“Wouldn’t this be the ideal time to push them a bit, Tim? Before their stories have a chance to harden. Given what I would assume to be their emotional state at the moment, regardless of their involvement or non-involvement, might not this be the time to question them—especially the mother—a bit more closely? Or do you think they were in on it together?”
Jerry’s eyes were clear blue marbles, staring directly at Tim. He didn’t blink once while Tim spoke. For that matter, neither did Tim.
“Anything they might possibly say at this time wouldn’t be admissible, as I’m sure you know, Jerry. I wouldn’t think of questioning them intensely without recommending that they have an attorney present. Any attorney would advise them against cooperating at this particular time. As I’m sure you would agree.”
“I don’t need you to teach me my law, Tim.” They held the stare for a long count, then Jerry glanced down at his hands. When he looked back at Tim, his whole expression had changed; his voice sounded reasonable, helpful. “I would think if your investigation is thorough and properly done, as I naturally expect it to be, you’ll have enough, soon enough, to persuade them, lawyer and all, to come forward to corroborate all you know, wouldn’t you say?”
“As of now, all we know is that there are two murdered children.”
“Well, you know a bit more than that, Tim.” Kelleher considered his fingernails for a moment, then picked at a cuticle as he spoke. “You know that the mother, this Kitty Keeler, seems to have a very active extracurricular love life.” He gnawed at the loose sliver of skin, then wiped his lips. He picked up the newspaper and held it in front of us as though it was an exhibit. “Why, it says so right here in this news story, Tim. Seems to be common knowledge, if the newspaper reporters already have it.”
“I’m not sure that was a particularly wise thing to do, Jerry. For that information to have been leaked to the papers.”
“Then why the hell was it leaked?” Kelleher demanded.
“I wouldn’t know, Jerry. Would you?”
Not even a casual, uninformed spectator would think these two were anything but opponents. They went into another staring match.
The D.A. slowly shook his head from side to side. The lock of hair floated over his eyebrows. He shrugged his shoulders to express his innocence and bewilderment in the matter. Then he said softly, “A terrible thing, Tim. Terrible.” He sucked in his lower lip, then said, as if to cue Tim on his response, “It does look like this whole thing, this terrible tragedy, is very close to home, though, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t say that at this point, Jerry. I especially wouldn’t say it to the media.”
Kelleher tossed it right back at Tim without missing a beat. “I’m saying it to you, Tim, and you’re not the media.” He widened his eyes, gave a slow innocent blink, then: “At least, as far as I know, you’re not.”
Tim was both cracking his knuckles and whistling softly through his stretched lips. It sounded like a soft hiss of steam.
Jerry tapped his fingers in a little dance step along the edge of his desk and studied them with grave interest as he spoke. “I would say, Tim, from my experience with the human situation, and the nature of things, barring some really unlikely happenstance, that this entire matter would probably be cleared up within the walls of the Keelers’ apartment.” He looked up, first at me, then at Tim, then he hunched over his desk and said in a friendly one-of-the-guys voice, “This is unofficial, of course, Tim. Just so I can assure my wife that our three little grandchildren are safe on the streets of Forest Hills and she can call our daughter and tell her there’s no real worry that some mad murderer is stalking for children in the dead of night.”
Even though it was as important to Tim as it was to Kelleher that what the D.A. assumed was accurate, Tim got back a little of his own by not agreeing.
“We’re not overlooking any possibilities. We’ve made assignments to check on known degenerates; we’re checking on neighborhood incidents of any kind. We’ve got door-to-door inquiries both at the Fresh Meadows complex and in the area where the boys’ bodies were found. We’re getting close cooperation from the Homicide Squad and we’re utilizing personnel from the 107th and 110th precincts. Plus my men will all be on considerable overtime.”
“All the overtime you need, Tim, all the overtime and additional personnel you need.” Kelleher rested his clasped hands on his desk and jerked the hair off his forehead with a schoolboy’s toss. “The only thing I’m concerned about, Tim, is that when the headline comes out, ‘Keeler Case Closed,’ the story beneath the headline emphasizes that the solution rested with the District Attorney’s Squad. And I am willing to speculate that it will all prove out to have happened within the home of those tragic little boys. And my hope is that the solution, whatever it may be, will be arrived at soon.”
