Unleashed (Sydney Rye Series #1)

  "It was so dark in there. You really couldn't see a thing, and the floor was covered in spinning disks that you could easily break an ankle on, and there were creepy things hanging from the ceiling. We linked arms and laughed and fell down in the dark. It was so much fun. We even did a little kissing." She laughed gently, her eyes unfocused.

  "But then we walked out onto the balcony area where the ground shifted beneath you, and we had to grab at the railing to keep from falling on our faces. Well, poor Mr. Nevins, the railing broke at his touch, and he fell face-first onto the ground below. When I saw the pool of blood that was forming around his head, I fainted."

  "That's horrible, Nona."

  "Yes, it was dear, but I got over it with the help of a psychologist."

  "Oh."

  "Just think about it. It could help you."

  After Nona left, I called James back.

  "Why do you think he showed up at your door? Do you think he's mad? You need to start carrying that Taser of Hugh's."

  "I don't think they're legal in New York."

  "Oh, and I suppose it's legal for detectives accused of beating you up to show up at your door."

  "That might be legal."

  "Are you going to call him?"

  "I want to hear what he has to say. I mean, it seems to me that something is wrong here. We know he didn't hit me, so why is he off the case?"

  "Maybe you should ask Declan."

  "I don't know if I want to talk to him about this stuff. He would probably tell me to leave it alone. Everyone else has."

  "Well, I changed my mind about you leaving it alone. I support whatever you want to do. Just don't get hurt, OK?"

  "I'll do my best."

  "That's not funny."

  "It wasn't meant to be."

  "Just be smart. Don't go running off half-cocked."

  "Will do, captain."

  "Oh, shut up. I've got to go get ready for the party. I'll see you at 9:30."

  "Yup. I fingered what was left of Mulberry's card. Without too much thought, I dialed the number.

  "Mulberry." His voice came across the line gruff and assertive. He was definitely Mulberry, and he knew it.

  "This is Joy Humbolt."

  "I'm glad you called." His voice softened. "Could we meet? I don't want to talk over the phone."

  "When?"

  "As soon as possible."

  "How about tomorrow morning?"

  "You can't do it tonight?"

  "No. I have plans."

  He sighed. "OK. How about eight?"

  "How about ten?"

  "Fine. Where? "

  "There's a diner called Snow White on Chambers. That's kind of in between our two houses." And a public place, I thought to myself.

  "I'll meet you there at ten."

  "OK."

  Mulberry's New Line

  I woke up Saturday morning with a nasty hangover. My alarm just would not shut up, and Blue was whining because he had to pee. I pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, took Blue out, and squinted at the morning light.

  Leaving Blue in my apartment, I walked the subway.

  In the summer, packed trains are even worse than in the winter because of all the exposed skin. You have to be careful what you push up against. I had positioned myself against a door, which is a really good spot as long as it's on the side of the train that doesn't open, which this door was until we got into Manhattan. At Brooklyn Bridge a million people pushed me into the middle of the car, and exposed body parts surrounded me as I held onto the greasy center pole.

  The train rumbled along, and I tried to see the stops, but the crush of people blocked my view. It would be just like me to miss my stop and end up at Union Square. "Don't fucking move," a hot voice said into my ear, and I felt the tip of something hard press into my back. "You're a really stupid little girl," the voice continued, "and if you're not more careful, you're going to die." The train lurched to a stop, and the crowd shifted to allow people to exit and enter. An overweight woman wearing a giant floral-print dress pushed me back against the man in my ear. He put his arm around my waist and held me tightly.

  "If you don't let go of me I will scream," I told him.

  "I wouldn't if I were you."

  I screamed a high-pitched, echoing, can't-ignore-it scream. The shifting crowd stopped to look at us. The man immediately let go of me and barreled a path through the crowd, out of the car, and into the 59th Street Station. I never saw his face.

  "What did that guy look like?" I yelled at the car full of people. The ding-dong announcing the closing of the doors sounded, and people hurried to be on the right side of them. "What the fuck did that guy look like?" No one looked at me. "Someone must have seen his face. He threatened my life. Hello!" A circle of space opened up around me as the mass of commuters pretended I didn't exist.

