Black Swan by Chris Knopf Page A

secure Eddie and stay in the cockpit, then jumped to the dock and followed Anika as she ran ahead, her open denim shirt flapping behind her. Lights started coming on along the eaves of the hotel. Shouts and calmer words joined the screams, now more a low, wet groan. I followed the sounds around the left side of the hotel. Flashlights crisscrossed through the darkness and lit up a rough cedar booth built against the wall that I assumed was an outdoor shower. Anika grabbed my sleeve and pulled me toward the scene.
    Â Â Â Â Bernard 't Hooft suddenly loomed in front of me and blocked my way.
    Â Â Â Â "We don't need the help," he said.
    Â Â Â Â I shoved past him, not an easy task, and looked in the shower stall. The floodlight from above down-lit the massive corpulence of Myron Sanderfreud, his neck cocked at an impossible angle, a white nylon line tucked below his jaw and leading up and over the wall of the stall.

chapter 
    7

    C hristian Fey held a flashlight up to Myron's face with one hand and tentatively sought a way to undo the line with the other. I reached over his shoulder and took his hand, pulling it back.
    Â Â Â Â "Don't," I said. "Wait for the police."
    Â Â Â Â He spun around angrily.
    Â Â Â Â "We can't leave him like this," he yelled.
    Â Â Â Â "Yes we can," I said. "Don't touch anything."
    Â Â Â Â He resisted me when I tried to pull him out of the stall. When Grace started to shove her way in, he relented and gently forced her back out to the brick path. She was soaking wet. He gripped a wad of her shirt and moved her tiny frame away from the stall. In the process I snuck away his flashlight.
    Â Â Â Â "Nobody touch anything," I shouted behind me. "And stay off the soft ground."
    "By whose orders?" asked 't Hooft from the darkness.
    Â Â Â Â "You explain to the cops why you contaminated the crime scene," I said in the general direction of his voice.
    Â Â Â Â "Crime scene?" wailed Grace.

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    74 BLACK SWAN

    Â Â Â Â "We don't know that," said Derrick Hammon, who was hidden by the glare of the flashlight in his hand.
    Â Â Â Â "That's why you should all back away and wait for the police to get here. Somebody called, I hope."
    Â Â Â Â "I did," said Axel, sticking his flashlight directly in my face. "She said not to touch anything."
    Â Â Â Â Somehow Anika had worked her way into the booth and stood next to me, clutching my biceps with both hands.
    Â Â Â Â "Who found him?" I asked.
    Â Â Â Â "Grace," said Anika. "I turned on the water for him. We'd shut it off to avoid freezing, but he was so into the idea. He was gone an hour before Grace came looking. That scream is like in my head forever."
    Â Â Â Â I ran the flashlight around the stall. The concrete floor pan was littered with soap fragments and tiny bottles of shampoo brought out from the hotel. Myron was barely in a standing position, his knees bent akimbo and his feet rolled up on their sides. Without a tape measure it was hard to be sure, but the distance from where the line was attached to his neck and the top of the wall seemed enough to hang him, and then settle him part way back into the stall. I tried not to look at the naked folds of his body drooping down from his chest and over his midriff, the thick wet mats of hair on his chest and forearms and blackened blotches on his cheeks where the blood had been squeezed, then left behind when his heart stopped.
    Â Â Â Â "He has such a little thing for such a big man," said Anika, almost matter-of-factly, which made the comment that much more jarring.
    Â Â Â Â "What the hell is going on?" came a vaguely familiar voice from out of the dark. I leaned out of the stall and shot my flashlight in that direction, lighting up Anderson Track.
    Â Â Â Â "Stay where you are," I said to him. He stopped and tried to squint through the brilliant light. "We have a