Detective Heart
I do not think of myself as the type of person to learn something from my dreams, but while I was sleeping I figured out what I had to tell the police. It was a vivid and nasty dream, but it solved a problem. I called Mulberry to tell him about it.
“Wait, why are you going to lie to the police? Why make up a story? Don’t you want them to catch whoever did this to you?” I squeezed my eyes shut. Was everyone an idiot?
“Have you really not figured it out yet?” There was silence. “Get this, the mayor is not dead—yet.” I hung up. Detective Heart showed up as I clicked down the receiver. He had a friendly smile that implied he could be trusted. Detective Heart, who insisted I call him John, sat down in the only chair in the room.
“Joy—can I call you Joy?”
“Sure.”
“Joy, I know this is hard for you. You’ve been through more than I can imagine.” His empathy meant more when contrasted with my mother’s reaction. His big, warm eyes and soft voice made me sad that I would have to lie to him. “I can only guess at how much you want your brother’s killer caught. But let me tell you that I want it very much.” He leaned toward me, earnest.
“I appreciate that.”
“I need you to help me.” I wanted to. I really did. I wanted to tell John Heart everything. I wanted to lay all the weight of the thing on him, but I knew I couldn’t do that. He would never believe me.
“I wish I could help you, but I just don’t remember anything about that night.”
“Tell me what you do remember.”
“I walked into my apartment, and then I woke up here.”
“What about the night before your brother was killed?”
“I remember it.”
“Nona said you were attacked in the park?” I nodded. “Where did you sleep that night?”
“At Detective Mulberry’s place, of the 67th Precinct.” John didn’t seem surprised.
“Why?”
“I ran into him in the park right after it happened.”
“Why didn’t you file a complaint with him?”
“I really just wanted to sleep somewhere I felt safe. I promised I would go to the station with him in the morning if he would just let me stay at his place.”
“Wasn’t he recently thrown off a murder investigation and placed on suspension because it was suspected that he had mistreated you?”
“That wasn’t true.”
“Why would someone think that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you clear his name?”
“No one asked me.”
“Are you sleeping together?" That caught me off guard for no good reason.“No. No.”
“But you’re close?”
“Sort of. It’s not like he’s been to visit me.”
“You said he made you feel safe.”
“He’s a cop.”
“Cops are often scary, especially to people your age.”
“Not him.”
“What about this attack in the park. Can you tell me about it?”
“Yes.” He waited for me to continue. “I was walking through the park, and as I was passing the Peter Pan statue, a man grabbed me from behind. He threw me into the bushes. He punched me and told me he was going to rape me.” John was watching my face. I looked down at my hands and tried really hard to believe my lie. “He unzipped his pants. I kicked at him, and he punched me again. I struggled and he wrapped his hands around my throat.” A tear dropped onto the sheets. “I thought I was going to die. But just as I was about to black out, I managed to buck him off me and climb out of the bushes. I ran blindly through the park, but I don’t think he followed. I ran right into Mulberry. He made me walk back and show him where it had happened and look around for the guy, but he was gone.”
“So he didn’t radio for a search?”
“I really just wanted to go somewhere safe.” I looked up at John again. He pulled out a small, black, spiral-bound notebook and a knobby pencil from inside his suit jacket. He licked the pencil, flipped open the book, and wrote something down. Then he looked back at me.
“Could you recognize the man who attacked you in the park?”
“Maybe. It’s all such a blur.”
“Do you think it was someone you knew?
“No.” The question made me nervous.
“Did you know that Marcus Nygel has been seen around your building?”
“We used to date,” I said stupidly.
He smiled. “Yes, I know. I think it’s possible that he is a little obsessed with you.” I didn’t know what was happening all of a sudden. My lies were choking me. “Do you think that’s possible?”
“I'm sure that it wasn’t him.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to think something like this about someone you cared for, but it’s more likely that you knew the killer of your brother than that you didn’t.”
“I would know if it was him. I mean, I was with him for a while,” I protested.
“Just think about it. Try to think about how he’s been acting since the breakup.”
“Not like a stalker.” John stood up to leave. “Wait. I really think you have the wrong idea here. Marcus didn’t do this. He wouldn’t.”
