Death Dance Read Online Free PDF Page B

Friday, in my part. You'll have lab results by
then. I'll hear you from scratch on this issue. If the case looks
stronger then, I'll give you the opportunity to make your application
all over again."
    Screwed twice. Not only would Sengor walk out the courthouse
door before I made it up to my office, but Moffett had kept the matter
in his own court part.
    "I'd like him to surrender his passport to you, judge. How
about that?"
    Ingels whispered to his client, who told him something in
response. "Of course, Dr. Sengor doesn't have it with him. The
detectives rousted him out of his home in the middle of the night, with
no warning."
    "So get it to me at the beginning of the week. You're not
planning any vacations, are you, son?"
    Selim Sengor smiled at the judge and shook his head. "Thank
you, sir. No, sir. I—I didn't—it's not
what—"
    Ingels put his hand on his client's arm and told him not to
speak.
    I gathered up my papers and medical research and walked the
length of the courtroom with Mercer beside me.
    "You didn't want me to collar him when I was in the apartment,
did you?"
    "I can't fault you for that," I said. "I never dreamed the
pills would be there in plain view. I figured you'd execute the
warrant, we'd test the findings, and the arrest would go down later
during the week. You couldn't do anything but lock him up once you saw
what you did in there. I'm fine with it."
    "And now you've got to argue this case before that
Neanderthal?"
    "Not if I can help it." The district attorney, Paul Battaglia,
occasionally pulled strings to move high-profile cases after too many
embarrassing episodes of trials in front of the handful of judges who
couldn't manage the more notorious crimes.
    Mercer's cell phone was vibrating in his jacket pocket and he
removed it to speak while we continued through the rotunda within the
100 Centre Street lobby.
    "No, we're done with that," I heard him say to his caller. "On
our way to her office. You want to ask her?"
    He handed me the phone, telling me that it was Mike.
    "What's up?"
    "Nothing good," Mike said. "I'm on my way to Lincoln Center.
The Metropolitan Opera House."
    "Natalya? Has anyone heard from Natalya yet?"
    "Nope."
    "No one's even seen her?" I asked.
    "They found some stuff. She'd been dancing a scene from
Giselle
—that's
the one with the Wilis, right?"
    "Yes." Mike knew I had studied ballet all my life.
    "Like a headpiece, and some tulle from the costume that mast
have caught on a nail and ripped off."
    "A garland of white flowers, with a veil?" There was a
standard costume for Giselle's graveyard scene.
    "That sounds right. Would dancers like her go out on the
street after a performance, Coop, in a full-length tutu and toe
slippers?"
    "Very unlikely. Even if she had a coat over her costume, she'd
put shoes on so she wouldn't rip the satin pointe slippers on cement
sidewalks or asphalt. Why, Mike? Where did they find the clothing?"
    "In a hallway, going up to the third floor, a few flights
above the stage and the dressing rooms. Along with a glove—a
man's white kid glove. A dressy one, if you know what I mean. I had a
pair like it once that I had to wear when I was an usher at a wedding
at St. Patrick's. And blood, there's a few droplets that look like
blood on the wall."
    "That could mean any number of—" I said.
    "Did I mention a contact? One contact lens. The agent
confirmed she wears them."
    I thought of what kind of blow to the socket could cause the
lens to be forced off the surface and expelled from the eye. "You're
ruling out everything but some kind of struggle, aren't you?"
    "They're checking all the corridors, top to
bottom—every room and cubbyhole. That place is just massive.
I can't sit on my ass anymore and wait for the twenty-four hours to
pass."
    I could picture Talya—a magnificent creature whose
fragile appearance masked the incredible strength and stamina possessed
by the great ballerinas. I had seen her at Lincoln Center just months
earlier, commanding