by Ken Gross
The fingerprint dust spilled on the crib where Missy had presumably been taken from her sleep; it fell on Eddie’s, cot, where he had kicked the sheets around in a nightmare. The window screen, inside now, was dusted, as was the bureau in front of the window.
In the early stages of an investigation it is impossible to know what will become important. In the first hectic moments the job of the investigator is to capture a kind of still-life; to freeze all the details before things are changed and touched. Police photographers went through the apartment, but, curiously, did not take many photographs. The standard procedure was for the photographers to operate under the orders of the investigating detectives. Jerry Piering was busy with Alice Crimmins, and when the subject came up, he was uncertain. He assumed that the photographers knew their job and would overshoot—take more photographs than were needed. Later it would be recalled that this was Jerry Piering’s first major case and senior commanders would excuse this lapse. But when veteran detectives moved into the investigation, they felt hampered and frustrated by the lack of physical evidence.
One of the important items that was overlooked, the seemingly insignificant top of a bureau in the children’s room, would later become a ferocious battleground. Piering would claim that when he first came into the room he detected a thin film of dust on the bureau top—thus eliminating the possibility that the children had left the room through the window since they would have needed to go over the bureau. (Curiously, a murder case had been solved a few months earlier by just such a piece of evidence—a film of dust on a window pane had proved that the murderer had been admitted through the front door. Piering had worked on that case.)
But the technicians dusted the top of the bureau for fingerprints before it could be photographed. Piering would develop a theory that the children must have left through the front door because he was certain he had seen a film of dust on the bureau top. There was a lamp on the bureau and it had a round base. When he’d moved the lamp, it had left a circle in the dust. Eddie and Alice Crimmins would dispute Piering’s story, as would Alice’s brother, John Burke. The lamp on the bureau had tripod legs, they all said. In addition, many people had come into the room before Piering arrived; Eddie Crimmins had leaned out to look for the children when he first showed up. Patrolman Clifford had reached out of the window to flick an ash from his cigarette. If they had all leaned out that way—between the plastic barrel bank and the bowling trophy on the sill—it would have been virtually impossible not to brush the bureau.
The film of dust and the lamp were not noted in Piering’s first reports, but much was overlooked in the first flood of discovery. Other items—to become tricky points of disputed testimony—went unrecorded except in the files of self-serving memories. As the years passed, some of the details would become cemented with importance. A mote of dust would grow in significance and be glazed with certainty.
While Piering was absorbed with the details of Alice’s day with the children, other detectives were questioning everyone in sight, nailing down stories before people started talking to each other, comparing testimony and subtly shifting themselves into favorable or important roles. Later the stories would be strung together like a chain in the detective squad room. Calmly, with reflection, investigators would be able to read the reports and fit the bits and pieces together, sifting out error or mutations of imagination.
In the bedroom Alice and Jerry Piering were squaring off, measuring each other.
“OK, Alice, no more bullshit! Let’s go over this whole thing again. . . .”
Before, when the case involved two missing children, some care had had to be taken with the parents. The children did, after all, belong to Eddie and Alice.
“I don’t want to hear any more of your bullshit. What the fuck happened yesterday?”
In death, Missy Crimmins belonged to Jerry Piering.
There was no startling confession; no shattering drama to explain something monstrous. There was only the repetition of the mundane story—full of the petty details that go into the makeup of life within a broken home, in a boring suburb, with tacky subplots. If Detective Piering was listening to pick out some unusual telltale chord to vibrate his deductive ear, it was in vain.
July 13—just another summer day. As Alice told her story again, Piering was trying to penetrate the fortress behind which Alice Crimmins hid herself. A sometime secretary, Alice had found that working as a cocktail waitress was more lucrative and suited her changing tastes. One side benefit was that it gave her more time with the children. If it threw her into a life of high excitement, where relationships were ultimately more bruising, that was not such a high price to pay for escape from the banal drudgery of being just another housewife. She had never imagined herself as just another housewife. Still, she considered herself a fine and loving mother.
On the Tuesday morning before the disappearance the children had been particularly voluble. They had been out with their father the day before for the first time in two weeks. He had been too busy, moving to another furnished room. Alice had been especially tolerant of their chatter, partly to woo their affections back from their father and partly out of curiosity. While she cooked breakfast, she questioned them obliquely. Where did Daddy take you? What did you eat? Did you have a nice time?
Missy sat dreamily over her egg, and Eddie’s hands were greasy with bacon fat. He was very much like his father, thought Alice—too impatient to wait for a fork, and clumsy. He spilled part of his milk.
In nine days there would be a custody hearing. Eddie had hired an attorney and was making a serious effort to take the children away from Alice.
Alice Crimmins had been brought up to connect her feelings for her children and her marriage. Gradually she had been able to separate the emotions. It had become clear to her one night in the spring of 1965 as she sat with a friend in an all-night diner on Northern Boulevard—one of a breed somewhere between a restaurant and greasy spoon where the waitresses wore thick eyeshadow. Late on this Friday night the room vibrated with unspent gaiety. At one table a group of high-school seniors were celebrating graduation, their prom faces still flushed with excitement. At another table a drunk sat weaving over a plate of ham and eggs, unable to decide whether to try eating or stagger back to the men’s room. Two Nassau County policemen attempted to concentrate on heaping plates of free stew while a counter man chattered incessantly at them about an unfair speeding ticket.
