"Not much to help us with," Mike said. "The fall killed her, pretty much like we expected."
"Kestenbaum is certain Talya was alive when she was thrown over?"
"A lot of bleeding in the brain when he opened the skull, so her heart was still pumping when she hit. Terminal velocity, going head-first down the shaft with hands tied behind her back, slamming into the fan casing at about a hundred twenty miles an hour. Fractured skull, ribs, pelvis and massive internal injuries. And the doc was right when he said you might not be along for this ride, kid. No sign of sexual assault. No semen in the vaginal vault, so that won't even solve who she was cozy with yesterday."
"Has Talya's husband flown over to claim the body?"
"Nope. He told the morgue attendant that he and Talya had separated several months ago, that her lawyers had notified him she'd be filing for divorce. They talked frequently but that was all basi-ness. He wasn't having anything to do with this."
"Well, how about her agent? What's his name again?"
"Rinaldo Vicci. He came down to do the I.D., but we're still waiting for someone to confirm the arrangements. Vicci has no authority to make any decisions either. Galinova's husband claims she fired him more than a week ago."
"Why? Did he say why?"
"Vicci denies it. Says she often threatened to do that whenever she had tantrums, but the husband says this time it was meant to stick. The husband's been in constant contact with Talya's lawyers because of the legal separation status and that's what they told him as recently as a week ago. It's one more thing to sort out."
"You just can't let her lay there on ice indefinitely, Mike."
I clamped my jaw shut as soon as I said the words.
"Why?" he asked. "She deserves any better than Val?"
The accidental death of Mike's girlfriend in a glacial crevasse was still foremost on his mind. There was an edge to him now, a bitterness that had never hung between us before. I struggled to bring back the intimacy of our friendship but was beginning to realize it was going to be a very long road to regain it.
"How about the evidence you submitted to the lab? The physical items, and the blood and hair?"
"Calm down, Coop. Nobody worked today. They'll get going on it tomorrow."
"And the Met employees? Has their screening started?"
"Those guys won't know what hit them. Forget the borough. Every squad in the city is giving us some men to do interviews, run rap sheets, check backgrounds. We'll saturate the place. How'd you like the morning papers?"
"I've often thought of putting my English Lit background to work and helping them out. You just hold your breath and hope nobody who cared about the victim ever sees those tabloid bombs."
The courthouse pressroom was plastered from ceiling to floor with page-one stories that had won it the nickname of the wall of shame. High-profile cases like this one would result in several more offerings for the coveted space.
"Don't think tomorrow won't top this one, kid. I got a chance for "you to come scoop up some of those long white hairs you were dying to get your mitts on yesterday when we were in Joe Berk's office. Ready for a late-night date on Broadway?"
"Where are you? What's-"
"A little too much juice on the street, Coop. Berk was electrocuted tonight."
" What? Joe Berk? How'd that happen?"
"Stepped on a manhole cover outside the theater an hour ago. Faulty insulation in the junction box."
"But he's our prime-"
"Accidents happen, kid. Con Ed has these freak hot spots all over town and Joe Berk happened to put his fat foot on this one. Sometimes justice is swift and certain, and I wouldn't want to miss an opportunity like that."
"You're sure it's an accident?"
"The Lord works in strange and mysterious ways. Berk stepped on the wrong manhole cover and spared the state some aggravation. I'm going upstairs to take a peek at his apartment. Wanna come?"
"You picking me up?"
"Be ready in ten. And save yourself fifty cents on tomorrow's news. It's curtains for Joe Berk. Another banner day for the tabs, photo of the old guy lying in the gutter-that's their money shot- his life captured in a single word: ZAPPED!"
11
"Times Square, Crossroads of the World," Mike said, stepping out of his department car just off the main intersection of Broadway and 44th Street, a few minutes before eleven o'clock on Sunday evening. He pointed up at the sky. "You can fly into LaGuardia at night and read a book sitting by an airplane window without your overhead light on, just from the electricity generated in this neon canyon."
One hundred years ago, when Adolph Ochs moved his daily newspaper to this midtown site known as Long Acre Square, it was renamed Times Square in honor of the great publication. This once elegant residential neighborhood had given way to what were then called silk-hat brothels, and when railway hubs and subway stations made the area the commercial center of Manhattan, the theater district followed here soon after.
This time there was no yellow crime-scene tape. Uniformed cops had cordoned off the hot zone with orange no-parking cones and three Con Ed trucks blocked off the entrance to the street as workmen scrambled to repair the damage.
"Works on the same principle as Old Sparky," Mike said, referring to the electric chair at Sing Sing that had not been used since 1963. "One good jolt and you're off to meet the devil. Joe should have known those friggin' velvet slippers wouldn't have grounded him."
One of the cops led us to the chief of the crew, who was explaining the problem to a couple of guys from the mayor's office. We introduced ourselves and joined the conversation.
"What does it look like?" Mike asked.
The Con Ed crewman pointed to the apparatus down on the street across from the marquee of the Belasco Theatre at 111 West 44th Street. "It's that junction box. Another damn maintenance situation. Improper insulation."
