Fitzgerald looked at Mercer straight on. “Then what am I doing? Then what is this about?”
“You need to save your own ass,” Mercer said. “You want to separate yourself out so you’re not charged as an accessory to kidnapping and murder? Then you’d best tell us exactly what you knew and when you knew it.”
Answers came faster now.
“So we’re at the bar, and Cormac’s drinking like a fish,” Fitzgerald said. “Told me that a friend of his needed to spend a night on the island. Maybe two. Liberty Island. That he saw the big story in the newspaper last year about the caretaker being retired and the island without any security at night.”
“Yeah?”
“The friend seemed to know about Fort Wood already, about the way it was boarded up inside the old building.”
“You think Cormac told him?” Mercer asked.
“Could be. He likes to go down there on his break. Just hang out solo in a quiet place,” Fitzgerald said. “He’s pretty familiar with it.”
“And you?”
“I was curious about it, yeah. I went downstairs with him a few weeks back, in early September, I guess it was. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.”
“Lunch break?”
“Exactly.”
“Popped a cold beer or two?” Mercer asked.
“It was a hot day. Yeah, we’ve done that.”
“So what about his friend who wanted to spend the night? How was he planning to get here?”
“Same way anyone else would, I guess. It’s a two-minute boat ride from the Jersey side to the dock on the back of the island. You got a boat, you could come here from anywhere.”
“No security at all during the night?” Mercer said.
“No people anymore. Not since they closed the caretaker’s house up,” Fitzgerald said. “A few surveillance cameras, but if you know where they are, you can come in underneath them.”
“To do what?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “All Cormac had to do was remove some of the wooden boarding, loosen it up so his friend could pull it aside and sneak in. Then be able to nail it shut again. That’s all.”
“Weren’t you interested in what this imaginary friend of Cormac’s wanted to do here?”
Pete Fitzgerald looked up at Mercer. “I figured I knew.”
“And what was that?” Mercer asked.
“I figured Cormac was trying to do the right thing. Trying to help a guy who needed to get out of his uncle’s way.”
I stared at him, trying to get a read on his credibility.
Mercer went on. “Why’s that?”
“Emmet Renner’s a name nobody wants to hear again, out where I live. Word got around that he had come back, and everybody was scrambling to keep out of Renner’s way. He’s got a rep for evening scores,” Fitzgerald said. “Cormac’s a good guy. Wouldn’t say anything bad about his own family, but he knew he’d become a sort of pariah if Emmet caught up with any of his old crowd.”
“So helping someone hide out over here is what you thought?”
“A union guy, probably. Someone like me, that’s what I thought. Someone who just needed to make himself scarce till the grandfather died. By then, Emmet will have to be gone again.”
“How about the woman?” Mercer said.
“I’m telling you what I know. Cormac never said anything about a woman.”
“Not even today?” I broke in. “Not even when you went back to get the sheet?”
Fitzgerald lowered his head. “Look, we saw you guys come on the island-word got around pretty quick that cops were here.”
“Why was that a problem?” I asked.
“It wasn’t a problem for anybody but Cormac. He got jumpy again, all at once. Said he had to go back and check that his friend wasn’t still in the fort.”
“And you just volunteered to go along?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I just did.”
“Stupid.”
“That’s your opinion.”
“Really stupid,” I said. “You walked yourself right into a felony, kid.”
“I didn’t even go in past the wooden boards, Detective. I swear it. I just waited for Cormac in the hallway.”
“What? To come out with the sheet and the handcuffs?”
“Handcuffs? I didn’t see any handcuffs,” Fitzgerald said, rattling the arm with the metal bracelet. “They make noise like this. There were no cuffs. What felony are you talking about?”
“Kidnap, if you’re feeling lucky. Murder, if you’re acting as stupid as I think you are.”
I was close to the kid’s breaking point.
“And his friend?”
“Gone. He said there was no one in there.”
“Was he surprised?” Mercer asked.
“Not surprised so much as relieved.”
I took the handcuff key from Jimmy North and held it up for Fitzgerald to see. “You want me to believe you never asked your pal who he was trying to help?”
“It’s true.”
“Or today, that you never pressed him for what he had put himself-and you-at risk for?” I asked, walking toward him.
“I told you. I thought he was doing a good thing, for himself and for everyone afraid of his uncle Emmet,” Fitzgerald said. “It was over today. I didn’t think there was no risk in walking back with him to the fort. Now are you letting me go?”
He watched as I put the key in the handcuff lock. “Actually, I thought I’d power it up another notch. See if there’s anything Cormac said that you might have forgotten to tell me.”
I’d never been into brutality as a means for getting information from a perp. But I thought I might be capable of anything to get Coop back.
Pete Fitzgerald yelped as I turned the metal on his wrist.
“Better?” I asked.
“Make him stop!” the kid screamed.
I knew Mercer was about to shut me down.
“Anything?”
“Cormac was relieved, is all,” Fitzgerald said, as fast as I asked the question. He took one more glance back, in the fading light, to the boat where Cormac was restrained. “He came out holding that sheet and told me his friend was gone. And…”
He paused.
“And what?”
“He said something that made no sense, so I ignored it.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“He said, ‘Thank God he’s gone.’ And I asked him where to? ’Cause so far as I was aware, Emmet Renner was still in Woodside. Might not be smart for this friend to be going back,” Fitzgerald said. “And Cormac’s answer to me was ‘Manhattan.’”
I grabbed his shirt and shook him. “Did he say where in Manhattan? What about it made no sense to you?”
“The lighthouse. The lighthouse in Manhattan,” Fitzgerald said. “I would have told you earlier, but it made no sense to me.”
I let go of him faster than he could breathe. I handed the key back to Jimmy North and told him to unlock the cuffs.
Fitzgerald doubled over and started to cry. “It made no sense because there’s no damn lighthouse in Manhattan.”
I started to trot down to the dock.
“What do I do with him now?” Jimmy shouted as Mercer ran after me.
“Take him to the squad with you,” I said. “Feed and water him, Jimmy. Give him a gold medal and get everything else he wants to say out on the table.”
“Hold up, Mike!” Mercer called out.
I stopped in front of the wooden crates, opened one, and removed half a dozen Roman candles from inside it.
“What did the kid say that turned you around?” Mercer asked.
“The lighthouse in Manhattan. That’s where we’re going.”
“Why? Where is it?”
“If you’d been any closer to it this morning, you would have bumped into it,” I said, making my way to the Intrepid.
“Where?”
“Jeffrey’s Hook, Mercer. The last lighthouse standing in Manhattan is at Jeffrey’s Hook.”
FORTY-FIVE
I jumped onto the deck of the boat and stowed the fireworks on the rear seat. I put the key in the ignition and started to untie the rope at the bow.