“We’re right on top of this investigation, Jerry. We’ll find out what the story is.”
I could read Tim’s expression. His main regret was that both he and Kelleher had a vested interest in the within-four-walls solution to the case.
Kelleher rested the palms of his hands on his desk and stood up, leaning forward. “Fine, fine, of course you’ll find it all out, Tim.” Then casually, his eyes steady and enjoying the impact of his words on Tim, “Oh, by the way. I’m assigning young Quibro—you know Ed Quibro, don’t you?—to handle the case. He’ll be working closely with you, Tim. Keep him posted and up to date.”
Assistant District Attorney Edward Quibro was a protégé of the D.A.’s: sharp, tough, devious as hell and a well-hated son-of-a-bitch. He and Tim had had a couple of go-rounds in the past. Kelleher must have felt very confident that this was going to be a fast, open-and-shut case if he gave it to Quibro. Quibro was in the process of collecting credits so that if Kelleher won the mayoralty primary he would resign in favor of Quibro. Kelleher would then devote himself to the fall election; Quibro would appear on the ticket as the incumbent—almost a sure thing to be officially elected the new District Attorney of Queens County.
The D.A. shook my hand firmly, then held on to Tim’s and studied him with great sincerity. “Get the bastards, Tim. You men go out there and get those bastards.”
“We will, Jerry. You’ll be the first to know.”
“Good, good, Tim.” Kelleher waited until I had opened the door to his secretary’s office before he added, as a casual afterthought, “By the way, Tim, what’s this I hear about drugs? The mother involved in pushing, is she?”
Tim went blank, but recovered quickly. He shrugged his shoulders, indicating there wasn’t enough yet to talk about. “We’re going in several directions, Jerry. Time will tell.”
“Yes. Yes, right, right.”
Since I’d forgotten to tell Tim I’d dropped a drug rumor with Sam Catalano just to see how fast and how far it would bounce, when he asked me about it in the elevator I shrugged and said I’d look into it forthwith.
Tim said, in great pain, “There is no way that bastard isn’t going to benefit from this case. If we crack it fast, he takes the credit. If we don’t, he blames me. And all I’ve got going for my whole, entire future career is that bland jerk son-of-a-bitch Marvin L. Schneiderman.”
“Who?” I was needling Tim; I really did remember the name of his man in the coming mayoralty primary. Tim kept staring at me, so I offered, helpfully, “Maybe we could arrange for Kitty Keeler to get together with Marvin L. and give him her confession.”
“Just shut up, Joe, okay? Just shut up.”
CHAPTER 6
BY 8:30 P.M. THE SQUAD ROOM was crowded and the air as many parts cigarette, cigar and pipe smoke as oxygen. A cleaning woman pulled her wagon to a halt outside the door, glanced in and turned around to leave. One of the guys called her back and asked her to at least empty our wastebaskets and ashtrays, which she did grudgingly, her thin whitish lips moving in some kind of incantation.
Vito Geraldi, a squat heavyset man with a cigar in the corner of his mouth, said, “Hey, c’mon, Mo
mma, you’re not doin’ us a favor, that’s your job, huh?”
Whereupon the cleaning woman dropped the full ashtray she was holding into an overflowing wastebasket, turned and walked out empty-handed, muttering something about “the union.”
Vito winked, ran after her and, after a short whispered conversation with the woman, brought her back into the room; one heavy arm was thrown over her shoulders and she was laughing and blinking up at Vito like he was just the living end and they had come to a real meeting of the minds. She emptied all the ashtrays and baskets, opened a window, made a pass with a dustcloth over the gray metal, black-rubber-topped desks and finally left, smiling to herself.
“Vito, Vito, you could charm a witch on Halloween,” his partner called out.