Ruth Cranston and Alice Crimmins sat in the booth at a window. They always made a point of being nice to waitresses. Although they regarded the profession of cocktail waitress as grander, they knew what it was to be pestered or kept waiting or forced to listen to rude, ragged jokes.
For a while Alice and Ruth ate in silence. They had been talking—parrying the stream of glib entendres that passed for conversation in the Heritage House, the bar in Huntington where Alice worked as a cocktail waitress.
Ruth was tired, feeling her face sagging from the strain of smiling all night. It struck her that Alice had extra sources of energy; that she paced herself better and enjoyed what Ruth Cranston regarded as a hectic rat race.
Yes, Alice explained smiling, her life was fun now—compared to her past. She felt an exhilarating sense of freedom. Ruth didn’t understand—Alice had two kids, a husband who gave her $40 a week, and worked long and hard to support herself.
I don’t mind, said Alice. Compared to the prison she had lived in, this life was free. Before, she had felt trapped. Now, anything was possible.
Ruth’s feet tingled with fatigue. She would have preferred a steady husband and no obligations. No, she thought watching Alice’s enigmatic smile, she didn’t understand at all.
The first year of the marriage had not been bad. Alice was working and stretching with her first stirrings of independence. She and Eddie had their own apartment, but it was lonely when Eddie was working nights, and gourmet dinners seemed pointless for one.
Alice was happy
when she got pregnant. It was an easy birth, and the next year she was pregnant again. But by 1960 Eddie was working more and coming home less. It was not that he didn’t love Alice; but he had been brought up to believe that a woman remained home, uncomplaining, while a man went out drinking with the boys. The arguments became bitter. Alice went through the entire range of fury and retaliation. And then she smoldered silently.
For days, then weeks, she wouldn’t speak to Eddie. They would visit friends, never talking to each other. It was a strange and frustrating contest. One Sunday morning they woke up sullen. They had not been speaking for two days. Alice prepared the children for a visit to Johnny and Marilyn Bohan, while Eddie sat around angry. When the children were ready, she simply started to leave. Eddie ran to catch up and got into the car to drive. For two hours they drove in utter silence, broken only by the occasional noises of the children.
When they arrived at the Bohans’, Eddie spoke to Johnny and Alice spoke to Marilyn. The Bohans and Crimminses had been childhood friends. Alice and Eddie had also been childhood sweethearts. He had been working at an A&P in the Bronx in 1953. Alice had been going out with a Puerto Rican boy, but her father, Michael, had attacked the boy with a knife. So Alice picked someone who would be acceptable to Michael Burke. Her father never approved of any of her boyfriends except Eddie. And Eddie courted her family. Michael Burke worked as a repairman for the Con Edison Hell Gate plant and Eddie’s father also worked for Con Edison. “He’s a good Catholic boy,” said Michael Burke, giving his blessing to the union.
As much as Alice Crimmins resisted her mother, she always hoped to please her father. He was rough and crude, but he exerted a powerful influence over his daughter. They shared the same stubborn pride and their clashes of will became famous. When he died in May 1965—a few months before the disappearance of the children—his daughter went through a period of profound mourning. In some ways she never fully recovered.
After Missy was born, Alice Crimmins decided not to have any more children. So she was fitted for a diaphragm and tried to keep it a secret from Eddie.
“What’s this?” he cried when he came across the device and foam in her purse.
She tried to explain, but a diaphragm so violated his Catholic conscience that he would never forgive her. Eddie, whose brother Tom was a priest, attended church regularly. Alice’s religion was more erratic, and after the events of that summer she stopped going to church. The relationship between Alice and Eddie deteriorated until, on June 22, 1965, Eddie Crimmins went to Family Court on Sutphin Boulevard with his attorney, George Marfeo, seeking custody of his two children. The affidavit he filed before Judge Paul Balsam is filled with repressed bitterness and frustration.
The petition of Edmund Crimmins respectfully alleges and shows:
1. That petitioner is a resident of the State of New York, over the age of 21 years and resides at 173–31 Grand Central Parkway, Jamaica, New York.
2. That petitioner is married to Alice Mary Crimmins, who resides at 150–22 72nd Drive, Flushing, New York. That an infant boy was born of the marriage on October 17, 1959, and an infant girl was born of the marriage on October 24, 1960, presently residing with the respondent.
3. That petitioner and respondent are living apart in a state of separation but are not divorced.
4. That the said infant children reside with the respondent at address stated above.
5. That petitioner and respondent separated on or about the 5th day of February, 1964.
6. Immediately after the separation, my wife began to indulge herself openly and brazenly in sex as she had done furtively before the separation. 6a. That no previous application has been made for the relief sought herein.
7. My wife entertains, one at a time, a stream of men sharing herself and her bedroom, until she and her paramour of the evening are completely spent. The following morning, the children awake to see a strange man in the house.
