'I told you,' Jimmy Edwards said for the third time, 'Vic and me were having a beer, next thing I know Mr. Marciano comes in and all hell breaks loose. I don't know what happened. Why the boss freaked out like that. He just dragged Vic out the bar and that's the last I saw of them.'
'And neither you or anyone else in the bar thought to call the cops?' Flack asked.
'There was only me and Mickey left by this time. And some old guy sitting near the back. He was too wasted,' Jimmy replied.
'You didn't answer the question,' Mac said. He was standing behind Flack to the right of the small window in an interrogation room at PD, arms folded over his chest. It was almost nine-fifteen that night. After leaving the Neptune Diner with Olivia, Mac had decided to sit in on Flack's second interrogation of Jimmy Edwards. He'd given Olivia the rest of the night off, told her to go home and been surprised when she hadn't argued.
'Look,' Jimmy protested. 'I don't know what beef the boss had with Vic and I wasn't getting myself involved in something I knew nothing about.'
'But you did know something,' Mac calmly said, but his look was one of steel.
Jimmy turned his gaze on the detective standing by the window. 'No, I - '
'You already told us in your previous statement that Victor Gerrard was a stoolie for the Feds.'
Jimmy's eyes darted to Flack and he shook his head. 'I never said that.'
'I filled in the blanks.' Flack shrugged. 'I'm clever that way.'
'And your reaction just now,' Mac added with a faint smile, 'gave us the confirmation we need to back it up.'
Jimmy swallowed hard. 'Okay, okay, look...Mr. Marciano's a good boss - '
'We're not disputing his integrity as a boss, Jimmy,' Flack said, leaning back in the chair. 'It's his dealings outside work we're interested in. Tell us what you know.'
'I told you, I don't know nothin'.'
Flack gave him a whimsical smile. 'C'mon, play ball with us. What did Victor have on Marciano? Must've been something big for him to want the guy dead.'
'I know nothing,' Jimmy insisted.
'Marciano can't be paying you that much.'
'I need this job.' As soon as he'd said it, he sighed and shook his head. It sounded like an admission of guilt. He was worried about losing his job. And of course, the prospect of what lay ahead for snitching on his boss worried him, too. The Marciano's were a big family. Flack knew all this. He decided it was time to up the stakes.
'You married?' he asked him.
'Yeah.'
'Kids?'
Jimmy began to look nervous. He swallowed. 'Two boys and a girl.'
Flack nodded. 'Nice house that's mortgaged to the hilt?'
'We get by. What of it?'
'It's gonna be tough on your wife raising three kids and paying for the house while you're serving time for aiding a felony,' Flack told him.
Pinpricks of sweat broke out on Jimmy's forehead. He was starting to break. But he wasn't ready to surrender just yet. He licked his lips, swallowed. 'I don't know what Mr. Marciano wanted with Vic,' he reiterated. 'And I don't know what Vic had on the boss.'
'Then maybe you know why he borrowed your truck Wednesday night,' Mac intervened.
'I didn't realise it was gone. We don't take the trucks home. I parked it in the usual spot in the loading bay and left. It wasn't until next morning I realised it'd been moved.'
'Because Joseph Marciano had driven it the night before,' added Mac.
'He owns the truck, he can do what he likes with it,' Jimmy argued.
'Like, toss a dead body in the back,' Flack casually said. Now the sweat was breaking out above Jimmy's top lip. 'Let me tell you what I think. Marciano shows up at O'Malley's, he and Victor Gerrard have words, he drags Victor out back where he roughs him up, before tossing him in the back of your truck and taking him on a little joyride to the Eastern Shipping Yard where he puts a bullet in his head. I leave anything out?'
Jimmy didn't say anything, he just dropped his eyes from Flack's pinning stare and sighed heavily.
'What your boss didn't plan on,' Mac added, 'was when Eddie Gerrard used your truck the previous night to dump Jack Gerrard's body, he hit something reversing out of the alley. You didn't notice you had a broken headlamp? Or the dirt packed into your tires?'
Jimmy didn't say anything.
'There was blood found in the back of your truck, Jimmy,' Flack told him.
'I carry seafood. It was probably fish guts,' Jimmy replied. But he was grasping at straws now.
'So now you're undermining the intelligence of the crime lab,' Flack said. 'It was blood and it was human. Had Jack and Victor Gerrard's DNA all over it.'
