Bad Blood (19 page)

“But we can sit up for a little longer.”

He put a finger up to my lips to quiet me. “I’ve got to pay attention to the rules or maybe I won’t be invited back. Your room is here?”

“Yes,” I said, walking through the kitchen and study. Luc followed behind me and took my arm as I opened the bedroom door to go inside.

He pressed me against the wall and kissed me again — harder this time — on my mouth. Then he nibbled at the top of my ear, smiling as he pushed me over the threshold and backed away.
“Bonne nuit, ma princesse. Bonne nuit.”

“Sorry to bring you back early,” Mike said, closing the car door outside the shuttle terminal at noon on Sunday. “I think I need you for this interview. Festivities over?”

“Mostly.” I had been sitting on the deck of the Chilmark Store with Luc, drinking coffee, eating a blueberry muffin, and reading the Sunday
Times
when Mike had called. Switching my flight from evening to midday was simply a reality check. Holding people’s lives in our hands as we did with every serious case we handled, I never questioned the urgency of an interruption from Mike or Mercer. Today — leaving the Vineyard, and Luc — I felt as if I’d been wrenched out of paradise.

“Tell me about the call,” I said. I needed to focus on Mike’s new information, but last night’s hours with Luc had been one of those encounters that struck like a thunderbolt. “You think she’s for real?”

“The first one came in this morning. Peterson said she sounded legit.”

“Caller ID?”

“Yeah. Just a pay phone. But it’s right around the corner from the funeral home in the Bronx where Duke Quillian’s being waked, so that fits.”

“She asked for you specifically?”

“‘Detective Chapman. The man who locked up Brendan Quillian.’ That’s how she put it.”

“Did she give a name?” I knew I was missing a chance to let Luc’s magic work itself on me back in Chilmark, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a moment that would ever present itself to me again.

“Nope. Said she wouldn’t talk to anyone but me. Peterson told her to phone back in an hour, then called and told me to get myself back to the squad,” Mike said. “Something wrong? You look distracted.”

“Just tired. Has he got anyone sitting on the phone booth?”

“Iggy grabbed somebody to go with her.” Ignacia Bliss was one of a handful of women to have penetrated the ranks of Manhattan’s elite homicide squad. She had the skill and intelligence necessary for the job, but was usually short on charm and humor. Still tacked to the windowsill behind her desk was the sign with which Mike had reluctantly welcomed her to the mostly macho unit —
IGNORANCE IS BLISS
.

“Were you there when she called back?”

“Yeah. But it was a pretty short conversation. She asked me a few questions and for whatever reason seemed satisfied that I was the right guy. Told me she has information about Duke Quillian’s death. Said she knows the explosion wasn’t an accident.”

“Wouldn’t give her name?”

“Nope. And she refuses to come into the office to talk. Not mine, not yours. Won’t give it to the bomb squad or the task force. She wants me.”

“Did Iggy eyeball her?”

Mike shook his head. “She made the second call from a different phone, different neighborhood. Iggy cruised around the funeral parlor for a while, but she says that won’t tell us anything. Every sandhog and his wife, every parishioner from Duke’s church — the place is expected to be a mob scene by three o’clock.”

“So what kind of deal did you make with your lady?”

“The wake starts at three. She wants to meet me at two, a few subway stops away, in a bar — El Borricua — in Soundview.”

“Where’s that?”

“Between the Bronx River and the parkway. No view of the Sound at all, in case you’re looking for one, and a completely Hispanic neighborhood. I think we’re going someplace that none of her peeps will recognize her.”

Mike had told me to hide my blond hair under a baseball cap and wear sweats or something that would call no attention to myself. Iggy would be our backup outside the bar.

We drove from the airport in Queens, over the Triborough Bridge, to the Bronx. Mike knew the territory and steered us to the neighborhood, which seemed to be a clumsy assortment of tenements wedged between redbrick housing projects. We found the bar and, a block beyond, saw Iggy waiting for us in her car.

Mike pulled up alongside. “You scope it out yet?”

“Yeah. I been in. Sleepy little place. I’m not sure you’d want to eat anything there, but there’s enough rum behind the bar to float a navy.”

“Anybody home?”

