Death Dance by Linda Fairstein Page B

Saturday
Times
crossword— the toughest puzzle of the week—but I
drew a hot bath and counted on its soporific qualities to help me stop
reviewing the last hours of Talya Galinova's life. I was too tired to
fight sleep and too resigned to the current state of my social life to
mind that there hadn't been a crease on the other half of my sheet for
several months.
    The dancer's death was headlined below the fold on the front
page of the
Times
when I reached for it on my
doorstep at eight thirty Sunday morning. A triumphant photograph of her
as Odile, in arabesque, ran behind the news of the rising unemployment
rate and the latest political skirmish in North Korea.
    The
Post
never disappointed when it came
to bad taste. The front-page banner, murder at the met—again,
was featured in bold caps over the shot of the body bag being loaded
into the ambulance in the docking bay of the opera house. The subtitle
beneath Talya's name identified her latest role: corpse de ballet.
    A gentle April rain drizzled down the windowpanes and gave me
license to spend a lazy day at home. I caught up on paying bills,
answered dozens of accumulated e-mails, napped in the late afternoon,
phoned family and friends, and put on my hooded rain slicker to cross
the street for a late-afternoon pedicure and manicure. Dinner was a
salad and turkey sandwich delivered from PJ Bernstein, and I hibernated
in my den for the evening with a slightly foxed copy of a collection of
Raymond Chandler stories that I had picked up for a dollar at the
Chilmark flea market.
    I had expected Mike's call after the autopsy, but with the
morgue understaffed on weekends and a recent upsurge of violent deaths,
there was no predicting when he would report in to me.
    I had just turned on the ten o'clock nightly news when the
phone rang.
    "Not much to help us with," Mike said. "The fall killed her,
pretty much like we expected."
    "Kestenbaum is certain Talya was alive when she was thrown
over?"
    "A lot of bleeding in the brain when he opened the skull, so
her heart was still pumping when she hit. Terminal velocity, going
head-first down the shaft with hands tied behind her back, slamming
into the fan casing at about a hundred twenty miles an hour. Fractured
skull, ribs, pelvis and massive internal injuries. And the doc was
right when he said you might not be along for this ride, kid. No sign
of sexual assault. No semen in the vaginal vault, so that won't even
solve who she was cozy with yesterday."
    "Has Talya's husband flown over to claim the body?"
    "Nope. He told the morgue attendant that he and Talya had
separated several months ago, that her lawyers had notified him she'd
be filing for divorce. They talked frequently but that was all
basi-ness. He wasn't having anything to do with this."
    "Well, how about her agent? What's his name again?"
    "Rinaldo Vicci. He came down to do the I.D., but we're still
waiting for someone to confirm the arrangements. Vicci has no authority
to make any decisions either. Galinova's husband claims she fired him
more than a week ago."
    "Why? Did he say why?"
    "Vicci denies it. Says she often threatened to do that
whenever she had tantrums, but the husband says this time it was meant
to stick. The husband's been in constant contact with Talya's lawyers
because of the legal separation status and that's what they told him as
recently as a week ago. It's one more thing to sort out."
    "You just can't let her lay there on ice indefinitely, Mike."
    I clamped my jaw shut as soon as I said the words.
    "Why?" he asked. "She deserves any better than Val?"
    The accidental death of Mike's girlfriend in a glacial
crevasse was still foremost on his mind. There was an edge to him now,
a bitterness that had never hung between us before. I struggled to
bring back the intimacy of our friendship but was beginning to realize
it was going to be a very long road to regain it.
    "How about the evidence you submitted to the lab? The physical
items, and the blood and