The Good Friday Murder

by Lee Harris

  —

  Arnold Gold was as good as his word. He called a little before four and said, yes, he had represented James Talley in 1950 when James was judged incompetent to stand trial. James had refused to cooperate in his own defense.

  “In what way?” I asked, just to get it on my record.

  “He didn’t answer my questions. In fact—and I remember the case pretty well—he didn’t talk to me at all even though I promised to keep everything secret.”

  “Did he tell you his name?”

  “His name, yes. But very little beyond that. He asked for his brother incessantly and also for his mother.”

  “Did you ever bring the twins together?”

  “That’s against regulations,” Arnold Gold said. “I never saw the brother.”

  “Did you have an opinion on James’s guilt or innocence?”

  “Frankly, no. There was a lot of evidence indicating one or both of the twins may have killed the mother, and no evidence to show that anyone else might have. I did the best for him that I could. It was one of my first cases, and I was glad to keep it from going to trial. It wouldn’t have been an easy case to defend, at least with the resources I had at that time.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you that one of the twins’ overcoats was missing from the coat closet?”

  “What are you saying?” the lawyer asked crisply.

  “The girl who found the body on Easter Sunday morning stayed the day. When the twins were being taken into custody, she found only one overcoat in the closet, and the clothes were pushed apart as though someone had been looking for something specific.”

  “To put on and cover up what he was wearing.”

  “That’s the way I see it,” I said.

  “There was certainly no mention of anything missing in the police file. In fact, if memory serves, the record showed that nothing in the apartment had been taken.”

  “It does show that. I’ve been through most of it.”

  “Are you telling me the police withheld information?”

  “It’s possible,” I said.

  “You have evidence to that effect?”

  “I’ve spoken to the girl—she’s in her late fifties now—and she swears she told the police when she saw the coat missing and later called and left a message. I’ve also talked to the detective’s partner, the man who took some notes and statements at the scene. He remembers both her calling attention to the missing coat and leaving a message. The detective actually assigned to the case doesn’t recall anything.”

  “He wouldn’t,” the lawyer said derisively, and muttered something unintelligible that I was relieved not to hear distinctly. “Are they prepared to testify to that effect?”

  I smiled. Despite his age, he was certainly an eager beaver. “I don’t know, and I don’t know if it’s necessary. If I find out anything substantive, would you like me to call you?”

  “I certainly would.”

  “I have one more question, Mr. Gold. What would have happened to any money Mrs. Talley had when she died?”

  “Depends on whether she had a will. If she died intestate, one third would have gone to her husband and two thirds to her children. In practice, all three of them would have inherited a third.”

  “The twins could inherit even though they were guilty of murder?”

  “They weren’t guilty. They never stood trial and they were never convicted. You can check the surrogate courts in Brooklyn to see the disposition of her estate. I had nothing to do with that.”

  I thanked him and promised to get back to him if I learned anything new. I had a feeling he was champing at the bit to get back to James Talley’s defense, this time with a lifetime of experience to back him up.

  —

  That evening Melanie Gross called and invited me over. They had heard from the law student cousin who had researched Mrs. Talley’s estate in Brooklyn. Mrs. Talley had indeed died intestate, but what was most surprising was the amount of money she had left. Mrs. Talley had apparently been a rather wealthy woman in her own right, whether her husband knew it or not. She left approximately $350,000 in savings accounts, blue-chip stocks, and United States Treasuries. The interest alone on that amount of money was more than the average income in 1950. She could well have afforded to pay Magda a dollar an hour, to own a fur coat, to live a comfortable life.

  According to the surrogate’s records, the money was divided in thirds, just as Arnold Gold had described. The twins’ money was held in trust and administered by a court-appointed lawyer. With the twins institutionalized for forty years, I suspected the money had grown immensely.

  But Patrick Talley had inherited a third of that amount, a staggering sum for a man supporting two families for over fourteen years. It provided a reason why he might not have wanted to divorce Alberta and thereby disinherit himself, and a reason, in addition to not having to pay alimony, to want her dead. I remembered that Kathleen Mackey had started to say something when her brother cut her off, and I wondered whether it had to do with her father inheriting this money. With over a hundred thousand dollars, he could easily have paid for a big house in 1950, when real estate values were far below what they are today.

  While I was at the Grosses’, Melanie’s uncle called with a report on the Talley house on Grand Bahama Island. Mel returned from the kitchen sporting a broad smile.

  “Wait till you hear this,” she said, taking her seat in the family room near the empty fireplace. “That address you gave me? My uncle says it’s a whole neighborhood of mansions. Mansions! And if my uncle says so, you can believe it.”

  “So the Talleys ended up rich,” I said.

  “Surprised?” Mel asked.

  “Not at all. Everything’s been pointing towards it.”

  “So where do you go from here?”

  “I really don’t know. I’m waiting to hear from Virginia McAlpin. The sooner we get the twins together, the better chance we have of solving this thing.”

