Sergeant McGonnigal

Sergeant McGonnigal is a police investigator in the aftermath of Nancy Cleghorn’s murder, and one of V. I. Warshawski’s recurring professional counterparts. At Nancy’s funeral he watches Warshawski with the hope that she might identify the killer; outside the church he presses her for information about a suspicious young man. Later, although they encounter one another during the investigation’s aftermath, an incident involving his conduct as a policeman remains unaddressed. His role is defined less by a complete account of his private life than by this shifting, unresolved relationship with Warshawski.

Identity and Introduction

Warshawski first encounters McGonnigal at Nancy Cleghorn’s funeral. He is in a dark suit and is trying to look mournful when she turns and finds him beside her. His presence makes clear that the police are also hoping the gathering might yield useful information. The funeral is both a public act of mourning and, for the investigators, a place to notice who has come and what they might know.

Their first exchange establishes a familiar, teasing manner. When Diane Logan passes, McGonnigal asks who she is. Warshawski explains that Logan used to play basketball with her and Nancy, and now owns a public-relations firm. McGonnigal then jokes that seeing Warshawski at the church means the little Polish detective is about to catch the murderer at the altar. The quip frames him as a policeman willing to rely, at least rhetorically, on her investigative ability, even as he retains his own interest in the case.

At Nancy Cleghorn’s Funeral

McGonnigal continues to watch the congregation. When Art Jurshak Jr. slips into a seat toward the back, McGonnigal taps Warshawski’s shoulder and asks who the young man is, derisively calling him an alfalfa sprout. Warshawski does not answer: the organ has begun playing to announce the minister. That small interruption places McGonnigal’s scrutiny within the scene’s competing demands. He is alert to a possible lead, but the service is beginning, and the mourners’ attention turns to Nancy.

The funeral itself brings grief into the foreground. The minister, whom Warshawski initially misjudges by appearance, speaks with eloquent force about having known Nancy. Warshawski’s throat tightens, and she steadies herself by studying the painted patterns on the church ceiling before joining the final hymn. McGonnigal’s presence beside her therefore belongs to a setting where investigation and mourning are inseparable: the same service that gathers potential witnesses also makes the loss personal and difficult to set aside.

The Search for Art Jurshak Jr.

After the service, Warshawski attempts to speak with Art Jurshak Jr. He appears afraid and seems close to forcing himself to talk, but as the other mourners emerge, he breaks away and runs down the street. Warshawski tries to follow, trips over a drunk, and gets back to her feet. McGonnigal appears in plain clothes; the panhandler stops reviling Warshawski when he senses the police officer’s presence. McGonnigal ignores him and asks why the redhead is so frightened. He has noticed the same flight that has drawn Warshawski’s attention.

Art gets into a late-model Chrysler parked at the end of the street and drives off. McGonnigal says that he does not know whether he has found the murderer, but that the young man was the only person acting suspiciously. He asks Warshawski, as a helpful citizen, to give him the man’s name. She answers that the name is well known in the neighborhood: Art Jurshak. McGonnigal challenges her, pointing out that Bobby Mallory is his boss and that she need not mislead him as she does Mallory. Warshawski insists that she is telling the truth and explains that Art Jurshak Jr.’s father is Art Jurshak Sr., and that the younger man has recently joined his father’s agency or office.

McGonnigal’s response acknowledges the power surrounding the young man. He says Art has stronger protection than a thick skin and jokes that he will not damage his curly locks. The remark keeps their exchange comic, but it also marks the difference between pursuing a suspicious individual and confronting someone protected by his family’s standing. McGonnigal then asks whether he may accompany Warshawski to the Cleghorn home for coffee, where he has heard the women discussing what they will bring. His investigation does not prevent him from entering the informal gathering around Nancy’s friends and neighbors.

A Lead That Remains Unsettled

McGonnigal’s efforts to locate Art Jurshak Jr. are also mentioned when Warshawski visits the young man’s mother. She says that Art is not home and that she has not seen him since breakfast the previous morning. She recalls that McGonnigal came looking for him and that Art Jurshak Sr. became very angry. Her account confirms that the sergeant has been actively trying to find Art, while leaving the young man’s whereabouts unknown at that point. Warshawski considers the possibility that he may not have been fit to drive, but the account does not establish what happened to him.

The later account of McGonnigal is more personal, though still deliberately incomplete. While working through statements and interrogations, Warshawski sees him with Bobby Mallory a couple of times. He is cold toward her until he realizes that she will not expose his late-night lapse from policeman decorum. The nature of that lapse is not specified, and neither of them discusses it. Warshawski recognizes that even an empathic police officer is not someone with whom she should become too close, so the silence between them remains part of their professional relationship rather than turning into a conversation or resolution.

Change and Narrative Role

By the time the case’s aftermath settles, Warshawski counts McGonnigal among the loose ends that never get tied up. She leaves other questions for the state’s attorney to pursue when Art Jurshak Sr. and Steve Dresberg come to trial, but the unspoken matter between her and the sergeant is not similarly handed on or explained. McGonnigal has moved from the funeral’s hopeful observer to an investigator pursuing Art Jurshak Jr., and finally to a figure whose own conduct cannot be fully accounted for in Warshawski’s recollection.

That incompleteness limits what can be said about his motives, but gives his appearances a distinctive shape. At the church he jokes about Warshawski solving the murder; afterward he asks her to identify the fleeing young man, while she answers him with both candor and teasing resistance. Their exchanges show a working familiarity without dissolving the boundary between detective and policeman. In the closing account, the boundary becomes especially pointed: Warshawski protects McGonnigal from exposure, yet does not mistake that act for a reason to become close to him. His unresolved lapse leaves a modest but telling remainder after the investigation’s larger questions have moved toward trial.