Unleashed (20 page)

"I've got some pretty fascinating information for you," Mulberry said.

"And I for you," I said, still unsure of how I was going to tell him about what happened the night before.

"That man who just walked out," he said, pointing at the door with his almost empty glass, "He's the pathologist assigned to Tate Hausman's case, and—" The bartender came back with our pints and a shot of whiskey for Mulberry. He downed the shot, paid, and the bartender went away. "He did the autopsy on Tate, and he says that he died of strangulation but not from being hung up the way he was. Tate was strangled while lying face down." I sipped my beer and listened. "He thinks he had a fight with the killer. The murderer managed to knock Tate to the ground then choked him using the same line he hung him up with. Tate was already dead when the perp suspended him from the ceiling."

"That makes sense." His eyebrows rose. "As far as I could tell, Tate Hausman was not a part of the scene I attended last night."

"Really?"

"Elaine was there, and she said that, get this, Charlene e-mailed her and asked her to start a rumor about the two of them."

"What?"

"She thinks it was to throw people off the truth that Charlene was having an affair with Joseph Saperstein.

"I suspected as much." he said sighing.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter."

"I thought we were working on this thing together!"

"Keep your voice down," Mulberry whispered.

"Sorry, but really."

"You're right. I'm sorry."

"Is there anything else I don't know?"

"No."

"OK then." I sulked for a moment. "I don't think the message was from Charlene."

"Of course not. She's not an idiot. Tell me, did you see anyone there? Anyone I asked you to look out for?"

"Yes." I'd gotten home late last night, but I'd made sure to check the photographs before passing out. "The Commissioner of Police, Harold Faultner."

Mulberry banged his fist on the bar. "I knew it! Faultner is pushing too hard on this thing. That guy," he said, pointing to the door referencing the pathologist, "told me he was being asked to rule Tate's death a suicide."

"Is he going to do it?"

"Yeah, I think so." Mulberry shook his head. "He's close to retirement. I mean he's got too much to lose."

"I think someone is leaning on Faultner. I don't think it's his idea."

"Yeah? What makes you say that?"

"I don't know." I thought back to the drunken man and the pudgy girl we'd left behind at the fireplace. "He didn't seem like a killer. And what would his motive be? I could believe he is being blackmailed but not that he is the killer."

"Look," he leaned towards me. "There is someone with a hell of a lot of clout trying to make Tate suicidal and Mrs. Saperstein a black widow." He leaned back and picked up his beer. "It's not just the Commissioner. When I tried to get a warrant for Charlene's place I was refused. Do you know how ridiculous that is?" He looked up at me, and I shrugged my shoulders.

"But I thought you did search her place."

He smiled. "Yeah, I got a different judge and myself off the case."

"All right, so someone is manipulating the pathologist, judges, and the police commissioner." We sat in silence for a while draining our beers and thinking. "You know Robert Maxim?" I asked.

Mulberry turned slowly toward me. "Yeah. Everyone knows Robert Maxim."

"It was his dog who found the body."

"You're saying maybe it wasn't a coincidence?"

"Maybe the dog knew the body was there." Mulberry narrowed his eyes. "He was at the party—playing," I continued. "I saw him talking to the police commissioner, and he is obviously a powerful guy."

"Powerful is an understatement. He basically runs this city. I mean Fortress Global provides security for half the corporations based out of New York, both overseas and in the States. He is up to his neck in this city."

"But look, I'm telling you the guy is deep into S&M. He married a dominatrix."

Mulberry choked on his sip of beer. "What?"

"Yeah." And she's kind of hot I thought to myself. "My point is if you're this all- powerful guy-, why would you kill someone not as important as you, using a method that would make it look like you did it? That's almost as dumb as Charlene writing an e-mail to Elaine asking her to spread rumors that make her look guilty of murder."

"Someone else must have written it," Mulberry said, his half-intoxicated tongue fumbling over the word written, making it sound like witten.

"What?

"The e-mail to Elaine from Charlene. Someone else must have written it."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Hacking into someone's e-mail account isn't exactly brain surgery. I mean, if this person can turn murder into suicide and a grieving widow into a murderess, then a bogus e-mail would be child's play."