“I've got a lot of leads to follow up on. If you can remember anything—stuff might come back to you over the next few days—call me. Anytime.” He placed a card on the bedside table.
“I—” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Just think about it.” And he was gone.
Paranoid?
I flitted in and out of sleep unsure of what time or day it was. My father, who died in a hospital when I was a child, became very paranoid toward the end of his life. He told my mother that they were trying to kill him because at night, in the dark, he would try and pull out the tube that ran down his nose to feed him, and the staff restrained him to save him. He mistook this as attempted murder.
Me, I was right that someone was trying to kill me when I woke up in the night, in the dark, to find my face covered by a pillow. Strong hands pushed down on my nose and mouth. I thrashed under the pressure and knocked my arm into one of the metal gates on the side of my bed meant to keep me from inadvertently tumbling to the ground. I reached through it and felt blindly at a man’s leg. My lungs felt on the verge of explosion when I found his balls.
He screamed, the sound muffled by the pillow, when I dug my nails into the soft, sensitive flesh that is woman’s most trusted weapon against man. He let go of my face and grabbed at my hand, but I’m not one to let go. I sat up, knocking the pillow off my face and punched the a*shole right in the throat with my free hand. He staggered back struggling for breath. I swung my legs off the bed to stand up and continue the fight, but instead I became incredibly nauseous. I wavered on the edge, gripping at the mattress, watching my attacker regain his breath.
Anger bloomed across his face as the pain subsided. I knew if I didn’t do something soon I was f*cked. He came at me, his fist clenched, and when he was about to strike I puked. It hurt like hell, my whole body ached from the effort and my throat burned worse than ever. He jumped back, covered in my vomit, looking down at his soiled scrubs disgusted.
The overhead light flickered on, and I could see the man for the first time. He was medium- sized with brown hair and no distinguishing features. Dressed like all the other nurses on the ward he was the kind of guy no one would notice. The perfect hit man, I thought. “Holy shit,” I heard Hugh say behind me. I turned, ignoring the searing pain in my neck, to see him in the doorway, his hand still resting on the light switch. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Before I could speak, my attacker did. “I came in to give her a fresh pillow, and she attacked me!”
“What! That is bullshit. He was trying to kill me.” My voice was weak, and it hurt to speak. I suddenly felt exhausted. The stink of my vomit filled the room, and it was all I could do not to retch again. Hugh looked from me to the hit man and then back. I followed his eyes and saw a nurse and a patient. To be honest the patient looked nuts. “He did,” I said, but my conviction was lost to fatigue. “Hugh?”
“I think you should go,” Hugh said to the man. As he began to leave, Hugh said, “And can you send someone in to clean this up.”
“Sure.”
“He won’t send anyone,” I said, “because he’s not a real nurse. He’s a hit man.” My heart was racing, but my body and mind were moving in slow motion. I knew it wasn’t safe to stay in that room, but I didn’t have the strength to get out of there.
“Alright,” Hugh said, “How about I find you a nice clean gown?” I looked down at myself and nodded. Hugh was helping me change when a nurse wearing scrubs covered in pictures of teddy bears came in.
“Oh honey,” she said, “You shouldn’t try and get up.” She swung my legs back into the bed smiling at me. “You’ve got trauma little girl.” For some reason her calling me a little girl sounded nice. I smiled at her. “Any fast movement will make you puke.”
“Who was that guy?” Hugh asked her.
“Who?” the nurse asked as she readjusted the pillow behind my head.
“The nurse who told you to come in here, that she’d puked.” The nurse was holding up my head, putting the pillow under it, when she replied,
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sweetie. I’m just doing my rounds. No one came to tell me nothing.”
I was so tired all I could say was, “Hugh, please don’t leave me. I don’t want to die.” I felt him take my hand and squeeze it before I drifted off to sleep.
The Battle Begins
I checked myself out of the hospital the next day. The doctor explained to me that my body had experienced a severe trauma and that they could help me. That without them it was going to be—and then his pager went off, and he didn’t finish his sentence.
A nurse wheeled me out of my room, down a long hallway with white, scuff-marked walls and florescent lighting. Her shoes squeaked on the green linoleum that was graying with age. We rode an elevator two floors down, then maneuvered around a moaning figure on a stretcher to get out the front door.
