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keep anyone from approaching any closer. We don’t need people tracking footprints all over the place. In fact, if you think you can, you might move them back a few feet.”
    The five looked quickly at one another. “All right,” said the tallest one, a bald man with graying sideburns. He stepped away from Jill and stood facing the crowd, his arms held away from his body, palms front. “Everybody take one step back, if you can,” he said in a loud, firm voice. “An ambulance is on its way.”
    The other four quickly followed his example of standing facing the crowd with their arms out, and they moved forward as the crowd edged back.
    “Let me through!” a woman said, fighting the movement, and Jill turned to see a stout Hispanic woman in a red sweat suit waving at her. “I’m in law enforcement, too!” she added.
    Jill moved to intercept her before she could break the line her volunteers were setting. “Thank you for speaking up,” she said.
    The woman squinted as she confessed in a murmur, “I’m just a part-time 911 operator back home, but they don’t have to know that. Can I help?”
    Jill smiled briefly. “Sure. See if you can find some hotel staff who can scare up five or six portable screens for us. It would be a good thing to get the victim out of sight and it will protect the scene. It looks like emergency services is going to take a while to arrive. Then we’ll need someone to stay here, to keep people from sneaking a peek.”
    The woman nodded, then checked her watch. “I can stay about an hour, and then if I need to, I can arrange for a replacement.”
    “Thank you.”
    Jill went sideways through the crowd and back up the steps to the lobby. The black woman behind the counter was saying, “No, sir, I understand, I’ll instruct my staff not to talk to reporters. But I can’t restrict the guests, of course. No, sir, I don’t think you need to try to get over here, I understand the city is about closed down and I’ve got things under control here, pretty much.”
    Talking to management, that also was good.
    Jill walked up behind the plump woman, who was still staring at the woman on the phone. She touched her gently on the shoulder, and the woman gasped and turned sharply.
    “I’m sorry to startle you,” said Jill in her gentlest voice. “Do you know what happened?”
    “Yes, I was in the elevator and I saw her fall. She was on the ninth floor and she just went over the railing.”
    “You’re sure she fell? She didn’t jump?”
    “I saw her standing alone up there, looking over the railing. And then—over she went.” The woman made a hump shape with one hand, and cleared her throat.
    “Was she looking at something? Or at someone?”
    “No—well, I don’t think so. I thought she was just looking around. I did it, too, when I first came out of my room. Just stopped to look around.”
    “Was it an accident, her falling?”
    “I don’t know.” She cleared her throat again. “Maybe . . . or maybe she did jump.”
    “You saw her, did she lean and fall, or climb over?”
    “I—well, I don’t know. I guess I looked away for a second.”
    “So you didn’t actually see her fall.”
    The woman bridled a bit. “Yes, I did! I was riding down in the elevator from five, they’re all glass and it’s like a ride at a carnival. So I didn’t turn and look at the doors, like you do in a regular elevator. I looked down, but it’s kind of scary the way you see the floor coming up at you, so I went to looking up. And I saw her up there all alone, and then I saw her falling. And when I looked up again, there still wasn’t anyone there.”
    Jill nodded. “All right, good. That’s very clear, thank you.”
    Reassured, the woman smiled and relaxed.
    “My name is Jill Cross Larson, and I’m a police sergeant from Excelsior, Minnesota. May I ask you some more questions?”
    The woman’s light blue eyes widened. “Okay.”
    “Excuse me just two seconds.” Jill stepped to the far end