I followed the workers to the trailer at the edge of the easternmost point on the island. I tried the door but it was locked, so I knocked.
“Yeah?”
“NYPD. Mayor’s security detail.”
“Yeah?”
“Come on out. I’d like to talk to you.”
“We’re getting dressed,” one of them said. “We’ll be out in a few.”
I kicked the dirt around until the door opened. Neither one of the guys seemed to have changed clothes. They’d just put jackets on over their T-shirts.
“You are—?” I asked.
“I’m Pete Fitzgerald,” the short redhead said. “This here’s Cormac Lonigan.”
“You got an uncle on the job?” I asked Lonigan. “Queens Robbery Squad?”
“Not so’s I know,” he said, swinging his backpack over his shoulder. “Lots of Lonigans out there. Construction, bartending, firemen. None that I know of on the force.”
“What were you guys doing today?”
“Same as the others. Finishing the cleanup for the concert.”
There were a handful of construction workers in and around the sheds, closing up—it seemed to me—and getting ready to get on the ferry that was docking for the ride back to Manhattan.
“Where were you two coming from?”
“Over by the statue,” Fitzgerald said. “Picking up our things.”
“We were just over there ourselves. I didn’t see any blankets or tarps. Where’s the one you were carrying, Cormac?”
“That? It’s tucked in the trailer till Monday. Where they all are.”
“Show me.”
Cormac Lonigan stood in front of the trailer door like a hawk on top of his nest. “We got a ferry to catch.”
“I’ll see that it waits for you,” I said. “Did Walter tell you we were on the island?”
“He didn’t have to,” Lonigan said. “Some of the men seen the three of you walking off your boat, talking to him. Then he started bragging about you getting tickets from the mayor and all that. Security detail.”
“Would you lighten up if I got you some tickets, too?”
“Not my kind of music, Detective.”
“Maybe Bono will do the warm-up for Kanye,” I said. “Now, open the door.”
I was certain that Lonigan and Fitzgerald had gone back to the statue—to the fort, in fact—because they heard there were three cops on the island. Maybe that was true. Or maybe I just wanted to beat up on somebody.
Lonigan pushed open the door and stepped out of the way.
“Mercer,” I said, “Jimmy. Why don’t you walk these gentlemen back to the statue to let them show you exactly where they picked up the tarp? I’ll join you in a minute.”
“You don’t have to get all bossy,” Fitzgerald said. “We didn’t do nothing. I’ll take you back.”
I walked inside the trailer and scanned the room. It made my apartment look like a centerfold in House and Garden.
There was a row of lockers, mostly open, with jackets and overalls and baseball caps hanging from every hook. There were three cots without bedding, with clothing strewn about on top of them, a couple of small refrigerators, a space heater, and a bathroom at the far end.
A pile of tarps was stacked between two of the cots. I walked over and pulled at the edge of the one on top, but it was much heavier and a darker shade of taupe than the material Lonigan had been carrying.
I took a photo of the pile with my phone, and a video as I turned around the room once before going outside.
I jogged down the steps of the trailer to catch up with the group.
“Find what you needed, Detective?” Walter asked.
“Yeah. Exactly.” Cormac Lonigan wouldn’t look up from the path, but I could see him smirking.
“I promised these officers that everything would be shipshape for the dignitaries, boys,” Walter said. “They want to see where you were working.”
Pete Fitzgerald was looking to Lonigan to take the lead.
“My fault,” Lonigan said. “I was coming down from the crown early this morning after taking up the speaker system for its installation. The piece I was carrying was wrapped in a tarp. I dropped off the speaker, and when I was ready to leave, the elevator was full of more equipment being unloaded. So I took the stairs down.”
“He dropped one,” Fitzgerald said. The loyal friend backing up the lie, figuring that if we had gone into the statue, we must have taken the elevator. “One of the tarps, I mean. I went back with him to fetch it.”
Jimmy North was champing at the bit to jump in but didn’t want to step on my toes. I nodded at him to go ahead.
“That’s so weird,” he said, “’cause just before we saw you this afternoon, I walked up every one of those three hundred and ninety-three steps. There wasn’t even a dust bunny on the staircase, much less a tarp.”
Lonigan didn’t flinch.
“Could be the boys are mistaken, Detective,” Walter said. “Like I said to you, Cormac here likes his privacy.”
I doubted they were mistaken about something that had happened twenty minutes ago. But Walter’s heart wasn’t in his mouth, like mine was.
“Why don’t you show these gents around the old fort, Cormac? More likely than not it’s where you left your stuff.”