was the biggest jerk I'd ever met." She smiled at the memory. "He was in a limo, signing books in the god-awful town of Page, Arizona."

Margo laughed. "I can just see it. Fu

Nora nodded slowly, a little surprised at this insight. "It took me a while to figure that out, though, to cut through his 'intrepid reporter' pose. We're very different, Bill and I, but I think that helps in a marriage. I couldn't stand being married to someone like me-I'm way too bossy."

"Me, too," said Margo. "What were you doing in Page, Arizona?"

"That's a story. I was leading an archaeological expedition into the canyon country of Utah, and Page was our rendezvous point."

"Sounds fascinating."

"It was. Too fascinating, as it turned out. Afterwards I took a job at the Lloyd Museum."

"No kidding! So you were there when it folded?"

"It more or less folded even before it opened. Palmer Lloyd supposedly went off the deep end. But by that point I'd burned my bridges, and the upshot was I was out of work again. So I landed a job here."

"Well, the Lloyd Museum's loss is our gain."

"You mean, the diamond hall," Nora said jokingly. When the plans to open the Lloyd Museum fell apart, the New York Museum of Natural History had swooped down and-with the help of a huge donation by a wealthy patron-purchased Palmer Lloyd's world-renowned diamond collection for their own gem halls.

Margo laughed. "Don't be silly. I'm talking about you."

Nora took another sip of wine. "How about you, Margo? What's your background?"

"I worked here as a graduate student in ethnopharmacology. That was during the time of the museum murders-the ones Bill wrote up in that first book of his. Did you read it?"

"Are you kidding? One of the prerequisites of dating Bill was reading all his books. He didn't actually insist on it, but the hints came thick and fast."

Margo laughed.

"From what I read," Nora said, "you've had some pretty amazing adventures."

"Yeah. Who says science is boring?"

"What brought you back to the museum?"

"After getting my doctorate, I went to work for the pharmaceutical conglomerate GeneDyne. I did it to please my mother, really: she'd desperately wanted me to go into the family business, which I absolutely refused to do. Working for GeneDyne, making lots of money in a corporate environment, was like throwing her a bone. Poor Mom. She liked to say she couldn't fathom why I wanted to spend my life studying people with bones through their noses. Anyway, the money was great, but the corporate world just wasn't to my liking. I guess I'm not a team player-or an ass-kisser. Then one day Hugo Menzies called. He knew of my earlier work at the museum, and he'd come across some of my GeneDyne research papers on traditional Khoisan medicine. He wondered if I'd ever consider coming back to the museum. The position at Museology had just opened up and he wanted me to apply. So I did, and here I am." She pointed to Nora's plate. "Seconds?"