She rushed out of the building and paced under the awning. She squinted quizzically toward Madison Avenue and then toward Park. Maybe Janice got a ride to Washington, after all, she reassured herself, stepping back inside. Let her be in Washington, she prayed. Let her be away. The night doorman stood near the elevator and she asked him, in passing, if he’d seen Janice. He asked, which of her roommates was Janice?
“The blond one,” Kate replied anxiously. “Emily’s the one with the glasses, and you don’t need to remember her, anyhow. She’s moving out tomorrow.” The doorman wrinkled his brow and then answered slowly but confidently that he had not seen Janice. He added that he would ask the morning doorman if he had any recollection. Kate thanked him and walked away.
The elevator door opened and she stepped in, traveling back to the third floor, where she reentered apartment 3C. Just then, the doorbell rang and she rushed to answer it. Mr. and Mrs. Wylie entered the apartment; both were pale-faced. Max Wylie immediately advised the two women to remain in the living room while he searched the apartment. Although his demeanor seemed overly calm, Kate noticed Mr. Wylie’s hands were shaking, too, as he set out down the long hallway.
He reached his daughter’s room first, which appeared ransacked, just as Katherine had described it. He stepped back into the hallway and paused. He heard his wife, Lambert, call out, but he couldn’t distinguish what she said.
“Stay in the living room,” he shouted, “and don’t touch anything!”
He noticed a hem of light coming from the second bedroom. The door was ajar, four or five inches. He took a few paces and wedged the door open with his foot and knee. He was able to see a bed with various things piled on top of it. Max froze. The entire room was in disarray. His lips began to quiver. The drawers of a bureau opposite the bed were all pulled open, to varying degrees, and the floor was strewn with personal objects. He stood just inside the doorway for quite some time, slowly grasping the frenzied state of things: the plaid hatbox and black purse tossed on the bed; the hangers, papers and wrapping paper littering the floor; the lopsided state of the lace curtains on the two windows at the far side of the room. Nothing, it seemed, was where it should have been. There was also a frightful, metallic, nauseating smell that permeated the room. Then he recognized that the mattress by the window was covered in what appeared to be blood. And to his horror, he caught sight of something—something unnatural and unfathomable. His throat went dry.
Max let out an aching sigh and felt his knees buckle beneath him. There was something on the other side of the far bed, something beyond those bloody sheets. He was afraid to cross the room. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” he whimpered, “no.” And yet he had to face whatever repulsion lurked there. Ultimately this was his duty, he felt. Max allowed a few more seconds to pass as he composed himself. Then, with every ounce of courage in him, he inched his way around the second bed to a confined space by the window. There, on the cold floor, lay his daughter and Emily Hoffert. The sight before him was so drastically nightmarish, so ghastly, that in his own lifetime, he would never manage to erase the image from his mind.
With all his might, he tried not to focus on the gore. Instead, he saw a blue wool blanket near Emily’s knees and instinctively pulled it, gently, over the bodies, covering the girls as much as he could. His hands shook and he gasped for air. “My baby,” he moaned softly, “oh, my little girl.” Max rested the palm of his hand on the blanket near the top, where Janice’s head was. Then he withdrew slowly, trying to avoid stepping on the shards of glass that dotted the floor. He took a few deep breaths, attempting to compose himself, and headed out of the room, back down the hallway toward the living room.
He saw his wife, seated just as he’d instructed, with her arms folded. Still, his whole body seared in pain. He saw Kate, wide-eyed and frantic. He tried to find the words he needed to impart. His whole body ached and burned—he could hardly contain his own singular fright and startling grief.
“Max? What did you find?” his wife asked, reaching her hands out desperately. Her voice cracked, and he could see the tears welling up in her eyes. Mr. Wylie stood before the two women, white-faced; his arms were to his sides, but his hands were lifted, palms down, as if to say, Calm down, let’s just stay calm.
“Dear,” he managed in a throaty voice, “I need you to be strong now.”