It was hot, and I was sick. As Hugh helped me into a cab, I wondered how crazy I really was.
The next morning I went to pick up milk at the bodega. I looked down and thought I was standing in a puddle of thick, red blood. I picked up my foot, and it stuck to it like gum. Before I began to scream, it was just the floor again. The woman behind the counter with the long nails was shocked by my face. “My God,” she said. “What happen?”
“I’m fine,” I told her.
“Your boyfriend beat you up?”
“No, nothing like that. I was in a car accident.”
“Oh yeah, that happen.”
I kept waking in the middle of the night hearing James calling my name. Cars backfired and I freaked. I eyed every average-looking person, as nondescript as my last assassin. I thought they were going to kill me.
I was staying at Nona’s because my apartment was a crime scene. My mother called me every day, and we fought for custody of James’s corpse. Reporters called, too. They wanted to know who killed my brother. Why I couldn’t remember? Were Mulberry and I “an item”? Did he murder James? Did I have a comment? If they would just shut up!
I picked up Blue from the veterinary hospital. He was different. He was always on guard, watching out for me. A large white bandage covered his left shoulder. I changed it twice a day, marveling at how quickly his body was healing itself.
I thought for sure my dog-walking route would be gone until I checked my messages and heard Elaine telling me that she and the girls would cover it for me as long as I needed. Their generosity made me break down and cry. Blue rushed to my side and put his head on my knee.
Hugh and I called all of James’s friends, the same crowd that had gathered only two weeks earlier for the house-warming party. My mother invited her friends and planned to petition for James’s body.
“We should just steal it, burn it, and toss it off the bridge,” Hugh said as we sat on Nona’s couch planning our defense.
“We can’t steal it,” I told him. Hugh huffed and took a sip of the coffee Nona placed in front of him.
“I think you have to appeal to your mother in some way,” Nona suggested.
“Maybe a decapitated horse head in her bed would do it,” Hugh suggested, only partly joking. Nona and I laughed. Hugh grimaced. He had lost weight, enough for me to notice.
“"Hugh, you alright?” I asked him.
“Stupid question, Joy.” He leaned back on the couch and rubbed his temples.
“Sorry.”
He looked over at me. “No, I’m sorry. I just haven’t been sleeping.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. It was a dumb question. Neither of us is OK. It will take a long time before we are.”
He gave me a weary smile and squeezed my arm. “You’ve lost some weight.”
“Funny, I was going to say the same to you.”
“I can solve that,” Nona said as she disappeared into the kitchen.
“Maybe Nona’s right. Maybe you should go to your mother and try and talk to her.”
“How? She’s insane.”
“Either you persuade her not to do this, or we’re going to have to fight her in court and in the media for James’s body.” Hugh’s voice broke. I put a hand on his knee.
“I’ll try,” I told him.
“We just have to figure out how to appeal to her,” Hugh said. Nona walked back in and put two slices of dark chocolate-chip cake in front of us and smiled broadly.
“Now, eat up. It’s good for you.”
Blackmail?
Bill and April Madden were staying at the Luxor. As I rang the bell to their room I had to resist the urge to make some sort of comment about how well God paid. Bill answered the door holding a glass of Scotch and wearing a hotel robe. Ice clinked when he turned to yell to my mother that I was there. He turned back to me, with more clinking, and smiled, his lips sliding over his teeth.
“Good to see you, Joy,” he told me, starting at my feet and ending at my breasts. I swallowed my revulsion.
“Bill.” I gave him a tight-lipped smile. A large gold cross hung around his neck, nestled in his graying chest hair. I remembered when that hair was jet black, and he’d wanted me to sit on his lap. My mother came out of the bathroom, her makeup freshly applied.
“Hi, Ma.”
“Hi.” She smiled. Her foundation cracked, making her instantly older.
“Ma, can I talk to you alone?” I asked over Bill’s hulking figure.
“Anything you need to say to her you can say in front of me,” Bill interjected, rocking back on his heels and puffing out his chest. He didn’t even look at my mother. He kept his eyes locked just south of mine.
“This is a mother-daughter thing, Bill,” I told him with a very fake smile on my face. “Woman-talk.” I tried to sound cheerful. His gaze moved to his feet, and he thought for a moment.
“I guess you two could go downstairs,” he finally came up with.
