Brooklyn Blue: A Madison Knox Mystery (Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  BROOKLYN BLUE

  MZ KELLY

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  BROOKLYN BLOOD

  CONTESTS

  STREET TEAM

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  ONE

  “Whatever you do, don’t fuck this up, Madison,” Conan Stufflebeam said, looking over at me before getting out of our unmarked unit. “I’m gonna get promoted one of these days despite having to work with you.”

  When we were on the street I came over to Stufflebeam, who, at five six, was four inches shorter than me. Thanks to his stupid name and a pointed, balding noggin, other cops secretly called my partner “Conehead”. Think round face, bug eyes, a shitload of forehead, and you’ll get the picture.

  “I heard Harry Dutton passed the lieutenant’s exam the other day,” I said.

  “Dutton? You’re kidding me.” He chuckled. “That guy’s a brick short of half a load.”

  I nodded. “He told me the exam wasn’t that hard. You just have to be able to count with one hand and find your nuts with the other.” I met his dark, muddy eyes. “Call me an optimist, but I’ve seen you grab your nuts, so I think you’ve got half a chance.”

  A Conehead mini-rant followed, my partner explaining that I was full of certain unpleasant bodily fluids and telling me that I should consider engaging in solo fornication, something that I never quite understood. How do you...? Never mind. While he’s on meltdown, I should probably take a minute to fill you in on my background and why I’m standing on a street in New York City with a guy who looks like an alien.

  My name is Madison Knox. I’ve been an NYPD cop for seven years, two of those as a detective, third grade. I’m twenty-eight, with decent features, hazel eyes, and unnaturally blonde hair. My natural color is auburn, but there’s never been anything natural about my hair or my life.

  I’m divorced, and looking—as in constantly looking and occasionally even sampling the merchandise, like a shopper at one of those giant warehouse stores. The problem with the merchandise is that once you sample the offering, you often find it isn’t as tasty as the packaging promises and it almost always comes with more baggage than an airport terminal in a snowstorm.

  That brings my ex to mind. His name is Vinny Wozniak. We met in the third grade when he made a career decision to become my personal stalker. After ten years of being courted with flowers stolen from cemeteries, perfume that was on sale at the ninety-nine-cent store (Eau de la Cheap Ass), and even an occasional indecent exposure incident, I’d lost my mind and married him after dropping out of community college.

  The marriage lasted a year before I realized that, in his spare time, Vinny was shacking up with someone he met at the tuna factory where he worked. There were a few guys after Vinny, but I hadn’t been in a serious relationship in a couple years. Like I said, men come with a lot of baggage, and I know from personal experience most of it smells worse than a dead fish.

  Vinny is now a big shot real estate agent who still tries to hit on me. I live in Brooklyn in the basement of my aunt and uncle’s flat, thanks to some past issues with my parents. From what I know about my father, he was a truck driver, never in the picture. My mother had her own issues. She gave me to Aunt Lucy and Uncle Marvin to raise when I was twelve. From what I’ve been told, she had a drug problem when she disowned me and planned to check herself into a treatment program. I don’t know if the treatment was successful because I never saw her again.

  Over the years, my aunt and uncle gave me different stories about why Mom never came back for me. The one I like best is that she ran off with one of the Yankees—as in a baseball player. I sometimes have fantasies about seeing Mom at a baseball game with a guy who looks like Derek Jeter. Actually, I have fantasies about seeing Mom anywhere. I’ve been looking for her for almost two decades now, wondering if she’s still alive. My friend Amy once described me as an eternal optimist, trying to ignore the fact that Lucifer’s constantly poking my ass with his pitchfork.

  More on my miserable life later—and believe me, it gets worse. I’d better get back to life with Conan Stufflebeam, my scum-sucking alien-like partner.

  It was winter, closing in on midnight, and the sidewalk was icy near the convenience store where Stufflebeam and I stood. Inside, the clerk, a Mr. Wong, had just sent us a signal that the same guy who had robbed the store a week earlier was inside, casing the joint. Our as
signment for the past couple weeks was to try to stop a string of robberies that had occurred in the neighborhood. The area had a lot of empty, shuttered buildings, and was about as welcoming as a case of herpes.

  We stopped a few yards from the store and looked inside, not seeing our suspect. My partner had his trademark smirk on his face as he turned to me. “I’ll go in first and make it look like I’m in there for snacks.” His bug eyes fixed on me. “You ever shot anybody?” A shit eating grin spread across the alien’s face. “Let me rephrase that. You ever intentionally shot anybody?”