Mrs. Wylie’s face turned white; tears dripped from her eyes and she blinked several times. Max went to her, fell to the ground and grabbed her hands. He looked over to Kate Olsen, feeling his own tears coming on swiftly. For a split second, he managed to smile at Kate reassuringly, but this grin crumbled beneath his trembling lips. He turned back to his wife. Barely audible, now overcome with the unforgivable reality, he muttered, “It’s all horribly frightful.”
Sobbing, he continued to speak. “Janice is gone—Emily too. . . .”
Mrs. Wylie blinked again and asked, “ ‘Gone’? My God, Max—gone where?”
“Dear—”
Max closed his eyes—tight—feeling the gushing tears coursing down his face.
“Dear,” he repeated, looking at her squarely, “the girls have been murdered. . . . Janice is dead.”
CHAPTER 2
Eight months later, Brownsville section, Brooklyn
At a few minutes before one in the morning, on Wednesday, April 22, 1964, police officer Tommy Micelli was already into his shift, just shy of an hour. Micelli, a member of the New York Police Department (NYPD) for a little over three years, was assigned to the Seventy-third Precinct, which encompassed most of the Brownsville section, an area comparable in crime conditions to Harlem. On that early morning, he had a foot post during a midnight-to-eight-A.M. tour. It had been raining when he first came on duty, and now, an hour later, the rain had stopped. There was still a moistness in the air when Micelli walked to a police call box near Sutter Avenue and Chester Street. It was time for him to call the police house or “make the ring,” as it was referred to. He picked up the phone and called in. Then he began walking west on Sutter Avenue toward Bristol Street. Almost immediately he noticed the figures of a man and woman on Bristol Street some two hundred feet from him. The man appeared to be pushing the woman into an alleyway.
Officer Micelli immediately sprang to action. He came racing toward them in the dark, his shoes hitting the pavement quick and hard. He shined his flashlight in the alley and saw a young man leap out and sprint along Sutter Avenue.
“Hey!” cried out Micelli, who was heavily winded from running so fast. He grabbed the .38-caliber revolver out of his holster and sped up.
“Hey! This is the police! Stop where you are and raise your hands!”
Micelli’s pace quickened more as he stretched to close the gap between him and the assailant. His legs burned. They rounded a corner west onto Hopkinson Avenue. Micelli lost his footing and tripped, almost landing hands first on the ground. He fell half a block behind. The assailant rushed forward, like a bullet. Micelli pushed off again, his shoes grazing the loose gravel. He fired off a few shots and called out once again. His breath was steady and shallow. When the suspect reached Amboy Street, which was one block west of Hopkinson, he turned to his right and disappeared. By this time there were a few police cars on the scene, with sirens blaring. Red and blue lights flashed everywhere. Micelli ran another two blocks before realizing he’d lost sight of him. The even sound of footsteps, too, was all but gone. Micelli could hardly see beneath the muted streetlamps of Brownsville and the pulsing lights from police cars behind him. Reluctantly, he slowed to a halt. He bent over, placing his hands on his thighs, desperate to catch his breath. He listened to the sound of his own wheezing.
Micelli gazed out into the desolate city night. The street resembled a ghost town. There were just a few neon lights shining in front of stores, and siren lights reflecting in puddles. After a few moments, he steadied himself, watching as his fellow officers sprinted past him. He stuffed his gun back in its holster and shuffled back to the scene of the crime
.
She couldn’t stop shaking. Alma Estrada glanced down at her white nursing shoes, splashed with mud. She whimpered. The sidewalk was damp and moist from earlier rain showers. A streetlamp flickered two blocks ahead and the glaring sirens blinded her. Alma was petite, and just twenty years old. She cried out for her husband, who had raced down from their apartment and wrapped his arms around her. Over and over he asked her what had happened, but she could barely speak. Her face went white and she gasped for air, managing a few words here and there. As the moments ticked by, more officers began assembling around Alma, each with a notebook and pen in his hand, ready to scratch anything down, any detail at all. Officer Micelli edged his way into the semicircle as Alma accepted a handkerchief and blew her nose. With the slightest hesitation, she began relaying the details of her story.