One of the mayor's men was already doing the math. "This'll cost the city a few million. Shit. It's only the first quarter of the year and we've already had more than forty complaints about hot spots. That's way ahead of last year."
"How does it happen?" I asked. "I mean these accidents."
"The wires in the boxes, ma'am, they're supposed to have two layers of insulation, one made with plastic tape and the other with rubber. When the rubber wears off, the exposed end of the wire comes into contact with the metal frame on the service box."
"The manhole cover?" Mike asked.
"Looks like about fifty-five volts of electricity ran up the side of the box to the plate-the manhole cover-above it. More than enough to kill you."
"You got more of these?"
"Two hundred fifty junction boxes in the city."
"Any other deaths?" Mike asked. "I haven't; seen one of these before."
The guy from the mayor's office, who was measuring civil law-suits if not human lives, answered. "A month ago they had one downtown. Manhattan South responded. Woman walking her dog in the East Village. This seems to be the season."
"Why's that?"
"There was a lot of snow this winter," the Con Ed man said. "When the city salts the streets, the cable insulation corrodes and cracks."
The mayor's representative shook his head, not willing to shoulder the liability for the anticipated lawsuit. "Salt is not the reason Joe Berk died. That last service box was too small and crammed too full of cable. It pushed those wires to the top, snapped them, and electrified the whole thing. You should have had a limiter in there."
"What's that?"
"It's like a fuse," he said, answering Mike before continuing to excoriate the Con Ed chief. "When's the last time this box was inspected? You haven't got enough workmen on the street and you haven't developed an adequate way to test the manholes."
"Forty complaints?" Mike asked. "You don't mean forty people have died."
"No, no, no. Hot spots. Electrified metal utility covers like this or even on areas of sidewalk. Usually it's only twenty or thirty volts- enough to
give you a good scare or bounce a dog in the air. People call them in every week. Wastes a hell of a lot of our time because these hard hats can't get it through their hard heads to fix the problem."
Mike stepped away from the huddle and we walked around the orange cones, crossing the street to the front of the Belasco, its wide facade of warm red brick set off by the white stone pediments of its neo-Georgian architectural style.
Another rookie cop stood at the door that led upstairs to Joe Berk's apartment. Mike flashed his badge. "Anybody inside?"
"There was a gentleman with Mr. Berk when he went down in the street. Might even be his son. He went back upstairs when the ambulance took off with Berk. Said he had to make some calls, then headed over to the hospital. I asked him to leave the key with me. There's nobody up there right now."
"Good thinking. Ms. Cooper and I are going to take a look around."
The kid passed over the key. We walked to the elevator in the rear of the building and took it up to the fourth floor, which was as high as it went, letting ourselves in to the dead man's quiet apartment.
The room we entered was the office in which we'd talked to Berk yesterday afternoon. The dark oak paneling on the walls and ceilings took on a somber cast now, and all Mike could find for lighting was the single bulb of the desk lamp.
"We're looking for…?"
"Anything to link Joe to Galinova. Anything to point us in another direction, in case he didn't really deserve that last blast of energy as his final send-off."
"So how do you feel about a search warrant, Detective Chapman?"
"The mope is dead. Why? He's still got standing in a court of law? Clarence Thomas is gonna go out on a limb on this one?" Mike had put his rubber gloves on and was pushing and lifting pieces of paper on Berk's large desk. He tossed another pair to me. "You can just stare at me and continue to be useless or you can poke around here."
I pulled the latex over my fingers and reached for several small manila envelopes that Mike removed from his jacket pocket.
He pointed at the lounge chair. "You want those long white hairs, don't you?"
"1 won't be able to use anything I take out of here in Talya's case, if that's what you're suggesting."
"Abandoned property, Coop. Guy passes on and leaves staff behind. Think of the poor cleaning lady who has to pick up after him. You're doing her a favor. C'mon. Help yourself."
I brushed some loose strands into the envelope and put it in the pocket of my jeans.
Mike handed me a memo pad with a "to do" list for Monday, the following morning.
There was a list of names and phone numbers, meeting times, and a luncheon appointment. I grabbed an empty sheet of paper and copied all of the notations.
The correspondence was stacked in neat piles. One tall stack seemed to be all about the settlement of a grievance between Broadway producers and the union that represented stage actors and man-agers. Negotiators had reached a tentative accord to avert a major theatrical strike, and Berk seemed to be in the middle of the mix, refusing to give in to demands from Actors' Equity and drawing the ire of union leaders.
Another folder overflowed with papers on the upcoming Tony awards, the equivalent of Hollywood's Oscars. The televised ceremony was a couple of months away.
"Just make a list of these files," I said to Mike. "We can't take this stuff with us, and I can't find anything at all relevant to Galinova. This one's all about the Tonys. Looks like some of Berk's shows are up for the big prizes."
"They make a difference?" Mike asked, opening drawers and scanning their contents.
"No question about it. Winning an award usually keeps a show running or fills up the house by introducing a new audience, so it's got to help the producer. We can always get someone to give us more info about the business side of the theater world."
Almost everything I could see on the top of the desk had something to do with show business. There was nothing with Galinova's name on it and very little that seemed to relate to Berk's personal life.
