Mel rubbed his index finger just below his lower lip. A rise of laughter echoed through the hall as three more prosecutors came barreling through. Justy got up and gently closed the door.
“She thought the killer was compulsively clean,” Mel reported.
Justy gave Glass a sideways glance. “Oh, I see, and Whitmore, being from the ghetto, can’t be compulsively clean?”
Mel craned his neck. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Well, what did you mean, Counselor?”
“You yourself said that Whitmore was dirty, sleeping in a hallway and disheveled when he was initially brought in. And besides, from the description of him, what’s this kid from Brownsville doing on the Upper East Side?” Mel folded his hands. With his fingers locked together, he stretched his arms the length of his desk. He added reluctantly, “It’s nothing, I’m sure.”
Justy pulled the door back open, studying Mel carefully. A young DA brushed past, a pile of paper extended from both his hands. Justy reached for his pack of cigarettes, pulled one out and lit it. Gazing at a photo on Mel’s desk—a family portrait of Mel, his wife, Betty, and their daughter, Elizabeth—Justy squared his shoulders and narrowed his eyes. He frankly said, “Christ, Mel, you’re not going to stop, are ya?”
Mel gave Justy a knowing stare and simply waited.
Justy eventually groaned, folding his arms at his chest. He closed his eyes briefly and then said quietly, “Maybe you ought to talk to Max Wylie.”
Mel blinked, genuinely surprised. “Mr. Wylie?”
Justy took a drag off his cigarette, and then held it between his thumb and index finger. His expression grew somber. “Yeah, Janice Wylie’s father. Just talk to him. Let’s leave it at that.”
Mel was genuinely surprised at his friend’s unexpected stance. While Detective Justy was often earnest when discussing matters involving cases, he was rarely at a loss for words. In fact, he and Mel spent countless lunch hours discussing various details of particularly interesting homicides, or sometimes cold cases. An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Justy fixed his eyes on Mel while pressing out his cigarette in the metal ashtray at the far-right corner of Mel’s desk. Gray smoke dwindled, curling vaguely to the ceiling. The two men stared at one another. Finally Mel rested the palm of his hand on his desktop and said, with as much conviction as he could muster, “Give me his number then, Detective.”
It was an understatement to say that Mel thought that he might be in a little over his head. While he had been with the DA’s office for just six years, he was still small potatoes. At that time the longevity of the ADAs in Manhattan was widespread. Most were career oriented. Only two new applicants were hired annually. The senior most competent ADAs left the DAO to become judges. The legendary DA Frank Hogan office alum permeated every level of the state’s judiciary—from the criminal courts, where misdemeanors were tried and felony hearings were conducted, to the state supreme court felony trial parts, up to and including the court of appeals, the state’s highest tribunal. When first hired and before learning the bar results, the procedure at the DAO provided that the newbies were criminal-law investigators (CLI). Once the CLI passed the bar and was deemed admitted to practice in New York State, he became a full-fledged ADA. In Mel’s case he was first assigned to the junior training rigors of the Complaint and Indictment Bureaus, where he presented about a hundred cases a month to grand juries deciding whether or not to indict the accused for the garden-variety mayhem inflicted upon the innocent denizens of Gotham. After that, he was assigned to the criminal courts to handle primarily arraignments, the setting of bail where appropriate, misdemeanor trials and dispositions, felony hearings, matters involving parole violations and evidentiary hearings ranging from defendants’ competency to stand trial to the myriad of legal motions tendered by the defense. It was a fertile minor-league training ground. By 1964, Mel had made it to the majors, and was investigating and prosecuting felonies. Still, it was a far cry from getting his feet wet in the so-called “Career Girls Murders.”
