Linda Fairstein - Death Dance

Mike answered. "You mean Kehoe? Ross Kehoe."

"That's the moniker. I thought he looked familiar."

"You know him?"

"Not a drinking buddy, if that's what you mean. Remember the Kills?"

The expression kills derived irons an old Dutch word meaning "channels," dating from the period when New York was once New Amsterdam. The Kills was the body of water separating Staten Island from the New Jersey shoreline, and Mike and I had come to know it well.

"Sure."

"We had a homicide-body washed up near the Outerbridge Crossing. Probably a hit, somebody who got whacked, but was dressed up real nice to look like a suicide."

"How long ago?"

"Two, maybe two and a half years."

"Who died?" Mike asked.

"Construction worker. Had something to do with one of the unions and some mob heavies. You've met my partner, Vinny, right? He thought Kehoe looked good for it. Four or five guys who grew up with the union boss. Seemed like they'd do anything for him, and Kehoe was one of the slickest in that pack."

"Grew up where?"

"Staten Island."

Mike and I looked at each other before he spoke. "Where's Clay Pit Ponds park?"

"You oughta come hang out with me sometime. I'll give you a tour. None of this blackboard jungle you live with in Manhattan. We got beaches and golf courses and lakes. We even got us a wildlife refuge now."

"Clay Pit Ponds park, Frank? C'mon." Mike was serious now, and I thought of the Staten Island site of the rare Torrey Mountain mint plant that had been found on Talya's pointe shoe.

"Southwestern part of the island."

"Near the Kills? Kehoe have any family there?"

"He did then. His mother lived off Woodrow Avenue. I think he had a sister who may have gotten the family house when she kicked the bucket, but I didn't follow it close like Vinny." Frank was exploring the niches that ringed Joe Berk's office, looking at the bizarre assortment of Napoleonic objects.

"The homicide Vinny was working-he ever clear Kehoe?"

"Nah. The ME gave us an inconclusive. Body was in the water too long for a cause of death so we never got no murder charge to go with."

"Listen to me, Frank. You guys out on Staten Island, news reach you yet about this stuff they call DNA?"

"Only lately. Don't Nab his Ass-DNA-Don't Nab his Ass until you get his spit or his sperm. That's what the captain always tells me. Right, Michael?"

"Did Vinny get a DNA sample from Ross Kehoe?"

Frank put down the Empress Josephine's tortoiseshell hair comb to turn around and face Mike. "What do you think, buddy? You cross the Verrazano and it's all amateur hour to you? We get a few homicides every year, a handful of rapes. Sure, Vinny got DNA. That's how come I saw Kehoe. He had to come into the station house to be swabbed one night. Cool as an ice cube. Never gave us a bit of trouble."

"And the deceased?"

"Nothing left of what was once his body to compare to anything or anybody. Waterlogged bones inside of a zoot suit. Fishes and frogs got to him first."

I walked to Joe Berk's desk and picked up the phone to call Serology.

A technician answered and I identified myself. "I've got an urgent request. I need you to drop whatever you're doing to examine two samples tonight. I need you to make a comparison to some evidence in the Metropolitan Opera murder case."

The tech rambled an objection while Mike smiled at me, the biggest grin I'd seen on his face in months. "That's the Coop I know. I can hear those steel balls clanging against each other even while you're standing still."

"Well, either you call Dr. Thaler at home or I will, but we're going to get this done before your shift is over tonight."

The tech continued his protest.

"I know there's a court order forbidding comparisons of crime scene evidence to suspects in the linkage database, and you have my word that I'll deal with the judge first thing tomorrow morning. In person. If anybody's held in contempt of court, you won't be the first one behind bars. That'll be me. I'm going to give you the names and case information and you tell me how fast you can get this done, okay?"

I told him what he needed to know, then hung up the phone and grabbed Frank Merriam in a bear hug.

"Some globally endangered mint and a few skin cells on the outside of a man's glove," Mike said. "Didn't look like much at first, but it's beginning to smell a little bit like probable cause."

"No one in or out upstairs," Mike said to Frank, putting the key to the bedroom door back in the desk. "Lawyers should be crawling all over this place by tomorrow morning. They'll be more of them carving up Berk's empire than there are maggots on a dead rat."

Briggs had agreed to go back to his own apartment to spend the night.

Frank had taken off his trench coat and settled in behind Berk's desk.

"Watch out for the ghosts, Frank."

"And exactly which ones would they be, counselor?"

"Belasco's ghost. The theater downstairs is supposed to be haunted. Now that Berk's dead, there might be two spirits floating around. Could be a traffic jam, with the size of those egos."

"Well, Alex, you know me and floating spirits. Sounds more like a cocktail than a fright."

I drove the Crown Vic back uptown to City Center while Mike made some calls. He found out that there were two detectives on a fixed post in front of the loft where Mona Berk and Ross Kehoe lived, but the guys had no idea whether they'd arrived there before or after Berk went inside. They had no sightings of either resident.

"Beep me the minute you see anything," Mike said before he hung up. "They're right, though, Coop. It's dinnertime. Eight o'clock. If Berk and Kehoe are out eating somewhere, they may not show up for hours. I gotta assume Peterson has her office covered, too."

He dialed the lieutenant's number, but someone else in the squad answered. Peterson was out on his meal, so Mike passed the message along to the colleague who had answered the phone.

I took Eighth Avenue uptown. We needed to go east on 56th Street, since only the entrance to the office tower-not the theater- would be open at this hour of the night.

I was parking the car when someone entering the building caught my attention. "Did you see that?"

"What?"

"Going into City Center. Wasn't that Chet Dobbis?"

"Can't tell. I just caught the back of his head."

I locked the door and threw the keys over the hood to Mike. "I'd swear it was Dobbis."

"He used to work here, according to Hubert Alden, before he went to the Met."

"But no longer," I said, crossing the street to follow him inside.

The guard sitting behind the desk smiled at Mike and me as we walked in. We had no idea where we were going but he didn't seem to care.

"Excuse me," I said as Mike flashed his badge.

"Go right on ahead," he said, not looking up from his solitaire hand.

"You give new meaning to the word security . We're looking for my partner, Detective Wallace. You know where he is?"

The guard picked up a piece of paper and pushed the phone to Mike. "He said for you to call him when you got back. The director is letting him use her secretary's desk. Just dial extension two-nine-nine."

"And that man who just came in before we did?" I asked. "Was that Mr. Dobbis?"

"Was it who?"

"How long have you worked here? Was it the former director, Chet Dobbis?"

"Sorry, miss. I've only been here two months. I'm real bad on names."

Mike hung up the phone. "Let's get Mercer first. He's meeting us back at that ladies' lounge on the seventh floor."

The corridors were empty and we wound our way around to the elevators and up to the rehearsal studios. Mercer was waiting for us there.

"Check it out, Alex. I don't want to embarrass anyone."