First, she said, she heard—or thought she heard—a noise. Her heart skipped a beat and she lengthened her stride. But with each stride she took, the sound behind her steadied. Footsteps, she said. She was sure then. They were firm; they were cold; they were metallic. She rounded a corner, her legs stretching out in front of her. Her heartbeat quickened and perspiration formed on her brow. She told the officers of how she tried to convince herself it was all in her head—that she was working herself up for nothing. And yet there was no mistaking the footsteps behind her: they were real and moving.
The sea of officers took note as she crossed her hands over her heart and tried to explain how the adrenaline coursed through her body. The men nodded, all heads down and scribbling. Next she clumsily attempted to illustrate how she then began to jog. Alma stood there, beneath the streetlamp, attempting to run in place. Instead, she appeared as if she was limping awkwardly. Her purse dangled on her wrist. She explained to the officers how as curious as she was to look behind her at her chaser, she did not turn around. She was terrified. She told them that she moved to the center of the street until, finally, he reached her and thrust his arm around her throat and pressed a sharp metal object against her neck.
Alma Estrada drew her neck toward the officers and explained, in hurried syllables, “He whispered in my ear, ‘I’m going to rape and kill you.’ ”
Then she held her arms to her neck, in a choking manner, and described how her assailant dragged her into a nearby alley. Her glasses fell off, and somewhere in there she must’ve screamed. Alma had already furnished a pencil, a button and some thread when officers first arrived. She insisted that the pencil was what the attacker had held to her throat and that the button and thread came directly from the assailant’s jacket. After a few more minutes, the assembled crowd began dispersing. Alma’s husband wrapped his arms around her. After the police finished their questions, the couple disappeared into their apartment building.
Officer Tommy Micelli did not give up easily. After hearing Alma Estrada’s teary-eyed, if not frenzied, side of the story, he decided to retrace his steps. It was just after dawn when Micelli wandered down Sutter Avenue a second time. He was hopeful, if not entirely convinced, that one of his shots hit the attacker. Surely, there might be a trace of blood, he thought as he surveyed the gray asphalt carefully. Micelli paced up and down a two-block radius along Sutter Avenue. A gust of wind swept by. There was a chill in the air and some light misting—all common symptoms of early spring in New York.
Tracing his steps, it wasn’t long before he found himself on the corner of Hopkinson Avenue. He thought there was a chance he had wounded the assailant, but his search for bloodstains on the pavement proved fruitless. Through the window of a Laundromat, he noticed a young black man sitting by himself. Given the time of day, the individual seemed out of place to Micelli. Better safe than sorry, Micelli reasoned, deciding to walk in and ask a few questions.
Upon sight of this young teenager, Officer Micelli was immediately distracted by his skin. He was sitting in a metal chair by one of the dryers; his arms were folded at his chest. He peered up at Micelli as he entered. While the structure of his face was agreeable enough, and his large, squinting brown eyes seemed pleasant and unassuming, the young man’s cheeks and forehead were covered with open acne sores. In trying not to stare, Micelli focused on the kid’s dark hair, cut short without sideburns.
“Good morning,” Micelli said, nodding at him. He noticed the young man had just uncrossed his arms, placing them nervously at his sides.
“Hello, sir.”
“It’s a bit early for laundry, don’t you think?”
The kid flinched and answered slowly. “I was just . . . waiting inside, from the cold. My brother is coming by and we’re going to walk to work.”
“I see. Well, it is very cold outside.”
Micelli paused for a moment, trying to read the boy’s unsure expression. Then he added, “And where do you work, if you don’t mind my asking?”
He went on to tell Micelli that his name was George Whitmore Jr., and that he had a job at the local salt-packing plant. Micelli wrote everything down on a scrap of paper, which he peeled off from inside his jacket, even though he doubted it would prove useful. He then thanked the young man and, having never sat down, headed toward the door.
“Think it’s gonna be a rainy one today, Mr. Whitman,” Micelli said.
“Whitmore,” George corrected.
“Whitmore. Sorry about that, kid.”