“A bunch of old guys wearing polyester guayaberas and watching soccer on the tube. A few roosters in the back and I’d think I was in Humacao,” Iggy said, referring to the small town in Puerto Rico where she’d been raised. “There are four booths along the wall. That last one is where you want to be.”

“Thanks. We got some time to kill. I’ll take Coop for something to eat.”

“Pelham Parkway. You could get some good bacalaitos. We’ll sit on the place,” Iggy said, pushing herself up off the car seat to look at me. “You taking her in with you?”

“Yeah. That’s the plan.”

“Well, I better set myself up at the bar with the boys,” the petite detective with straight black hair and dark brown skin said to Mike. “If you think you’ve camouflaged that white-bread prosecutor with a Yankees hat and workout clothes, you’re thicker than I thought. I’ll keep the old geezers occupied inside. Give me ten for a couple of Coronas.”

Mike passed her a bill and we drove off for a late lunch.

This kind of thing — a mysterious caller offering useful information — had happened to us scores of times before. Once, the night before my closing argument, a woman who lived in a penthouse apartment on Central Park West had called to tell me she had seen the real killer while walking her dog just minutes before the murder inside the Rambles had occurred. If we ignored the information, we might be missing an essential clue, a possible witness, or a piece of exculpatory evidence. The dog walker had been a whack job and a waste of time, but one of us had to follow up on every lead and evaluate its usefulness.

We discussed that old case while we ate at the counter of the diner. Mike told me about Brendan Quillian’s short reunion with his family — quiet and uneventful — at the funeral parlor yesterday afternoon. Mike and the other detective had waited at the door of the small chapel in which Duke’s body was laid out, and for an hour Brendan had been allowed to visit with his relatives. I described Joan’s wedding and extended regards from the friends who had asked after Mike. Neither of us talked about anything more personal that had happened over the weekend, which had been the nature of most of our conversations since Val’s death.

“Let’s go get comfy at El Borricua,” he said, getting off the stool to pay the check.

We doubled back to the narrow street and walked into the dingy restaurant. The men at the bar all turned to look as we slowly made our way to the back of the room. Mike was fooling himself if he thought no one made him as an NYPD detective.

Iggy, whose tight black jeans and slinky white shirt had caught the eye of the regulars, was standing among them and drinking. As we passed by, she said something in Spanish about
policía
and waved us off as she encouraged them to ignore us. Mike wasn’t the one trying to hide his identity. It was the caller who preferred this spot to her home or a police station.

Mike sat with his back against the wall, facing the door. We each ordered a beer to make the proprietor happy, and I sipped the soda chaser as we waited.

When the woman came in, she must have noticed Mike immediately in the darkened room. I saw him sit up straight as the footsteps approached our booth.

His mouth fell open as she revealed herself to us at the table, untying the black scarf that she had wrapped around her head.

“I’m Trish. Patricia Quillian. Brendan’s my brother — Duke was, too.”

Mike was on his feet. “I’m Mike Chapman. I saw you there yesterday. I — uh, I’m sorry about Duke.”

“It’s no accident at all, Mr. Chapman. He was murdered in that tunnel, that’s the truth. I can tell you who did it and I can tell you why it happened. But you’ve got to help me, Mr. Chapman. They’d kill me for talking to you.”

“This is Alexandra Cooper, Ms. Quillian. She’s the assistant DA on—”

“I know very well who she is.” Trish’s speech was sharp and clipped, and if she could have spit at me, I think she would have. “She’ll have to leave.”

The woman was younger than I but had hard features, pale skin lined prematurely with creases, and eyelids reddened from crying. She was tall and gaunt — unlike her brothers — and her shoulders slumped, perhaps from the weight of the week’s events.

“Alex is working this investigation with me. There’s nothing you can tell me that I won’t be telling her.”

“She’s railroaded Brendan, that’s what I know. I won’t have her here.”

“We’re a team, Trish. You think you’ve got something to help us on Duke’s case, give me another call,” Mike said.

“She’s not one of us. She won’t understand me.” I assumed Trish was referring to the Irish Catholic bond she expected to make with Mike.

“C’mon, Coop. Let’s move on.”