“OK, Ma?”
“Sure.” We rode the elevator in silence. I rehearsed my speech in my head. Nona, Hugh, and I had worked on it for hours. We hoped it would persuade her to let James have his dignity. When I looked over at her, she was watching the numbers light up one at a time. She didn't look as though she had been sleeping well. Even under all that paint, I could see dark circles around her eyes. I hoped it was because she missed her son and not because she was worried that he was burning in hell.
The elevator dinged, and we stepped out into the gilded lobby. There was an overpriced coffee shop with several people sitting around with luggage waiting either for a room or a ride. We took a table away from everyone else and silently read our menus. I ordered chamomile tea, and my mother got a water. We looked out the window at the Manhattan street as people with umbrellas hurried by in the rain. We watched as a woman in a navy suit fought with an inside-out umbrella, eventually taming it and then continuing on her way. I scanned the passing pedestrians, looking for anyone who might want to hurt me.
Our water and tea arrived, the waitress walked away, and I began, “Ma, I’m here to beg you one last time to let James have the funeral he wanted.” She sipped her water, not taking her eyes off the street.
“I can’t do that.”
“But why not?”
“Bill and I have sworn to spend our lives fighting for God. I am God’s soldier.”
“This is your own son. He didn’t want this. Can’t you respect other people’s wishes? Not even other people. Can’ you respect your own son’s wishes?"
“He didn’t know what was best for him, and I couldn’t help him in life.”
“Do you think doing this will in any way change his fate?”
“It’s the right thing to do.” She looked back at me. Her eyelids, colored crayon-blue, hung heavy.
“Ma, I love you. James loved you. But if you do this you will have lost not only your son but also your daughter.”
” have to do what is right.” She looked down at her water.
“I didn’t want to have to do this.”
“What?”
I took a deep breath before continuing. “I will tell the world that Bill molested me when I was a teenager.” My mother gasped.
“He never did such a thing,” she said, her eyes wide, her mouth gaping.
“Doesn’t mean I won’t say he did.”
“But no one will believe you.”
“Yes, they will. Why wouldn’t they?”
“Because he is a man of God.”
“Even if only a couple of people believe me, it will be enough. I can ruin him and you. I will do it if I have to.” She couldn’t believe what I was saying. “I’m serious, Ma. In fact, I think I would even enjoy it a little.”
“This is blackmail.”
“You’ve got it.”
“You can’t do this.”
“I just did.” I stood up to leave. “Talk it over with Bill.” I turned and walked away.
“Joy!” she yelled after me. I turned to look at her. She was so small, and so silly-looking it almost broke my heart. “Please.” The other people in the shop were watching us, and the waitress was getting nervous. I walked away.
Later that night, I got a call from Bill. He screamed at me that I was going to hell, and I almost believed him. Then my mother got on the phone and begged for me not to do this. Eventually she told me I could do whatever I wanted with James. I tried to remind her that it was what he wanted, not I, but she had already hung up. Hugh was as happy as one can be about earning the right to give the love of your life the send-off he wanted.
I got a call from Mulberry the morning of the funeral. It was a stormy Saturday morning. The trees outside Nona’s window bent in the wind, exposing the silver-green of the leaves’ underbellies. “How have you been?” he asked.
“Never been worse,” I told him.
“Can we talk in person?”
“Not today.”
“This isn’t over.”
“Oh. I know.”
“Call me when you’re ready.”
“I will.”
The Funeral
The worst of the storm proceeded east, spreading its turmoil to the ocean. Waves whipped white and lightning crackled. New York City’s streets shone black and wet, dotted with green leaves recently ripped from branches. Occasional gusts of wind caught in the maze of buildings whooshed down streets, splattering resting raindrops violently to the ground. People started arriving at Nona’s soon after the sun set. Nona, then me, then Hugh, then an ice-cold martini, greeted each guest.
We drank for a while at the apartment. Everyone told stories of James’s compassion, his sense of humor, and his vibrant life. I felt like there should be something cathartic about the funeral. Standing with the people who loved James, shouldn’t I feel that some of my grief rested on their shoulders? Even if only for a moment, I wanted to breathe. But their loss only compounded mine. It was all my fault.
