Death Dance

by Linda Fairstein

  "How many famous killers-I mean, sort of household name killers-were fat guys?" Mike asked.

  Peterson and I looked at him quizzically.

  "Like David Berkowitz-Son of Sam-he was chubby. Bluebeard, in drawings, they always make him look hefty. Fatty Arbuckle-I guess the name says all you need to know. Think about it, though. Most killers are lean and mean."

  Peterson ignored Mike and went back to reviewing pedigree information on index cards while I tried to figure out where his non sequitur was going.

  "Malvo and Mohammed-the D.C. snipers-they were lean. The Menendez brothers-skinny. O.J.-well built but trim. Ma Barker- no fat there. I can't think of a lot of fat murderers."

  "You never watched The Sopranos?" Peterson asked. "Tony S., Big Pussy-they had a ton of overweight perps."

  "That's television. Dillinger-thin as a rail. Manson-malnowr-ished. Bundy, Dahmer, that fertilizer salesman from Modesto who gave your namesakes a bad rep-all lean."

  "Maybe if you told me why you want to-" I started to ask.

  "'Cause over your shoulder, Coop," Mike said, pointing to the glass door, "is a porky little liar who looks like a homicidal maniac, and I think he's after you."

  I turned my head to see Rinaldo Vicci, still swathed in the lavender scarf, standing outside the fancy room that had been commandeered for the investigation. We were on the level of the parterre boxes of the empty theater, so there could be no other purpose for which he was lurking. I smiled at him and waved him in, but he shook his head from side to side.

  "Throw him a crumb, Coop. Go see what he wants."

  I got up from the table and let myself out into the carpeted hallway. The auditorium doors were open now, and the orchestra rehearsal of the triumphal march from Aida filled the lobby with the rich sounds of its music

  Vicci walked ahead of me to the floor-length window that overlooked the plaza and fountain. "Thank you, Signora Cooper. I saw you come in earlier, and I had a few questions to ask you."

  He was one of those people who had trouble making eye contact. He looked at my face when he talked to me, but his eyes focused on a spot inches away from mine, giving them a bizarre cast and making it hard to gauge his credibility.

  "Why are you here today, Mr. Vicci? I mean, why at the Met?"

  He motioned in the direction of the stage with the tail of the scarf. "A young tenor I represent. He's going to understudy the role of Radames. Signore Dobbis has been gracious enough to let me sit in on rehearsals."

  Vicci took a few steps closer to the window and gazed out at the pedestrians who were enjoying the spring morning. "The girl, Ms. Cooper, I feel so badly about the girl. I've been calling the hospital, but they won't tell me nothing because-"

  "Lucy DeVore?"

  "Yes, of course. Miss Lucy. Her condition, they won't tell me since I am not a relative of hers. Is she going to live?"

  "The doctors expect she will, Mr. Vicci. Personally, I hope they'll bring her out of the coma in the next week or so. The test of you are so uncooperative, I expect she'll be able to give us some useful information," I said. "She's not going to die, if that's what you and your cohorts were hoping. They're just trying to control the pain levels this way."

  Vicci coughed and spent seconds clearing his throat. It seemed to me he was stalling, as he reached for something in his pocket and seemed unable to speak. When he resumed the conversation, his accent seemed to have thickened dramatically and he clutched at the scarf. "Of course I don't want her to die. What a shocking thought. A lozenge?"

  "No, thanks. You were supposed to call me about Lucy after you checked in your office. Tell me what your file said about how she got to you."

  Vicci closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead between his thumb and forefinger. "I'm in a very precarious situation, signora. I'm so afraid that if I gossip about things, someone will be angry with me."

  "What you tell me in the course of this investigation is confidential. Nobody will know the information comes from you." We were standing in the most open, visible space within the opera house, but there didn't seem to be anyone in a position to notice. "I understand from some of the other witnesses that it was you who invited Hubert Alden to be at the audition the other day. In fact, we know that Ms. Galinova-Talya-was supposed to be the person on that broken swing. Not Lucy DeVore."

