“Let’s talk to Fitzgerald again,” Mercer said, stepping onto the dock. “I don’t think he’s going to take a fall for his buddy.”
I waited until Mercer’s back was to me, then I bent down and removed one of my socks. I pushed Cormac Lonigan down onto the toilet seat, shoved the sock in his mouth, and secured it by tying my handkerchief around his face. Then I slammed the cover of the bench.
Mercer was already face-to-face with Pete Fitzgerald and asking questions by the time I came up behind him.
“Three years, maybe four,” Fitzgerald said. “I haven’t known him more than that.”
“Been to his house?” Mercer asked. “Know his parents or any of his family?”
“Never been there, no. We’ve been on jobs together like this from time to time. And we have some beers after work. That’s all.”
I was hanging back but ready to jump in and make answers happen.
“What does the name Renner mean to you?” Mercer asked with a steadiness in his voice that I envied.
“Relatives of Cormac’s on his mother’s side. I don’t know them.”
Fitzgerald was obviously used to talking with his hands, but one was firmly tethered to the metal fence and the other seemed tongue-tied without its mate.
“Ever heard of them?” Mercer asked.
“Seems everybody has. My family’s out of Hell’s Kitchen, too.”
“Any relatives of yours ever call themselves Westies?”
“Went out of their way not to do, Detective. Good people, my folks. Hardworking people.”
“You ever been locked up?”
“No way.”
The onset of the dusk of evening helped the interrogation. Manhattan Island looked a million miles away.
“Accessory to murder,” Mercer said, “is a very rough way to start.”
I don’t know who was rocked more by the sound of the word murder-the kid or me. It took me a few seconds to realize it was Mercer’s bluff to move Pete Fitzgerald in the right direction.
“I don’t know anything about a murder, Detective,” Fitzgerald said, tugging at the fencing as he tried to plead with Mercer.
“He claims you do,” I said, interrupting Mercer when he least needed me to do it. “Cormac Lonigan says you do.”
“I don’t believe he’s talking,” Fitzgerald said, shaking his head from side to side. “He wouldn’t talk to me; he sure ain’t talking to you.”
“I know his uncle,” I said, lowering my voice. “I know his uncle Emmet.”
Fitzgerald was breathing heavily, obviously confused about whom to trust.
“And I know his uncle Emmet is back in town.”
His eyes were jumping back and forth between Mercer and me like Mexican beans.
“You met Emmet yet?”
“No,” he said, his head still shaking.
“So what do you have now?” I asked. “Ten toes? Ten fingers? Count ’em good, kid, ’cause we let you go back on the ferry but we hold on to Cormac, and then I put the word out in the hood that we’ve been talking to you, you might be a few digits short come Sunday.”
“I never met Emmet. I swear to you.”
I backed off and turned to Jimmy. “We’ll hold on to Lonigan,” I said. “You get a head start out to Woodside right now. Pick a bar. Find Donahue’s.”
There was a Donahue’s in every Irish neighborhood. There must be one in Woodside.
“Have a few drinks on me. Throw Emmet Renner’s name around,” I said. “Then ask for Pete Fitzgerald. Tell them last time you saw him he was at the ferry pier downtown, talking to a bunch of cops. Then about eleven P.M., I’ll come in with him, and by then-”
“Why would you do this to me? I don’t know about any murder.”
I moved in on Fitzgerald again. He smelled of fear.
“You might as well talk to me.”
“I’ll be a dead man anyway,” he said. “Why should I talk?”
“Because if you tell us how to find Renner-and his victim-we can pick him up before you get home. If he’s not hiding out on this island, then there’s no reason for anyone to connect his problems to you.”
Fitzgerald rubbed his handcuffed wrist and stared at the ground.
“Has he killed that woman?” he asked.
“Which one, now?” I said. “The one you don’t know anything about?”
“Cormac’s not one for talking much.”
“He told me he was drinking with you last night,” I said to Fitzgerald. “Was that a lie?”
“It’s true.”
“What bar?”
“Molly McGuire’s,” he said, probably thinking he was confirming some kind of alibi for Lonigan.
I pointed at Jimmy. “That’s where you’re hanging out, Detective. Molly McGuire’s. You let everyone in the joint know that Pete Fitzgerald’s squealing like a stuck pig.”
Fitzgerald swung around to try to grab the back of Jimmy’s windbreaker to stop him from leaving, but all he did was wrench his arm. “Wait! Don’t be saying that, please.”
“What, then?” I asked. “You know Cormac helped his uncle get onto the island late Wednesday night, into Thursday?”
“Let me loose from here,” Fitzgerald said. “Everything aches, okay? My wrist, my legs, my back. You’ve gotta let me loose.”
“In time, man. Speak up.”
He turned his head toward the boat to see if there was any sign of Cormac Lonigan.
“No way his uncle came here,” he said. “I don’t know anything about his uncle, except Cormac’s deathly afraid of him. Never met him till a week or so ago, but scared of him, just like his own mother is.”
“Well, that’s in the category of ‘nice to know,’ but it’s not helpful to what I need to do.”
“Cormac left the island when I did on Wednesday,” Fitzgerald said, calmly and without emotion. “Normal time, on the late afternoon ferry.”
“When did you come back?”
“Seven thirty Thursday morning. First ferry. And Cormac was on it with me.”
Fitzgerald was beginning to respond to my questions but directed his answers toward Mercer. I stepped back to let my old friend take the lead.
Mercer took the kid through Wednesday on the island in detail, and then Thursday, too.
“What about Thursday night?” Mercer asked.
“Cormac seemed jumpy, is all. I can’t describe it, really, but he wasn’t quite himself,” Fitzgerald said. “I asked him if he wanted to have a drink or two. He didn’t seem to want to go home, so he said ‘yeah,’ and off we were to McGuire’s.”
“What were you drinking?” Mercer asked.
“Usually beer, like I did that night. But Cormac surprised me. He ordered vodka. Tito’s,” Fitzgerald said. “A double Tito’s.”
The handmade Texas vodka had become popular in the city, but it was pricey for a construction worker in Queens.
“Two of those,” he went on, “and he was toasted pretty quick. Asked me if he could borrow some money to buy a burger and another drink. No problem with that, but I told him he’d better slow it down. No point getting hammered having to work the next day.”
“Did he want to talk?” Mercer said.
“Not really. Just jumpy, like I told you. I thought it was to do with his grandfather dying and his uncle coming back.”
“He told you about that?”
“Not a word. But news about the Renners was all over the neighborhood, people wanting to stay out of their way and all.”
That was a fact I understood.
“Cormac had half a load on before he told me he had done something stupid. Something at work,” Fitzgerald said.
Mercer’s style was as smooth as silk. You’d think he attached no importance to the questions he was asking.
“Like what?”
Fitzgerald rolled his head around and rubbed his neck with his free hand.
“C’mon, kid. You’re almost there,” Mercer said.
“This will come back to me and then there’ll be nowhere to hide,” Fitzgerald said, tears forming in his eyes.
“We know what Cormac did already, Pete,” Mercer said. “We’ve got the evidence in his backpack. We don’t need you to prove it.”