by Ken Gross
MCGUIRE: As a result of that in your meeting with her after that . . . what was her attitude about the children?
GRACE: Well, Inspector, from the time of the custody struggle I didn’t see her very much. I think I only saw her once or twice. I didn’t know when the custody issue took place or what she was served, but I stayed away from her. I didn’t want to get involved. I didn’t think I saw her but once or twice—at tops three times—during that period. I talked to her almost every other night or so. I thought I shouldn’t see her and she shouldn’t see me. In other words, if she wanted to go out for a night she should consider the children. We didn’t discuss it very much.
And yet she had called several times on July 13. But Grace said he was involved in business and then took his wife to dinner and forgot to call Alice back.
MCGUIRE: The point I’m trying to make, Tony, is that there is something odd here. There is this custody struggle with these children and you are a friend of hers—a close friend of hers. She has quite a bit of affection for you, from what I gather. Which is all right, but I know that you were the person she would confide in. What did she say to you at 11 o’clock?
GRACE: Well, Inspector, like I said before, I don’t remember. Here’s what happened. She first called me and asked me what had happened—why I hadn’t called her, so I told her I had problems in the office. I don’t remember whether I told her what the incident was or not. I don’t remember that well enough. She asked me what time I got through—what I was doing—when I was going to leave and who was there. I said I was going to have a drink and then going to leave. She wanted to join me for a drink.
MCGUIRE: She said she wanted to join you?
GRACE: She said she wanted to come over and have a drink with me. I said where are you?
MCGUIRE: That night?
GRACE: Yes. I said where are you? I thought she might be in the neighborhood. She said I’m home. . . . I think she said she was painting the foyer or something. I told her she couldn’t come over for a drink because I was leaving. I think the last thing she asked me was if the bowling girls were there.
MCGUIRE: Who?
GRACE: The bowling girls. I said no, but they were there, and frankly that’s all that was said. It was a very, very short conversation.
MCGUIRE: Well, how did she sound? Did she sound desperate, as though she was anxious to meet you, or what?
GRACE: The other inspector [Michael Clifford] asked me the same thing. I can’t remember any disturbance. She was a little angry that I hadn’t called her. I explained I had a problem. I don’t remember whether I discussed it or not, and that went over all right. And then when I told her the bowling girls weren’t there that seemed to go over all right, too . . .
MCGUIRE: Let me refresh your recollection. I’ll give you a loaded question. Did she mention that she had any trouble with the children that night. That one of the children was acting up—that she had to slap them?
GRACE: No. Not a thing. She didn’t mention the children at all. Didn’t mention them.
McGuire turned to the subject of the winter cruise when Alice had gone off and left the children with the maid. That cruise had led directly to the custody suit.
MCGUIRE: On the day before she had been speaking to another person [presumably a high city official also on the cruise], as a result of information we have obtained in connection with this investigation. She talked about the cruise. You are familiar with that cruise? You know the cruise? You know the cruise I’m referring to? We have all the records on that. I guess you know that we have checked that.
GRACE: I put her on the cruise.
MCGUIRE: I know you did. I know you are very frank about it.
GRACE: I told you everything about that. [In fact, Grace had locked her in a washroom until the boat had sailed.]
MCGUIRE: Did she discuss the cruise and the fact that this could put her in a bad light about the cruise and the fact that she left the children and went on a cruise with three men? And we know, of course, how she spent the time on the cruise. We checked that. I wouldn’t want any double talk on that, particularly if there were conversations about that. We know exactly what happened on the cruise and that would be important in the custody struggle.
GRACE: Yes.
MCGUIRE: Did she discuss the substance of the information on that in order to assist her in the custody struggle? I can see that would be a source of concern to her if information and affidavits of information were presented, showing that she left the children in their residence. The maid gave the children to her husband and here she is going on a cruise with three men and sharing quarters with two. Did she discuss that with you on that night or any other night to help her retain custody? If she did I would like to know.
GRACE: That was discussed but I don’t recall whether she brought it up or I brought it up.
MCGUIRE: Would you endeavor to suppress that? Why would you worry about that?
Tony Grace took a swallow of water and wiped the moisture from his forehead. One of the detectives excused himself for a moment out of sheer disgust. The detective had come into the room with some regard for the weight of Tony Grace’s wealth. But the life of high merriment was in fact a dreary round trip into bars where, for a price, you could have liquor or women. One seemed to matter as much as the other. The self-contempt spread outward.
The questioning continued.
GRACE: I was involved in the cruise . . . and for that reason I think she told him [Eddie] about the cruise and Mike LaPenna told me what the other attorney had said. I told her again they couldn’t take the children away from her because they were all lying and this and that.
MCGUIRE: Who said this?
GRACE: She told me that.
MCGUIRE: She knows they’re not lies. She was talking through her hat.