  I waited for Mulberry in a red vinyl booth at Bagels and Lox, shaking. I stirred my coffee aggressively just to give my hands something to do. Mulberry showed up ten minutes late. "Where have you been?"

  "Sorry I'm late."

  "Yeah, well, someone just threatened my life on the subway in front of half the fucking city. But, of course, no one saw shit." I gestured wildly and knocked over my coffee cup. Mulberry leaped up, avoiding the hot liquid racing across the table toward his lap. "Sorry, shit, I'm sorry." I tried to soak up the spill with our napkins but they just turned limp and brown. The waitress came over with a wet towel and wiped the table down. "I'm sorry," I told her.

  "It happens all the time," she said without looking at me. Mulberry sat back down, and the waitress brought me another cup of coffee.

  "Sorry," I said again.

  "It's alright," Mulberry said. "Tell me what happened."

  "I was on the subway because I was hurrying to meet you, who was late." My anger about his tardiness seemed childish after tossing a cup of coffee at him, but I wasn't about to give it up. I told him the rest of the story without any more dramatics. Mulberry's eyes widened when I told him about the screaming, but he let me continue. "He ran out of the car. I never saw his face, and everyone on the train pretended like I didn't exist when I asked them."

  Mulberry snorted. "No one saw nothing. That's how it always is."

  "That's all you have to say? I tell you someone threatened my life, and you're disgusted by the subway riders."

  "Hey. You got yourself into this."

  "So it's my fault?"

  "I'm just saying I warned you."

  "Thanks. Thanks a lot." I slumped down in the seat and fell silent. Mulberry sipped his coffee and looked across the table at me.

  "So, what's up?" I asked. "Why are we even here?"

  "You know what's happened?"

  "They kicked you off the case for beating me up," he grunted. "I suppose you want me to go to the media, and tell them that it never happened. That you are an exemplary officer, and the whole thing is a big misunderstanding."

  "I think that would be a very bad idea."

  "What?"

  "I warned you that this was something you should not become involved in, but now you are, and I need your help."

  "What?" This was not at all how I had pictured this meeting. I was thinking there would be some level of groveling on his part while I toyed with him until finally calling the Post and telling them the whole thing was shit. But Mulberry asking for my help with the case?

  "You have no idea how deep this thing runs. I need your help. I need to know who killed Joseph Saperstein and Tate Hausman."

  "But according to the news, their deaths were unrelated and Hausman's was a suicide," I said, hearing how dumb the words sounded.

  "Not unless he beat the shit out of himself first."

  "His maid said something about Ralphie and the Sopranos and how you never know." Mulberry looked over at me, mystified.

  "I highly doubt it. I would think your experience on the subway this morning would convince you."

  "What do you want from me?"

&nb
sp; "I want to know what you know." He took a sip from his cup.

  "I doubt I know anything you don't know."

  "I want to make sure."

  "OK."

  "You can start with Joseph Saperstein."

  "What about him?"

  "What bothers you most?"

  "Bothers me?"

  "What's the wrongest thing about it?" I thought about that alley, colder and darker and more shadowed by my memory. The empty face at my feet, the details of the wound--crisper, brighter than they could possibly be.

  "Someone put his toupee with him. Most likely a blond woman or one wearing a blond wig. I think it was put there after he was killed, because otherwise it would have been burned by the gunshot, right? I mean it's made of plastic, isn't it? Or at least part plastic. So it would have been singed at least. But I have no idea why someone would want to put his toupee on him after he was dead."

  Mulberry watched me with his green eyes and nodded. "What else?"

  I told Mulberry about the hangman's rope that Elaine saw next to Tate Hausman's name in Charlene's address book. He didn't seem shocked. "Do you have her notebook?" I asked him.

  "No address book was found with her personal belongings. I just don't find it that surprising that they knew each other."

  "Is there something you're not telling me?" Mulberry sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

  "Charlene wasn't just a dog-walker." He didn't look at me.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm not sure I should be telling you this."

