Bad blood

18

“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.”