  He stopped twisting the fringed edge of his scarf and almost choked on his lozenge. My comment had the desired effect. I wanted him to know other witnesses were talking to us, even though none had said as much as I would have liked.

  Again, Vicci cleared his throat. "This is a very-how you say-a very unforgiving business, Ms. Cooper. Actors, singers, dancers- both the men and the women-every day of their life is an audition.

  Everybody they speak to, every appearance they make, somebody is judging them for the next leading role, maybe the next bit part."

  "Galinova wanted to try out in front of Mona Berk?"

  Vicci made the sign of the cross as he bit his lip. "Joe Berk would kill me if he knew I arranged for her to do this. That's why Talya and I made up the story that she fired me. It was Talya who called Mona. Mona's fiance, actually-Ross Kehoe."

  "How did Talya know Kehoe?"

  "From years ago, I think, when he worked for Joe Berk."

  "Ross Kehoe was an employee of Joe's, and now he's engaged to Mona Berk? I bet Uncle Joe isn't happy about that. What kind of job did he have?"

  Vicci didn't seem to know. "In the theater, he did things for Joe. I saw him around, but I can't tell you his title. Was nothing very serious, I can assure you."

  Hadn't Kehoe told us that he'd never met Natalya Galinova? Mike would know if that's what he said in our first meeting with him.

  "And Lucy DeVore? Please, Mr. Vicci, I need to know how she fits in with these people. I need to know who brought her to you."

  Again the coughing fit, the hand covering the mouth to delay the answer-maybe to filter it. Again the throat lozenge. "I-uh-I told you I didn't represent her, that I was doing a favor for a friend, no?"

  "You did. Now who's the friend?"

  "It was Joe himself, Joe Berk who told me to take the girl around. Get her a job, get her on her feet. Most of all to find her a rich man she could-shall I tell you Joe's word? A rich man she could hustle."

  "A man like Hubert Alden?"

  "Exactly, signora."

  "Because Joe Berk was involved with her?"

  "No, no. I believe Joe when he tells me this. I know his taste in women, and is not this girl. But he was very unhappy with Lucy," Vicci said, crushing the candy in his teeth. "Miss Lucy was making a play for Joe's son-the baby one."

  "Briggs?"

  "Yes, Briggs, Ms. Cooper. Joe found out about it and thought she was trash-you call in English a gold digger. He tried to buy her off himself-give her money, threaten to keep her away from the boy."

  "Threaten Lucy with what? Threaten to hurt her, like what happened to her on Tuesday?"

  "No, no. I'm sure he meant only to hurt her career, not the girl herself," Vicci said, protesting the inference I'd made. "Joe didn't need to do something that extreme. You know, he only had to tell Briggs he'd disinherit him if he stayed with the cheap showgirl. The boy isn't pazzo, Ms. Cooper. He's not so crazy he'd give up the Berk fortune for a hillbilly who can sing and dance."

  The music had stopped now and someone was calling out directions for a scenery change.

  "What about the money, Mr. Vicci? She was living in the Elk Hotel. It doesn't look like anyone paid her off for anything."

  He raised his head back and put his forefinger above his lip, sniffing as he did. "Up her nose, Ms. Cooper. Briggs, too. Most of the money was spent on cocaine. That's how come the boy dropped his foolish lawsuit. He wouldn't make it without his father's money, not at the rate he snorts white powder. He had to come back into the fold."

  "And Lucy's family. Do you-"

  "Honestly, I tell you the truth. This I don't know. And I don't think she wanted anyone to know wh
o she was or where she came from. She had a little talent, Ms. Cooper, a nice voice and quite an able dancer. Mostly what she had to sell were her looks-and her body."

  "Let's hope there's something left to that when she starts to recover."

  A shrill scream blasted off the stage and rang out across the tiered lobby. I could make out the voices and sounds of men fighting with each other and hear the low rumble of something mechanical moving behind the scrim. "He's a lying bastard," were the only words shouted out clearly enough for me to understand.

