“What do you mean, a poor girl like that?”
“Ya know, with her affliction.” He was convinced now that I was really stupid. “Ya didn’t know? That Cindy Veronne is a cripple-girl. Like from the waist down. I tell ya the truth, I was tempted to ask Ray how they ... ya know?” He rocked his hand from side to side. “But I never asked him outa respect for the girl.”
The Madonna of Forest Hills Gardens’ poor crippled woman.
“Where is she now? Cindy Veronne?”
“Cindy? Hell, she’s right where she’s always been. With the old man.”
“Wadda ya mean, with the old man? With her father?”
“Yeah, sure. She’s never lived nowhere else but with her father, even when she and Ray was married. That house out in Great Neck, they had a whole section to themselves, like it was a separate house altogether, all built special for the girl; lotsa privacy, ya know, but still close to the old man. I guess he’s what ya call very ... what? protective of the girl. Not that I blame him, her being the way she is and all.”
I remembered something: there were ramps leading off from the main entrance hall in the Great Neck house. And the doorways had seemed extra wide. To accommodate a wheelchair?
“What’s the girl’s problem, John?”
He took a big lump of cheesecake on his fork, as he chewed and talked, cheesecake squirted out of both sides of his mouth. He collected it carefully with his index finger and shoved it into his mouth. “Cindy? That she’s crippled, ya mean?” He shrugged. “I don’t know too much about it. She wasn’t born like that, if that’s what ya mean?”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
He wiped his mouth and his fingers, one by one, on his napkin. “There was an accident, see, when Cindy was just a little girl. Her mother got killed in the accident. Car accident, and the old man was driving, so you can see how he held himself responsible, why he always wanted to keep Cindy close to him; ya know, to watch out for her and all. Jeez, I remember about a year before the kid got hit—funny, I didn’t think much about it until just now. But Ray and Cindy had a car accident too. Wait a minute. Yeah, they was going out to Kennedy to catch a plane to Florida right around Christmas time. The old man got a beautiful layout down in Palm Beach, ya know, and they was going to meet with him down there, and Ray skidded on the ice and somehow the door on Cindy’s side flew open and the girl wasn’t wearing a seat belt and she went flying out to the side of the road and all.” He shook his head at the memory. “Jeez, she was real lucky, ya know. Just shook up, with a coupla bruises. Ray had a concussion, and him and the girl were taken to ... I think it was maybe Jamaica Hospital. The old man flew back to New York and he has them both transferred to a private hospital with round-the-clock care and all that. Something funny about it, but I don’t remember right now. Something Ray told me, but I can’t seem to remember what. Oh well, couldn’t be important, I guess.”
“Tell me something, John. You know anybody got a grudge against Kitty Keeler? Anybody who would want to hurt her really bad?”
Mogliano wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Bits of cheesecake soiled the sleeve of his jacket. “Look, I don’t know of nobody, nobody, in the whole world would wanna hurt Kitty. Kitty is ... she’s the best, ya know? And George too; Jesus, George is the salt of the earth, ya know? I’ve heard a lotta people say George gotta be a little crazy or a little dumb to put up with Kitty, but people who say that are wrong, ya know? George is happy with whatever he gets from Kitty, so who the hell is to say? I’ll tell ya somethin’, there isn’t nothin’ in the whole world I wouldn’t do for Kitty, she asked me.”
“She call you Wednesday night, John?”
He shook his head. “Naw, it was last week, wait, I think Monday about that girl’s car.”
“She didn’t call you Wednesday night? And tell you she had a little problem and needed your help?”
“Naw, I spoke to her—” He stopped and stared across the table, mouth opened as he realized what I was asking him. “Jesus, you gotta be kiddin’ me. You askin’ me if ... if ...”
I wasn’t really asking him. “Forget it, John.” When I stood up and dug for a couple of bills from my wallet, he got up heavily and caught my arm.
“Naw, this is on my cousin; it’s like an insult to pay him for a meal, if I bring ya. It’s like eatin’ in his home, ya don’t insult him.”
“Okay, John. Thank your cousin for me.”
He walked with me to my Chevy, looked at it with distaste, kicked at a front tire. “You ever get ready to get a real car, you come around. I’ll fix you up with something really nice. At a good price.”
“I’ll remember that, John.”
He slammed the door for me and stood outside the driver’s side.
He pulled off his sunglasses and began to rub them with his handkerchief. “I’m gonna tell ya somethin’ that I know, like ya know somethin’ from in here.” He spread his fingers on his chest. “Like ya know from in your heart. Kitty never hurt them kids of hers. Kitty never in her life hurt anybody at all. She loved them kids; maybe she wasn’t the kinda mother all the magazines tell girls they should be, ya know, like my wife, alla time home with the kids, every minute watchin’ out for them. But Kitty’s not like they’re tryin’ to make out in all them newspaper stories. Believe me. I know.”
