"You're right about that."

I frequently lectured to women's groups about sexual assault and domestic violence. The question I was most often asked was whether victims should offer resistance to an attacker, especially if he's armed.

There are far too many variables to suggest answers that would work in every situation, decisions that would have to be made by women in the several seconds they had to assess the nature of the danger.

Sometimes, women with the confidence and strength to try to counter the threat of force with a kick or punch or scream before running would be able to prevent the completion of the assault. But all too often I had seen an effort to struggle thwarted by a rapist who was stronger than his prey and more prepared for the attempt, who became more enraged by the resistance, escalating his force to a deadly level to subdue his target. It was impossible to know yet whether that had been the motive that led to Talya's death.

"The ME called me about the release of Galinova's body to this guy-this-uh…"

"Her patron. Hubert Alden," Mike said.

"I kicked it over to you."

"We're dealing with it, loo," Mike said. "C'mon, kid. Let's hit the road."

We left the building by the front door and walked to the car, warmed by the bright April sunlight. Mike dialed the number for Alden's office and asked the receptionist whether he was in town and might be available for a meeting earlier than five o'clock.

"Depends on what?" he responded to her comment.

She didn't ask his purpose but said something to Mike that made him smile as he flipped his phone closed.

"Ever been to a walk-through?"

"Walk through what?" I asked.

"Like a reading for a Broadway show proposal. Mr. Alden's avail-ability depends on what time the walk-through at the Imperial Theatre ends. The one Mona Berk wanted him to see. Chatty little thing, this receptionist. Some of the prospective backers will be there, she said. The angels. Call Information. Get an address for the theater."

I dialed Information for the box office, and once connected, repeated the address aloud for Mike. "Two forty-six West Forty-fifth Street. How do you think we'll get in?"

"Keep your sunglasses on. Haven't you always wanted to be an angel?"

"I'm willing to start sometime. So I don't remember anything about this deadly affair. What was it that happened?"

"You know who Stanford White is, don't you?"

"Sure." The accomplished architect's firm-McKim, Mead and White-had created some of the most notable buildings in New York. Among them-Fifth Avenue's University Club and the classic Hall of Fame for Great Americans-were sites that had played a role in cases Mike and I had investigated together.

"Did you know that he designed Madison Square Garden?"

The huge sports and entertainment complex had opened in the 1960s on Seventh Avenue and 33rd Street, but I knew that White had lived more than a century ago. "That's impossible."

Mike was driving down Seventh Avenue. "Not this one. The old one."

"Where was that?"

"Who's buried in Grant's tomb, kid? White built the one on Madison Square-you know, Madison and Twenty-sixth Street. It was a musical theater and concert hall. White was in his fifties when all this happened, but he had a thing for young girls. I mean teenagers like Evelyn Nesbit. You'd have been after his ass."

We parked half a block from the theater and walked toward the entrance.

"How old was Nesbit?"

"Probably fourteen or fifteen when Stanford White met her. She was a great beauty, and had one of those domineering stage mothers who brought her to New York to model for artists."

"Real artists?"

"At first. Then fashion photography, and by fifteen she was a showgirl."

There was a young man at the door of the theater with a list of names in a notebook. He was leaning back in his chair, eyes closed as he listened to his iPod. He must have heard us and sat up. "You are?"

"Mr. Alden's expecting us. Hubert Alden."

He saw Alden's name checked off at the top of the list of twenty or so others and pointed us to the entrance. On a small bronze plaque, I noted that the building was owned by the Shubert Organization.

"What's Mona doing in a Shubert theater?" I asked Mike.

"Probably avoiding Uncle Joe. If she held this audition in a Berk property, he'd be the first to know about it. Might spoil her party."

We intentionally bypassed the orchestra and found the staircase that led to the top tier of this vast theater, which had none of the intimacy of the Belasco. The plaque described it as the home of such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof and Dreamgirls; its walls and ceiling were covered with elegant panels of floral and geometric motifs. One had only to return to the original Broadway theaters to see some of New York's most distinctive and elegant interiors-frescoed walls and ceilings, sculptured reliefs crafted by the great artists of the day, cartouches and decorated glass panels, chandeliers and Tiffany lamps-many restored today to their early splendor.

Mike kept going until we found side seats in the next-to-last row of the balcony. The entire upper half of the house was unlighted and although we could see down to the stage, it would be hard for anyone to notice us.

"The gang's all here," Mike said, in a whisper, "and I'm in my usual seat. Bet you've never been up this high."

The large stage was empty of everything except a baby grand piano and a pianist, and Lucy DeVore, script in hand, dressed only in an ecru-colored lace-trimmed teddy and matching tap pants.

Scattered in the first couple of rows were some familiar heads. Mona Berk was sitting next to Rinaldo Vicci, and Ross Kehoe was rising to walk up the steps to the stage. I guessed that Alden was among the other spectators.

Kehoe called out to whomever was operating the lights. "Give me something cooler. Bring it down a bit, can you?"

The adjustment was made.

Kehoe signaled his approval with a wave and added another direction. "Be ready with an amber spot for Lucy,okay? Something that will really glow, goldenlike. You know how to do that or you need me to come up there?"

From somewhere above us a voice called out, "Got it."

Ross Kehoe nodded and walked into the wings. There was some conversation between Mona Berk and Lucy DeVore, but we couldn't hear it.

"So Evelyn Nesbit?" I asked Mike.

"Everyone wanted a piece of the kid. John Barrymore tried to marry her, but she dumped him for Stanford White. She became White's mistress."

"Did he ever marry her?"

"He already had a wife, and a bunch of children. But he also had a fantastic studio, an apartment at the top of Madison Square Garden-a duplex, just like Joe Berk. On the second floor, suspended from the frame of a skylight, White had a red velvet swing. Story was that he'd give the girls champagne, undress them, and watch them play on the swing-back and forth up to the ceiling of his loft- naked. That was his thing."

A young man, also with script in hand, came out from stage right, and it appeared Lucy was ready to go on.His sleeves were rolled up and he wore khaki pants; Mona called to him to get in place, closer to Lucy. "Harry, I want you right on top of her. It looks more threatening that way when you get mad, when you react towhat she says."

"Harry Thaw," Mike said. "Millionaire kid from Pittsburgh who married Evelyn. Total psycho."

"Did he know about Stanford White?"

"Not enough. Not at first. He knew White liked young chorines-preferably blondes-but Evelyn claimed to Thaw that she was a virgin."

"I take it that Thaw found out she wasn't?"

"One of the papers published a photograph of Evelyn. She looked like she was sleeping, stretched out on a bearskin rug in White's apartment. Her long platinum hair was the only thing covering her."