I was halfway out of the booth as Trish Quillian stopped chewing on her lip and told me to sit down. Mike had heard the desperation in her voice and knew that as much as she must have hated both of us, she needed something only Mike could do for her.

“Will you sit?” he asked.

She looked at the door and then down at me. I slid over to the wall and she sat beside me, clutching the black cloth coat that seemed way too heavy for the warm afternoon.

“Are you okay here? We can go somewhere else.”

“Back when I was a kid, this was McGinty’s Pub. Had a cousin who worked here till the whole neighborhood turned over. No one knows me here anymore.”

“Who are you afraid of, Trish? We ought to know that before we get started.”

The question provoked the hint of a smile. “I’d have to start with my own blood. I’ve got two brothers left now — that’s besides Brendan, even though he doesn’t really count anymore. The both of them would kill me just for talking to you.”

I wondered why Brendan didn’t count.

“Any others?” Mike asked.

“I take it you know something about sandhogs? Not a one of them wants you people snooping around their business. They’ll be promising me Lord knows what to just be still and let them find out what happened in the hole, what got Duke killed, themselves. Screw the cops.”

“Is that because you think whoever murdered Duke is also a sandhog?”

“Of course he is.”

“And the young men from Tobago?” I asked. “They were part of the murder plan?”

“I don’t know what they were, Ms. Cooper. I’m not here to talk about them. Maybe they just got in the way.”

“Does this have anything to do with Brendan’s case?”

She hesitated when the bar owner came back to ask if she wanted a drink. “Also a beer, lady?”

“No. I’ll take a shot of whiskey. Straight.” Trish then answered me without turning her head to me, “I can’t prove that yet, but I’ll bet that it does.”

“So, why don’t you tell us your theory? Tell us who did it and why,” Mike said, waiting as the shot glass was placed in front of her and letting her take a drink.

I could tell from his tone that Mike was skeptical of Trish’s usefulness. She seemed to be the bitter voice of the hapless Quillians, and he wouldn’t want to head off on a wild-goose chase just to assuage her while his task-force colleagues were following solid leads.

She looked up at Mike from the small glass she was rubbing between her fingers. “Do you know the name Hassett?”

We exchanged glances. I let Mike answer. “I think there was a Hassett — Bobby Hassett — working at the tunnel site on Thursday.”

He was one of the workers who had refused George Golden’s request to take us down in the shaft. But so had a dozen others.

Her eyes widened. “Doing what? Not getting in the way of my brother’s investigation, was he?”

“No, no, no. What’s he to you?” Mike asked.

“There’s no polite way to say it, Mr. Chapman. He’s scum. The Hassett boys — that’s just what they are.”

“I’ll try to take your word for it, Trish. But it would help if you could explain why.”

“I could give you more reasons than you’ve got time to listen to. I raised quite a row at the wake last night, after you were gone. The three of them dared show up, dared walk in there like decent souls to pay their respects with the rest of the crowd. I told Bobby — he’s the oldest Hassett, must be twenty-four now — I told Bobby we knew they’d done the killing,” Trish said, working herself up, her cheeks flaming red and her lips taut, chafed from the way she’d nervously been chewing on them. “I told them to get out of there before I had them dragged out by their boots.”

Mike let her rage on until she completed her tirade. With as much patience as he was able to maintain, he tried to coax a sensible story from her.

“Trish, you said you know the Hassetts killed Duke. Is there any evidence you can point me to? I understand how you feel, but so far, if all you’ve got to give us is—”

“I’m not a damn detective. I’ll tell you the facts and you find the evidence. The Irish are good at grudges, aren’t we, Mr. Chapman? Stubborn lot. Sometimes it takes a hundred years to right a wrong. But none of us have got that much time. You got to do something before they take the two brothers I’ve got left.”

“Your family, Trish, tell us about them,” Mike said.

She shrugged, as though they were no different from any other family. “Fifth-generation tunnel workers. My great-great-grandfather came from Ireland in 1906 to build the Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels under the Hudson River. I don’t know that he liked the work, but he liked getting paid every week, and he must have been fearless. His kin followed like sheep, and the Quillians have been down in the hole ever since. Brothers, uncles, cousins, in-laws.”