Echoes of My Soul

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  Then, on Wednesday morning, April 22, 1964, Officer Tommy Micelli walked into the Seventy-third Precinct station house and handed over his information on Alma Estrada. Joe DiPrima glanced at the file and passed it on to Ayala. He looked at Micelli head-on.

  “You got a witness?”

  Micelli raised his eyebrows and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “The kid said he saw him clear as day.”

  Ayala ran his fingers through his cropped, dark brown hair. Seated at his desk with his face buried in the file, he muttered, “Whitman, eh? How old is he, would you say?”

  “I’d say about eighteen,” replied Micelli. “He’s got a lousy case of acne, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “That’s a shame,” DiPrima remarked flatly, peeling his navy jacket off the back of his chair. DiPrima always seemed larger than he actually was, even standing next to Micelli, who was almost a foot taller. Sporting a crop of salt-and-pepper hair, DiPrima was barrel-chested and fit, for a man pushing sixty years old. Rolling up the sleeves of his pressed white shirt, he folded his arms and tapped his foot impatiently. He had a borough-wide reputation for being a crack detective, and his father-like approach to prisoners and suspects had resulted in his obtaining more than his share of confessions, exemplifying the old adage that you can get more flies with honey than with vinegar.

  Ayala, twenty years his junior, closed the file and glanced over at his partner. “You thinking what I’m thinking, boss?”

  DiPrima nodded.

  Micelli, meanwhile, scratched the back of his neck and breathed out slowly. “So what,” he inquired quizzically, “if you don’t mind my asking, are you planning, Detective DiPrima?”

  DiPrima smirked and walked past Officer Micelli, heading quickly down the hollow corridor that led out to the street. He was more eager than he’d been in weeks. The case of Alma Estrada had noteworthy similarities to that of the Edmonds case, and it was important to determine whether a sex fiend was now threatening the already high-crime-rate area. DiPrima stopped, only for a moment, and turned back to Ayala, who was now reaching for his badge and cigarettes.

  “What the hell, boys!” he hollered in a thick Brooklyn accent. “Are we gonna go talk to Whitman or Whitmore, or whatever the hell his name is?”

  Close to the intersection of Pitkin Avenue and Junius Street in Brooklyn was a railroad siding. Next to the siding was a building, which housed the Schoenberg Salt Company. Although a good many of the company employees were regulars who received a weekly salary, many others would “shape up” daily for the job of unloading salt from railroad cars. DiPrima, Ayala and Micelli stepped from the squad car and walked over to the salt factory, where they questioned the manager. They were told no one by the name of George Whitman or Whitmore was on the payroll. Then they checked the salt company records, but they failed to come up with the name “Whitman” or any similar name among the regular employees. While it became readily apparent that the records were very poorly kept, and the names of those transient individuals were not always accurately recorded, the fact remained that there appeared to be no connection between George Whitmore and the salt company. The three men returned to the squad car and went over the file again. Now they were suspicious.

  Seated in the back, Micelli reached up front and pointed to the file. “I wrote down ‘Schoenfeld’s,’ ” he insisted, his long finger pointed toward the document Ayala was skimming.

  DiPrima grabbed the document out of Ayala’s hands and held it outside the window so that the midday light illuminated the text.

  Ayala lit a cigarette and, dangling his arm out of the right passenger window of the car, blew two smoke rings.

  “The kid’s a liar,” Ayala stated flatly.

  “I don’t know, Detective. I tell you, this kid wasn’t the type. He wasn’t all there, if you know what I mean, but sincere as all hell.”

  DiPrima passed the file back to Ayala. He turned the key in the ignition and the motor roared. He glanced at Micelli in the rearview mirror. He couldn’t get over what a rookie Micelli was—married to the ideals of justice, the swift and honest catching of a killer and closing a case. DiPrima continued to rev the engine, remembering when he was like that, decades ago. If only the system actually did work, he often thought. Things now . . . Well . . . they were different. Working for the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad had taken its toll. The endless crime, the lack of support from city taxpayers, the poverty and swindling, and the brutality—there was no end in sight. The Minnie Edmonds case, which he’d been poring over, was getting to him. He wanted answers. He’d seen that woman all cut up and left for dead. And maybe she was just another cold case; but just once, he wanted to know who did it. Just once, he wanted that somebody to pay for what he did. And sometimes, on a day like the one he was having, he just wanted out of Brooklyn altogether. If he couldn’t catch this killer, if he couldn’t give the Edmonds family a little bit of closure, then what was the point of it all?

