When she saw Weinstock come through the back door she waved him in.
“I knew Jackson couldn’t have done it,” she declared with satisfaction. “I refused to believe it, and I was right.” She hadn’t been all that sure in the beginning, but any misgivings she’d had were now gone.
Gerry took the wing chair next to the table and reached out his hand to Lee in a gesture of reassurance. She grasped it firmly.
“I’m going to be all right now, Gerry. I’ve accepted Jackson’s death as inevitable. It wouldn’t have mattered whether I was here or not—in my heart I know that. I can’t forgive him for cheating on me, at least not yet, perhaps I will in time. He was a desperate man, and deeply disturbed. That psychiatrist wasn’t helping him at all. Anyway, it’s over now, and while I can’t defend his behavior at least I know he didn’t kill someone else, only himself.”
“Your attitude does you great credit, Lee. You did everything you could for Jackson. It’s not your fault that it wasn’t enough.”
She’s trying to put it behind her, he thought, but she’s much more fragile than she lets on. There’s more tragedy to come. And I’m the one who has to lay it at her doorstep.
“You do realize,” he began, “that with Jackson in the clear, someone else killed Edith Metzger.”
“Of course. Isn’t that the point? I expect the police will figure it out.”
“I had a talk with the police, and I understand they have a suspect.”
Lee gasped. “My God, Gerry, that’s wonderful! Did he tell you who it is?”
“They don’t have a name, just a description, and a witness. Actually there may be two witnesses.” He paused, then withdrew his hand from hers. “I think I’m one of them.”
Lee’s brow furrowed. “What the hell do you mean?” Then her expression changed as she put two and two together. Gerry’s story about the gas station. The promise to take care of Ruth. The cheek wound—she’d seen it in the city. Not Jackson after all. Her worst fear realized.
She stiffened, and closed her eyes tight.
“Oh, no, Gerry. I couldn’t stand it. Please tell me it’s a mistake.”
“I hope to God it is, but he’ll have to be questioned, Lee. I haven’t said anything to Steele yet, but I can’t withhold evidence.”
She was crumbling before his eyes. Not hysterical, not raging—those reactions seemed to have been all used up on Jackson. This time she was imploding. Suddenly she groaned and doubled over with a cramp, almost hitting her head on the table.
He jumped to her side, put his arms around her, and helped her up. “Mags has the car or I’d drive you to the doctor,” he told her. “You need something to help you get through this. Here, lie down on the couch while I call Alfonso. He’ll come pick you up.” He steered her to the sofa, settled her, and stepped across the room to the phone.
It took Ossorio only fifteen minutes to arrive. Weinstock hadn’t given him the details, only said that Lee had taken a bad turn and needed a sedative.
First he had called Dr. Abel’s office. The doctor was in all afternoon on Saturdays in the summer, when a parade of casualties—from fingers impaled by fishhooks to bicycle mishaps and children hit by softballs or fallen out of trees or bitten by the swans in Town Pond—attested to the haplessness of city folk. And he was always braced for a drowning or another car crash. He said he could see Lee right away.
One on either side, they took her into the office. She was silent and uncharacteristically passive, allowing herself to be supported and led. Fortunately there was no one in the waiting room, and the receptionist sent them straight in. They left her in the doctor’s care and said they’d wait in the car. Weinstock wanted to brief Ossorio in private.
“Unbelievable” was the response. “Why would he do such a thing? It makes no sense at all.”
“That was my initial reaction,” said Weinstock. “I doubted myself, just as I doubt all eyewitness accounts in court because I know how unreliable they are. But I’m sure of what I saw, and it fits with what Detective Diaz told me. Someone else saw him at the filing station, too—she didn’t say, but it must have been the attendant. Of course he’s unlikely to have known who he was, but he could give a good description.
“Now I’ve had time to think it through, I can see what might have happened. It’s a case of mistaken identity, all right, but not on my part. It was Irving who made the mistake.”
Fifty-two.
