Conviction

by Leonard Levitt

  Dorthy gave a short speech. Knowing I was on to something, she glanced at me and asked if I would reveal my story. From the table where Susan and I were sitting, I smiled back at her and shook my head. Not only couldn’t I tell her what I had; I couldn’t let on that I was growing desperate about where, or even if, the story would be published.

  “Len knows something,” she told the dinner guests and smiled at me. “He won’t say what it is but I think he’s going to solve the case.”

  •

  I had one last call to make. I had one last chance. I called Don Forst. He had remained as editor of the scaled-back New York Newsday, although he was to leave shortly. Like Tony Insolia, he was familiar with the Moxley case. I had regaled him about it for years.

  I explained my predicament—my problem with Ken and with the editors at Long Island Newsday.

  “Okay,” he said, “here’s what we can do. We’ll run it as a local story in what’s left of New York Newsday.”

  The remnant of New York Newsday with its limited circulation was the last place I wanted to see the Moxley story. I worried that if it appeared in the back of the paper, neither the wire services nor the other city papers would pick it up and it would simply die. And furthermore, given the paper’s reduced exposure, there was no guarantee the story would be picked up even if it were splashed across page one. But I had no choice.

  The first of the four parts ran Sunday, November 26, 1995. Don played it on page three. “Suspicions of Murder Won’t Die. A key figure changes his story in unsolved 1975 case,” it was headlined.

  “Twenty years ago this Halloween eve, the teenage daughter of a Manhattan executive was murdered as she left the Greenwich, Connecticut home of her neighbor, a 17-year-old nephew of Ethel Kennedy,” it began.

  “Martha Moxley, 15, was found the next day at the edge of her property, a few hundred yards away, beaten to death with a golf club, hit so hard that the club broke into three pieces. Her dungarees and underpants were pulled down around her knees, although there was no evidence of sexual assault.

  “Thomas Skakel, Ethel Kennedy’s nephew, was the last person known to see Martha alive and became the prime suspect after police found a golf club in the Skakel house they believed was the murder weapon.”

  I’d had to waste these three first paragraphs on background material because four years had passed since my last story and the public had forgotten the Moxley case. It was not until a few paragraphs later that I wrote the words that were to alter the direction of the investigation, returning it to the Skakels.

  “Now Thomas has admitted to private investigators that he lied to Greenwich police in 1975 about his whereabouts the night of the murder.

  “Then, he told police he last saw Martha outside his house at 9:30 P.M., then went inside to write a school report. Witnesses told police the two had been ‘making out,’ which witnesses described as including pushing each other playfully and flirtatiously.

  “In 1993, married and the father of two, Thomas told the private investigators that shortly after 9:30 P.M., he returned outside to meet Martha, who he says waited for him. They remained together, he says, for an additional 20 minutes in a sexual encounter.”

  I was on edge all morning the Sunday the story appeared. Around noon Don called me at home. “Good news,” he said. “The AP just moved the story on their national wire.”

  Then, Joe Pisani called from Greenwich to say that Ken wanted to run the story in the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time the following day. Because it had already appeared elsewhere, he was no longer afraid.

  Michael’s story ran on December 4, a week later. It was headlined “Brothers’ Tales/Second Kennedy kin admits lying in murder case.”

  In this article I didn’t have to waste time in starting the story with background material.

  “A second relative of Ethel Kennedy now admits he lied to Greenwich police about his whereabouts the night a teenage neighbor was murdered as she left his Greenwich, Connecticut home,” it began.

  “In 1975, a few days after the murder of Martha Moxley on Halloween eve, Michael Skakel, then 15, told Greenwich police he had left the victim with his older brother, Thomas, in the Skakel driveway at about 9:15 P.M.

  “Michael said he then drove with two of his other brothers and his cousin James Terrien, to Terrien’s house a few miles away. Michael told police he returned home about 11 P.M. and went to sleep.”

  Then came the paragraph that would attract the attention of Detective Frank Garr.

