"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?"

"Shows. Mostly shows, you know? Broadway."

"Do what I told you, Alex."

I didn't want to leave Mike alone in the room with Briggs. I didn't want him flipping out at the kid.

"Go. Get Kehoe. I'm talking home movies, kid. Ever see the monitors your father had in this room?"

Mike waved me out. I guess he hoped Joe's son would speak more candidly about his father's habits if I wasn't there.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Briggs said as I walked away to the top of the stairs.

Vicci was on his cell and Kehoe was using the phone on Berk's desk.

"Excuse me, Mr. Kehoe. Why don't you give Mona a call?" I asked. "We've got a few more questions for her."

He covered the receiver with his hand. "Let her cool down. She's on her way home. I can handle this more diplomatically than Chapman, okay?"

I stepped to the side and called Mercer to bring him up to speed. He was still at the City Center office tower, which was basically closed down for the evening, and he was waiting for our return in one of the management offices in which Stan had set him up.

"Call Peterson for me. Ask him to get a team to sit on Mona Berk's loft in SoHo. The address is in the DD5S. Keep an eye on her till Mike figures out what he wants to do next. And maybe the lieutenant ought to set somebody up over here. I may need to draff a warrant 'cause Mike's convinced Berk has videos or more photographs-something to give us a break. It wouldn't hurt to have someone safeguarding this place overnight."

"You know what Peterson's going to tell me. No manpower."

"Let him pull some of the guys from the Met task force before they knock off for the day. It's important."

Rinaldo Vicci was saying good-bye to Kehoe as I approached them. "Please, Mr. Vicci. I'd prefer that you don't leave yet. Detective Chapman may have a few questions for you."

"But, signora, I've got a client performing at the Winter Garden tonight. Second lead. I promised to meet with him backstage before he goes on."

"We'll do our best to get you there on time."

Vicci unwrapped his trademark scarf and walked to the sofa to make another call.

"Would you mind introducing me to these other people?" I asked Kehoe, taking a small writing pad from Berk's desk.

"Sure. They're friends of Briggs. I don't know all their names, but there's no reason for them not to cooperate." We broke up the four-some who still remained and I took down their pedigree and contact information. A short conversation with each and it seemed they had no connection to Joe Berk other than their relationship with Briggs.

"You think Detective Chapman wants me to wait around, too?" Kehoe said.

"I'll go up and check with him. We've actually got to get back up to City Center this evening. I was going to talk to Mona about that, too. Does she keep any kind of office there?"

"At City Center? No, she doesn't. Why do you want to know?"

"I saw her leaving the building this afternoon. I tried to get her attention but she was already on her way here. I guess she'd heard the news about Joe. I was wondering what her business might be there."

"She may have gone to see a rehearsal. Or maybe an agent called her to check out a client. You'll have to ask her about that."

"Let me see what Mike's up to. I'll be back to both of you in a few minutes."

Briggs and Mike were talking quietly when I went upstairs to the bedroom, the kid sitting on the side of the bed and Mike on a chair he had pulled opposite him.

Briggs was recounting the conversation he'd had with his father yesterday.

"Do you mind if I-"

"C'mon in," Mike said. "Doesn't look like junior here knew about the monitors. Claims he had no reason to come into the bedroom. Wasn't here very often."

"Hardly ever."

"But you were having dinner with your father the night of his accident," I said.

"Yeah. But we hadn't been getting along too well before that. We'd made that date a few weeks earlier. I-I waited for him to come downstairs. I always did."

"Tell Ms. Cooper why you came back from California."

Briggs looked up at me. "Rinaldo-you know Mr. Vicci?-he'd been calling me about Lucy. About Lucy DeVore. He told me the doctors expect her to be conscious this week. He-um-he thought I ought to be here, like in case she had anything to say about me. He's-well-he's like a very nervous kind of guy, Mr. Vicci."

"Did your father know why you were coming home?"

"Nope. I didn't call him until yesterday morning. Only Rinaldo knew, and Mona. My cousin Mona."

"Why'd you tell her?" I asked.

"We were just getting to that when you came in. Seems Briggs here wanted to talk to his father about his will. Get the old boy while he's down."

The young man's head snapped up as he looked at Mike. "He almost died last week. I wanted to-um-to make sure things were straight between us, let him know he didn't have to worry about me screwing up the fortune he'd made."