  Just guys with pointed heads from another galaxy.

  I swept hair that desperately needed a root-job out of my eyes. “Keep it up, and today might be the first.”

  I’d long since given up trying to live down shooting my training officer when I was a rookie cop. Seven years ago, Jimmy Rooney and I answered a domestic call in Queens. After knocking on the door, announcing ourselves, we’d been greeted by a ninety-pound pit bull named Prissy. Rooney had taken the worst of the mauling, using his feet to defend himself and screaming for me to “shoot the motherfucker”.

  Being a lover of all things with four feet and a tail (not to mention anything that’s fattening, fashionable, and occasionally foolish), instead of shooting Prissy, I tried a little sweet talk. When that didn’t work, I used some physical persuasion, trying to pull the dog off Rooney.

  To make a long story short, our suspect ran off while Prissy got really pissed, causing Rooney to pull out his gun and begin shooting anything that moved. Realizing that both Prissy and I were in the crosshairs, I did the New York version of one of those idiotic Russian dances where the guys throw themselves around the floor and start kicking their legs out. My gun happened to become unholstered during my dance routine and went off. I managed to pull Rooney back in the hallway and close the door to the flat on Prissy, before realizing that my training officer had been shot in the groin. Rooney had survived, but ended up being one nut short of a fully loaded happy sack.

  Over the years, the story continued to haunt me. I’d been forced to endure names like “Ball Buster”, “The Groin Reaper”, and “The Castration Cop”.

  Despite my history, as my partner and I stood on the icy sidewalk outside the convenience store, I tried looking on the bright side. If I did end up shooting Stufflebeam, he’d never be able to have kids, and I’d prevent aliens from populating the planet. Who needs Will Smith?

  “Let’s move out,” my partner said, after making a point of telling me that he was wearing body armor, consisting of two Kevlar vests.

  The convenience store, New York’s version of something that should have been called a Stab ‘n’ Grab, was about the size of a 7-Eleven; a pot lover’s sugar-coated, deep-fried, junk food heaven. The place should have had an urgent care center inside to deal with the heart attacks it created.

  As I entered the establishment behind my partner, I saw that there were about a half-dozen stoners and drunks milling about. A couple of them had on heavy coats that made me wonder if they were packing—and I’m not talking about a trip to Florida.

  Our bad guy was a two-time felon named Ronald Schwartz, who the local cops called One-Eye, as in Willie, on account of him having only one eye and vaguely resembling a penis. I didn’t know if I believed the story, but, according to Bob Rousey, a street cop who worked the area, One-Eye sold his other eye to a body parts smuggler in Harlem for a grand to buy drugs. After a long weekend of coke and meth, Schwartz ended up with his new name and broke again. Like I said, I don’t know if the story is true. The only thing I do know for sure is there are a lot better looking penises than One-Eye.

  I was at the back of the store, keeping an eye on One-Eye, at the same time thinking about buying a double nut chocolate truffle, something called an A-Bomb (probably because an ass bomb went off when you ate it), when I heard my partner calling out to our suspect.

  “Don’t move!” Stufflebeam yelled. “Hands in the air!”

  I came up to the counter with my gun out, where I saw One-Eye with a wad of ones stuffed in his pocket, a beer in his hand, and his one and only eye fixed on my alien partner. Are human beings getting uglier, or is it just my imagination?

  “He take tip jar and a 40,” the clerk said, pointing at the money and the beer. He was Asian, and angry in a way that only those who scrape by for every dollar they make understand. “He bad guy. I want his ass in jail. Send him up river.”

  “Cuff him,” my partner said to me, apparently deciding that I should be the one to row One-Eye’s boat to Sing Sing.

  I holstered my weapon and had my cuffs out when One-Eye shifted both his one eye and his weight, stomping down on my foot. I was yelping in pain as he began sprinting for the door.

  “Stop the mommy fucker!” Mr. Wong yelled. “He got my tips!”

  Stufflebeam began heading for the door, but turned to me as I grabbed my injured foot and began hopping around in pain. “Nice work, Knox. Let’s go before he gets away.”

  We began heading up the street, Conehead slipping around on the icy sidewalk as he chased after One-Eye, while I hopped, skipped, and yelped my way behind him. We passed a few drunks on the sidewalk who seemed to ignore us, maybe deciding it was common practice in this part of the city for an alien and a one-legged cop to be chasing a guy who sold his body parts for drugs.