  "Just spit it out."

  "You're not taking this seriously enough." He leaned forward, his elbows on the table.

  "Listen, either I'm in this, or I'm not. There's no sort-of being in it, right? So which side of the in-it line would you say I'm on?" He looked confused. "I mean, I'm already in this deep, right? So how could going deeper hurt me?"

  "You can still get out, you know. If you leave it alone, you'll be safe." I stared out the window at the street beyond. "I don't even know why you're doing this in the first place."

  "Why are you doing it?" I asked him.

  "It's what I get paid for."

  "But you're on suspension."

  Mulberry laughed. "I might as well tell you." He shifted in his seat and pulled out his wallet. The brown leather was worn away at the edges. Mulberry pulled out a folded photograph. He opened it and stared down into the world it contained, then slid it picture-side-down across the table to me. I turned it over and found a family portrait. Mulberry, young and scrawny, his ears sticking far out from the side of his head, stood next to his father or uncle or somebody who looked a hell of a lot like him. This older, paunchier Mulberry's arm was around a beautiful red-headed woman. She held, barely visible in its cocoon of blankets, a sleeping baby. I recognized the couple from Charlene Miller's family album. They were her parents.

  "Charlene's your sister?" I asked, looking across the table at Mulberry.

  "Half-sister." Mulberry coughed, clearing his throat. "Same father, different mother."

  "What happened to your mother?"

  His jaw clenched. "She died."

  "And your father?"

  "Him, too. When Charlene was four. He was killed in the line of duty." Mulberry sipped his coffee and looked out the window. I followed his gaze and watched a bus wheeze to a stop on the adjacent corner.

  "I'm sorry," I said, watching men and women hurry off the bus and others clamber on. Mulberry turned back to his coffee.

  "I didn't stay in such good touch with my stepmother and Charlene. I hadn't even seen her since she moved here."

  "Why?"

  He looked back out the window, his face in a grimace. "I guess I just didn't call and neither did she and--" he strayed off. "We were mad at each other. Charlene and her mom thought my father was selfish. Charlene's mom was not cut out to be a policeman's wife. She wasn't strong enough. She just didn't get it, why he did it." He looked back at me.

  "My mother understood how important his work was, but Charlene's mom, she thought he should leave the force. She thought if he really loved her and Charlene, he would have gone into the private sector." Mulberry sighed. "And I thought my father was a hero. He risked his life to protect his community. I wanted to be just like him."

  Mulberry sipped his almost empty cup of coffee, then examined the dregs. "I don't know anything about her. I didn't even know where she lived until I started this investigation. I hadn't seen her since she graduated from high school." He leaned back against the cushioned booth and rubbed his eyes, pushing them back into his skull. "I just don't want to see her get hurt." He reached out and took the photograph off the table, then pushed it back into his wallet. "Listen, you don't have to do this. In fact, you probably shouldn't." Our waitress came over and refilled our coffees.

  "I'm not going to let that asshole on the subway think he scared me." I said. The waitress pretended like she was alone.

  "He did scare you." She walked away.

  "That's besides the point. He doesn't know that he scared me. I'm not the one who ran off that subway car. He was. He's the one running. Not me."

  Mulberry smiled. "You got balls, kid."

  That felt nice to hear. "Thanks."

  "You ever thought about going into law enforcement? I think you could be a real success."

  "I'm not really the cop type."

  "What type would that be?"

  "I didn't mean to imply anything. But I'm not that into laws and their enforcement."

  Mulberry smiled. "Then why are you doing this?"

  "Not because of the law. That much I know."

  "You're doing it for some kind of law, maybe not man's or God's, but you've got to have a pretty strong fucking conviction to be sitting here with me." I didn't answer him. He smiled again.

  "You said you thought your dad was a hero. Do you still?" I asked, changing the subject.

  He sighed. "Sure. He was a good man. To be honest, I don't know what a hero is anymore," he said and smiled. "I used to think being a cop was the most noble thing you could be, but with almost 20 years behind me I don't feel noble."