By the time the Fitzgeralds had returned from Montauk that evening, toting a haul of bluefish that Nita now knew how to prepare, plus salad fixings and a peach pie from the farm stand in Amagansett, the investigation had progressed rapidly. After they got cleaned up, Nita volunteered to phone the station from the pay phone for an update.
“We’ve got evidence from two directions,” Steele told her, “out here and in the city. The clerk at the Sixth Precinct traced the rental car. It came from Hertz on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Customer booked it for Saturday morning, but the previous customer didn’t return it until late that afternoon. All their other cars were out and they had to clean it, so the guy couldn’t pick it up until nearly seven p.m. He paid cash, said he’d have it back Sunday morning. They remembered him real well, because he called every hour to find out if it was ready.”
“How do you know it’s our guy?”
“Because when he filled up on the way back to Brooklyn, he was spotted by someone who recognized him. A positive ID that matches the name on the rental.”
“Well, who is it?”
“Mr. Irving Krasner.”
“¡Que me aspen! I mean, I’ll be darned. What relation is he to Lee?”
“Her brother. He lives at 1630 80th Street in Bensonhurst, an easy subway ride to the Hertz office. It was his bad luck that Lee’s lawyer, Gerry Weinstock, decided to fill up his gas tank at the same time at Pratt’s Tydol station on the highway. Weinstock saw him, and saw the scratches on his face. When he found out we were looking for someone of that description, he felt obliged to come forward. He called us about an hour after you left for Montauk.
“He broke it to Lee first, and she took it hard. Mind you, it’s not air-tight yet, and we don’t know why he did it, though Weinstock has a theory.”
“Which is?”
“He thought she was Ruth Kligman.”
“You mean he came out here to kill Ruth and got the wrong girl?”
“Not exactly. According to Weinstock’s reasoning, Lee found out that Kligman had moved in with Pollock and sent her brother to break it up. You remember Ruth said Edith wasn’t in the house when they came down, and the back door was open. She must have gone outside, and when Irving showed up and found her out there in the dark he assumed she was the girl he was after. He’d never seen her before, and how was he to know there were two of them there that weekend?”
“I see where this is leading,” said Nita. “Irving says you’re leaving right now and tries to force her into the car. Edith has no idea who he is, thinks he’s trying to rape her, and puts up a fight. Maybe she starts to scream, so he grabs her by the throat. She flails at him and scratches his face, which makes him see red and squeeze too hard. He panics and beats it.”
“That’s pretty much the way Weinstock figured it. And it fits with Kligman’s account, how she and Pollock came out and found her lying in the yard gasping for breath.” Nita nodded in agreement.
“I called back to the Sixth Precinct and asked if they could get someone to go around to Krasner’s place and question him,” Steele continued. “Get a blood sample, too. They put the local Brooklyn precinct on it and they hauled him in for questioning. He didn’t admit anything, but they got him to agree to photos and a blood sample. We can’t receive photos by wire, so they’re sending them out on the train. Should be here at six fifty-seven, if she’s on time. Front and both profiles, plus a close-up of the wound on his face. It’s almost healed, but the Brookly
n cop said it’s two clear scratches on his left cheek. Finch can run the pictures over to Pratt’s—that’s the filling station—and show them to the Charlie.”
“What about the blood? Have they typed it?”
“They sure have. Irving Krasner is A positive. A perfect match.”
Over beers for herself and Fitz and a Hires root beer for TJ, Nita filled them in on the latest news.
“Looks like they collared him,” said Fitz with satisfaction. “Shows you how teamwork really pays off.”
Nita agreed. “Even without Osborne’s identification they have enough evidence for an arrest warrant. After all, Weinstock saw him, too, and he knows him. It’s circumstantial—just because he was out here at the right time doesn’t make him guilty—but it’s pretty damning, especially with the scratches and matching blood type.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t Ted or Alfonso,” said TJ. “They’re great guys, even if they are pansies.”
Fitz chuckled. “Takes all kinds, buddy. Remember that when you’re pounding the beat. It helps to be broad-minded.”
