Then I turned the last corner, where the darkness of the funereal rooms gave way to the glorious open space that housed the Temple of Dendur. The northernmost end of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was a sloping, glass-paned wall soaring above the sandstone monuments, opening the vista into Central Park. It was almost nine o’clock, and the streetlamps beyond the windows lightened the night sky, giving definition to the leafy green trees bordering the great institution.

I stood at the edge of the moat that surrounded the two raised buildings in this stunning wing, searching the crowd for my friends. Waiters in sleek black suits zigzagged back and forth among the guests, stopping to dispense smoked salmon on black bread and caviar blinis. They were trailed by others who carried silver trays filled with glasses of white wine, champagne, and sparkling water, dodging the elbows and arms of the assembled museum members and supporters.

Nina Baum saw me before I spotted her. “You came just late enough to miss most of the speeches. Smart move.”

She signaled to one of the servers, and handed me a flute of champagne. “Hungry?”

I shook my head.

“The morgue?”

“Not a very pleasant afternoon.”

“Was she-?”

“I’ll tell you about it later. Chapman thought he had a lead on a case he’s been handling that’s reached a dead end, so I wanted to get a clear understanding about the pattern of injuries and how they’d been inflicted. That way, if he picked up a suspect and I got a chance to question the guy tonight, I’d be ready for him. Turned out to be a bad tip, so there’s no interrogation, no arrest. It’s on the back burner for a while.”