The mood turned sober as we walked toward the bridge. We must have looked strange, 30-some-odd people dressed for a funeral walking in a pack through the streets of Brooklyn. Pedestrians moved out of our way instinctively. Hugh held James’s ashes. We walked with our heads held high.
My mother did not show. I wondered where she was as we reached the edge of the bridge. Was she already on her way back home to continue her work? Was she crying at the hotel knowing that she was missing her only son’s funeral because her mind couldn’t wrap itself around something simply different? Would she regret this for the rest of her life, or would she feel righteous and hateful forever?
The wind on the bridge whipped my hair around. My skirt and those of the other women pressed against one side of us. Men’s suit jackets flapped. But we pushed on toward the bright lights of the city.
Hugh stopped us in the middle of the bridge. “Can everyone hear me?” he yelled over the rushing wind. People nodded. “This is totally illegal, so after we open the canisters and we watch the ashes fall, we really ought to run. Those of you in the back should run back to Brooklyn and those of us in the front will run to Manhattan.” More nods. “Before we go, I’d like to thank you all for coming. I know James would have loved this.” People smiled sadly, and I felt a clench in my chest. Hugh turned to me. “Ready?”
“As much as I’ll ever be.” We leaned over the edge. Hugh removed the lid of the urn and tilted it toward the turbulent black water below. A gust of wind shot up just then and took James’s ashes. They poured out of the urn and twisted up into the light-polluted clouds. The wind stopped, and James remained suspended right in front of us for just a moment. Then the gust continued on its way. Up, up, and away. Hugh wrapped his hand into mine, and we ran.
When Will I See Her Again?
I woke up on Nona’s couch with Blue on top of me. He was crushing my legs, and I tried to push him off me. He warbled with his eyes closed pretending to be asleep. I couldn’t help but laugh. Nona came into the room and smiled at my predicament.
“Tea?” she asked.
“Please.” I pushed Blue onto the floor and made my way into the bathroom. I turned on the tap and started brushing my teeth. Since the funeral, everyone I talked to kept saying that now my life would get back to normal. The suggestion being that James’s death was something I, like most victims of violent crime, would recover from, that one day it would no longer sit on top of my brain affecting every single f*cking second of my life.
The people who thought my life could be normal again didn’t know shit. Someone tried to kill me, and it was only a matter of time before they came back and tried again. I was so scared that I actually left fear behind—like when it gets so hot that you stop feeling the heat, and everything is just in slow motion.
The bruising on my face was still a brilliant yellow with patches of green. The finger marks on my neck were already gone. The cuts stayed hidden under bandages, which I pulled off as a part of my morning routine. I applied fresh Vaseline, then new white cotton pads. I knew that within the week the stiches would dissolve and I’d be left with just white scar lines. I thought it was possible I might miss the pain, the constant tending to the wounds. They were this very real, easy reminder of how much I hurt.
“You want toast?” Nona asked through the door.
“Yeah,” I said. The doorbell rang. When I walked out of the bathroom, my mother was standing on the threshold. She looked uncomfortable and tired. Her face was bare, her skin sagging on the bones. I recognized James’s and my gray eyes.
“How about I take Blue out for his walk?” Nona suggested, slipping into a pair of clogs. “Come on, boy.” Blue bounded over to her, holding his leash in his mouth. “What a good boy,” Nona cooed. They left, and I was alone with my mother.
“You can come in,” I told her, my voice hard and defensive. She took small steps into the hall, and I closed the door behind her. I gestured for her to continue into the living room. We sat down on Nona’s couch after I pushed my bedding to one side. “What do you want?”
“I just wanted to come and say good-bye. Bill and I are leaving now.”
“Good-bye.” She twisted her wedding ring and looked at me with wide eyes. “You have something to say?”
“I’m worried about you.”
I smiled. “Don’t be.”
“Are you OK for money?”
“Yes.”
“Where will you live?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked out the window. “I remember when your grandparents first moved here.”
“Yeah.”
“We were close then, you know?”
“I know.”
“We were so young—” She looked back at me and didn’t finish her thought.
“I know, Ma. I know.”
“I wish—I wish I could be a better mother to you.”
“So do I.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I love you very much.” Her chin shook uncontrollably. Tears dripped down her face and onto that stupid wedding ring that she just kept turning round and round.
