Linda Fairstein - Death Dance

"I'm so tired I can't even think straight," Briggs said.

"When did you get back to New York?"

"From the coast? I took the red-eye Saturday night. I've been up since then."

"Did you see your father yesterday?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I was here. Look, do I have to answer your questions right now? I mean, I'm sure my lawyer would like to be here."

"Your lawyer? You in some kind of trouble?" Mike asked facetiously.

Ross Kehoe answered for Briggs. "Not a criminal lawyer, Mr. Chapman. Obviously, Briggs had to get Joe's attorney over here right away. There's a lot to attend to, a lot of financial matters to work out."

Kehoe had left Mona's side and was trying to create some physical distance between Briggs and the two of us.

"We don't mean to upset any of you any further. We'd just like to know-well, how Joe died and who was with him," I said.

"He was alone," Briggs said. "I mean, the nurse was here. She's the one who found him. She said he'd had a bad night."

That didn't make me feel any better about having dropped by to stir things up in the morning.

"Your visit with him on Sunday-was it just a regular-well…?" I didn't even know how to phrase the question. I couldn't imagine anything normal about the Berk family, but I didn't want to put the word confrontational on the table.

Mona started to speak. "My uncle loved Briggs. Why don't you sit down?" she said, turning to her cousin, who seemed to be wilting before our eyes.

Kehoe picked up the conversation. "Detective, the kid's been through a lot. None of his siblings give a damn about him. He and his father were getting along really well these past few months. How about a couple of days to let him absorb this?"

"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?"