GRACE: She told me that . . . She mentioned that some . . . in other words what Mike LaPenna had told me . . . he didn’t tell me everything . . . but he told me some of the things the other attorney had said to him about one of the things was that he came to the house to serve papers . . . She got very upset about it. So I told Sal LoCurto I didn’t believe it. So I brought it up to Mike LaPenna and Mike asked him point blank and he finally admitted she had [gotten] a coat of some sort. I told her the truth could be damaging. She said she left the children with a maid. I said you don’t leave children for one or two days or even overnight without proper care. If it gets into court it’s rough. Something was mentioned about the custody.
MCGUIRE: Tell me. I have spoken to you and I have spoken to LaPenna away from the office. I hope Mr. LaPenna appreciates it and I think he does. I am going to ask you a very frank question. Of course you know it would not be proper for me to discuss the extent of our evidence or what we have. We have information which at the proper time will be properly utilized. But you are a close friend of Alice—as I have said before there is no one here who is not a veteran police officer . . .
GRACE: I know.
MCGUIRE: It is the same as if you are talking to me alone. We have no intention in any way, shape or form and no one is going to force you to discuss it at any time and it is not going to be discussed by the police . . .
GRACE: I believe you.
MCGUIRE: I want to ask you a question. You have of course discussed this with Charlie Fellini [a developer of the Freedomland amusement park], and Sal LoCurto. What happened to those children? I know your association with respect to her. These are two innocent kids here.
GRACE: That’s right.
MCGUIRE: These are two innocent kids. It is not a pretty picture. I will show you a worse picture. [He is showing pictures of the dead children on morgue slabs.] That’s a little girl looking up. Have you ever seen a more horrible picture than that? These are two wonderful innocent kids. Tony, I have never met you before now. You are not a friend of mine. You are not an informer. I don’t want to know about narcotics and gambling.
GRACE: Yes.
&n
bsp; MCGUIRE: I couldn’t care less. But I think that you, as a man, as a person . . . I think I am entitled to know—when I say that, I mean the police are entitled to know if you know anything further.
GRACE: Inspector, I can’t help you at all.
MCGUIRE: YOU are not involved in the death of these children?
GRACE: Definitely not.
MCGUIRE: Then you are not involved? Is that the truth?
GRACE: Positively, no.
MCGUIRE: If you are not involved, then . . .
GRACE: Yes?
MCGUIRE: If you are not involved then I think the Police Department and the people, and, as a man of conscience, I think the Police Department is entitled to know it.
GRACE: Inspector, I wish I could help.
MCGUIRE: Have you discussed this?
GRACE: I have discussed it many times.
MCGUIRE: You saw these children? You knew them?
GRACE: Not too well.
MCGUIRE: You’ve seen them?
GRACE: Beautiful kids. I saw them at the dedication of the Verrazano Bridge.
MCGUIRE: Have you considered the possibility . . . I want to tell you something. This is not in the press. These children were not sexually abused. This little girl was not sexually abused. The opinion about the boy is not provable, but a warranted one. This is not a case of a degenerate taking one child. You are a very sensible and responsible person. You wouldn’t be in the position you are and the friends and associates you have in this. What do you think happened to those children?
GRACE: Inspector, I discussed it again and again with many people—my friends. I tried to point her out. I tried to point him out. I tried to point out anybody else. I tried to point out any of their friends. I can’t figure anything out. I will be very frank with you. I can’t figure out how any parents—him or her—I never met him—could harm children. These children were out of this world. I only saw them four or five times. I can’t see where either of them would have any advantage to gain. First of all, it would have been temporary. I’ll give you my idea—if it happened to one of them accidentally, what about the other one? If either one of them is trying to hide something, it’s a mystery. I talked with Charlie. I talked with Sal several times and I can’t figure it out. I can’t point a finger at her or him or I can’t also find a reason for it.
MCGUIRE: Let me tell you something, Tony.
GRACE: Yes.
MCGUIRE: I have talked to you now and you are not under oath.
GRACE: Right.
MCGUIRE: I can say at this time—it’s not within my province to indicate any of this—I think the Police Department has been more than fair with you and everybody else connected with this case.
GRACE: I think so.
MCGUIRE: I would like to think that if you did come up with an answer—if there is an answer which presents itself to you—without being an informer—I would like to know that this information would be forthcoming—I would not care how—to the Police Department.
GRACE: You can depend on that. I wouldn’t care. Inspector, I wish I could help. It’s a terrible thing. I’ve gone with a lot of girls. . . .
MCGUIRE: That’s not our concern.
GRACE: I’m not in love with Rusty. I never was . . . I still go with other girls.
The detectives in the room joined in the questioning now, pressing Grace about whether Alice could have gone looking for him that night, hammering at the eleven o’clock call, probing at Grace’s feelings about Alice Crimmins.
GRACE: When I heard that her husband was around the house—I don’t think I was around the house since February—in other words I heard that she was separated from her husband and he was happy where he was. As soon as I heard that he was around the house, I said, “Fine, I don’t go to her house again.” I would tell her to take a cab. . . . I’m not going to stick my neck out. This is during the custody period. I mean, it’s nonsense.
She talked about her husband to Grace and he advised her to go back to Eddie, he told McGuire.