"Good point."

"It's someone who knows about the parties and is powerful enough to control the most important people in the city. Possibly even Robert Maxim." Mulberry contemplated his beer and then, with a smile on his lips, continued, "The only person more powerful than the people we're talking about is the mayor, and I don't think he's running around killing stockbrokers and accountants."

We both sipped our beers. "That is crazy. Right?"

"Yes," Mulberry said without looking at me.

"There's no way."

"None."

"He was friends with Tate."

"Even more of a reason not to murder him."

"They were scuba buddies, you know?" I said.

"Yeah, I watch TV."

We sat in silence for a moment.

"Another round?" the bartender offered. The beers arrived dripping with condensation. Mulberry threw back his shot, slamming the small glass onto the bar.

"I got a really weird phone call from Julen this morning," I said. "He told me not to call him anymore and said he did what my friends asked. Any idea?"

Mulberry nodded. "He changed his statement yesterday afternoon. He now says that Mrs. Saperstein was not with him. That she wanted to kill her husband."

"Jesus." My phone rang. "Excuse me." It was James, and he was almost drunk.

"You have to come out here," he yelled over the background noise.

"Where?"

"I'm on the Lower East Side at Meow Mix and there's the greatest band playing. They're called 'The Pussy.'"

"What?"

"The Pussy. You'll love it. Get over here."

"I'll see you in a bit." I walked back to Mulberry.

"I was just thinking," Mulberry said as I sat back down on my stool. "The woman in the doorway—the blonde that Chamers saw."

"Yeah?

"You know, we never figured out where she went. We combed the place. We opened every locked door, went down every passage. We even had the head of the building, William Franklin, helping us. We found all sorts of shit. Boxes of records" he said as he ticked off a finger, "old wet suits," another finger, "dust, a lot of dust," he looked at his third finger for a while then continued, "but no unsecured or surveillanced exit."

"Is there surveillance in the halls?"

"I wish. Only on the parking entrances, and all the other doors have alarms, like the alley exit."

"Maybe she was disguised and changed before she entered one of the parking lots."

"No. No women at all during that period."

"Maybe she hid in the building."

Mulberry waved his hand, "There is no way. We searched the whole place. Trust me. She did not leave through any of the exits that we know about, and unless she is down there right now crouching in a corner, the woman is a ghost."

"What's your point?"

"I think there's an exit we don't know about. There has to be." His cheeks were flushed.

"So you want to try and find it?"

"I want
you
to try and find it."

"What? Come on. How am I supposed to do that?"

"Talk to Chamers. He liked you."

"He's not going to tell me anything he didn't already tell you."

"You have to." He slammed his drink down, and beer sloshed over the rim of the mug.

"Whoa, I don't have to do anything." I stood up. "I'll talk to you when you're a bit more sober."

"What? You're leaving? Come on," he whined.

"You're drunk and I'm outta here." I turned to leave. He grabbed my arm, and I ripped it away from him. "Back off," I hissed at him.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please sit down." I turned and left.

###

I
found James drunk, leaning on a dirty bar, sipping from the lip of a Corona bottle. "Hey," I yelled over the music.

"You made it," he shouted. "Let's get you a drink." James waved to the bartender, a woman with a shaved head and an 'I heart Mom' tattoo on her neck. On stage, four girls in short skirts with dark eye makeup jiggled. The lead singer, her faux hawk dyed midnight blue, held the mike right up to her full lips and screamed while shaking her thin legs. The guitarist moved to the edge of the stage and rubbed her instrument between her thighs to the wild cheers of the crowd. "Here." James pushed a shot of tequila into my hand.

"Oh, so this is how it's gonna be?" I yelled at him.

"What?"

"So this is how it's gonna be!"

"What?"

"Never mind." I poured the salt onto my hand, licked it, quickly shot the tequila which made me feel like I was going to throw up, sucked aggressively on the lime, and felt a shiver. "Argh. Beer," I yelled to James. He passed me a Corona. I took a nice, cold slug and felt better. "Argh. I hate that."