“Okay. And, John.” He bent down again and came closer. “If I were you, I’d make sure I had a purchase receipt and complete records on all those VW chassis and parts around back of your place. Or else I would keep them out of sight. Just in case some auto-theft cop takes it into his head to check you out, know what I mean?”
He pulled back, offended innocence. “Who me?” Then he clamped a hand on my arm, which was resting on the window, squeezed it once, leaned toward me and said, “Hey, you’re a good guy, ya know? Remember, when you’re ready, I’ll make you a good deal.”
“Yeah, I’ll remember, John. Thanks.”
Mogliano slapped himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand and said, “Hey, ya know what? I just remembered something. About that time when Ray and Cindy was in Jamaica Hospital.” I don’t think he just remembered; I think he’d just made up his mind to tell me. “What’s that, John?”
He glanced over his right shoulder and leaned close to me. “Well, I don’t even know if it’s worth somethin’ or nothin’ at all. In fact, I don’t even know if it’s true, know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean.”
“Well, see. Ray tole me that there was this doctor in the hospital, a wadda ya call them kinda surgeons, they operate on your nerves and back and things? Like all the ball teams got?”
“A neurosurgeon?”
“Yeah, yeah, like that. So anyway, Ray tole me that this doctor examined Cindy. She wasn’t hurt bad or nothin’, just bad shook up, but he took a whole buncha X-rays and he tole Ray that the girl coulda had a operation a long time back, like when she was a little girl, ya know?”
“What does that mean?”
Mogliano pulled back nervously and shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know, ya know? But from what Ray said, it was like the doctor seemed to think that Cindy didn’t have to be a cripple alla her life. Like she coulda had a coupla operations and been up and on her feet and all, like anyone else.”
I thought about that for a minute. “Did the doctor say the girl could still have surgery, or did he say it was too late at that time?”
“Oh, hey, Jeez, I don’t know nothin’ more about any of that, ya know? Anyway, Ray tole me he didn’t say nothin’ to Cindy about it, but, well, he told me he asked the old man about it when he come up from Florida.”
“Veronne?”
“Yeah. Yeah, and Ray says the old man got very ... agitated, ya know? and he orders an ambulance to take the girl to this private hospital and he tells Ray,” Mogliano hunched down and almost came through the window onto my lap; his voice went to a thick whisper and he cupped his hand around his lips, “he tells Ray, like, forget it, it’s a bun
cha crap, what you think this doctor tole you, and he tole Ray, ‘You never repeat this kinda garbage to anyone. At all.’ ”
“Especially not to Cindy?”
Mogliano shrugged and pulled back out of the car, banging his head on the window frame. He rubbed at his head; it seemed to me he must have loosened his toupee; his hair seemed to slide around a little. “I don’t know nothin’ from nothin’ about any of this, ya know? But for what it’s worth, I pass it along to you.”
I didn’t know, either, if it was worth anything, but I thanked John Mogliano and I waited until I had gone a couple of blocks away before I brushed the little lump of cheesecake from my sleeve.
CHAPTER 12
JOHN MOGLIANO’S COUSIN HAD too heavy a hand with spices, and I regretted the free meal by the time I arrived at the squad office. Before I had time to search for some Gelusil or Turns, Tim opened the door to his office and signaled to me. Which surprised me. After all, it was Saturday and Tim was a captain and the squad commander.
There was a clean-cut, pink-faced baby patrolman in Tim’s office who leaped to his feet in what seemed like deference to age when Tim introduced him to me.
“Patrolman Carter here has come up with a witness who has confirmed Patti MacDougal’s story about coming, back to Fresh Meadows on Thursday morning, Joe.” Tim turned to the kid and said, “Go ahead, Officer, tell Detective Peters what’s in the report.”
Patrolman Carter looked like he’d rather I just read the report that Tim held. He clasped his hat behind his back and seemed to rock a bit from side to side. His voice was a little shaky and his face went a brighter red.
“Yes, sir. I was assigned to interview tenants at the Monroe Arms and—”
“The Monroe Arms?” I turned to Tim.
“The thirteen-story building facing the Keelers’.” He waited, then had to start the kid off again. “Go ahead, Officer.”
“Yes, sir. I was assigned the ninth and tenth floors. On Thursday, April seventeenth, and Friday, April eighteenth, I attempted to make contact with resident of Apartment Nine-K, a Dr. Frank Michaels, with nil results.”
“With nil results?”
“Yes, sir, with nil results. At eleven A.M. this date, I made contact with the aforementioned Dr. Frank Michaels, who stated to the undersigned as follows: that on—”
Tim took pity on the kid. “It was a nice job, Patrolman Carter. Tell you what. You drive Dr. Michaels back to his apartment or wherever he wants to go and then—”
“Sir,” Patrolman Carter said, “I don’t have any means of transportation. Dr. Michaels drove me over in his vehicle.”
Tim led him to the door. “In that case, have Dr. Michaels drive you back to the 107th, if it’s convenient for him. Otherwise, hitch a ride with someone, okay?”