“I love you too, Ma.” I didn’t want to cry, but she grasped at me. She pulled me into her, and she still smelled like my mother—like the woman who made my lunches, walked me to the school bus, who had laughed at all my Dad’s jokes. She still smelled like she was supposed to. So I cried, too. We cried together because James was dead, because we didn’t even know each other, because there was nothing left to do but sob.
She wiped the tears off my face with the hem of her awful skirt, and I smiled at her. “I wish you had come to the funeral, Ma.”
“I should have,” she said, a hint of defiance in her voice.
“Was it Bill?” She looked back down at her wedding ring.
“He has very high expectations of me,” she told me. I didn’t want to argue, so I left it at that. “I want to give you something,” my mom said after a moment of silence. She reached for her white leather purse, opened the giant brass clasp, and pulled out an envelope. “This is from Bill and me, to help you get back on your feet.” She pushed it into my hands and stood up quickly. I could tell it was money.
“Ma, I don’t want this.” She was already moving toward the door, and I followed her quickly.
“I don’t need this.” She opened the door and was going to leave. I grabbed her wrist. “I’m not taking it.”
“Oh, please, please do.”
“I don’t want this money. It’s dirty.” She was about to start to cry again.
“Please. I want you to have it."”
“Do the people who donated it want me to have it?” She pulled herself free from me and fled down the hall. I started to follow her but gave up before I’d even begun the chase. Her skirt swished behind her as she disappeared down the stairs. I stayed staring at that empty hall for a long time, trembling.
My Triumphant Return
As I walked from the subway east toward the river, my stomach clenched, flipped, and threatened to empty itself. When I was last here, James was alive. He was walking around talking to people. And now he was a million little pieces in the air, all around me, everywhere.
Snowball jumped up in her cage, pushing her small pink paws through the bars when she saw me. At the dog run, I got a bunch of hugs, some sorrowful nods, and all the gossip. It was good to just sit there and let them talk. I heard about the new doorman at one of Fiona’s buildings and the puppy a young couple had bought. “Having trouble with house-training,” Marcia told me.
“They should be here soon,” Fiona said, looking around.
“It’s funny,” Elaine whispered to me.
“They are so desperate to praise him for going outside they scare him,” Marcia said.
“They’ve read too much,” Fiona decided.
“Have you guys heard anything about Julen?” They all looked away from me. “What?” Marcia glanced at my face and then at a nearby tree. “Guys, what’s going on?”
“He killed himself,” Marcia mustered the courage to tell me.
“No.” I felt a sinking inside me.
“I’m afraid so. His testimony is what got Mrs. Saperstein indicted and after that—in fact that same night, he cut his wrists.” I couldn’t speak. Poor Julen. He had been caught in the middle of something so not to do with him, and it killed him. I wondered if he’d killed himself or been murdered. But it didn’t matter whether by his own hand or someone else’s—this was all Kurt Jessup’s fault. And poor Mrs. Saperstein was going through hell because her husband had wanted to run away with his lover.
“This is horrible,” I said.
“At least that Jacquelyn is getting what she deserves,” Fiona said. “If it weren’t for her, Julen would still be alive.”
“Not to mention her husband,” Marcia added.
“You guys really think she did it?” I asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? I mean Julen admitted that she wasn’t with him. She was the only one who had access to that toupee; she matches the description of the woman seen leaving the scene of the crime.”
“But isn’t that all circumstantial? I mean, is there any physical evidence?” I asked.
“Her fingerprints are on the toupee,” Fiona told me.
“But Toby chewed on it. How could there be prints?” I defended her.
“If it wasn’t her leaving the scene of the crime, who was it?” Elaine asked, her face the picture of innocence. The other women nodded.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
I walked into Snaffles’ house and discovered Cecelia asleep on the couch, a picture of her younger, accused sister, held to her breast. I listened to the gentle purring she made as she slept and had an overwhelming urge to protect her—to stop all the pain she had ever known, to solve all of her problems. But that was stupid. So instead I took the dog for a walk.
Although the day was warm, I felt chilled. A strong wind blew off the river and raised goose bumps on my skin. I felt someone watching me. Turning quickly around, I saw him—the hulking stranger, the man with the hot breath. He was walking behind me, following me.