Death Dance (49 page)

"Whatever the doctor says. Take some Tylenol, get plenty of
rest, and, by the way, lay off the buckets of champagne. They don't mix
well with formaldehyde."

Mona was trying to keep Briggs calm, so I asked Ross Kehoe,
"What did the nurse say about Mr. Berk's death?"

"Only that she checked on him at about eleven a.m. He was
complaining of a headache and she put him back in bed for a nap. When
she went in to bring him some food an hour later, she couldn't wake him
up."

"Did his physician—"

"Yes, of course. The nurse called nine-one-one. EMTs arrived
first but it was all over. Joe's personal physician was here within the
hour."

"You and Mona?"

Kehoe held up his hands. "Hey. Briggs called Mona to tell us
about it and we came over because of how Mona feels about Briggs. Joe
and Mona in the same room would have been a recipe for disaster."

"How'd you get along with Joe?" I asked.

Kehoe put his hands in the rear pockets of his jeans. "Which
day of the week?"

"Didn't you work for him once?" Mike asked.

"That's right. I had no beef with Joe. He was good to me back
then. No surprise he didn't like to think of me marrying into the
bloodline, but he treated me fine."

Of all the people in the room—and all those we had
met in the course of the investigation—Mike seemed to get the
most out of Ross Kehoe. Something about his blue-collar background, the
rough edges of his city accent, reduced what Mike liked to call the
bullshit factor. I imagine his appearance had changed once Mona came
into his life—finer clothes, expensive suede loafers that he
sported today, a stylish haircut—but the basic bones looked
as much like a cop's as did Mike's.

"What'd you do for Berk?" I asked.

"Everything. Met him in one of his theaters. My old man was in
the union—you know the way this business is. Joe thought I
could do things—I don't want to blow my own
horn—but I was kind of a jack-of-all-trades, and I could deal
with his temper better than most."

"What did you do for him, exactly?"

"Stage crew kind of stuff, originally. A couple of years back,
before I met Mona, I was his driver. That's when we got kind of
friendly. He even put me into some investments. Some good deals that I
scored on. Mona likes bling—and it got to the point I could
buy it for her myself."

"Joe fire you?"

"Nah. I just left. It wasn't gonna work with me getting so
close to Mona."

While we were talking, I saw Mona Berk walk away from Briggs
and start back up the staircase, nodding to Rinaldo Vicci to join her.

I elbowed Mike, who followed after them.

Mona paused on the fourth step and turned to face him. "Once
again, it's time for me to tell you to get out of here, if you and your
girlfriend don't mind."

Mike kept jogging up the stairs.

"Detective, where do you think you're going?"

"I just need to check out something in Mr. Berk's room."

She raised her voice. "Where's your warrant, detective?"

"Where's your standing?" he said to her as she tried to catch
up with him.

"What do you mean, standing?"

Mike was at the top of the stairs. "This is Joe Berk's place.
And since Uncle Joe has gone to meet his maker, you haven't got any
more legal right to tell me to get out of here than Houdini does. You
got no standing."

"Ross, is that true?"

Kehoe shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not getting into this one.
I'm not a lawyer, babe. I don't know who's right here."

"Briggs? Say something, goddamn it," Mona screamed to her
cousin.

I dashed up the stairs to try to broker a deal but Mona raced
past Mike into Joe's bedroom and pulled the door shut behind her.

"Wait a minute, detective, will you? What do you want? What
are you looking for?" Briggs trudged to the bottom of the steps and
held on to the banister. "I want to be there when you're looking around
my dad's stuff, okay? Don't you think that's fair?"

"
Fair
isn't in my vocabulary for you or
for anyone else in your family—for this whole cast of
characters. You're all so used to dealing with make-believe that you
don't know when to wake up and tell the truth."

Mike walked to the bedroom door and turned the knob. Neither
one of us should have been surprised that Mona had locked it when she
went inside.

Mike kicked and pushed against it, but the heavy oak panels
didn't budge. Briggs climbed the staircase while Ross called out to
Mona to be reasonable and open the door.

Rinaldo Vicci went to Berk's desk and pulled out the top
drawer.
"
Piano, piano
.
Slow down, everybody. Calm yourselves."

Vicci walked to the bottom of the staircase and Mike trotted
down for the ornate brass key. He put it in the lock and the door
opened.

The room was empty. Even Berk's bed had been stripped of its
linens and all the medications on his nightstand. The only things that
looked out of order were a few open dresser drawers and a closet left
ajar.

Mona Berk had taken the private elevator—the one
that had ferried showgirls directly to the bedroom for David Belasco
and the late Joe Berk—and left the building. I couldn't
imagine what she might have taken with her.

Mike was ripped. He went first to the closet and started
looking through it, pushing hangers apart, pulling shoe boxes off
shelves and tossing them on the floor.

"You got to stop this, Mike. You can't do it."