Mike stood in the threshold of the room and called over to me. "Check this out."
Past the door of the bathroom there was another enormous dark room, with a staircase leading up to the second floor of the duplex, where a balcony ringed the entire perimeter. The two-story height was capped with a stained-glass dome. Around the sides of the room were niches, all filled with Napoleonic memorabilia.
I joined Mike and we circled the floor, looking at the brass labels on the displays. In one corner was a statue of the Little Corporal himself, while other cases held his swords, his campaign maps, and even his underwear. A burgundy leather chaise longue with the emperor's initials was in the center of the room, and built into the walls were bookcases that housed what looked to be a library of theatrical works.
Mike started up the winding oak staircase and halfway to the top, signaled me to join him. "I think I've found the old boy's boudoir."
At the top of the stairs was a foyer that led into a large bedroom. The king-size bed was made up with a plush set of linens, Berk's monogram sewn into some kind of Crest on the spread and pillow shams.
On the far wall was a display with four television monitors, similar to the ones that cued the stage director at the Met, but bigger. Mike parked himself on the side of the bed and picked up the master remote control, clicking on the first screen. He changed the channels until he found the Yankees game.
"Look, this is a waste of time," I said, switching on the small lamp on the bedside table, looking for any notes or photographs.
"Tied up at two all against the Sox in the bottom of the twelfth? One out, Jeter just stole second, and you're in some kind of a rush? You got something better to do than this?"
He left the set on and clicked the next monitor. The image came up but there was no movement on it, and Mike couldn't seem to change the channel from the fixed camera view that was focused on a white-tiled wall. He moved the remote to the third set and got a similar shot. It looked like the same room from a differentangle. Neither of us was surprised that the fourth set displayed a background setting much like the two others.
"What do you think we've got here? Think these are his theater properties?"
I stepped closer to the screens and kneeled in front of them. "If they are, we're not looking at the stage or the orchestra."
Mike walked over and leaned in against my shoulder. "What do you see?"
"This one looks like-well, like it's in some kind of dressing room, doesn't it?" I pointed at a mirrored wall opposite a sink, with a clothes rack that had a dress and a woman's blouse hanging from it. "And this one's a bathroom. You can see right into the shower. There's some mosaic design in the background. Looks like flowers-maybe tulips. Same for the last one."
"That old bastard was sitting up here watching the showgirls undress," Mike said, breaking out into one of his classic grins. "What a frigging racket this is. Perfect business for an old pervert."
Suddenly, there was a loud creaking noise that seemed to come from behind a doorway in the wall next to the bed. It startled me and I grabbed for Mike's arm.
"What's that?" I asked, anxious to get out of Berk's apartment before anyone found us here without any legitimate business to do. "Seems like it's coming from the closet."
The grinding sound of elevator cables stopped and the door opened into the room. The young woman who stepped out of the narrow space hissed her words into my face.
"Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?"
12
"I'm Mike Chapman. NYPD. This is Alexandra Cooper. Are you a- um-related to Joe Berk?"
"Was I? Yes. Mona Berk. Joe was my uncle."
"I'm sorry about your loss, about his death-"
"I'll pass along your condolences to the rest of the family. You waiting for the cartoons to come on or what?"
She positioned herself next to Mike, in front of the bank of monitors.
"Maybe you can help tell us what we're looking at. Could it be
he's got cameras concealed in bathrooms or a dressing room in one of the theaters your family owns?"
"That wouldn't surprise me. Joe Berk was a pig."
She took the remote from Mike's hand and clicked off the sets. "I have no idea where those cameras are installed, and I still don't understand why you two are here," Mona said, turning away from the screen and batting her long black eyelashes at Mike.
"Routine. We were talking to your uncle yesterday about an investigation. He apparently had my business card in his pocket so the cops on the scene called me after they put him in the ambulance and the EMTs took him away. Ms. Cooper and I came up here to see if we could find any next-of-kin information so we could make the proper notifications."
"Consider me notified."
"I was wondering, actually, how you got the news so quickly."
"My cousin was with his father when it happened. He called some of us. Briggs and I are very close."
"Briggs?"
"Briggs Berk. Joe's son."
"Where is he now?"
"At the hospital, I guess, dealing with Joe's affairs-the funeral home and all that. I didn't really expect to hear from him after the first call. Anything else I can help you with tonight?" Mona asked, walking in the direction of the staircase as though hoping we would follow.
"I'm afraid we can't leave until we have some more information," Mike said. "I'll have to complete all the paperwork for the medical examiner's office."
She smiled at him. "Routine?"
"That's why they sent me here, Ms. Berk. Would you give me your cousin's address and phone number, date of birth if you know it? I take it he was a witness to the accident."
"Briggs is two years younger than I am. I guess that made him twenty-six last November," she said, telling him the rest of the information he asked for.
Mike held up the apartment key that the rookie had handed him on our way in. "How'd you get in, Ms. Berk? We've got your cousin's key, and we used it to come in through the front elevator. What's your secret?"
Mike obviously didn't think the young woman had any more authority to be in her uncle's apartment than we did and was holding his ground rather than leave the place to some other family interloper.
Death Dance Page 9