  “Now Michael has admitted to private investigators that he went to the Moxley house around 11:30 P.M. and, apparently believing Martha was alive, threw stones at a window to awaken her, sources said. He then passed what was later found to be the murder site, where he says he heard noises but saw nothing.”

  The story continued with this: “Greenwich police believed Martha was killed at approximately 9:50 to 10 P.M., based on the fact that two neighborhood dogs began barking uncontrollably at that time. If Martha’s death occurred then, Michael’s admission that he lied would have no significance.”

  Newsday’s editors had omitted Michael’s masturbating in the tree, maintaining that it was not necessary to the story. As they put it in newspaper jargon: “It doesn’t add anything to the story.” I disagreed, to say the least, but at that point I had to live with it.

  Besides, the stories were having their intended effect. Their publication in Greenwich meant that the Connecticut authorities would be forced to take notice.

  As I said to Dorthy when I telephoned her, “Well, Mrs. Moxley, it looks like we’re back in business.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Lion and the Crocodile

  GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT

  1995

  Frank Garr picked up a copy of my story about Michael, took it with him as he drove to Bridgeport, walked into his office, and began reading.

  “Holy shit,” he said to himself.

  He had never seen Murphy’s report or even heard of it. What Tommy had said about spending an additional twenty minutes with Martha was surprising enough. But here was Michael throwing stones at Martha’s window and then placing himself at the murder scene. The fucking murder scene.

  Article in hand, Frank rushed into Donald Browne’s office. This showed, he said, that he had been right all along about Michael. And, Frank said to himself, because he couldn’t say it to Browne, Jack Solomon had as usual had his head up his butt chasing Littleton.

  Not that Frank fully accepted Michael’s new story. He didn’t think Michael was telling the full truth. Michael threw stones at Martha’s window? He just happened to be passing the murder scene? He heard noises, got scared, and ran home? No, there had to be more to it.

  No, part of what Michael had told Murphy and Krebs was bullshit, Frank believed. But which part? There was simply no reason to place himself at the murder scene. Michael had to have been afraid of something. Krebs, the six-foot-seven-inch ex–New York City police lieutenant, had probably said something that had scared the shit out of him.

  Frank knew Krebs. At the beginning of their investigation, Murphy and Krebs had come up to Bridgeport, supposedly to share information about Littleton. Solomon had arranged the meeting and prodded Frank into it. Anything that had to do with Littleton had excited Jack.

  “They’re not going to share,” Frank had warned him. “They just want to know what we have.” And Frank had been right. Nothing had come of it.

  “Interesting,” Browne said as he looked over the article Frank had handed him. Interesting? Nothing more? Frank was surprised. No, he was stunned.

  Granted, Browne was not a demonstrative man. He barely acknowledged attorneys who had worked for him for years. Still, Frank felt this was the break they had been waiting for. It was, in effect, Michael’s unspoken confession. He was placing himself at the murder scene and all Browne said was “Interesting”?

  It was then that Frank decided to call me. It’s unusual for a detective to contac
t a reporter about a homicide investigation. Sure, detectives use the media when they want to release a description or a picture of a suspect. In the Moxley case four years before, Frank and Solomon had called a news conference to announce a reward and the establishment of a tip line. That was accepted procedure.

  But a detective making a personal call to a reporter on a murder case is like handling dynamite. No formal rules or codes exist, but detectives know to avoid reporters. Should a detective become chummy with a reporter and his name be mentioned, even inadvertently, in a newspaper article or on television without his superior’s approval, or should a detective divulge a word too many about a case and the indiscretion appear in the media, said detective could face holy hell or worse.

  Still, Frank had no fear that approaching me was wrong or that anything untoward would result from it. He was calling to get information, not to give.

