Death Dance (32 page)

"So that would be Mona Berk—Izzy's girl. And her
cousin, Briggs. Suing who?"

"Joe Berk."

"Why, exactly?"

"Greed. Entitlement. Revenge. Pick your vice. Joe and Izzy
built an empire in a single generation. The whole point was to pass it
along intact to their heirs, blanketing the family in this curtain of
confidential dealings."

"What changed that?"

"After Izzy's death, Joe quietly started restructuring a few
of the trusts. His older kids, and Izzy's, wanted some of the stock and
cash transferred."

"But who suffered? I mean, how many billions does it take to
feed a Berk?"

"Joe had two wives. So did Izzy. The kids from each of their
first marriages are all in their late forties and fifties, all close to
each other—brothers and sisters, first cousins—and
very involved in the business. The two you're talking about are both
the offspring of second wives, and in each instance, there was a fairly
acrimonious divorce. These kids are a generation younger and don't have
much to do with their half siblings. Since Joe was the trustee of
Izzy's estate, he began to shift the assets around, very
quietly—mainly to benefit the older kids."

"And Mona found out?"

"Joe's kid—Briggs—told her. Two years ago
he was still estranged from his old man. That's when he told Mona what
had been going on. I imagine it's why Joe made such an effort to bring
his son back under his wing. To keep him close and get him to drop the
lawsuit."

"What amount did she sue him for?"

"About five billion dollars, Alex, for the invasion of her
trust fund. She claims that Uncle Joe bled her accounts dry. The irony
is that the deal Joe Berk made with the feds to pay up the tax claim
put such a tight clamp on his settlement agreement that even in the
discovery process of her civil suit, the judge hasn't allowed Mona's
lawyers to get disclosure of the terms and amounts of the trusts.
Nobody really knows how much money is at the base of the Berk empire."

"Hard to believe she could want that much more money than what
she's got."

Battaglia smiled at me. "Her lawyers whine to me that it isn't
about the money. She just wants to be on the same footing as the other
children—it's all about being treated like family, is what
they tell me it's about."

"I'll let you know when I find the chink in Joe's armor. And
I'll give you the latest on the Met before the weekend."

Two other bureau chiefs were lined up to see the district
attorney as I said good night to Rose. It was almost six and the
corridors were empty now, most workers on their way home, and many
young trial lawyers hunkered down over their desks, assiduously
starting a long evening of legal research or trial preparation.

Laura had left a note on my desk, clipped to three telephone
messages and a crisp white envelope, hand-delivered from the hospital's
general counsel, who'd been monitoring Selim Sengor's suspension since
last weekend.

The three calls were personal, so I sat down to deal with the
letter before I dialed to gab and make social plans with my friends.

As I tore an opening across the top of the sealed envelope, I
could hear the noise of a sharp scratch against a piece of flint within
it. The paper was immediately engulfed in a burst of flames, which
licked at my face, setting fire to my hair and the collar of my silk
blouse.

I grabbed the sweater from the back of my chair and buried my
head in it, trying to smother the flames. I didn't know whether it was
my cries of distress or the acrid smell of smoke, but something brought
two rookie cops running from the main hallway on their way to the
elevator into my office. One of them grabbed my head and cradled it
against his shoulder, then pushed me back to make certain the shirt was
no longer smoldering.

"You okay?"

I nodded, trying to calm myself before speaking.

"Sit down till you stop shaking," he said to me.

His partner had picked up the envelope to examine it.

"Be careful," I said. "They'll try to get prints off that."

"You mean it's not yours? I thought maybe you dropped a
cigarette and set fire to something on your desk."

"No. The letter was jerry-rigged with matches. I could hear it
scratching as soon as I ripped it open, but I didn't realize what was
happening fast enough."

The taller of the two cops squatted so that he was eye level
with the desk, examining the envelope with the tip of his pen. "Look at
this, Pavone. This mutt glued a bunch of matchheads on one side of the
flap, then stuck a piece of flint on top of the self-sealer. The minute
you start to pull back on it, it's gotta erupt in flames."

Pavone studied what was left of the parched envelope. "You
know who sent it? We'll call a unit and get you a sixty-one on this."

"I—uh—I know whose stationery it is, but
I'm sure he's not the person who sent it. It's a case I've been working
on—I'll have the detectives draw it up, thanks." The
uniformed force #61 was the department's name for a criminal complaint
form. "I'd have to guess my perp stole some writing paper from his
employer's office. Sort of a parting shot at me before he left town."

"Can we get a bus for you?"

"I don't need an ambulance. It didn't get my body, I don't
think. It just singed some hair." I could feel the blister developing
on the skin beneath my blouse, but fortunately the cops couldn't see
that.

"Can we at least get you out of here? Give you a lift home?"

