12
That afternoon, Laurie was enjoying life in New York City again as she entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She remembered the first time her parents brought her here. They waited until she was in the first grade because they wanted to make sure that she would be able to appreciate it as a special place.
Her mother had held her hand and assured her that nothing bad would happen as she approached a mummy in its sarcophagus. She marveled at the suits of armor and mannequin horses in the Arms and Armor wing. She and her father had replicated the day with Timmy when he was the same age, pausing at the pool in the Temple of Dendur to toss in a coin and tell Laurie’s mom they wished she were there. As far as Laurie was concerned, this building was one of the most beautiful places in the world.
She was asking a security guard at the reception desk for Sean Duncan, the head of security, when a dark-haired man in a pin-striped suit approached. “That would be me. You must be Ms. Moran, right on time.”
“Call me Laurie.” He greeted her with a friendly handshake, but was otherwise formal in his mannerisms. She noticed that the uniformed security guard stood straighter in his boss’s presence. She guessed Duncan might be ex-military.
He led the way through the main hall toward the medieval sculpture garden. “My wife is a huge fan of your show. She’s loves everything crime-related. Am I allowed to tell her we met, or is this a top-secret visit?”
“Sure, but we haven’t made a decision yet. I’m just doing research at this point.”
“Got it.” When they arrived at an elevator, she noticed another security guard adjust his posture. “I figured we’d start with the scene of the crime.”
• • •
Laurie had only been to the Met roof when it was open for exhibits during the summer. Today, it was closed to the public. The roof was completely empty, providing a pin-quiet view over a snow-blanketed Central Park and the surrounding skyline.
“Wow, how do you not just live up here?”
“There’s a reason my office is just over there,” he said, gesturing through an adjacent window.
He walked to the west edge of the roof and pointed to a spot in the snow below. “She was found right there. We had snow on the ground then, too.”
Beyond a waist-high railing, the roof’s concrete ledge was thick, lined with low hedges. There was no way a fall could be accidental. A person would either have to jump or be thrown with a great deal of force.
“You were head of security at the time?”
“Second in charge. Got bumped up last year.”
“Congratulations. Did you know Mrs. Wakeling personally?”
“Only to say, ‘Hello, Mrs. Wakeling,’ when she was here. She seemed like a nice lady. The director adored her.”
“There was no camera footage of her fall?”
He shook his head. “We conduct our annual camera maintenance on the night of the gala. We turn them off for testing and replacement while the galleries, roof, and other non-party spaces are closed to the public for the party.”
“How was Mrs. Wakeling up here if the roof was closed?”
“She was a museum trustee. They’re allowed to go wherever they like, whenever they choose.”
She sensed that Duncan didn’t approve of the system. “Do you know what time she came up here?”
“Our VIPs each have an assigned security guard as their liaison for the party. Mrs. Wakeling’s was named Marco Nelson. He said he showed her to the elevator shortly after nine-thirty, not long after the dinner ended, and before the music started.” That timeline matched Ivan’s. “According to Marco, Mrs. Wakeling said she needed fresh air, but didn’t want to go to the front steps. It’s an absolute madhouse during the gala, full of paparazzi and celebrity watchers. She asked to come up here, making a point to say she wanted to be alone.”
“Did she say why?”
“No, but Marco said her lips were pursed and she kept looking back toward the party, as if something there was upsetting her. Marco had the distinct impression that she’d been in an argument or had some other reason to be unhappy.”
“Did he come upstairs with her?”
He shook his head again. “According to Marco, the last time he saw Mrs. Wakeling was when she was stepping onto the elevator alone. About ten minutes later, a jogger in the park found her body. Can you believe we had guests complain that we didn’t go on with the concert that night?”
Unfortunately, she could. In Laurie’s work as a journalist, she had seen the best and worst of humanity.
“Is Marco working today? It would be helpful to talk to him.”
“Marco left a couple of years ago to work in private security. He’s probably earning three times what I make as the boss here, but then again, he doesn’t get to spend most of his waking hours in the Met.”
“It’s one of my favorite places on earth,” Laurie said.
“My wife said the best present I ever gave her was on our third date; I walked her around the museum after closing. She said she felt like Claudia Kincaid in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.”
The book, about two siblings who run away from home and live secretly at the museum, was one of Laurie’s favorites as a child. She could tell how much this man loved the museum.
“You said Marco thought Mrs. Wakeling might have had an argument. Did anyone actually witness her in a dispute that night?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Did anything else unusual happen that night?”
“We try hard to avoid any surprises, but there is one thing. Shortly before Mrs. Wakeling’s body was found in the park, an alarm in the galleries was tripped. It was in the display area of the costume exhibit, after we had closed it to the partygoers. The guards who responded saw no signs of a problem. But after Mrs. Wakeling’s body was found, police speculated that the killer may have set off the alarm to distract us. While we were chasing down a false alarm, someone could have slipped into a staircase and followed Mrs. Wakeling to the roof.”
“How did the guests react when they heard the alarm?” Laurie asked.
“The guests didn’t know,” Sean explained. “It was a silent alarm triggered by a motion sensor. The only ones who would have been aware of it were the on-site security personnel.”
“Were you able to determine the whereabouts of Mrs. Wakeling’s various friends and family at the time she went up to the roof?”
“By friends, I suspect you mean Ivan Gray, specifically.”
Laurie smiled. “I meant anyone who might be relevant. We keep an open mind at Under Suspicion.”
“I’m not sure I’d say the same of others. Her family was pointing the finger at Mrs. Wakeling’s date before the police even arrived. It was quite a scene. But if you’re asking whether any one person had an ironclad alibi, I’m not the person to ask. Our priority was keeping the guests calm and managing ingress and egress. The police handled the actual investigation. The lead detective’s name was Johnny Hon, if that helps.”
“It does, thanks. I’ll give him a call. We’ll also be talking to her children, son-in-law, and assistant, since they were all there that night.”
“Don’t forget the nephew.”
“What nephew?”
“Oh, what was his name? John? No, Tom, that was it. Tom Wakeling. And he made sure to use his last name to finagle two tickets to the ball. It happens all the time. People show up saying they’re a Kennedy or a Vanderbilt. Turns out they’re third cousins. Anyway, I got the impression this kid was a bit of a black sheep. Mrs. Wakeling approved him for the list, but made a point of saying that her table was full because the director and his wife were seated with her. It was obvious she wanted some distance from the nephew.”
“Was he a suspect?”
“I doubt it, but, like I said, I wouldn’t know. I only mentioned him because you were listing family members.”
This was the first Laurie had heard of Virginia’s nephew. She assumed that Ivan was either unaware of the nephew’s attendance or did not consider him a suspect.
As always seemed to be the case, the number of people she needed to interview was expanding instead of dwindling. She jotted down two more names in her notebook: Detective Johnny Hon and Tom Wakeling.