  I ran to the glass-doored boardroom and pounded on it to get Mike's attention. As I grabbed the banister to fly down the winding staircase, the flat metal curtain suspended behind the elegant velvet swag slammed to the floor to cut off the auditorium from the violent encounter taking place backstage.

  27

  Mike overtook me and pushed past the security guard to open the door that led to stage right behind the curtain.

  The crew looked like players on the field at Yankee Stadium whenever the dugout emptied if they believed that a Boston pitcher intentionally had beaned a batter. Six guys were restraining one of the hands, who was trying to pull away from them and free his arms. Others were arguing among themselves, pushing and shoving, paying no attention to the three supervisors who were trying to calm everyone down.

  One man was lying on the floor, writhing in pain, his ankle twisted off to the side so that his foot appeared to have sustained a major injury.

  Someone was standing at the control panel, moving levers, and the wagon on which we were standing-the entire stage-right platform- began to move away from the main stage. I steadied myself against the papier-mache side of an Egyptian pyramid.

  Mike grabbed the arm of one of the men in the melee and several of the other detectives who had followed him downstairs from the makeshift office helped to restore order. "What happened?"

  "An accident."

  "Maybe I'll have to ask for everyone's driver's license. Make sure you don't run over anybody with all this equipment. It's too frigging dangerous here at the Met. I'll try again-what happened?"

  One of the men in carpenter's pants turned to walk away. "Something moved when it wasn't supposed to. That's all. There's a reason we call this place the House of Pain. There's a lot of ways to get hurt if you don't watch yourself-the fly system, the electrical panels, and even the curtain slams down at high speed. It's not a matter for the police."

  "What moved?" Mike asked, aware that the decent workmen had wearied of the detectives who had been poring over their personal lives for the last week.

  "That wagon," he said, pointing to the stage on which we were standing.

  The entire system of four rotating stages was electrical, not hydraulic. I could see the pulley cable bringing the giant platform- forty by sixty feet-back into place. It had been activated unexpectedly, and one man's leg had been caught as the right wagon shifted under the main stage.

  Mike directed his attention to the injured man. "You okay, buddy? We'll get you a doctor to look at the leg."

  He was sitting upright now, rubbing his ankle. "There's a medical office here. They'll check me out."

  The man in the green-plaid shirt who had been restrained by his coworkers broke away from them. "Buddy, my ass. Tell 'em who you are. Tell ' em or I will."

  The man with the twisted foot was bleeding from the side of his mouth. The shriek we heard when his leg was caught under the colliding wagons must have followed a punch.

  Mike walked into the group of men and told them to step back. Several protested, not willing to leave him alone with their angry colleague. They muttered about the work that had to get done and the rehearsal that was in progress.

  Detectives helped the injured man to his feet and watched him test his ankle. He shook them off and started to limp away.

  "Harney!" the guy with Mike screamed out. "Don't go too far. You better tell the detectives where you were last Friday."

  Mike and the other men from the task force quelled the crew and took the two combatants to opposite wings. We cleared the entire central area so the cast and crew could get back to work.

  Another loud creaking noise and a giant gap yawned in the floor of center stage. I stepped farther back, away from the monstrous black hole it created as the boards rolled apart. Seconds later, raised by some kind of lift below the auditorium, the eerie funeral set from the Temple of Vulcan-the crypt in which Aida and Radames would be entombed, buried alive-rose onto the stage,

  I turned my back to it and followed Mike to the door that exited stage right, to the medical office where the limping man had walked.

  Mike told the nurse to give us a few minutes with her patient and she left the three of us alone in her room. "You want to tell me what this is about, or do I start with the guy who threw the punch."

  "It's none of your business. It's outside the opera house."

  "That's not what it sounded like to me. Let me see your I.D."

  The man lifted the chain from around his neck and passed it to Mike, as I leaned in to study it with him.

  "Ralph Harney," Mike said aloud. "What's your date of bath?"

  Ralph answered with the date that matched his credentials, as well as his street address.