Nita, eyes narrowed, gazed sternly at her husband. “Don’t you go giving him ideas, Brian Francis Xavier Fitzgerald. Maybe the force isn’t for him. How do you know he doesn’t want to be a doctor, like Bill Abel, or a lawyer, like Gerry Weinstock? What do you think, Juanito?”
“I think I want to be an artist, like Jackson Pollock” was his answer, causing both parents to threaten to disown him, put him up for adoption, or send him to military school. Or all three.
Fifty-three.
Saturday, November 2, 1957
Harry Steele’s retirement party was held at the Huntting Inn on Main Street. Unlike the Sea Spray, which closed after Labor Day weekend, this venerable establishment—where grub and grog had been dispensed since 1751—stayed open through the fall.
In his own way Steele was an equally venerated institution. He had inaugurated the East Hampton Town police force thirty-four years earlier, and was being given a splendid send-off by what was now a ten-man department, together with many well-wishers from the community and farther afield, including the Fitzgerald family.
“I hope you invited the local criminals to this shindig,” quipped Fitz as he raised his glass in Steele’s honor, “’cause the town is completely unprotected today. All the cops are in this room.”
“Those who say there’s never a policeman around when you want one know exactly where to look,” Steele replied. “I think East Hampton can survive a couple of hours without us, and the place is going to have to get used to not having me around.”
“You’re not leaving town, are you?”
“Oh, no. Me and the missus wouldn’t be happy anywhere else. The kids and the grandkids are here, so I can’t see us pullin’ up stakes. Maybe I’ll get the old Indian goin’ again, give the patrol cars somethin’ to chase in the off season.”
“Make us eat your dust, Chief,” chimed in Earl Finch, recently promoted to sergeant. He greeted the Fitzgeralds warmly, with a Bonac hello to TJ, now nine.
“Howdy, bub. Good t’see you again. I hardly knew you, you’ve grown so.” He turned to Fitz and Nita. “Stayin’ the weekend? If so I hope you’ll come up to us for Sunday lunch. Grace and I would love to have you,” he winked at TJ, “and Sally’s waitin’ to see you. She hasn’t helped solve any more crimes since last summer, but she’s got another litter of pups.” That news got a string of Spanish from TJ, which Nita roughly translated as “Hot diggety!”
Just then TJ saw the Collins family come in. “Hey, Dad,” he asked, “can I go say hi to my buddy Mike?” His father excused him and off he went.
“I like a city fella who doesn’t forget his Bonac buddies,” said Finch. “Finest kind. I’m sure glad you folks can stay over.”
“Alfonso and Ted are putting us up at The Creeks,” said Nita. “Ted and TJ spent the afternoon in the kitchen, whipping up a batch of bread. Our boy is learning some very useful culinary skills.”
“He was my sous-chef for the coq au vin we’re having for dinner tonight,” said Ted, who had arrived on cue. “Mind you, I think we’ll have to hold it over ’til Sunday. No one is going to leave here hungry.” The inn had laid on a lavish buffet, as well as an open bar that put everyone in a nostalgic frame of mind. They couldn’t help but look back on the previous year, and the circumstances that had brought them together.
“Compared to ’fifty-six, your last year on the job must have been like a victory lap,” observed Nita. “Not a single murder since then, so they tell me.”
“Well, legally speaking, the Metzger killing wasn’t murder,” Steele reminded her. “Gerry Weinstock felt so bad about being the one to finger Irving Krasner that he really went to bat for him. He’s not a criminal lawyer, but he recommended a great one—and I think he paid the bill.”
“That’s what I heard,” Fitz interjected. “The guy got Krasner to take a plea of involuntary manslaughter and waive a jury trial. He figured a jury wouldn’t be sympathetic to a guy who killed a refugee from Nazi Germany, even though both he and the victim were Jewish.”