"The first one's always the worst." It was already relaxing me. Mulberry's outburst had me worried. I was starting to think that he was crazier than I thought, which made me crazier than I thought. The next shot of tequila lessened these worries even more. By the third I had forgotten I had a problem and was in the middle of the dance floor with James, bouncing to the music.

"I have to pee," I yelled to James, and he nodded. I moved through the crowd toward the bathroom. The line made me groan out loud. "Is this the back of the line?" I asked a woman leaning against the wall behind ten other women.

"Yup.

"Thanks." I stared absently into the surging crowd. A woman broke free of the mass and passed me heading for a door marked "Employees Only, Stay the Fuck Out." Her hair was chopped almost to her scalp and dyed Pepto-Bismol pink. Her face was in shadow, but I could make out strong features in a grimace. I inched forward with the line. Where had I seen her before? The door opened, she turned to look over her shoulder, and a light illuminated her eyes for just a moment. My heart started beating really fast. Charlene Miller. Charlene fucking Miller. She wasn't dead; she wasn't kidnapped; she was in the back room of a lesbian club on the Lower East Side.

###

I
dragged James out to the street. "What are you doing?" he protested as I marched him down the deserted block and away from the crowd of smokers outside the club.

"I don't want anyone to hear us," I whispered.

He looked back at the crowd of drunken people. "I don't think you have to worry about them."

"Just shut up."

"Hey, what's going on?"

I stopped on the corner. "I just saw Charlene."

"Who?" He looked confused and intoxicated.

"Charlene," I enunciated as clearly as possible. "The woman I got the dog-walking route from who mysteriously disappeared."

He gasped. "Where?" he whispered and peered around us.

"Inside. She walked right past me and went into a room for employees only."

"Holy shit. What are you going to do?"

"I guess I should call Mulberry."

"Right. That's a good idea."

"But, he's drunk."

"Oh."

"Do you think we need another drunk person around?"

"Probably not. Wait. I have an idea," James said.

"Great."

"Let's follow her." He smiled wildly.

"Right. That way we will know where she's hiding out," I said.

"That's right. And then when Mulberry's sober, we can tell him."

"OK. We should have coffee."

"Right. Coffee." We looked around the empty streets. Nothing was open but a tired-looking bodega on the adjacent corner. The fluorescent lights made us look like the drunk, sweaty fools we were. "God, this is not the lighting for us," James said, looking at me as I poured thick, brown sludge into a Styrofoam cup. His skin, hair, and teeth were all the same unpleasant yellow. We paid for our coffees and walked back out into the night. The coffee had been burnt in the original brewing and then sat for most of a day.

"Well, we have to sober up somehow." I shrugged.

"Right. We are on a mission," James said and we smiled at each other.

"Let's finish these and join the smoking crowd. That way we'll see her leave, and we won't look suspicious," I suggested.

"Don't you think she might recognize you?"

"Good point. And what if there is a back entrance?" I said.

"I think we should finish our coffees," James said. I nodded. "And then go back inside," James continued. "Have some water." I nodded again. "Then blend with the crowd until we see her leave," he finished.

"I agree," I agreed.

But before our plan could be put into action, I saw her bright pink head exit the bar.

"There she is," I said grabbing James's arm.

"All right, all right. This is it. Stealth."

"Stealth." She started toward us. "Crap, hide me."

"Don't be so obvious," James whispered. I was turning in circles and trying to cover my face with my coffee cup. "Pull yourself together, Joy. Stealth, man, stealth." Then he started laughing. She was on the other side of the street, and as I watched her head turn toward us, I spun my back to her. James leaned on me, laughing.

"Pull yourself together," I whispered harshly at him.

"No, you idiot, start laughing." He was right. Being drunk was the perfect cover. I started to laugh along with him. "She turned down Pitt Street. Let's go," James said. We both straightened up and turned serious. During the day, Pitt would have been bustling with shoppers and commuters, but at three in the morning it was just her and us. "Where do you think she's going?" James asked.