  "You still live in Hoboken?"

  "Yeah. Right through the tunnel."

  Mike handed the card back to him. The picture was a couple of years old, and the scraggly facial hair he sported exaggerated his age and now made him look more dissipated.

  "What's got your pal so angry? Were you working the performance on Friday?"

  "I'm on the night gang. I don't come on till after the show's over. Part of the crew who break down the sets."

  "Well, did you do that on Friday?"

  "Yeah."

  "So what's the beef? Why does he say you're lying?"

  "'Cause he hates my guts."

  "Any reason in particular?"

  "His sister. I was engaged to marry his sister."

  "You broke it up? That's why he's angry?"

  Ralph Harney didn't answer.

  "Yo. I'm talking to you. You broke it up?"

  "She got killed in a car crash."

  "And who was driving?"

  A pause before he answered. "Me. I was hurt bad, too."

  Harney picked up his head to show Mike the scar that trailed from the corner of his eyelid down across his cheek. I thought I could see scratch marks-relatively recent ones-healing on the skin above his goatee.

  "But the girl died. Any charges?"

  "What?"

  "Criminal charges. Speeding? Intox driving?"

  "Nope. No charges. Like I said, it was an accident." Harney was grimacing with pain. He pulled up the leg of his pants and the skin was sliced through to the bone. Blood had caked around the wound and dripped onto the top of his boot. "Can you wait with this or what?"

  "You shouldn't have walked on it. You don't want to compound it if it's fractured," Mike said, stepping out to tell the nurse she could get to work on her patient.

  We exchanged places with her and walked down the corridor to find the guy in the green-plaid shirt. Two of the other detectives had casually penned him in near the rear of the stage, where the loading dock opens into the garage, letting him smoke a cigarette. Mike signaled them to move off as we approached.

  "Mike Chapman," he said, holding out his hand. "You're?"

  "Dowd. Brian Dowd."

  "You want to tell me the story?"

  "What'd Harney say? He's the storyteller."

  "That you've got it in for him."

  "He's a scumbag."

  "I'm sorry about your sister. He told us about that."

  "Told you that he killed her?"

  "That she died in an accident."

  "You call it an accident when a guy's had five or six vodkas with beer chasers and then gets in the car to drive home? I call it murder."

  "Was he arrested?" Mike asked, testing the story Harney told us against Dowd's version
of events.

  "No, no, he wasn't locked up. You know why? "Cause his body was thrown from the car is what he says. Got all disoriented and had a traumatic head injury is what he says. He conveniently didn't show up at the hospital till the next afternoon, when he'd sobered up and his blood alcohol didn't test off the charts anymore."

  Mike paused, understanding Dowd's rage at his sister's killer. "How long ago?"

  "Less than a year. I tried to get the car keys away from him that night. Harney was so wasted he could barely stand up straight. My sister promised me she'd drive but she couldn't control him either. She-her body-was in the passenger seat when they found her, same as always."

  "And this is somehow related to Friday night?"

  Dowd dropped the cigarette to the floor and crushed it with his boot. "I suppose he told you he worked late?"

  "Yeah. The night gang."

  "Then how come he was downstairs in the locker room before the curtain went up? Eight o'clock, I swear to God. Drinking beer and playing solitaire."

  "Who were you with when you saw him?"

  Dowd sneered at Mike. "My word isn't good enough? You need a crowd?"

  "Two would be a good round number."

  "I got new glasses. Haven't had them a week. I left them in my locker and had to go back downstairs. Everyone else on the stage crew was in his place. That's how come I was alone when I saw him."

  "And that's what you started fighting with him about just now?"

  "Partly."

  "You must have enlisted a couple of coconspirators."

  "I didn't need anybody to deck that coward."

  "And somehow the wagon just started rolling, ready to crush his legs once he was down on the floor?"

  "It's a busy place, this stage. Got to watch your step all the time."

  Mike had his hands in his pockets, walking toward the loading dock.

  "Jerks."

  "You say something else?" Mike asked.