  “You okay there, partner?” Ayala called, his scruffy face twisting toward DiPrima.

  “I’m just thinking, that’s all.”

  DiPrima switched the car into gear and peeled out of the parking lot.

  “Where we headed?”

  “Back to the station house. There might be something to this kid.”

  Shellie Whitmore, George’s older brother, cradled George around his neck and shoulders with his right arm as they walked to the Schoenberg Salt Company. George, who was generally soft-spoken, presented his story proudly, giving an animated account of how he told the officer that the suspect said, “Help me, help me. The law is after me,” and how he illustrated for the officer where the suspect had escaped. Shellie listened intently to George, every so often rolling his eyes as if to indicate disbelief. Sensing George was winding down, Shellie stopped, turned to his brother and gripped his shoulder with his hand.

  “Now you listen to me. You shouldn’t be talking to no po-lice. And what you thinking, tellin’ his white ass whose runnin’ from johnny law?”

  George hung his head, clearly frustrated. Shellie pushed George away with his hand and then poked him, hard, in the chest.

  “And what you go on and tell that cop that you got yourself a job at Schoenberg’s? You ain’t got no job there.”

  George stumbled backward and struggled to regain his footing. His brother began walking, at a brisk pace, toward the entrance of the factory. And although George could barely see him in the near distance, as without glasses George could barely see anything, he still called out defiantly, “Today I’ll have a job at the factory, Shellie. I will today, and that’s the truth.”

  George Whitmore Jr. did not, in fact, gain employment at the salt factory on that day. Having forgotten to bring his Social Security card, a prerequisite for work at the company, George was denied employment. To redeem himself, he visited his girlfriend, Beverly Payne. Greeting her at the door, he concocted a dramatic story of how he went down to the station house and looked through photos of mug shots, trying to identify the assailant. George spent the majority of the afternoon at Beverly’s, leaving late, long after the sun drifted behind the buildings and darkness fell, thick and heavy, over Brooklyn.

  CHAPTER 3

  Two days later

  Before he was picked up by Detective Louie Ayala and Officer Tommy Micelli, George Whitmore Jr. had a bounce to his step. He had woken at dawn and wandered into the chilly April air, heading north along Amboy Street to Sutter Avenue. He turned west along Sutter Avenue, toward the Laundromat. And, as unaccustomed to the law as he was, particularly in Brownsville, George Whitmore Jr. was just naïve enough to believe that when Detective Ayala and Officer Micelli asked him to accompany them to the station house, he was simply being taken in to identify a real assailant.

  The Seventy-third Precinct station house was a nondescript brick building on the corner of Bristol Street and New York Avenue. Whitmore climbed the cement steps with Detective Ayala, on one side, and Officer Tommy Micelli, on the other. He was e
xcited to be privy to an unsolved case and eagerly climbed to reach the top of the stairs, where he entered the precinct. He was dropped off in a room down the hall.

  George began imagining wild stories of himself as a detective, scouring the streets of Brownsville in search of crooks and killers, revealing his badge to wide-eyed shop owners and tenants. George remained easily distracted for half an hour, until finally, at approximately 8:00 A.M., the door opened to the squad room, where he had been left. Detective Louie Ayala walked in.

  The detective had taken his jacket off and rolled up the sleeves of his heavily starched, clean white shirt. Detective Ayala had the arms of a prizefighter, and he often rolled his sleeves up to intimidate his suspects. That morning he was clean-shaven and smelled of soap and cigarettes. He glanced in Whitmore’s direction, but failed to make eye contact. Then he motioned for him to get up.