Mel leaned forward and cupped his forehead in his hands. His sister’s suggestion that George Whitmore Jr. didn’t appear to fit the profile of the killer was haunting him more now than ever. Besides, he should’ve been overly concerned—Blanche worked a mere three blocks away from where the murders took place. He needed to be able to assure her, wholeheartedly, that her neighborhood was safe again—that the murderer was behind bars, that the nightmare that plagued that peaceful stretch on the Upper East Side was finally over. And he certainly didn’t like Justy’s odd manner on things, either—that was entirely uncharacteristic even if his detective squad was told to keep quiet on things. It certainly never stopped him before. With Justy now long gone, Mel sat up and reached across his metal desk for his phone. Lifting the receiver, he began dialing the number and then waited; until after four rings, someone picked up.
A female voice chirped, “Lennen and Newell Advertisers. How can I help you?”
With as much assurance as he could muster up, he replied, “ADA Glass, with the New York County DA’s Office. I’d like to speak to Mr. Max Wylie.”
“Of course, Mr.—”
“Glass. Melvin D. Glass, of the New York District Attorney’s Office.”
“Of course, Mr. Glass. One moment please. . . .”
A few seconds passed before a male voice came on the line.
“Max Wylie here. What can I do for you, sir?”
“Mel—call me Mel . . . ,” he added nervously.
“Okay . . . Mel. Listen, I’m at the office, so I’m afraid my time is limited. . . .”
Mel hesitated, trying to sort out just how, exactly, he could get to the point. After all, it hadn’t even been a year yet. For half a second, the unspeakable horror of Janice Wylie’s murder flashed through his head. He shuddered at the thought of her last moments alive; and worse, he considered the sight Max Wylie must’ve glimpsed upon entering that bedroom. Mel stared at the ceiling, quickly ruminating over various ways to approach the subject.
Before he’d chosen his words, Mr. Wylie spoke. “I’m sorry—Mr. . . . what was your name again?”
“Mel . . . Mel Glass. I work for the district attorney’s office. You see, I’ve been chatting with Detective John Justy about the case and have some questions, just for purposes of clarification.”
“ ‘Clarification,’ ” Max Wylie continued flatly, “I thought you gentlemen made your arrest. I was under the impression my part in all of this was over.”
“Well—” Mel tried.
“Say, I like the use of the word ‘clarification’ because I think this case needs some.”
Mel tilted his head, pressing the receiver against his ear. “What do you mean, sir?”
“Exactly what I said. For starters, I’m following everything that’s written in the press. And while I understand that the police and DAs aren’t responsible for everything written in the papers, some people in law enforcement are leaking things to the media. According to news reports, the police are speculating that the killer or killers may have placed a blue blanket on the girls with the speculative notion, according to the stories, that these monsters or monster may have thought about carrying the girls down the service stairway.”
“Yes,” Mel agreed, “I’ve read that that’s a possibility.”
“Well, that’s my point, Mr. Glass, about ‘clarification.’ ”
Mel scratched the back of his head. “I’m afraid I’m just not following you, sir.”
Mel could hear Max Wylie heaving a great, angry sigh on the other end.
“What I mean to tell you, Mr. Glass, is that I, Max Wylie, placed the blue blanket on my daughter and Emily, and the reason I did this was because I didn’t know police procedure, and, Lord knows, I didn’t want my wife or Kate Olsen to see the god-awful, frightful condition they were in. You have reviewed the crime scene photos, have you not?”
Mel held the phone in his left hand with his elbow resting on the top of his desk
. He leaned forward. He was stunned. In a case of this magnitude, how could any type of speculation that appeared to be legitimate go on uncorrected? It was simply beyond his comprehension, and he was sure Max Wylie was mistaken. And yet, how could he be? How could a father forget a moment as horrible as that one? Mel stood up and began pacing his office, dragging the base of the phone in his other hand.
“Mr. Wylie, forgive me, but you’re saying that you placed the blue blanket on your daughter? That’s correct, is it?”
Mr. Wylie’s voice rose. “Are you people incapable of getting anything right? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I placed the blue blanket on my dead daughter!”
Mel ran his index finger over his lips and set the base of the phone back down on his desktop. “My apologies, sir. I just needed to confirm your statement, that’s all.”
