Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4)

that Mort had acquired a little potbelly, and while the cap covered his head, she knew from Carlos that he was bald as a Spaldeen underneath.
    “Leslie.” Mort gave her a peck on the cheek, and she smelled mouthwash and Misha. He was wearing a tight tuxedo with a red silk ascot. He didn’t stop.
    “Good-bye, Mort.” Wetzon watched them disappear in the direction of Broadway. Turning, she saw that the two-sheet in front of the State Theatre billed Mort Hornberg as director of the production.
    She sighed, shivering. When she ran into people from her old life, she always felt as if someone were walking over her grave. It was creepy.
    The crowd was thinning out considerably. In front of the Metropolitan she looked up at the Chagalls and the glimmering crystal chandelier, then back around at the people. Tabby was not here. A grinding pang of hunger brought her up short. She should get into a cab and go home. Maybe pick up something to eat if it wasn’t too late. She was still groggy from her doze in the closet; maybe she’d dreamed the whole phone call. Or could this be some sort of setup?
    The main plaza stopped in front of the Metropolitan Opera House, then spread right to the Beaumont and Newhouse Theatres and left to Damrosch Park. She went right. They were turning out the lights at the Beaumont. A neon sign blinked a revival of John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, which she had seen two years earlier. As she stood watching, it went dark.
    The moon cast a cool shadow on the reflecting pool, with its Henry Moore sculpture, in front of the Beaumont. Trees dipped almost imperceptibly in the light breeze. The night was hushed, and the hush was palpable. At the far side of the reflecting pool was the staircase down to Sixty-fifth Street. Voices floated up from the street below. It was one of Manhattan’s beautiful, pristine fall nights.
    The Henry Moore sculpture, lit by a spotlight on a tall stem in the plaza, seemed to float on the surface of the reflecting pool. A huge flying fish and a smaller piece that looked like a giant molar. In the bottom of the shallow pool, coins that people threw in shimmered, melting and distorting, along with candy and gum wrappings, plastic containers, programs, pieces of newspaper. People were such pigs.
    Oh, well. Once around the pool and then home, James, she thought. A clean-cut young man, a white silk scarf debonair around his neck, was sitting on a marble bench passing money to a black teenager, while a nervous young woman in leggings and sagging socks stood on the fringes. What made her think they were dancers?
    Wetzon walked a little faster and took the turn near the entrance to the Beaumont. Don’t look back , she told herself tersely. She looked, instead, out at the pool. A piece of the sculpture seemed to be moving. She squinted at it. God, it had broken off and was floating toward her.
    This is what happens when you skip meals and wander around thinking you’re a goddam detective . She stepped up to the edge of the pool. No, she wasn’t seeing things. It was definitely floating toward her. She wasn’t crazy.
    She bent over to get a better look, and that’s when she started screaming.

30.
    T HE RECTANGULAR PLATE windows of the Vivian Beaumont looked dull-eyed at a scene more dramatic than anything that had inhabited her stage. Wetzon’s shrill scream scattered the entrepreneur and his clients into the shadows with or without the buy. No quick rush tonight, kids.
    Almost as if he were beamed down from the Starship Enterprise , a Hispanic security guard with a bandito mustache materialized and pulled the sodden heap from the bloody pool. He sputtered into a walkie-talkie, asking for an EMS wagon and the cops. Then he tried CPR while Wetzon held the enormous flashlight. People—where had they come from?—stood by, mesmerized by the tragedy. A very young white woman had drowned in a pool no more than a foot deep and in full view of everyone leaving the theaters. How could it have happened?
    Sirens stained the night. Blue-and-white squad cars began rolling up, tires crunching on the low, flat steps and across the plaza; lights beamed onto the reflecting pool. A few minutes later, a white EMS van arrived. The security guard, his uniform stained with blood and water, scrambled to his feet, relinquishing his place to one of the medics.
    The medics rolled the girl over on her back. Bluish skin, glazed eyes wide open, surprised. Tabitha Ann Boyd in black leggings and