Chapter 3

Officer Danuta Pryor came in through the front doors at 8:56 with rain still beaded on her shoulders, and the room rearranged itself around her.

Cross met her halfway across the marble. He was gracious about it. He explained that he had arrived that morning for a final walkthrough before the preview and had found the work interfered with. He said the word the way you'd say it about a sick relative. He explained that he had asked the daytime maintenance man who had been on the scaffolding overnight, and that the answer had been the night watchman, and that the night watchman had been found this evening with a brush in his hand.

"Damage assessment?" Pryor asked.

"Ongoing. Two point four million in contracted work, minimum."

Pryor wrote it down. Then she walked to the alcove and asked Emmett his name, his shift, and what he had been doing on the scaffolding.

"Doyle. Emmett. Four to midnight. Working."

"Working on what?"

He didn't answer.

Pryor went out to the lobby and looked up. The ceiling was forty feet above the marble, forty-two panels in a grid, gold and amber under the warm lights. She asked a board member how to get up there. They brought the rolling stairs.

She climbed to the southeast corner, where the scaffolding stood, and touched the panel at eye level with a gloved finger.

The paint came off on the glove.

She looked at it for a second, then turned and looked down at the room - at Cross in his tuxedo, at the donors, at the small figure in the navy jacket sitting in the coat-check alcove with his hands on his knees.

Pryor came down and found Dez Pruitt, the daytime maintenance man, standing by the service door with his hood still up, looking like a man who had been waiting three weeks for somebody to ask him a question.

"Who has keys to the basement?" she said.

"Me. Mr. Reedy. The night watchman." Dez swallowed. "And there's forty-two crates down there."

Pryor's pen stopped.

"Forty-two," she said.

"Same as the ceiling," Dez said. "I asked Mr. Cross's office about them twice. Nobody ever called me back."

Across the lobby, Iris Falk had turned away from the crowd. She was walking toward the north stair, and she was walking fast.