Flesh and Blood by Thomas H. Cook

do that?”
    â€œNot without an escort,” Frank told him.
    â€œI can’t leave the lobby.”
    â€œI mean a cop,” Frank said. “I’m waiting for one.”
    â€œFine with me,” the man said. “You want to wait inside?”
    â€œThanks.”
    The lobby of Hannah Karlsberg’s building looked like a great many others on the border of Central Park. Most of the furniture looked as if it had been selected with only one idea in mind: to convince the privileged residents that they had achieved a certain place in life, one from which, in all likelihood, they could never be dislodged. There were large, gilded mirrors and richly detailed oriental carpets. The walls were paneled in dark mahogany, and the floors were made of a polished green marble. The air itself smelled as if it had been recently cleaned, and Frank wondered how often Hannah had breathed it quietly, calmly, with no hint of what lay ahead.
    Tannenbaum arrived a few minutes later. He flashed his badge to the doorman, then joined Frank in the lobby.
    â€œYou’re punctual, Frank,” he said. “That’ll get you a long way with Midtown North.” He walked hurriedly to the elevator. “She lived on the fourteenth floor. Apartment A.”
    A strip of yellow paper with black lettering hung across the door: DO NOT ENTER CRIME SCENE. Tannenbaum inserted the key, opened the door, then leaned under the paper and walked into the apartment.
    Frank followed along behind him.
    â€œWell, this is it,” Tannenbaum said, as Frank joined him in the foyer. “It’s a mess, of course. It always is with this kind of thing.”
    A few yards beyond the small foyer, Frank could see the thin slants of grayish light that came through the nearly closed louver blades. A line of reddish stains ran in a rough diagonal across the dark brown blades, and as Frank’s eyes drifted downward he saw a large pool of dried blood which spread out across the carpet only a few feet from the window. The figure of a body had been drawn around the stain in white chalk, and from its position relative to the stain, it was obvious that Hannah Karlsberg had died of wounds to her throat and chest.
    Tannenbaum strode into the living room, stopping just to the right of the chalk outline. “Did you notice the door?” he asked, as he turned back to Frank.
    â€œYou mean the jimmy marks?” Frank asked.
    â€œThat’s right,” Tannenbaum said. “Very crude. I mean, not exactly what you’d call a cat burglar.”
    â€œWere both locks jimmied?”
    â€œNo, just the bottom one,” Tannenbaum said. “We figure the top one wasn’t bolted.” He shrugged. “Who knows why?”
    â€œIs there any other entrance?”
    Tannenbaum shook his head. “Just the fire escape outside her bedroom window, but it looks clean. Her window was locked. No marks outside it. Looks like he just got lucky with that bottom lock.”
    Frank walked slowly into the living room. Earlier, in his office, he had imagined an overturned chair and a shattered lamp. Instead, he saw an overturned magazine rack and a heavy glass coffee table whose top had been knocked off its deep green marble stand.
    â€œLooks like she fell into it,” Tannenbaum said as he stepped gingerly over the edge of the table. “There were blood stains and small pieces of flesh on one corner.” He glanced about the room, his eyes taking in the pattern of blood drops that dotted it. “She moved around a little,” he said. “You can tell that from the walls.”
    All four of them had been splattered with blood, along with the ceiling. The knife, in its flight, had sent arcs of blood high over the killer’s head, and some of it had reached the high speckled ceiling which now looked down upon the even bloodier scene below.
    Frank walked to the far right of the room and nodded toward the corridor that led back into