Squad members were checking their work schedules against the instructions Tim had posted on the bulletin board: all other investigations were postponed unless otherwise specified; all vacations were canceled; there was to be one day off in ten; the squad was to be prepared to put in heavy overtime.
By the time Tim stepped from his office, everyone had more or less settled down. He leaned against a desk, shoved his reading glasses up to the top of his head and spoke very quietly. It was effective. No one in the room so much as coughed or struck a match.
“Every member of this squad is to go down to the morgue and view the bodies of these two children. Find the time, regardless of your assignment. I want you to see them in the condition in which they were found this morning. Take a good long look at them. Then, every man here is to find the time to go over to the Peck Avenue location where the bodies were tossed like so much garbage. When you go home at the end of your tour, take a good long look at your own kids. Then think about the Keeler kids.”
Tim wasn’t going to let any of us get jaded; calloused; offhand. Not about these two little boys. He looked around the room, made sure we all got the message, then, briefly, brought everyone up to date on the investigation so far.
“About an hour ago, we received a tentative report from the Medical Examiner’s office. Now, the times given are an approximation, give or take an hour either end, so keep that in mind.” He turned to me. “Joe, pick it up from here.”
“Victim number one, George Keeler, was manually strangled sometime between eleven P.M. and midnight.” I glanced up at the men, who were all taking notes. “Add an hour at either end, which gives us roughly sometime between ten P.M. Wednesday and one A.M. Thursday, April sixteenth–seventeenth.
“Victim number two, Terence—Terry—Keeler: thirty-eight-caliber Smith and Wesson bullet in base of his skull, penetrated to a depth of ... you don’t need all this right now. Death occurred sometime between one and two A.M.—again, give or take an hour either end. Gives us sometime between midnight and three A.M. Thursday, April seventeenth.”
Vito Geraldi, second senior first-grade man after me, was about to say something, but I held up my hand. “Hold it for a minute, Vito, let me finish this. Now, indications are that the first victim, George, was not killed at the location where the bodies were found. And that the second victim, Terry, was shot at the location.”
“Shot at the location, Joe?” Vito was sharp. “You didn’t say killed at the location, Joe?”
“Right. Cause of death hasn’t been absolutely determined on the second boy. It appears that this kid, Terry, was either comatose or dead when he was shot. Apparently, he had ingested a large amount of sleeping pills,” reading now, “time of ingestion and amount of ingestion not yet determined.” I held my finger in place and looked up. “Tests will, hopefully, determine if the boy died of respiratory failure or whether he was still alive when shot.”
A couple of the men asked questions, made comments, but Tim told them, “Hold off for a minute more, let Joe finish.”
“It should be noted that neither victim shows any obvious or clinical signs of sexual molestation. An abrasion was found on the forehead of Terry, victim number two. It is approximately two inches long by a half inch wide.” I looked up from the report. “The head is so swollen that it’s difficult to determine at this time what might have caused the abrasion. No other wounds or abrasions on either body except for a minor scratch or two, not recent, considered normal for a child.”
There was a thoughtful silence; little by little, everyone turned toward Vito Geraldi. Vito chewed on his cigar and studied the bitter, curling smoke, then he looked at Tim. “Captain, there’s a discrepancy in the mother’s statement, no? According to her, she saw the kids alive and well as late as one to one-thirty. How does that stack up against the M.E. report?”
“There is the strong possibility,” Neary told them, “that at one A.M. George was dead; had been dead anywhere from an hour to three hours. And that Terry, the second boy, was comatose, if not dead, from the ingested drug. We’ll have the times of death more accurately by sometime tomorrow, but the M.E. said we can work pretty close to the eleven-to-midnight and one-to-two-A.M. time slot.”
Vito squashed the stubby remnant of his cigar into a full ashtray, neatly brushed ashes from the top of the desk into the palm of his hand, then turned his palm to the floor. He watched the ashes as they floated to his shoes.
“Number one, Captain,” Vito said carefully, “we gotta look for a motive, right? Who the hell’s got a motive? Who’s got a grudge against little kids, three and six years old? Number two, we gotta look for opportunity. How the hell could someone come into an apartment and steal two kids? Without a sound? Maybe one kid. Maybe. But two? Uh-uh.”