Mel took this investigative blunder seriously, but what he was about to hear next was a complete game changer. There was no mistaking the anger percolating in Max Wylie’s voice. This was a man who was simply broken in half, Mel reasoned. Max was desperate to shut that door—in fact, he needed to shut that door in order to survive. Try as he might, Mel was incapable of understanding what Max Wylie was going through; what it might be like to lose a daughter at the hands of a homicidal psychopath, and what it also might be like to have the whole city watch you crumble. Yet Mel tried. He thought of his wife, Betty, and of his young daughter, Elizabeth, and of the unborn child his wife was carrying. He reached deep, attempting to envision some madman laying a hand on them. A jolt rushed through him.
“The second point I’d like to clear up, Mr. Glass, if you’re still listening—”
“Oh, I’m listening, Mr. Wylie, believe me. . . .”
“Good. Because when Mr. Whitmore was being questioned in the early-morning hours on Saturday, I was shown the photograph of the two girls in the car . . .”
“Yes, go on—” Mel grabbed his notepad and, cradling the receiver between his chin and ear, began frantically scribbling down notes.
“. . . and I told the police that the girl in the photo was not my daughter.”
Mel froze, his mouth agape and eyes wide in disbelief. He swallowed, feeling a dry lump in his throat.
“Are you listening to me?”
Mr. Wylie’s voice sounded hollow traveling through the phone wires. Mel flinched.
“Did you say that you told the police the girl in the photo was not your daughter?”
“Yes, you heard me right. I know my own daughter, and that sure as hell wasn’t her.”
The moment Mel Glass hung up the phone with Max Wylie, he dialed Detective Justy, who answered on the first ring.
“Talk to me.”
“I just spoke to Max Wylie. Can you arrange for me to get Whitmore’s statement to the Brooklyn detectives, his Q and A to Hosty, all the DD5s and police reports . . . the whole case file, including the autopsy protocols?”
Without a pause Detective Justy answered. “It’s done. You’ll have it all tomorrow,” he promised.
Mel hung up the phone, bolted out of his chair and headed down the hall toward the elevator banks. He had a number of cases hanging over his head that day, but he found himself suddenly fixated on one case only—that of Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert. As he waited for the elevator that led upstairs to the trial courtrooms, he glanced down at his hands, noticing they were shaking. The issue of the blue blanket was one thing, and Max Wylie confirmed that he did indeed cover his daughter upon entering the bedroom. But Mel was floored by Max Wylie’s second bit of information. The simple notion that Max Wylie confidently stated that the photograph Detective Edward Bulger found on George Whitmore’s person—the photograph of two girls sitting in the open Pontiac convertible, which had To George From Louise on the back—the very photograph that the Brooklyn cops had deemed was of Janice Wylie, and being in the possession of Whitmore led to his arrest, was not a photograph of his daughter—why, it was simply incomprehensible. Here was a case of Murphy’s Law: when things went wrong, they literally turned nightmarish.
“But, Mr. Wylie,” Mel had remarked on the phone, shaking his head in disbelief, “are you sure?”
“One hundred percent, Counselor.”
CHAPTER 7
Mel Glass remained at work late, poring over all of the case file police reports given to him by Detective Justy. Although it was a Herculean task to digest the voluminous nature of these reports in a case of this magnitude and duration, Mel set out to read every police report, DD5s (supplemental detective investigative reports), and police laboratory reports, including the autopsy protocol of the deceased girls. To get a sense of what this entailed, an average case at that time would have a single UF61 (complaint report) and one or two DD5s. In contrast, the Wylie-Hoffert case had over one thousand DD5s, which reflected the thousands of man-hours put in by various detectives working on the case. Mel had a good picture in his mind of what the scene looked like on the night of August 28. In fact, he had made it his business to reexamine the official police department photographs, including pictures of the bodies and the “death room.” Like so many others before him, he was haunted by the Wylie-Hoffert case, and he just couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the killer’s profile. While he read and re-read the Whitmore Q&A/alleged confession, it just didn’t click. What troubled Mel the most was that everything in the Whitmore Q&A was already recorded in the police reports. There had to be something more—something more tangible than just documents—that could connect the dots. Then . . . he had an idea.