  "What do you feel?"

  Mulberry laughed. "You're not gonna get me talkin' about my feelings."

  I laughed. "Well if you don't like being a cop, why try to convince me to be one?"

  "Eh," he waved a hand through the air. "Just because you'd be good at it. The truth is you are a detective."

  "What?" I laughed.

  "You can't let a wrong go without trying to right it." I looked at him in silence, and he looked back at me. "You're like a Sam Spade or a Philip Marlowe. You get knocked down for your effort, but you keep doing it. You, kid, are a regular fictional character." I sat stunned. Mulberry waved over the waitress, who refilled our nearly full cups. When she went away Mulberry said, "You really want to know everything?"

  "Yes."

  "Charlene was a --" His cheeks pinked. "--dominatrix."

  "What?"

  "She worked as a dominatrix. And when I started to pursue that lead, it got me thrown off the case."

  "Wow." I felt a chill run down my spine.

  "Looks like Tate Hausman died while participating in erotic asphyxiation or 'breath play.' At least that's what it was supposed to look like."

  "So you're saying someone in this 'S&M' scene killed Tate and Joseph?" Mulberry shrugged. "Wouldn't it just be really stupid if you were his partner in this 'erotic asphyxiation' and then he dies like that. The finger would point directly at you."

  "Unless it was a warning."

  "To who?"

  "Other members of the community."

  "I don't understand."

  "Me, neither."

  "So what do you want to do?"

  "This is where you come in. I think that you could go to these parties without being suspicious."

  I laughed. "Funny you should say that."

  "You wouldn't have to participate. I could probably arrange to send you in
undercover as a monitor or coat-check girl or something--"

  "Mulberry--"

  "Wait, just hear me out. I'd just need you to identify some people." He leaned forward, so earnest I almost laughed.

  "I've already been invited."

  "What?" He sat back into the booth.

  "I've been seeing Declan Doyle." Mulberry's face flushed. "And he invited me to the Biltmore Club for some kind of party. He implied S&M was involved, but I kind of thought it was a joke."

  Mulberry straightened himself. "Declan Doyle, huh?"

  "I know you guys have a history."

  "Yeah." Mulberry looked away from me.

  "He said--"

  "He lies." Mulberry turned back to me, his eyes cold.

  "He said something much worse about you."

  "Look," Mulberry slid a folder across the table to me. "In here are pictures of the men who I think are trying to stop this investigation. Please let me know if you see them there." He stood to leave. "Did you say the Biltmore Club?"

  "Yeah."

  "This just keeps getting better," Mulberry said with a laugh. He hovered above me. "Did you get a weapon?" he asked.

  "Actually, I did. A stun gun."

  He looked surprised. "Those are illegal in this state."

  "So is what you're proposing."

  "No, it's not."

  "I'm pretty sure it is."

  "Listen, just be careful, OK? Stun guns are not toys."

  "Thanks, Dad."

  He didn't like that. "Let me see it." I sighed loudly and pulled it out of my purse. It was black and looked like an evil flashlight. A big, thick shaft with one button on it led to a wide head with two metal prongs facing each other. I hadn't pushed the button yet, but I imagined a string of electricity would light up between them. Hugh had handed it to me, whispering something about safety first, as I climbed into a cab last night. "Where did you get this?"

  "I have my sources." A paranoid mother in the south.

  "Just read the directions. And try not to stun yourself." He handed me back the gun. I watched him go up to the counter and pay for our coffees. The crowd watched him. He was different. Mulberry did not carry an iPod or push a baby stroller. People could tell he was a cop, and that made them uncomfortable. His presence was an unwelcome reminder that men like him existed--that his outdated suit and strong back were all that was between them and people who wanted to take away what they had.

  Dating Declan Doyle

  He was wearing a tuxedo.

  The bruise on my cheek was almost gone, and I'd covered it with concealer but he noticed as soon as he opened the door. "My god," he said, reaching his hand out and placing it lightly on my cheek. "Did Mulberry do this to you?"