Mark and Judy Nealy of Medford, Massachusetts, checked into the Stanhope Hotel at 10:45 last night, which happened to be their wedding night. Their fourteenth-floor suite has a view of Central Park, just as they requested. Except for a cursory hour spent, at Judy’s insistence, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they’ve stayed in bed the entire day. They’re looking forward to seeing Ragtime tonight.
It’s just past four o’clock in the afternoon when Mark Nealy, a software engineer, gets up from the bed, puts on the thick terry-cloth robe that the hotel provides, and goes to the window. He’s sure about the time because Judy has just turned on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Harrison Ford is the scheduled guest, and Judy jokes that she married Mark only because of his resemblance to her favorite movie star.
It’s hard to see much through the driving rain, but the gray turret of Belvedere Castle is clearly visible. The castle sits on a rock ledge above a small lake and the Delacorte Theatre, an outdoor stage where Shakespeare plays are performed during the summer. Then Mark makes out two people, a man and a woman, in the courtyard beside the castle. How strange to be out in this weather, he thinks-but hey, this is New York.
He watches as the woman reaches up and touches the man’s face. Then she turns and climbs up on the wall that encloses the courtyard and throws herself off. The man reaches out to save her, but it’s too late. Her body lands beside the lake, on a flat slab of rock.