I could see the brass insignias on their collars. They'd have
to pass my street on the way north to the 23rd Precinct station house.
"Sure. That'd be great."

I locked the door behind me—it was a crime scene
now—and waited until I was resting in the rear seat of their
patrol car to call the captain of the DA's Squad. I told him what had
happened and asked him to get Crime Scene downstairs to photograph the
homemade device and send it to the lab for a workup. The janitor would
let them in my office with a passkey. I also asked him to break the
news to Paul Battaglia and spare me that encounter for the moment, and
to explain to the district attorney that I was just fine.

By the time Mike and Mercer arrived at my apartment in
response to my calls, I had already showered and washed my hair. I
opened the door in an old shirt and leggings, with a pair of scissors
in my hand, and went back to the bathroom to snip at the hair that
framed the left side of my face, and then even out the uncharred pieces
that hung on the right. I felt like I was thirteen again, cutting bangs
for myself and hoping my mother wouldn't notice the hatchet job.

Mike stood behind me in the doorway. "Smells like an
incinerator in here. Take some more off the top, kid," he said, lifting
some strands from behind that I couldn't see for myself. "Where's the
blouse?"

"On my bed."

"Mercer, you better voucher it. Jeez, lucky you don't wear
polyester," he called out from the other room. "There's a hole the size
of my fist in this. You'd have been instantly deep-fried. Let me see
your chest."

He had walked back into the bathroom. I opened a couple of
buttons and showed Mike the burn in the hollow below my shoulder.

He whistled at the ugly melange of colors that had already
developed there. "For once it's a good thing you're so
flat—uh, so small. Another inch of decolletage and we'd have
had roasted marshmal-lows. Little ones. Tasty little ones. I mean,
probably tasty."

"Your empathy is heartwarming."

"Want me to rub on the butter?"

"That remedy went out with the dark ages. Cool water. I stood
in the shower for ten minutes, cold enough to form icicles, I think.
It'll be fine." I glanced at the burn in the mirror—a mild
second degree, I figured, and went back to cutting my hair.

"My way is a helluva lot more soothing than a frigid shower,
but you're the boss."

I joined the guys in the den five minutes later, where Mike
pronounced my self-administered hairstyling a complete failure. "She's
got that whackier-than-Sharon-Stone-looking,
finger-in-an-electrical-socket-just-
for-kicks expression, don't you think, Mercer? Too punk to prosecute."

"Not to worry. The first person I called was Elsa. She'll open
the salon for me at seven thirty in the morning." My beloved friend and
hairdresser would repair the charcoal-fringed blond coloring and Nana
would clip me into better shape.

"You got some kind of screwed-up priorities, kid. First the
hairdresser, then the police? Where's your camera? If you're not going
to see a doctor, we better get a few shots of the injury."

I went back to the bedroom to get my digital camera and handed
it to Mercer when I returned. "This is a big mystery to you, Detective
Chapman? Sengor probably put the flare together while he was sitting at
home and stewing about his arrest. Then he left it with Alkit to be
delivered through the hospital messenger system. Nobody would blink at
an envelope with the counsel's return address coming to my office by
hand. There'll be a sign-in from a legit deliveryman at our security
desk, all on the up-and-up, and Laura was probably still there to
receive it. I'm just glad she didn't open it."

"Show him some skin, Coop," Mike said, as Mercer positioned me
against the linen-white wall in my hallway to take some photos. "I
brought you a get-well present."

When Mercer was finished, we returned to the den together.
Mike had fixed each of them a drink, and handed me an elegantly shaped
bottle of amber liquid with a bright red ribbon around its throat.

"What's this?"

"Time for an upgrade. A hyperpremium scotch for a
hyper-premium broad. No need to get freaky. It's still from Scotland.
Isle of Islay."

I tried to pronounce the long name on the unfamiliar label
before Mike took the bottle back from me and opened it, pouring an
inch—neat—into my glass. "Guy in my liquor store
said it's got a lot of finesse. No kidding, that's how he described it.
Said it's richer and older than the stuff you've been drinking. Damn,
you're richer and older than when I met you, too."

Mercer studied the bottle while I tasted the smoky single
malt. He let out a low whistle. "Slow down on that stuff, Alex. The man
bought you a twenty-seven-year-old scotch."

"Are you crazy?" I asked Mike. "That must have cost
you—"

"Hey, is it any good? That's all that counts tonight."

"It's divine," I said, sinking back against a pillow, letting
the rich flavor work on my frazzled nerves. I knew the expensive gift
was one of Mike's ways of thanking me for trying to get him back on
course. I savored it twice as much.

The television was on and Mike reclicked the mute button to
return the sound as Alex Trebek announced the Final Jeopardy category,
Famous Military Leaders.

I stretched out on the sofa with two pillows behind my head.
"Must be your lucky day. You can recoup your loss on this delicious
extravagance."