Mel picked up the phone and dialed a number he had scribbled down on a scrap of paper, which rested on the corner of his desk. Balancing the receiver between his ear and shoulder, he snatched up his pen and notepad with his other hand.
The other line picked up.
“Hello? Dr. Morris?” Mel asked.
There was a slight pause, and then—
“That couldn’t be ADA Mel Glass, could it? At this hour?”
Mel chuckled.
“I should pose the same question to you, Doctor.”
“Mel, how are you?” Dr. Morris asked earnestly. “You still hold the record for volunteering to conduct more competency hearings at Bellevue than anyone else.”
Mel grinned. He stood up from his chair and began pacing back and forth in his office, holding the base of the phone in one hand and cradling the receiver against his opposite shoulder and chin.
“Well, in truth, I learned a heck of a lot from you. And in a very real sense, I’m still involved in checking out competency, although somewhat, Doctor, in a different venue.”
“I’m intrigued, Mel. What patient can help your investigation today?”
Mel fell back into his chair, setting the phone base on the desktop. He took in a gulp of air and then, crossing his fingers, said, “Whitmore, Dr. Morris. I believe you have a patient there named George Whitmore Jr.”
Around 9:15 P.M., Mel looked up from the stacks of police reports and walked out into the desolate, gloomy hallway on the sixth floor of the Criminal Courts Building. At the south end of the hall, toward the elevator banks, he gazed through a grimy window to the desolate side streets abutting the building. An occasional siren blast interrupted the evening’s isolation.
Mel rolled his neck back, closed his eyes and sighed heavily. Among other details, Morris had revealed that Whitmore had an IQ south of 70, borderline mentally retarded—and that, Mel reasoned, very well may have been the underlying indicator that enabled law enforcement to extract the alleged confessions. In his heart of hearts, he knew that this was a crucial moment. He could easily go back to his office, close the files and return them, fully intact, to Detective Justy without another word on the matter. And he considered that option. He thought of his wife, Betty, and his daughter, Liz, and the anticipation of his new child. He reasoned that it would be easier to step aside, particularly while he and Betty finished putting down roots. Mel thought about calling Betty and asking what he should do. At the
last second, however, he decided against it. Maybe he did so because he already knew the answer to that question; maybe he knew, too, how great the consequences might be if he was wrong. By 9:30 P.M., he still hadn’t eaten, and yet his next move was inexorable. Mel picked up the phone and dialed a number he had memorized from his first day on the job. He waited; and when the other line picked up, he took a deep breath before speaking.
“Mr. Hogan,” he began, “I hate to call you so late at home. . . .”
It was humid and overcast, with thick cumulous clouds rising above the skyscrapers. Mel Glass drove over the Brooklyn Bridge into downtown Manhattan. He parked in a lot designated for ADAs, which was two blocks from the DAO. Then he walked over to the Criminal Courts Building, which housed the district attorney’s office, the grand jury rooms, the criminal courts, the judges’ chambers and the Manhattan House of Detention for Men, more commonly known as “the Tombs.” Mel entered the DAO on the Leonard Street side and took the elevator straight up to the eighth floor. He walked purposefully down the narrow hallway with its forlorn, putrid green walls, directly to the DA’s office.
DA Frank S. Hogan was a legendary public official. He was the chief law enforcement officer in New York City and was regarded—among law enforcement, the judiciary, lawyers generally and the public—as the finest prosecutor in the country. While New Yorkers had a tendency to question the integrity of government officials, most people, counterintuitively, who followed New York’s crime stories knew that Hogan ran an apolitical meritocracy since becoming DA in 1941, succeeding his mentor, Thomas E. Dewey. In 1935, it was Dewey who was appointed special prosecutor by Governor Lehman to root out corruption in the New York City justice system. Hogan left his Wall Street law office to become one of Dewey’s top aides. Hogan was a lifelong registered Democrat, but he always had Republican, Conservative and Liberal party endorsement for his entire tenure.
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