Steele took up the story. “It was a winning strategy, and Krasner’s confession read pretty much like Weinstock had figured it. He thought she was Ruth, and was just trying to get her away from Jackson. Certainly didn’t intend to do her in. In fact he didn’t even realize he’d killed her until he read the Post on the Friday. They picked up the Star story about her being strangled. Considering the circumstances, the judge took it easy on him. So Krasner’s doing only two to five up in Wallkill. Probably be out in less than two if he plays by the rules.”
“And for the rest of his life he’ll have to live with his guilt,” said Fitz. “Sadly, so will his sister. How’s she doing, by the way?”
Ted’s admiration was enthusiastic. “That woman is a survivor! After Irving’s arrest we feared for her sanity. Her close friends rallied ’round and got her through the worst of it. But she pulled herself together after the sentencing and spent the winter in the city taking care of estate business. We thought she might sell the Springs place, with all its unhappy memories, but back she went this summer and just moved right into Jackson’s studio as if it had always been hers.
“Of course it was the smartest thing she could have done. Stake a claim and assert her independence. She hadn’t painted in a year, but starting over in that space—so much bigger than the little bedroom studio she had in the house—it was like a rebirth. You should see the work she did! Big, bright, colorful paintings, just gorgeous, nothing like the gloomy things she was doing before. The ghosts were exorcised. We were flabbergasted.
“On top of that,” Ted continued, “she’s just gotten a huge windfall. Sidney Janis, that super salesman, has persuaded the Metropolitan Museum to pay thirty thousand dollars for a big Pollock called Autumn Rhythm. It set a price record for an American painting. Only a couple of years ago the Modern could have snapped it up for eight thousand, but they didn’t bite. How ironic that it went to the Met, not exactly a bastion of the avant-garde. Back in 1950 Jackson and his pals lodged a public protest against that old mausoleum for not showing modern art—in other words, their art. How’s that for a turnabout? And Lee’s the one who reaps the reward.”
“Well, she deserves it,” said Cile, who had joined the group. “She put up with so much of Pollock’s horseshit—pardon my language—it’s only fair that there really was a pony underneath it.” Her new twist on an old joke got a laugh all around.
Ted had more news. “Guess who else is very pleased with herself these days. Ruth Kligman! No sooner was she back on her feet than she was back on her back, this time under Jackson’s old nemesis, Bill de Kooning. They’ve been scorching the sheets since March, just about the one-year anniversary of her hookup with Jackson. Evidently Ruthie’s sap rises in the spring.”
After many toasts, recaps of highlights from Chief Harry Steele’s lo
ng and distinguished career, and wishes for his future health and happiness, the party wound down and the guests began to disburse. Friends and acquaintances from the previous year urged Nita, Fitz, and TJ not to be strangers, and return visits were promised.
“Don’t forget our lunch date tomorrow,” said Finch. “You remember the way, don’t you? Up Fireplace Road to Gardiner, turn left, third on the left.
“And take it easy on that curve. It’s dangerous.”
Patrolman Earl Finch of the East Hampton Town Police with Jackson Pollock’s body at the accident scene, August 11, 1956.
Photograph by Dave Edwardes, courtesy Pollock-Krasner House and
Study Center, East Hampton, New York. Gift of Jeffrey Potter.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Readers who are familiar with accounts of Jackson Pollock’s fatal automobile accident on August 11, 1956, and those who know the history and geography of the Hamptons will recognize many of the people, places, and incidents featured in this book. They won’t recognize others, because I made them up.
Brian Fitzgerald and Juanita Diaz are fictional creations of mine. I also invented a few local characters to interact with the real ones involved in the car crash and its aftermath.
Contrary to what I have written, however, Edith Metzger was not strangled by Irving Krasner, who was nowhere near Springs that weekend. She died of a broken neck and head injuries sustained when the car overturned, killing Pollock and seriously injuring Kligman.
My research drew on conversations with some of the real people, most of them now deceased, who appear in this tale—including Paul Brach, who told me the call girl story. The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center research collections, the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection, the East Hampton Star digital archives, and Raymond R. Arons’s memoir, The Sea Spray Inn: East Hampton, New York, Summer of 1959, were invaluable resources.
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