  “Sir—” Whitmore started, pushing his chair back in and following Ayala out of the room. In the doorway Ayala stopped so abruptly that Whitmore, who stood a few inches away, barely missed bumping into him. Then, with a long, hard stare, Ayala pointed his finger at George and said, slowly and steadily, “You don’t talk, unless you’re told to talk. Got that, kid?”

  Whitmore nodded. Ayala repeated this remark a second time, more loudly and firmly, while George nodded readily. Finally Ayala turned and the two walked out of the room.

  Meanwhile, Alma Estrada was contacted at home, and Officer Micelli was sent to bring her to the Seventy-third Detective Squad room, situated inside the Seventy-third Precinct. Officer Micelli was taller than Mrs. Estrada, and her neck extended back as she strained to meet his eyes. It was now approximately eight-thirty in the morning.

  “You see this peephole, here?” he asked, pointing to the small hole in the office door. “Well, on the other side of it, we’ve got a possible suspect—I mean, this might not be the guy at all, but, if I may, would you mind taking a look through this peephole to see if we might’ve caught our man?”

  Alma Estrada widened her eyes and lifted her hands in the air, as if to say something imperative. She wasn’t sure she could emotionally handle seeing her attacker, let alone being so close in proximity to him. She told this to Micelli in rushed, frantic syllables. She knew her hands were shaking visibly and was relieved when the officer suggested she sit down for a moment. As they talked, he placed some telephone books in front of the door for her so that she could stand on top of them and see through the peephole when she was ready. Alma sat down momentarily, adding that, in thinking things through, she simply wanted to get it over with. She rested on the edge of the chair, waiting, wringing her hands impatiently, until finally Officer Micelli helped her up onto the telephone books. Alma leaned in slowly, her hands resting on either side of the peephole, fingers splayed evenly against the wood of the door.

  “Bring him in,” Micelli hollered.

  Alma leaned in more, her left eye peering in through the hole into the empty squad room next door. The squad room door opened and she watched as George Whitmore Jr. entered. He remained where he was and looked to the office door, in exactly the direction of where Alma stood, pressed against the other side. She immediately pulled back; in her trembling, the door, which was already unhinged, began to open a few inches. Alma turned around to Officer Micelli, who had reached his hand out to steady her. “I think that’s him,” she said quickly and repeatedly. “I think that’s him.”

  Micelli asked her if she was sure Mr. Whitmore was, indeed, the man who had attacked her just the other night on Sutter Avenue, and that it was very important that she be sure.

  Alma pressed her eyes closed for a moment before saying, “Well . . . could I hear him speak?”

  Micelli called out the request to Ayala, who then directed Whitmore to say the threatening words uttered by the assailant. A moment later, George Whitmore Jr. spoke slowly and clearly.

  Standing there, Alma Estrada truly felt as if she were experiencing the entire night all over again. That voice—that soft, uncannily similar voice.

  “ ‘Lady, I’m going to rape you,’ ” he said, as instructed. After a short pause and some whispering from Detective Ayala, Whitmore spoke again, gently, but clearly.

  “ ‘Lady, I’m going to kill you.’ ”

  Alma stepped back, almost falling off the telephone books. Micelli grabbed her and pulled her over to the table, sitting her down in a chair. He called to Ayala and they both sat with her while she confirmed, wholeheartedly, that George Whitmore Jr. was her assailant.

  Next door, locked in the squad room, George listened intently. He could hear her say, over and over again, “That’s the man. That’s the man.” He swallowed hard. Perspiration dotted his brow and his gaze fell toward the door, where his accuser sat, on the other side, utterly convinced of his guilt.

  George Whitmore Jr. knew immediately as Detective Ayala and Officer Micelli reentered the squad room that things had gone from bad to worse. Ayala, who was puffing on a cigarette, jerked a chair out from under the table and sat down across from him. George’s eyelids fluttered, adjusting to the smoke. He sat up, like a student in a classroom on the first day of school.

  “Sir—” he began.

  “So let’s say you threatened to rape her,” Ayala declared calmly, speaking in a thick, rough voice.

  “No,” George answered excitedly. “No, sir. I did not. I swear. You’re making a big mistake here. I’ve never seen that lady before.”