"Take a hike, Coop. This time he's really dead and I can
do—"

"You don't even know what you're looking for."

"Why? Those jerks on the Supreme Court were so many
light-years ahead of me? I'll know it when I see it, isn't that what
they said? It works for me, too."

Briggs was in the doorway, oblivious to Mike's reference to
the famous opinion on pornography rendered by Justice Potter Stewart
more than thirty years ago. "What… ?"

Now he looked like every other junkie crashing down from a
cocaine high. His eyes were red—not from crying, we
knew—and he was sniffing constantly. His hand was shaking as
he tried to find a surface on which to rest it.

"Alex, go ask Kehoe where his beloved went. Tell him to get
her on the phone, pronto," Mike said, rifling through dresser drawers.
"Briggs, d'you ever go to the movies with your father?"

"Shows. Mostly shows, you know? Broadway."

"Do what I told you, Alex."

I didn't want to leave Mike alone in the room with Briggs. I
didn't want him flipping out at the kid.

"Go. Get Kehoe. I'm talking home movies, kid. Ever see the
monitors your father had in this room?"

Mike waved me out. I guess he hoped Joe's son would speak more
candidly about his father's habits if I wasn't there.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Briggs said as I
walked away to the top of the stairs.

Vicci was on his cell and Kehoe was using the phone on Berk's
desk.

"Excuse me, Mr. Kehoe. Why don't you give Mona a call?" I
asked. "We've got a few more questions for her."

He covered the receiver with his hand. "Let her cool down.
She's on her way home. I can handle this more diplomatically than
Chapman, okay?"

I stepped to the side and called Mercer to bring him up to
speed. He was still at the City Center office tower, which was
basically closed down for the evening, and he was waiting for our
return in one of the management offices in which Stan had set him up.

"Call Peterson for me. Ask him to get a team to sit on Mona
Berk's loft in SoHo. The address is in the DD5S. Keep an eye on her
till Mike figures out what he wants to do next. And maybe the
lieutenant ought to set somebody up over here. I may need to draff a
warrant 'cause Mike's convinced Berk has videos or more
photographs—something to give us a break. It wouldn't hurt to
have someone safeguarding this place overnight."

"You know what Peterson's going to tell me. No manpower."

"Let him pull some of the guys from the Met task force before
they knock off for the day. It's important."

Rinaldo Vicci was saying good-bye to Kehoe as I approached
them. "Please, Mr. Vicci. I'd prefer that you don't leave yet.
Detective Chapman may have a few questions for you."

"But, signora, I've got a client performing at the Winter
Garden tonight. Second lead. I promised to meet with him backstage
before he goes on."

"We'll do our best to get you there on time."

Vicci unwrapped his trademark scarf and walked to the sofa to
make another call.

"Would you mind introducing me to these other people?" I asked
Kehoe, taking a small writing pad from Berk's desk.

"Sure. They're friends of Briggs. I don't know all their
names, but there's no reason for them not to cooperate." We broke up
the four—some who still remained and I took down their
pedigree and contact information. A short conversation with each and it
seemed they had no connection to Joe Berk other than their relationship
with Briggs.

"You think Detective Chapman wants me to wait around, too?"
Kehoe said.

"I'll go up and check with him. We've actually got to get back
up to City Center this evening. I was going to talk to Mona about that,
too. Does she keep any kind of office there?"

"At City Center? No, she doesn't. Why do you want to know?"

"I saw her leaving the building this afternoon. I tried to get
her attention but she was already on her way here. I guess she'd heard
the news about Joe. I was wondering what her business might be there."

"She may have gone to see a rehearsal. Or maybe an agent
called her to check out a client. You'll have to ask her about that."

"Let me see what Mike's up to. I'll be back to both of you in
a few minutes."

Briggs and Mike were talking quietly when I went upstairs to
the bedroom, the kid sitting on the side of the bed and Mike on a chair
he had pulled opposite him.

Briggs was recounting the conversation he'd had with his
father yesterday.

"Do you mind if I—"

"C'mon in," Mike said. "Doesn't look like junior here knew
about the monitors. Claims he had no reason to come into the bedroom.
Wasn't here very often."

"Hardly ever."

"But you were having dinner with your father the night of his
accident," I said.

"Yeah. But we hadn't been getting along too well before that.
We'd made that date a few weeks earlier. I—I waited for him
to come downstairs. I always did."

"Tell Ms. Cooper why you came back from California."

Briggs looked up at me. "Rinaldo—you know Mr.
Vicci?—he'd been calling me about Lucy. About Lucy DeVore. He
told me the doctors expect her to be conscious this week.
He—um—he thought I ought to be here, like in case
she had anything to say about me. He's—well—he's
like a very nervous kind of guy, Mr. Vicci."

"Did your father know why you were coming home?"

"Nope. I didn't call him until yesterday morning. Only Rinaldo
knew, and Mona. My cousin Mona."