“No signs of breaking and entering, Captain, right?” Jim Jefferson, second grade, law-school graduate, one of the four black guys in the squad, began kicking it around. “No signs of sexual molestation. No one in the area heard any unusual sounds during the night. Probably because there weren’t any. What time was it that the MacDougal girl claims to have gone over to the apartment?”
“Two-thirty; then called Kitty Keeler at three A.M.”
“How do you see the sequence, Captain?” Vito asked.
Neary turned to me. We had discussed it already; pretty much agreed with each other. “I would say the first kid, George, was strangled in his bed. The second kid, Terry, witnessed it. Was given sleeping pills. Maybe just to quiet him.”
“Ya mean it was all a big accident?” Vito asked without any particular emphasis.
“I mean I can see how it could happen. A kid’s sick all day; restless; crying; demanding. Ten or twelve hours of that can drive you nuts.”
The room became silent; a few men were doodling along the edges of their notebooks. Vito took out a new cigar and unwrapped it, but didn’t light it. He held up his beefy hand, studied it.
“Ya know, Captain, when my kids were little I never laid a hand on them. I figured, hell, I wanna give the kid a smack in the ass, with this hammer of mine, I’da put him through the wall.” He looked up and said, “It don’t take much strength to choke a three-year-old kid.”
“What we are talking about, then,” Neary said, “is that the likelihood is that the mother, Kitty Keeler, killed the children. Or at least killed the first kid, George. Joe, you want to say something?”
“My guess would be that if the M.E. finds that sleeping pills killed the second kid, she actually killed both of them. In a fit of anger, or frustration, or whatever, she choked the first kid. Probably not meaning to; then the other kid might have gotten hysterical, and to quiet him she gave him some sleeping pills. And the kid died. And she panicked. Two dead kids and just her alone with them.”
“And did what then?” one of the younger men asked. I shrugged. Vito turned heavily, his small beady black eyes dancing around until he found who had asked the question.
“And did what then?” Vito repeated. “Then she picked up her little pink telephone book and called one of her boy friends to help her get rid of the bodies.”
“She called George at eleven-twenty,” I reminded them. “He couldn’t come to the phone right then. When he tried to call back, the
line was busy. She could have been calling around, trying to get someone since she didn’t connect with George.” I lit a cigarette and then added, “Which could narrow down the time of the first killing to somewhere before eleven-twenty, if that’s why she called George.”
“And,” Vito suggested, “we could also figure that she didn’t get any help until much later. She apparently wasn’t home at two-thirty but was home at three A.M.”
“What about the bullet in the second boy’s head?” Walker, Geraldi’s young partner, was a little puzzled.
Vito swung around heavily toward me. “Joe? Show him how to account for the bullet.”
“Either of two ways: One, that the kid was dead from the sleeping pills, and the bullet was an afterthought, to make it look like someone took him from his bed to kill him. Or, two, that the kid wasn’t dead, and the bullet, again, was to make it look like someone took him from his bed to kill him. The bullet in the kid’s head was a cover.”
Neary mentioned some of the names found in Kitty’s phone book. “I’m having all names checked by Paul Sutro. Joe, you know Sutro, right? Used to work in Special Services, then retired and is working for the State Organized Crime Unit.”
“Yeah, I know Paul.”
“Joey,” Vito said, “what’s your impression of the little mother? You seen her before and after the kids were found.”
None of them had seen Kitty Keeler yet; just her picture in the newspaper; just her quick appearance on the TV news. I remembered the inappropriate hostility, the unprovoked challenge, the blatant sexuality in her every move. I wondered if a woman who had just killed her two children could have carried that performance off. And then I remembered a certain look, a frozen instant when her eyes sought mine, just before I left the apartment with George. To identify the murdered boys. It had been a look different from the rest of her behavior, but I still wasn’t sure.
“She looks like the kind of girl who would have the kind of names in her telephone book that Kitty has.” That was true.
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