A Body to die for

and the photographing of the crime scene. Every half hour or so, she’d have a few questions. “Besides the fire escape in front, is the elevator the only way to get into the suite?” she asked after the body was gone. A unanimous yes resounded from the married couple and Janey.
    After the suite had been dusted, she asked, “How many people have keys that bring the elevator to this floor?” The answer turned out to be four: Ameleth, Jack, a spare at reception, and Barney. When Ameleth supplied that information, it was obvious that Jack didn’t know Barney had a key. (I figured this out because he said, “Wait a minute—you gave Barney a key?” Ameleth ignored him.)
    Falcone wandered back toward the office area. She found Barney’s sweat clothes on the floor. Ameleth identified them. Falcone asked her if she knew he’d be in the club that evening, and Ameleth said, “I had no idea. Jack told me Barney was out of town. Unlike' other men I know,” Ameleth continued, “Barney was unpredictable. I never knew where he’d turn up, and I never wanted to know. Does that help?”
    “Not at all,” Falcone said diplomatically. Poor Jack was being beaten like the eggs from a roost of ripe chickens. Could love really be this blind, even the twisted psycho variety? I will say one thing: Ameleth’s treatment of Jack—and the way he swallowed it all—gave him the sex appeal of a Q-Tip. I figured Janey must dig diminutive men. She sat practically in his lap, protecting him from Ameleth’s blows with her impenetrable shield of saline.
    While the cops drained the Jacuzzi in search of skin and hair, Falcone asked, “Did Barney have any enemies?” A logical query. Only one enemy Ameleth could think of: Jack, her jealous husband.
    Falcone’s last question of the night was, “Who came up here between the hours of five and nine o’clock tonight?” The cops taped off - the Jacuzzi room door. So they’d estimated that the body had been dead for up to four hours before I made the call. I flashed to how he’d looked when Jack and I found him, bobbing in the bubbles of bloody water. The image of tiny fish pecking away at a bigger, dead fish came to mind. I had no idea why. I swallowed hard. I wondered if there were any calories in bile.
    Janey said she wasn’t sure who used the elevator— as far as she knew, the spare key hadn’t left its peg at the reception area all day. “I don’t regularly make a list of people who visit the club or anything,” she said. “Jack hadn’t been in all day. Ameleth left the club well before five.”
    Jack turned to Ameleth and said, “I thought you were going shopping in Manhattan for equipment.”
    “I lied, Jack,” Ameleth said from the couch. “I lied because I didn’t want you to know where I was. Okay? I didn’t want you following me around.”
    Falcone asked, “If you met Barney here this afternoon, Ms. Bergen, I’ll have to insist you let me know what happened.”
    “No,” Ameleth answered succinctly. “I have nothing more to say until my lawyer arrives.” The tiny powerhouse then excused herself to call her lawyer from her office. Then Jack did the same from the wall phone. Janey asked to use it next. I didn’t know any lawyers; I didn’t make any calls.
    Falcone, visibly annoyed by this string of stalls, announced that she was going to the hospital to see if the coroner had come up with anything. In the meantime, she expected us to make statements in the morning and she knew where we lived. “And I’m keeping this, Ms. Bergen,” she said as she held up a cylindrical key. The one from the reception desk, I assumed.
    We all piled into the elevator. The cops, everyone. Jack turned out the lights as we left. I felt an eerie sensation—a cross between hunger and depression that could only be cured with a date with my Swedish friend, Haagen Dazs. The doors opened.
    “Get out of the way,” Ameleth demanded as she motored past the crowd. She tooled outside, not looking back once.
    We followed her to the street. She made unhappy frails. A police sign blocked off the entrance of the club, and a couple of uniforms loitered outside. Falcone instructed them to let no one inside until they heard from her. Then she got into one of the police cruisers and drove down Pierrepont Street toward the station house.
    Jack insisted Janey go home by herself. I guess her sex appeal diminished when Ameleth wasn’t around. She left, and Jack walked with me down Henry Street.