8. My son, who will be six years of age, is aware that something is going on that is not right. His statements to various people that his mother has a lot of men cousins that come to the house and stay overnight and his obvious embarrassment when he tells about it is indicative of his awareness.
9. Petitioner will present ample credible evidence to the Court that my children are in serious danger of being irreparably damaged by the unwholesome environment in which they are living.
10. Petitioner will also present to the court evidence that a clean wholesome environment is available for my children, one in which they will have a fair chance in life.
Wherefore petitioner prays that a Writ of Habeas Corpus issue directed to said Alice Mary Crimmins returnable before this Court for the purpose of delivery of said infants Edmond [sic] Crimmins and Alice Marie Crimmons [sic] from the custody of said Alice Mary Crimmins and that petitioner may be awarded the custody of said infants.
(signed) EDMUND CRIMMINS
Although the spelling of some of the names had been botched by Marfeo, Edmund Crimmins further swore that the contents of the petition were “true.”
Yes, thought Alice Crimmins as she shared a meal with Ruth Cranston in a diner sometime before dawn, this life was better than tossing alone in her apartment. She didn’t have Eddie anyway when he was out working or drinking. She was too much alive to stay home watching television. She would not settle for an occasional night out with friends.
If she was not happy, she was more at peace than when she’d lived with Eddie.
Through Tony Grace and Assistant Sanitation Commissioner Sal LoCurto (once Grace’s business counsel), Alice had retained Michael LaPenna, a Bronx attorney with a good reputation in such matters. He had assured Alice that the courts would be very reluctant to take children away from their natural mother, but this case had some complications and she should not take any chances. An agency would probably inspect the apartment and he wanted it to be reported as a proper environment for children. So Alice was in the midst of a major cleaning job—painting the foyer, throwing away liquor bottles, replacing the screen in the children’s bedroom. There was a hole in the old screen; sometimes the children would drop their toys out through the hole onto the mall, playfully, almost like throwing a stick for a dog to fetch. After she had installed an air-conditioner in her bedroom, Alice had a spare screen, and she decided to replace the broken one in the children’s room with it.
On Tuesday morning she spoke to LaPenna. He told her to call back in the afternoon—they had to straighten out the business with the maid, Evelyn Linder Atkins. Alice told Piering she was angry about Evelyn’s claim that she was owed six hundred dollars. Alice admitted that she owed Evelyn some money, perhaps a hundred and fifty dollars, but nowhere near the higher amount. Her entire relationship with Evelyn had turned into spite. They had never really been close; she didn’t like the idea that Evelyn had once had a white boyfriend. “If I ever catch her screwing in the house with the kids here I’ll kill her,” Alice had told one of her own boyfriends, a detective, who had seen Evelyn and her escort groping together in a car in the parking lot and reported it to Alice.
It didn’t matter what the source of the conflict was; what mattered was that Eddie had enlisted Evelyn in the custody battle. In fact, the custody battle itself could be traced back to Evelyn. It was the maid who had called Eddie one Friday afternoon in February and told him that Alice had not returned from work and she was left with the children, without food and without money. Eddie had rushed over and taken the children to his mother-in-law’s house in the Bronx. Evelyn had never returned to the apartment in Kew Gardens Hills.
Her explanation to Piering struck him as lame. It was perfectly understandable, she said. She had gone to a bon voyage party aboard a boat with Tony Grace and Sal LoCurto and Charlie Fellini (a developer of Freedomland). Alice went with a friend, Margie Fischer, who had an apartment above Alice’s. They had too much to drink and the men playfully locked them in a washroom. By
the time they were out, the boat had sailed.
There was no way to get off the boat, so Alice went to the Bahamas. Grace bought her an airline ticket and she flew back to New York on Sunday night, but by then Eddie had decided to fight her for the children. The incident had driven one more ally into Eddie’s corner—Alice’s own mother. Alice Burke was a pinched woman who lived in the Bronx and had given up trying to understand her daughter’s behavior. In May, when Michael Burke, her father, died, Alice and her mother stood across the bier from each other at St. Raymond’s Church in the Bronx. They had undergone a long estrangement. When Alice had broken from her husband, both parents had been stricken by the failure of the marriage. From under her black mourning veil Alice Burke began to scream at her daughter: “You killed him! You killed him! You killed him!”
Alice Crimmins took her father’s death hard, but suffered in her own fashion. She had been particularly close to her father at one time, but the years and family demands had driven them apart. Alice no longer accepted the church dogma that was the touchstone of her father’s life. It was hopeless for Alice to try to explain it to her father—the slow drifting away from formal religion. She still believed in many of the things taught by the church—she believed in good and evil and the existence of heaven and hell. She believed that Jesus Christ understood and delivered personal absolutions. What she couldn’t accept was the hypocrisy of the church—priests claiming to deny flesh while privately indulging; hollow sermons that didn’t seem to have any relation to her life and needs.
On the night her father was buried, Alice Crimmins went to the Broadcaster’s Inn on Long Island and met three men and two women and had too much to drink.