Hugh McInerney

Hugh McInerney is a young state’s attorney whose brief role links Nancy Cleghorn’s murder investigation to an earlier conflict over Steve Dresberg’s PCB incinerator. He had heard from Nancy that someone was following her, but did not contact the investigators after learning she was dead. His exchange with V. I. Warshawski shows an official who says he lacks a concrete lead, has sounded out Dresberg’s attorney, and offers to prosecute whoever is responsible; it also reveals how little that institutional readiness has yet produced.

Position and prior connection to the case

McInerney works in the State’s Attorney’s Office, where he is one of the young lawyers whom Warshawski views as moving toward larger law firms or political appointments. The description of him as tall, broad-shouldered, and trim, with thick blond hair, gives him the practiced physical confidence of a courtroom advocate. His deep voice, too, seems suited to courtroom work. These details establish his professional presence, but the investigation depends less on his appearance than on what he knows and what he has done with it.

Caroline Djiak tells Warshawski that she and Nancy had spoken with the State’s Attorney’s Office after Nancy began being followed. Caroline cannot identify whom Nancy saw there, though she thinks it may have been McInerney, the person they dealt with on other matters. The prior connection dates back eighteen months: McInerney had taken statements from the two women about their problems with Dresberg, a local Mob figure involved in garbage disposal. Caroline and Nancy had testified that they received death threats because they opposed his incinerator. McInerney is therefore not a stranger newly introduced by the murder inquiry; he is a returning official with some history of the threat environment around Nancy and Caroline.

Nancy’s warning and the delayed response

Warshawski goes to the criminal courts herself, identifying herself to the receptionist as a detective and asking to speak with McInerney about the Cleghorn case. He takes her into a conference room and retrieves his file on Nancy. When Warshawski tells him that Nancy is dead, he says he has seen the news in the morning paper and had been waiting for investigators to arrive. His response makes the gap between the warning and the murder investigation immediately consequential: he knew Nancy had been concerned, but had not initiated contact with the police.

McInerney explains that Nancy came to see him on Tuesday because she thought someone was following her. He says she had no idea who it was and that, without a name, he had nothing concrete to give investigators. The explanation distinguishes a reported threat from an actionable identification; it does not erase the fact that Nancy sought help before her death. Warshawski challenges his lack of initiative, while McInerney presents the absence of a named suspect as the reason he did not call. The scene leaves the practical limitation plain: the warning had reached an official, but it had not yielded a person to pursue.

Dresberg and the limits of his information

Warshawski asks directly whether McInerney considered Dresberg. He admits that he spoke with Dresberg’s attorney, Leon Haas, who believed Dresberg was satisfied with the situation in the area. That account is secondhand and comes from the lawyer representing the very person Warshawski is asking about. McInerney does not claim that the conversation establishes Dresberg’s innocence; he says he does not think Dresberg killed Nancy, while agreeing to call Haas again and assess the situation.

Warshawski presses the connection to the women’s earlier opposition. Dresberg had been involved in the fight over a PCB incinerator, and the case had gone badly for the prosecutors in court. She points out that a recycling plant Nancy was working on could also have given him reason to resent her, especially given the death threats made over the incinerator. This is Warshawski’s investigative challenge, not a fact McInerney confirms: the exchange raises a possible continuity between the old threats and Nancy’s recent fear, but supplies no proof that Dresberg was responsible for following or killing her.

Professional tension and narrative role

The meeting is filtered through Warshawski’s longstanding suspicion of prosecutors. She recalls having served as a public defender on the opposite side of the bench from state’s attorneys, and regards the disparity in pay and public recognition as part of that professional divide. Her account does not present McInerney as a personal enemy; rather, it makes her wary of relying on an office whose priorities and habits she distrusts. She approaches him by adopting the forceful manner she believes will secure access, then challenges him sharply when his response to Nancy’s warning seems passive.

McInerney answers that they are on the same side in wanting Nancy’s killer found and promises to prosecute the person responsible. Warshawski refuses to treat that assurance as investigative action, telling him in effect to leave the police to investigate and find a suspect. The distinction defines his limited place in the episode: he can describe his contact with Nancy, report his conversation with Haas, and offer the power of prosecution, but he has not produced a lead that resolves the case. After leaving, Warshawski’s bravado gives way to private concern about confronting Dresberg, whose reputation makes the possibility feel dangerous. McInerney’s scene thus connects the formal promise of prosecution with the uncertain, more precarious work of discovering who threatened Nancy.