  —

  Virginia called when I got home. She had been trying me on and off and not finding me in. The group home in Buffalo had no problem about releasing Robert, whom they described as docile and manageable. They wanted a day to prepare him. Anytime starting with the Fourth would be fine. I told her I would fly up as soon as I got a reservation.

  I got myself on a plane the morning of the Fourth of July. I was getting ready for bed when the phone rang. It was Jack.

  I briefed him on all that was new, and then he gave me some news.

  “I ran Paul Antonetti’s name today,” he said. “I even checked with the FBI. There’s no indication he was ever in trouble after that day in 1950.”

  “Sounds like you think he just stopped being a suspect.”

  “I think it’s less likely. I also think that to question someone forty years after the only mistake he ever made puts him in a pretty awkward position.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So let’s hold on to his name and use it if we get stuck.”

  I laughed. “Jack, I’m stuck now. If the twins don’t come up with something, I don’t know where to go from here. If Patrick Talley didn’t do it, I don’t know who did, and I don’t know how to prove that Patrick did.”

  “Well, if your idea about the twins works, it’s a cinch they’ll ID their own father.”

  “I hope so.” I wasn’t as sure as he was. I didn’t know when Patrick had left his first family. If it was when the twins were babies, they’d have no idea who he was, savants or not.

  “You’re flying up to Buffalo Wednesday.”

  “First thing in the morning. I’ll take a cab to the home, have lunch there, and take Robert back.”

  “Will you give me a call when you get back?”

  “Sure.”

  He gave me his home phone number. “I’m working on the Fourth myself. How about I come up on Saturday to see your twins in action? We can have something to eat afterward. Not too formal. It’s getting pretty hot and I hate to wear a tie.”
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  I told him I’d like that, and we hung up. It was quite late and I was really tired.

  21

  One thing I have never worried about is taxes. Lots of other people worry, but when you turn over virtually everything you earn to a convent, taxes don’t loom very important on your horizon. But I know that acquiring tax-free income is very desirable, and I also know that the Bahamas are known as a haven for folks with money whose origins are murky.

  So I got up Tuesday morning trying to figure out what Patrick Talley might have done to come into the amount and kind of money that would draw him to a tax haven.

  The money he had inherited from Alberta came through legal channels and would have been taxed according to the laws of the time. I wondered about real estate deals. I had heard of people coming to closings with briefcases—or paper bags—full of cash. But how do you check up on that kind of thing forty years after the fact?

  Patrick Talley had been part of a small group of independent insurance agents that was still listed in the phone book. I decided to drive over and see if they could dig up any old records on him.

  The company’s office was in northern New Jersey, not too far from the house the Talleys bought after Alberta died. I crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge and was there by nine-thirty.

  It was a newish yellow brick building, and there was a kind of casual air among the partners and employees that probably made it fun to work for. The men sat at their desks in shirt-sleeves, and the women wore summery dresses and sandals with bare legs.

  It took me a while to get to see someone who might be in a position to help me, Mr. Rasmussen, a graying man with very blue eyes. I went through my story of researching the unsolved death of Mr. Talley’s first wife, and he assured me he had known Pat in the fifties—“when I was a lot younger than I am now”—and that his father had worked with Pat.

  I asked some questions and got a lot of anecdotes in return. Either he didn’t take me seriously or this was his technique for putting me off.

  He confirmed what Patrick Jr. had said, that Pat had continued working past normal retirement, taking only a few clients. Eventually, he and his wife—“his second wife, I think it was”—had moved to a little farm somewhere. It amused me that the bungalow had become a farm. Rasmussen didn’t seem to know where the farm was, but he remembered when Pat died; he’d been to the funeral. “Lots of people,” he said. “Pat was really loved.”

  So I knew he was lying, but I didn’t know why or about what. I couldn’t ask him about Patrick Talley’s whereabouts on Good Friday 1950, because Rasmussen had probably been a teenager then and not yet involved with the business.

  Eventually I just gave up. I couldn’t stay all day, and I couldn’t crack the protective shell he had built around the Patrick Talley story. Finally I said, “Well, if you think of anything, please give me a call.” I said my name and number loudly enough that the other shirt-sleeves in the area could hear and then I wrote my name, address, and number on a sheet of his paper.

  On the way home, I stopped in my bank and took out enough cash to pay for one round trip to Buffalo and one one-way back.

  —

  My last ploy at the insurance company paid off that evening. The phone rang, and when I answered, a man said, “Christine Bennett?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “You the one wants to know about Pat Talley?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  I decided to be frank. “I think there’s something funny about his finances.”

  “Ya damned right. That was no farm he bought.”

  “I know that.”

  “Ever hear of Mayfair Fuels?”

  “No.” I grabbed a pencil and started writing.

  “Biggest fire they ever had in New Jersey.”

  “When was it?” I asked.

  “ ’Bout fifty-nine.”

  “Did he insure them?”

  “Well, someone named Pat Talley did.”

  “Was it arson?” I asked boldly.

  “Suspicious. Nothing was ever proved. Three-million-dollar payoff.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Mayfair never rebuilt.”

