He pulled out the chair for the secretary, who sat down with no smile for me. (For all she knew, I was going to confess to murdering someone.) “Look, Lieutenant,” I offered, “I’ll be glad to make a statement saying she looked agitated and upset when I saw her. The fact is, she did.” Culpepper smiled gratefully.

I would read in the next day’s newspaper that the death of Marie Prasquier had been officially pronounced a suicide. The fact that Marie’s motives for ending her own life were discovered by the authorities so very quickly after her death—enabling them to rule out the possibility of murder—greatly pleased the police, the press, the public, and, as you can well imagine, her killer.

Chapter 9

9

The Other Tower

I walked out of the Administration Building and into a blindingly sunny midafternoon. My watch read 2:52. When I’d last seen Gail, she’d been calling out to me about playing another carillon concert in the tower at three.

I was very anxious to locate her. This had nothing to do with her engaging personality, her memorable looks, the dancing of her eyes. Nor was it because she’d already become the sound of bowling pins clattering above my head that had aroused me from my long-bearded sleep. No, of course not. It was because I really needed a laborious arranging job for very little money.

Since I was now outside the fair, I’d begun the long trudge back to the entrance gate when a motorized tram with striped awnings, emblazoned with the same braying elephants as those above the Exposition’s portals, pulled up to the curbside. “Elephant Train to the Northwest Passage, Chinese Village, and parking,” announced its driver.

Two minutes later I was entering the fair for the second time that day. I remembered that the Tower of the Sun could be reached via the gateway that was guarded by a giant statue of a woman. I walked quickly toward the serene deity.

I’d made a major geographical mistake when I’d called this island Atlantis, for the goddess of this kingdom was officially named Pacifica and symbolized the fair’s theme of “Peace in the Pacific.” She stood eighty feet tall, backdropped by an even higher metal prayer curtain that scattered an undulating shower of sound whenever the wind stirred. The style of her face was a mix of Grecian goddess and Nubian queen. Her wide eyes were blank, but I couldn’t say whether this was because her eye sockets were void or merely closed.