Linda Fairstein - Death Dance

The ride to the Belasco was slow, rush-how traffic blocking each intersection as we crawled down Seventh Avenue behind commuter buses and an army of Yellow Cabs.

I called the DA's Squad office to ask the captain how soon he could make Vito available to us, so I could urge Battaglia to back me up if he was in the middle of another case.

"He did an eight-to-four today, Alex. I can beep him but he was going off to his kid's Little League game. He may not call in for a couple of hoars."

"Can we have him tomorrow?"

"No problem. He's doing another day tour. He'll be in the tech room when he comes on. Just call him and tell him what you need."

"Thanks a lot."

"You got a green light?" Mike asked.

"You and Mercer can figure out where you want him to start."

"Depends what we get out of Joe Berk now."

"He's just going to deny it again," I said.

"Then you're gonna have to get a search warrant. He can deny all he wants but you and I saw those tulips on the screen in his bed-room the first time we were there. If I have to choke the old bastard, I'm gonna get answers this time."

"You've got to keep it calm. He tunes you out when you go wild on him."

"Wild? He hasn't seen me even halfway to vicious yet. I've been saving up for this kind of encounter."

Mike got out of the car and slammed the door. We walked up the street to the Belasco and headed for the entrance to Berk's apartment just west of the theater.

Mike stepped aside to let me enter and I was startled to come face-to-face with a man in a dark suit and sunglasses who was standing at the elevator controls.

Before I could say my name he had pressed the button and told us to go right up.

I was surprised to have such easy access, and I smiled at Mike as we rode up to Berk's office. As I pushed open the door, which was ajar, I could hear loud voices-a lot of them-and it was clear that the man downstairs who let us in assumed we were on the list for whatever party was in progress.

Mike followed me inside, and I scanned the dozen faces but saw no one familiar in the grand office, ringed with its bizarre collection of Napoleonic memorabilia.

My eye was drawn to the top of the staircase, outside Joe's bedroom, where Mona Berk and Ross Kehoe were engaged in a lively conversation with a man, clinking their cocktail glasses together and laughing at whatever story Kehoe was telling.

The young man seated in Berk's desk chair had just uncorked a bottle of champagne when he spotted the two of us entering the room.

"Come on in," he said, getting to his feet and walking over to greet us. "I'm Briggs. Briggs Berk. Joe's son. Have we met?"

"Chapman, Mike Chapman. This is Alexandra Cooper," Mike said, choosing not to further identify us as police and prosecutor in case the kid didn't know about our involvement with his father. "We're here for Joe."

Briggs put a hand on Mike's shoulder and laughed. "We're all here for Joe. What are you drinking?"

"No thanks. We'd like to see him, if we can. I need to talk to him for a few minutes. I don't want to break this up but it's kind of urgent."

"Talk to him? Can't help you with that, Mike. If you want to see him, the viewing doesn't start till tomorrow afternoon. Frank Campbell's, three o'clock."

Campbell 's was the most famous funeral parlor in Manhattan, known for its tasteful wakes and services for well-to-do New Yorkers.

"Right now," Briggs said, "the only place you can see Joe Berk is the morgue."

"I didn't know you guys were cops," Briggs said, blanching as he planted the champagne bottle on his late father's desk and led us into a small study off the main room."I'm-uh-I'm sorry for- uh- "

He didn't seem to know for which offense he was apologizing, but the display of Mike's shield had sobered his disposition.

"We've got to make a couple of calls. You mind leaving us alone in here?"

Briggs closed the door behind him and must have signaled the reveling mourners to quiet down. Mike called the ME's office and reached the attendant on duty.

"Get me Dr. Kestenbaum," he said to the clerk who answered the phone.

"Talk about dancing on the grave," I said. "What a disgusting display."

"You expected better from the Berks? I just want to know who pulled the plug on him. Too many happy people in there. And pretty ironic that he and Galinova are sleeping together again, side by side."

"No wonder Mona was in such a rush to get here for the celebration."

"Hello, doc? Chapman here. You got the Wizard of the Great White Way ready for his surgical debut?" Mike winked at me. "What do you mean, who? Joe Berk. I'm talking about Joe Berk."

Chapman listened for several minutes and then repeated the conversation to me after he hung up. "They're going to do the autopsy tonight, but his death has all the signs of a stroke. Damn, I would have bet the odds he didn't die of natural causes. Especially before I got to rattle him."

"I wonder what Joe's medical condition was. I mean, I hope that we didn't-"

"Don't go feeling all guilty on me, Coop, like we brought it on by aggravating him this morning. Kestenbaum says it's a logical after-effect of the electrical event."

"Electrical event? He makes it sound like a Broadway production. Meaning what?"

"Berk survived the jolt from stepping on the manhole cover. But apparently people who live through that experience can develop clotting in the blood vessels along the path that carried the current through the body. So it's not unusual to have a-what'd he call it?- an arterial thrombosis in the first few weeks after the accident. A stroke is what killed him."

"And I was just beginning to feel we were so close to connecting Berk to Galinova's murder, to figuring out what was going on between them."

"Let's keep at it. Suppose he did it, suppose he's still the main suspect? There's stuff to tie up here," Mike said, opening the door to the office.

It looked as though several people had left while we were in the study, but Mona Berk and Ross Kehoe had come downstairs to talk to Briggs. Before I could get any farther, the elevator doors opened and the squat figure of Rinaldo Vicci burst into the room.

"Briggsley, my boy," Vicci said, rolling his r in dramatic fashion, ignoring both of us and embracing the young man. "I came as soon as I heard the news. It's impossible to believe. Such a force, such a great life force."

Mona let them talk and walked over to us, glass in hand. "Some things are just meant to be, Mike, aren't they?"

"Seems to me you could have waited another few days before starting the celebration."

"You know, in my head I had it figured he was dead a week ago, the first time I got the call. Sort of like a dress rehearsal," Mona said, smiling. "Made it so much easier to take when I got the news today. It wouldn't become me to fake my grief, would it?"

Briggs turned back to us. "Mona told me why you were here last week. This really isn't the right time to be bringing a criminal investigation into my father's-"

"Oh, yeah? And you're giving death etiquette lessons while you got a party going on here? Let me start by extending my sympathy to you. Sincerely. You can't imagine quite bow sincerely because of how unfortunate the timing of your father's passing is for me. I had bigger plans for him."

"Why don't you tell us what happened today? " I said.

A semicircle had been formed now. Briggs in the middle, facing us, with Mona next to him and Ross Kehoe stroking her back as he watched the scene. Vicci was on the other side of Briggs, his hands clenched and poised against his lips, as though in prayer. There were four men and one woman gathering across the room.

Mike told them to be sure not to leave before giving us their names.