  “I think he broke my toe,” I groaned, stopping and trying to catch my breath after we’d only gone a block.

  I got an alien death stare. “You either get it in gear, Knox, or I’m reporting you.”

  I got it in gear, but my gear was grinding slow as we went around a corner and saw our suspect was already about a hundred yards away.

  “He’s heading down the alley!” Stufflebeam shouted. “Let’s move it.”

  The alleyway was narrow and icy, causing our suspect to slip and go down in the darkened passage. My partner tried to seize the opportunity, but he also toppled like the head pin in a bowling alley. After he went down, I crashed into him, causing both of us to bounce off the wall. My partner got to his feet, shouting obscenities, first at me, then at One-Eye.

  I got to my feet and followed, slipping and stumbling out of the alleyway. We were behind several stores now, after moving down a narrow access road to a back alley, pursuing our suspect on the icy loading docks. There were pallets of cardboard and open dumpsters pushed up against the loading platforms. I finally managed to work through my pain and was able to pass my partner up while he was bent over, grabbing his knees and gasping for air. I got another blast of obscenities as I moved past him.

  I’d managed to close the distance between me and One-Eye when our suspect went down. I stumbled, or maybe I should say skidded my way over, slipping on an icy patch and landing directly on top of him.

  I was trying to catch my breath and get my bearings when One-Eye grabbed my breast and said, “You’ve got nice tits. You wanna have sex?”

  I pushed his hand away and managed to get ahold of my cuffs with the other hand. “I’d sooner have sex with a dead squirrel.” He laughed as I added, “And it would be better looking.”

  I heard an alien death scream behind me. I turned and saw my partner moving in our direction, but at the same time slipping on a frozen pool of water on the loading dock.

  Stufflebeam screamed, “I’m going down, and there’s a…!”

  I heard a sloshing sound, followed by a clank, like a bell ringing. After getting One-Eye cuffed to a pole, I ran back over to the loading dock where my partner had gone down. I stopped and looked into one of the open dumpsters. It was full of a rancid-smelling grease, probably scraped from the stoves of several restaurants in the area. I didn’t see any sign of alien life in the black goo. An old sci-fi movie about a swamp creature from Mars entered my thoughts.

  “Conan, are you in there?” I screamed, looking into the dark molasses-like substance.

  Nothing.

  “God damn it,” I said, pulling off my shoes and removing my gun.<
br />
  I held my breath and dove in. It took me about five minutes of swimming around in the vat of grease before I found Stufflebeam’s arm. I pulled him up and looked into his round, alien face.

  “Are you okay?” I yelled.

  There was no answer. I managed to pull him over to the edge of the dumpster, spitting out grease as I went. I realized he wasn’t breathing. The dire nature of my situation then hit me: I was going to have to give CPR to an alien who had done the backstroke in a tub of grease.

  As I grimaced and pried open Stufflebeam’s mouth, I resisted the urge to glance behind me and see if Lucifer was sticking me with his pitchfork again.

  TWO

  “Your partner’s dead,” Lieutenant Corker said, coming over to me after responding to the scene almost an hour later. “He musta hit his head on the side of the dumpster, lost consciousness when he fell in. Probably choked on the…” He sniffed the air and grimaced. “…smells like chicken grease and some kinda shit.” He regarded me, a smarmy grin now spreading across his face. “You look like you’re half dead.”

  My lieutenant was pushing sixty, with almost thirty years on the job. He was a red-faced alcoholic, with a round hairless head that gave him the look of an angry, tubby tomato. I’d had my share of problems with him, but I wasn’t alone in that regard. My lieutenant didn’t like women working under him—or, maybe I should say, he only liked women if they were under him. In the year he’d been my supervisor, I’d seen three female detectives resign or transfer.

  Some people might say Corker was just a cop from another era: a no-nonsense, by-the-book, old school police officer. Others would just say he was a misogynistic throwback to the Paleozoic era when women were considered lower than pond scum on the evolutionary scale. “Hatred” might be too strong a word to explain my feelings toward him, so let’s just say that I despised the arrogant asshole.

  I was standing on the loading dock with a towel, doing my best to wipe some of the greasy goo out of my hair and face as I said to the lieutenant, “I tried to give him CPR, but…”

  “She’s pretty good with her lips,” One-Eye said, calling over to Corker. He was a few feet away, still cuffed to the pole and smiling. “She wanted to have sex with me.”