Micelli had just opened the door; the doorbell had just chimed, when George Whitmore Jr. sat up out of his seat, the metal chair squealing on the linoleum floor. Micelli turned back.
“Sir,” George said timidly, “I know why you’re asking me these questions.”
Micelli let go of the door and reentered the Laundromat.
“Oh? Why?”
“It’s about that fellow the police were chasing last night. What was the shooting all about?”
Micelli walked slowly over to George. There was something particularly curious about George Whitmore Jr.—or, at least, Officer Micelli thought as much. For one thing, young black kids rarely spoke to police in Brownsville, particularly where crime was concerned. And then there was the hour—it was just seven in the morning, and Micelli found himself engaged in polite small talk with a teenager, haphazardly placed at a Laundromat mere blocks from where Mrs. Estrada was attacked. Micelli began to study George more carefully now: his slight gait, his long fingers, his awkward squinting gaze. As he did, Micelli briefly outlined the attack on Alma Estrada; to which, Whitmore added, almost interrupting, “How low can some people get. I saw the cops chasing the man down Sutter Avenue, and they were shooting at him. He went into a building on Amboy Street. I can show you where, exactly, if you like.”
Micelli was intrigued. Rather than question him further, he followed Whitmore a block west on Sutter Avenue, where George pointed to a tenement building the attacker had hidden in. As suspect as Whitmore was, or perhaps should have been, Micelli found him to be surprisingly innocuous and genuinely helpful. From a nearby call box, Micelli reached the precinct’s street sergeant, where he reported Whitmore’s information. Soon enough, another car arrived.
Whitmore seemed eager when the squad car roared up beside him on Sutter Avenue, its driver window rolled down to reveal a bloated, ruddy face, with a dark, bushy mustache. Micelli and Whitmore were standing on the sidewalk, just outside the Laundromat, when the sergeant leaned out the window to speak to George. The odor of a cigar wafted from the car as George stepped over to it.
“Between you and me,” the man said, “it’s against the law not to tell the police where a guy went to, when we’re looking for him.”
George stared at the sergeant, perplexed. “But I—”
Micelli squeezed Whitmore on the shoulder in reassurance and walked up to the sergeant’s window. The two men spoke momentarily in low voices. Then the sergeant revved his engine, told Micelli he’d be in touch and drove off, leaving a trail of exhaust. “Well, hell, thanks a lot, Whitmen,” Micelli remarked, reaching out to shake George’s hand.
“Whitmore,” George correcte
d again, shaking his hand. Then he added, “Is it okay if I head off now?”
Micelli smiled and waved him off lightheartedly. He watched, amused, as Whitmore lifted his hand awkwardly in an attempt to return a variation of Micelli’s good-natured gesture. Instead of a wave, Whitmore’s hand managed an ungainly, cheery slap of the thigh. Then his slight figure disappeared around the corner of the Laundromat. That’s a good kid, Micelli thought, walking away into the clear morning.
In the early 1960s, a detective within the Seventy-third Precinct in Brownsville, Brooklyn, was overtaxed with heavy caseloads—upward of six hundred—not to mention the reputation of working at the toughest station house in New York City. In addition to the average caseload, in April 1964, two detectives, Louie Ayala and Joseph “Joe” DiPrima, were caught trying to solve another brutal murder—that of Mrs. Minnie Edmonds, a forty-six-year-old woman who was stabbed to death in an alleyway, exactly one block east of where the Alma Estrada assault had taken place. Mrs. Edmonds’s clothing was disarranged in a manner indicating sexual assault. Her attack had also taken place in the early hours of the morning. As was true for most homicides out of Brownsville, the Edmonds case certainly didn’t send ripples through the heart of Gotham as the Wylie-Hoffert case inevitably did. But for the people of Brownsville and its police, this murder was highly disturbing. For Ayala and DiPrima, they had exhausted all their leads. Still, neither was about to give up; both were first-grade detectives, the highest detective mark available. Ayala had been on the force for sixteen years, while DiPrima had put in over twenty-seven. The two detectives worked well as a team, tirelessly following over ninety leads, but to no avail.
Echoes of My Soul Page 2