'I don't know how it got there,' Jimmy said quietly, shaking his head from side to side.
'Were you driving the truck the night Jack Gerrard was murdered?' asked Mac.
'No.'
'What about the night Victor Gerrard was murdered?'
Jimmy exhaled heavily. 'No.'
'So who was, Jimmy?' Flack asked.
Jimmy hung his head and ran a hand over his face. 'You don't know this family. They'll kill me. And if they can't get to me, they'll hurt my wife and kids.'
Flack and Mac shared a look. 'You don't need to worry about your family,' said Mac. 'They'll get all the protection they need.'
'If I get locked up...I know what goes on in there. The boss has connections all over the place.'
'You tell us what you know,' said Flack, 'and maybe we can work something out.'
Jimmy's hands had begun to tremble. He licked at his lips and then scratched at his chin. 'Could I smoke?'
Flack nodded at him. Normally they didn't allow smoking in any of the interrogation rooms, but he'd bend the rules this time. Jimmy was close to breaking, if it meant stale cigarette smoke hanging in the air to get him to confess, then so be it. Jimmy's hands were visibly shaking as he lit up the cigarette, inhaled and blew out the smoke from the side of his mouth. He began tapping his lighter on the table and nodding his head, as if gearing himself up to speak. Mac and Flack waited patiently. They didn't have long to wait.
'Okay,' Jimmy said. 'Vic had some heavy duty stuff on the boss. Drugs, gangland shootings, stuff like that. The boss wanted to make sure Vic didn't squeal. There's this whole swearing in thing, see. The guys all get tattooed and after they've proved their worth to the boss he arranges for their prints to be burned off so there's no comeback.'
'On him. Let's see your hands, Jimmy,' Flack said.
Jimmy stuck the cigarette between his lips and held up his hands. 'I still have mine, if that's what you're thinking.'
Flack scanned his hands. Sure enough, his prints were still intact. 'For a guy who knows the in's and out's way you do, how come?'
'Because you hadn't gotten round to proving your worth to Marciano,' Mac surmised. 'Or maybe keeping quiet about Victor Gerrard's murder was it.'
'That right, Jimmy?' Flack said. 'Were you going to be sworn in if you kept shtum?'
Jimmy nodded his head. There was no use in lying anymore. 'Yeah. I, uh, already got the tattoo.' He leaned forward and tugged at the back of his shirt collar, revealing the same black hieroglyphic that the Gerrard's all shared, on the nape of his neck.
'Nice,' Flack said dryly. 'Keep talkin'.'
'The boss shows up at O'Malleys, he had words with Vic, dragged him outside and the two of them duke it out for a while. The boss didn't want no one else putting their hands on him, he wanted to do it himself. He and Vic go way back, I think they were friends since being kids or something, I dunno.' Jimmy shook his head. 'So when he found out Vic had been feeding the Feds information, he took it bad.'
'I'd say he took it pretty bad,' said Flack. 'Then what? After he dragged him outside.'
Jimmy took a quick suck on the smoke, before continuing. 'He drove off with Vic in the back, I think he was unconscious. He wasn't moving much. I knew what was gonna happen, I'd seen the rifle in the front seat.'
'You weren't with Marciano at the shipping yard?' asked Flack.
'No,' Jimmy gave his head a shake, 'like I said, boss didn't want anyone else touching him. I went home to my family, didn't sleep much that night. Next morning, it was as if nothing had happened. The boss was being his usual self and then I overhear him telling one of the other guys that Vic wouldn't be coming back. Said he was finished working for him and Vic was headed out to the West Coast.' Jimmy shrugged. 'That's it. No more was mentioned.'
Flack nodded, his jaw tight. 'West Coast, huh? Nice. Only where Victor Gerrard's really gone, the sun ain't shining and girls don't walk round in their bikinis 24/7. You willing to testify, Jimmy? Stand up in court and say all that?'
Jimmy met Flack's eyes and thought for a moment. 'So long as my family gets the protection.'
Flack turned to Mac. 'I'll get us a warrant and we'll pay Mr. Marciano a visit.'
'He's not at the restaurant today,' Jimmy said. 'It's his daughter's birthday. They're having a party at home.'
'Party, huh?' said Flack. 'Haven't gate crashed one of those in a while.' He stood up. 'On your feet, Jimmy.'
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COPYRIGHT. © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DebraJay. 2006