  Ayala looked up at Micelli, who was towering over George, and said calmly, “Well, it’s not like we don’t hear that a lot around here, Mr. Whitmore. Right, Patrolman?”

  Micelli nodded, resting his hands on the back of George’s chair. Whitmore turned around, peering nervously up at Micelli. He smiled at Micelli, the only officer he was vaguely familiar with, but Micelli barely creased his jaw in return. Instead, he walked around to face Whitmore, leaned in ever so slightly, placed his long, narrow hand on the table in front of him and said slowly and softly, “George—you’ve got to tell the truth now.”

  Micelli paused a moment, making certain he had Whitmore’s full attention. George, whose hands began to tremble slightly, nodded his head and, clearing his throat, replied, “But I am. I promise I am, sir.”

  Micelli’s eyes remained fixed on George’s. He placed his hand on George’s shoulder and squeezed it, as he did two days before when the sergeant drove up on Sutter Avenue.

  “George,” he repeated, “it’s going to be a whole lot easier for you if you just tell us the truth. Right here, right now.”

  Whitmore was confused by Micelli’s stance. Just the day before, the officer had been asking him about the assailant, not treating him like one. He felt his eyes water as he stared at Micelli. George swore that he could see a note of sadness and remorse in the officer’s face.

  “I just don’t know what you want me to say, Officer,” Whitmore strained to answer. “I didn’t hurt that lady.”

  At about eight forty-five that morning, Detective Joe DiPrima arrived at the precinct and was quickly escorted into the squad room where Whitmore was still being pressed by Micelli and Ayala. Upon entering, DiPrima sent Micelli out for coffee and Italian rolls. During the next hour, behind closed doors, the two detectives managed to get a confession out of George Whitmore Jr. Out in the waiting area, rumors circulated that voices were raised and furniture was thrown. It was very possible that Mr. Whitmore was beaten.

  When Micelli was permitted back into the room, he found George seemingly unhurt. Instead, he was hunched over in his seat, eyes damp and hands resting on his forehead. The detectives were now asking him about Chester Street, which was the street where Minnie Edmonds had been found dead only a week before. Chester Street was only a few blocks away from where Alma Estrada had been attacked. Micelli knew Detectives DiPrima and Ayala had been placed in charge of the Edmonds case. Suffice it to say, they were under a great amount of pressure to secure and close out the case.

  “The boys fight on Chester S
treet,” Whitmore remarked tiredly.

  “Do you have anything on your mind about Chester Street, other than the boys fighting?” Louie Ayala pressed, lighting another cigarette.

  Micelli watched as Whitmore swung his neck back. He looked drained, and the officer wondered if the two detectives had somehow worked him over while he’d been away. Not that Ayala and DiPrima were known for that kind of thing, but he had heard stories about the Seventy-third Precinct.

  “What do you want to know about Chester Street?” Whitmore paused. “Does this have anything to do with the woman that was murdered there?”

  DiPrima started writing on a sheet of paper.

  “You tell us, Georgie. What do you know about the woman on Chester Street?”

  George pleaded. “I don’t know anything, sir—please. I didn’t touch that lady, either.”

  Detective Ayala grinned and loosened his shoulder muscles by doing a few neck rolls. Then he began again, slowly and steadily.

  “Come on, George, tell me about the woman on Chester Street. We know you know something. So why don’t you just tell us?”

  George covered his hands over his eyes; Ayala let out a deep, long breath. Then, as if choosing his words carefully, Ayala said slowly and deliberately, “We know you did it, Georgie.”

  Whitmore opened his mouth and drew in a breath. Micelli saw him hesitate, peering at the two detectives. Ayala was rubbing the top of his sandy brown buzz-cut hair, and DiPrima, with his sleeves rolled up and five o’clock shadow, was absorbed in the notes he was taking. Whitmore could hear the faint scratch of DiPrima’s pen as it moved along the page. He asked if he could talk to Beverly Payne, but the detectives ignored him. Whitmore then glanced at Officer Micelli, pleadingly, and Micelli’s face hardened. He shifted his gaze and focused on Ayala’s cigarette, hanging over the ashtray.