  “I see.”

  “Town was against it, neighbors were against it. They made it look like they wanted to. ’F you ask me, they took their share and ran.”

  He couldn’t have made it clearer if he’d spelled it out. “I appreciate your calling.”

  “Just thought I’d set the record straight.” He hung up.

  I looked down at what I’d scribbled: They took their share and ran. And the other share, I thought—had it ended up in the Bahamas?

  22

  The cab dropped me off at the entrance to a building that could have been an old school. It was in a suburb of Buffalo, nearer the airport than the city, so I never got to see the city at all.

  A young woman named Carolyn Donatera was waiting for me, checked my identification, and greeted me warmly.

  “I’ve told Robert you’re coming, but his memory span isn’t very good and it’s likely he won’t have any idea who you are. But he reacted very positively when I told him he would see his brother.”

  She took me to his room. He was sitting at a large window, looking out at the people in the yard. When he turned his head to look at me I had to tell myself this was really a different person from the one I had left behind. Robert was as identical to James as I have ever seen among twins. I introduced myself and went to where he was sitting and shook his hand. He looked at me as James had that first time, searchingly. “I want my brother,” he said in a voice indistinguishable from James’s.

  “I’m going to take you to see him, Robert. Tonight we’ll see James.”

  “My brother?”

  “Yes.” I pulled out a snapshot Virginia McAlpin had given me.

  Robert studied it. “My brother,” he said. He held the photo, entranced by it.

  “That’s right. That’s James.”

  Carolyn guided me away from him. “Will you be able to handle him all right?”

  “My cousin has been retarded from birth, and he was my first friend. I don’t think Robert will give me any trouble.”

  We had lunch together in the dining room and then Carolyn said she would drive us to the airport. Robert’s clothes had been packed in two suitcases, which we checked through to LaGuardia. After Carolyn left us, I talked quietly to Robert, wondering how much, if anything, of what I said remained with him. I wanted to assure him that I would be there for the whole trip, comforting this child of a man who may not have needed comforting and may have needed more than I gave. My cousin Gene is very responsive. You know immediately that something is right or wrong. The Talley twins, by contrast, were opaque.

  The flight was smooth. Robert drank a glass of orange juice and looked out the window. At the airport we managed to get the luggage to the covered garage where I had parked to be close, and then I drove north.

  Virginia had ducked out of her family picnic to be at Greenwillow when we arrived. I really loved the way she greeted Robert; she was a marvelous person to run the home. Aunt Meg had made a good decision.

  We went up the steps and down the hall to James’s room. Virginia had seen to it that he would be waiting alone for his precious moment. I must admit that my nerves were frazzled as we reached the door.

  Virginia knocked and opened the door. James was sitting in his easy chair, looking at nothing in particular. I noticed that a second similar chair had been moved into the room.

  “James,” Virginia said, “here’s Robert.”

  I was the one who nearly cried. James turned and looked at his brother. Then he stood up. Robert walked toward him stopping a few paces away from him. It occurred to me that they might not recognize each other because they had last seen each other as young men, not as people entering old age. But neither seemed surprised and neither said a word. They just stared.

  And then, slowly, I saw James’s mouth l
oosen into a smile. His eyes, which often seemed so vacant, were now inhabited. Although Robert’s back was toward me, I had no doubt but that his face reflected his brother’s.

  They did not touch each other. I touched Virginia, reaching my hand to find her arm as my eyes filled with tears. We backed away, I feeling more like an intruder than I had ever felt before.

  I saw James nod his head slightly. Then he sat in his chair, and Robert found and sat in the other. James was now smiling broadly. In the few minutes the brothers had shared the room, James had become a person.

  I felt deeply conflicted. I wanted to observe the reconciliation, but I wanted also to leave the men alone. Virginia took charge of the situation.

  She walked nearer to the twins and said, “Would you gentlemen like to have dinner here in the room?”

  Robert said, “Dinner,” and James said, “I’m hungry.”

  “Good. Chris and I will bring up some trays.”

  We went downstairs together. “I’ve got to get back to my family,” Virginia said. “You’re staying, aren’t you?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “I hoped you’d stay. Just follow your instincts. Someone’s coming over later to put a second bed in James’s room. I think they should be together as much as they want.”

  “I agree.”

  We had reached the kitchen, where preparations for dinner were nearly done. Virginia asked for three trays. When they had been made up, one of the residents carried the third one upstairs for us. We arranged them on James’s table, and then Virginia left.

  The twins sat opposite each other, and I sat on the side between. “I’m Chris,” I said.

  “I’m Robert.”

  “I’m James.”

  “I brought you here on an airplane today,” I said to Robert. “Do you remember that?”

  He smiled at me and shook his head.

  “This place is called Greenwillow.”

  Each of them repeated it.

  “Do you remember my name?” I asked.

  “Chris,” they chorused.

  “That’s right. Chris Bennett. My cousin Gene lives here at Greenwillow. I come here a lot to visit him. I’ll visit you a lot, too. I’d like to be friends with you.”