  This wasn’t the Greenwich Police Department where he had worked for twenty-seven years. This was the state’s attorney’s office where, with Solomon’s having retired and Browne’s lack of interest, Frank was the case’s lone detective. It wasn’t that Browne was a stupid man. Rather, Frank was the new kid on the block, saying things about the case that contradicted what Browne’s confidant Jack Solomon had been telling him over the years. Browne’s faith in Jack had caused him to ignore all else. Because no one thought the case was going anywhere, no one was following Frank’s time. He had free reign. What he wanted to know from me was only one thing: Did I know more about Michael than I had written?

  “Hey, Len, this is Frank Garr,” he said when he reached me at my office at One Police Plaza in New York. “I saw your stories. How’s about we get together?”

  I love it when detectives you barely know address you familiarly. In Frank’s case, we’d merely made small talk at Dorthy’s party. That was the extent of our relationship. Unlike Solomon, who wanted nothing to do with me, Frank had at least been friendly.

  He never came out and said on the phone what in the articles he wanted to discuss. He didn’t have to. I was ahead of him on the case, or at least I thought I was. I was only too happy to bring him up to speed. This would give me the opportunity to get to know the case’s chief source.

  There was another reason Frank’s call caused my heart to race. His call was vindication. Years before, Keegan and Lunney had given me a very hard time. Now here was their buddy Frank seeking my help.

  And there was something else I realized. For Frank to call me meant his case was in trouble. How much trouble, I had no idea.

  We agreed to meet for breakfast one Saturday morning at a place I selected, the Lakeside Diner in Stamford. It was just off the Meritt Parkway and convenient for both of us. As Frank drove over, he formulated a plan: to have no plan, to let our conversation move along and see how it developed. Either I would tell him what he wanted to know or I wouldn’t, he thought. What did he have to lose?

  The Lakeside was a tiny spot with a formica counter and tables overlooking a stream. We took a place by the window so we could look out and wouldn’t be overheard. It was a gray day in December. Winter was approaching and parts of the water were beginning to freeze. Across the table, we sized each other up. Frank was around fifty, average height, stocky, thinning gray-white hair. He looked like he’d been around the block.

  Keegan I had regarded as a showman. Lunney I viewed as his strong-arm guy who never lightened up. Solomon made everyone nervous because he never shut up. But Frank leaned back in his seat, expressionless. He seemed relaxed. He made me feel relaxed.

  “So I saw your stories,” he began. He wasn’t indulging me with chit-chat about the cold weather. No “Nice place, the Lakeside, what do you recommend?” Beneath his easygoing façade, he was all business. As was I. The Moxley case had become my obsession. I didn’t realize it was also his.

  “So what do Murphy and Krebs think?” Frank said. He spoke in a shorthand I understood. He meant which Skakel brother did they believe had murdered Martha. My articles hadn’t suggested a favorite. I had merely described Tommy’s and Michael’s lies to the Greenwich police. Let the reader choose.

  “Tommy, I would say.” Neither Murphy nor Krebs had ever come out and said that to me. It had been Tommy they were hired to clear. Until Solomon came along with his “Littleton failed the lie detector so he must be the murderer” theory—which the Academy Group had debunked—Tommy had been everyone’s prime suspect. Although Michael fit the Academy Group’s profile of the killer, his passing the murder scene, and his admission that he’d whacked off at Martha’s window (a fact my article had prudishly not revealed), Tommy had admitted having a sexual encounter with Martha just minutes before the police believed she was killed. His mutual fondling-to-orgasm story, Murphy and Krebs believed, had been concocted to protect himself, should his DNA be discovered at the crime scene.

  “What about you?” Frank asked. “Who do you think did it?” Later, he would tell me he knew what I would say. Or, rather, that he hoped I would say what he thought I would. For him, it was a test question. A test for me. To see if I would hedge. He felt he knew from my articles who I thought had murdered Martha and wanted to see if I would tell him the truth. That, he decided, would determine how our relationship would go.

  “Tommy,” I answered. That was the truth. I had no reason to tell him anything else, just as I had no reason to withhold the Greenwich police report from Murphy and Sheridan when they’d asked me. Tommy was who I thought then.