GRACE: I told her several times that she ought to go back to her husband—that she was young and all that kind of stuff and that the way she was going she would end up in the gutter. I figured that to myself. I didn’t say that to her. She said that her husband was never home and she was home and all that stuff. It didn’t look good. But the thing that occurred to me was that there was something wrong with him. I think I mentioned it before.
MCGUIRE: Did she indicate that she thought he might have been queer? If he were, any woman would be disturbed with her marriage.
GRACE: I never met the man. I can’t really say whether he was or not. She said he was never home during her marriage. I don’t know whether that’s true or not because who do you believe?
Grace conceded that he paid for Alice’s cruise and plane fare home. Margie Fischer and Alice Crimmins not only went to the bon voyage party and then got trapped on the boat, but met the men from the cruise when they returned and went to the Crossways Motel with the men for a welcome-home party.
MCGUIRE: OK, Tony, I’ll be in touch with you.
Tony Grace had become a police ally.
37
“Queens. . . is a borough of New York City and it has over 2,000,000 people. But it is a very small place. It is a collection of small towns that spill into each other and the people who live in the towns that spill into each other, when they get in the subway for the ride to their jobs in Manhattan, always say that they are ‘going to the city.’”
—JIMMY BRESLIN, THE ORACLE OF QUEENS
In the winter of 1965/66 the rats started moving back into Flushing Meadow Park. The World’s Fair had packed up its international condiments, along with the exotic nomads who camped around its fringes for two years and then, like birds who irresistibly follow some distant scent in the wind, migrated in search of the action . . . to Montreal, or to Tokyo, or to Houston.
Measured by thermal charts, it was a mild season. But a field of ice crawled inexorably over those parts of Queens where the Alice Crimmins case had frozen into an obsession. Alice was free, or at least not under any direct police constraint, enjoying some measure of anonymity in her new address and her maiden name. During the day she worked in a variety of secretarial jobs under a succession of vinyl wigs. She undertook a course in Speedwriting, but the discipline bored her and she dropped out of the class, devising her own method of symbols and scrawls to take quick dictation.
At night she would drink herself into a numb sanctuary, mumbling to whatever companion that the children were angels in heaven now—it was something she remembered, some dim priestly consolation that came out under the alcohol—that the children were better off, Monsignor Schultheiss had told her, they were angels in heaven now. In a voice husky with whiskey, Alice would repeat her litany—they wouldn’t have to endure the scorn of people who watched for every deviant sign.
The police had set up a sound room in the basement of Alice’s apartment house, and the taping never stopped. Somewhere in the endless spools of Alice’s life during that period is recorded the plaintive half-wish that her dead children were now “angels in heaven,” looking down at her plight in sublime pity.
There were, of course, for Alice, the men. It was not a small consolation to the police, but between the summer and spring the lively flash of her smile had curdled into something sad.
The detectives had done all that could be expected and more. The traps had been baited and set. The friends and relatives had undergone relentless questioning and acquiesced in whatever entrapments were asked of them. No move that Alice made went unwatched, no sound unheard. And yet it all came to nothing. The frustration was teeth-gnashing. The neighborhoods had been canvassed and recanvassed. The whereabouts of anyone remotely connected to the case on the night of July 13/14 was recorded in the more than 2000 DD5’s—detective reports—that accumulated faster than any one person could read. Again and again detectives went back over the
same ground, talking to the same people. Those questioned were asked to rack their memories for something that would help the police. It might seem too silly to bring up, it might seem totally insignificant, but the police were begging for some forgotten sound, some second sight.
Under that kind of pressure, there would always be someone who remembered something . . . something perhaps real, perhaps imagined . . .
There were random possibilities that presented themselves to the police—promising leads that would dissipate but had to be checked out carefully. A fifteen-year-old boy with a troubled history seemingly committed suicide two weeks after the killings of Missy and Eddie. He had been a problem in school and had told a teacher that he was responsible for the deaths of the Crimmins children. The teacher said the boy had confessed to a priest.
He was a tall youth who always wore a baseball cap. He had been born brain-damaged and was a familiar figure in the Kew Gardens Hills neighborhood, although he lived in Elmhurst. From the night of the murders, however, he didn’t leave his room except to see his teacher and the priest. One day, in the basement of his Elmhurst home, he blew his head off with a twelve-gauge shotgun. The police quickly dismissed it as accidental, although in order to pull the trigger of the gun with a twenty-six-inch barrel, the boy would have had to use his toe. The police went through the motions of an investigation. They spoke to the teacher. The priest invoked religious privilege and the detectives were willing to drop it. The boy was the son of a police officer and no one wanted that kind of scandal connected to the department. The official report would give “Accidental” as the cause of death, and any attempt to link it to the Crimmins case was rejected.
There was another hopeful lead. A janitor from a nearby housing project had disappeared immediately after the killings. The man had a history of erratic behavior. He once had attacked a woman in a supermarket, threatening to “get her kids” for some forgotten insult. The man was found in Detroit that winter after a long binge. He was in a hospital ward for recovering alcoholics. A doctor watched as the detectives questioned the man.