  Echoing Murphy’s report and what I had written in my article, I said, “Tommy places himself in a sexual situation with Martha just minutes before she is killed.”

  “You don’t think Tommy could be telling the truth?” Frank said. “That when he left her, she was alive?” There was no tension in his voice, no excitement. I had no inkling of what he suspected about Michael or how far ahead of me he was.

  “What do you think?” I answered. “Do you think Tommy was telling the truth?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You don’t think he murdered Martha then.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You don’t think he had any connection to it?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  There was a pause. Okay, so Frank was being cute. Well, I could wait him out. He had called me. He obviously wanted something from me, though I wasn’t sure what it was.

  “Look,” Frank said, breaking the silence, “what seventeen-year-old boy would volunteer to adults he’d just engaged in mutual masturbation with a girl? Especially if, just after she’d left him, that girl was murdered?

  “Say the murder occurs around the time the dogs are barking, I don’t believe Tommy could have killed her, moved her body, discarded the murder weapon, cleaned himself up, and then sat watching television with his tutor a few minutes later. No seventeen-year-old kid could have pulled that off.”

  Frank sounded as though he had thought this through. Maybe many times. I didn’t realize he had analyzed it for years and fought about it ad nauseam with Jack Solomon.

  “And you know the strongest indication that Tommy is innocent?” he asked. “It’s Littleton’s statement that he had noticed nothing unusual when Tommy entered his room after ten o’clock to watch television.”

  “But is Littleton telling the truth?” I asked. Keegan and Lunney hadn’t believed him. They’d suspected he was covering up for Tommy. Murphy and Krebs sounded as though they suspected the same thing.

  Frank nodded his head. “The strongest indication of Littleton’s innocence is that Tommy says the same thing about him. Without intending to, each alibis the other. Believe me, if Tommy or any other Skakel knew Littleton had done this, they’d have given him up in a heartbeat.”

  Well, Frank had a point there, I supposed. How had I missed that? Murphy and Krebs had apparently missed it too. Forget about Solomon.

  Years later, before the trial, I asked Krebs about Frank’s theory that no seventeen-year-old kid could have pulled off a murder
and minutes later have so collected himself that his tutor saw nothing wrong.

  “He has a point,” Krebs said.

  “If you accept that, how can you say that Tommy did it?” I asked.

  “I can’t,” Krebs answered.

  Now, at the Lakeside, Frank turned to Michael. For the first time, I sensed this was the reason he had called me.

  “Why would Michael, never a suspect, inject himself into the middle of the crime? Why would he place himself at the murder scene, perhaps while the murder was occurring?”

  “What about the time of death?” I said. That seemed key in determining whether he had murdered Martha. Keegan and Lunney had set the time around 10:00 P.M., based on the dogs’ barking. Murphy and Krebs appeared to have accepted that. They’d felt Michael’s story about whacking off in the tree and passing the murder scene was intriguing but irrelevant to Martha’s murder because it happened around midnight, two hours after she was killed.

  But Frank had another explanation. “I was never as certain as everyone else about the time of death,” he said. “Back in the ’80s, I would say to Lunney, ‘Jim, are you sure about those dogs? Aren’t you hanging a lot on them? What if they were barking at a squirrel?’”

  Then, Frank told me something Billy Krebs had said to him at their meeting years before, something that had confirmed his doubts. “Hey, Frankie,” Krebs had asked him, “what do you think about those dogs?”

  “The minute Billy said that, I knew what he was thinking,” Frank said. “And we were thinking the same thing. Dogs bark every Halloween eve in neighborhoods with kids. If they didn’t, there’d be something wrong with them. I stood alone on that for years until that meeting. Krebs’s words said to me he wasn’t so sure about the time of death either.”

  But Frank didn’t say any of that to Krebs, just as he didn’t say what specifically he was looking for from me. Instead, he flung what I came to learn was a typical Frank one-liner.