In the midst of a coupla “yes-sirs” Tim threw in a few “nice-jobs,” then handed me the kid’s report, which he should have done in the first place.
On the night of Wednesday, April 16, 1975, Dr. Michaels had been summoned to Queens General Hospital, at 10:30 P.M., for an emergency delivery. His patient, not expected to give birth for another two months, had been critically injured in an auto accident on the Grand Central Parkway. Within twenty minutes of his arrival, Dr. Michaels delivered by Caesarean a four-pound preemie. The mother survived for nearly three hours and then succumbed to her injuries. Dr. Michaels signed out of the hospital at 2:15 A.M., Thursday, April 17, 1975.
Dr. Michaels arrived home at about 2:30 A.M. As he left his parked car, he observed a white Porsche pull into the parking lot in location determined to be the assigned location of the Keelers. Dr. Michaels stated that he was too keyed up and upset to go directly to bed; he changed his shoes and returned to the street, intending to jog until he felt more relaxed. As he exited from the lobby of his building, Dr. Michaels noticed the lights flash on the Porsche and within the next minute or so, the car pulled out of the parking lot. It was about 2:40 A.M. Dr. Michaels did not see anyone enter or exit from the Porsche. He was confirming that subject car did arrive and leave in times corresponding to statement of Patti MacDougal.
“That young fella, Carter, was right on the ball, Joe. Nine out of ten guys would have let it drop after the second attempt. I’m going to put him in for a commendation.”
“Have you got any Gelusils, Tim?”
“You don’t need anything, Joe. You look fine.” Tim hadn’t come in to the office just to congratulate this efficient cop. He saved the best for last. “I’ve just come down from upstairs, Joe, from a meeting with that bastard Kelleher and his weasel, Quibro. They’ve decided to hold Keeler as a material witness. Hold her in protective custody. What do you think, Joe?”
I wasn’t too sure what I was supposed to think. “You’re the one with the college education, Tim. You tell me.”
Tim shoved his hands in his pockets and clicked some coins together; he walked to the window, then turned and stared at me.
“It’s a device, Joe. To put some pressure on Kitty. She’s some tough little cooky. If seeing her two kids down in the morgue didn’t break her, maybe a little restriction of her freedom might. Legally, it’s feasible. Obviously there was more than one person involved in transporting the boys’ bodies. Kitty would be the clearest threat to that person, therefore a possible target. Hell, to be technical about it, there have been a few nut letters and phone calls.”
There are always a couple of nut letters and phone calls, but I didn’t point this out to Tim, since he knew it as well as I did and he wouldn’t have appreciated hearing about it.
“When is all this going to happen, Tim?”
“We’re working on it right now. I just sent Geraldi out to pick up Judge Donlevy; Kelleher caught up with him at his golf club in Westchester. Soon as he finishes his game, he’s going to come in and sign the necessary papers. Which is where you come in, Joe.”
The bodies of the Keeler boys had been released that morning. I was to meet Kitty Keeler at her brother’s house in Yonkers, escort her to her apartment to pick up clothes for the boys, then bring her to the Kelly Brothers Funeral Home in the Bronx, which is where the bodies were now. Then call in; if it was all set, I was to bring Keeler back to the office. Without telling her exactly why.
Kitty walked through the mob of reporters, photographers and cameramen as if she was a movie star who’d been doing it all her life. Head up, normal pace, into the car without a sign of being aware of the voices that called out to her in that strangely intimate way. “Hey, Kitty, c’mon, Kitty baby, give us a break.”
“Hey, babe, take off the glasses. Let’s get a look at those big blue eyes.”
“Hey, Kitty Killer, you kill any kids today?”
She pulled off her glasses and snapped her head around to see who had called out the last thing; a series of flashbulbs went off as I pulled the car away from the curb. She sat, one hand over her eyes, massaging lightly before she put her dark glasses on again.
“How come George isn’t with you?”
“He’s still with your partner.” Then, lower, angrier, “As if you didn’t know.”
My partner. Catalano? “George is with Catalano?”
“With Soft-Soap Sam. He’s been very helpful, taking George back and forth to the ginmill. He’s all heart, isn’t he?” Her voice was bitter and restrained. “I would have thought Sam would’ve been assigned to buddy-up with me. He’s the type, isn’t he?”
“He’s a type, all right.” Catalano; hanging around George Keeler?
When we pulled into the cul-de-sac at Fresh Meadows, there was an identical group of new people waiting for Kitty to walk from her car to the building.
“What are they, a bunch of magicians?” Kitty said; which is exactly what I was thinking.
The young cop, with a couple of days of experience behind him, cleared a path for us. There were more people here than in Yonkers; more curious sightseers who had somehow gotten the word that Kitty Keeler could be seen, in person. A few strange types, glassy-eyed w
ith excitement: the string-bag-clutching old nuts who swarm around murder scenes hoping to touch someone, anyone, even remotely connected to tragedy.
Someone close to hysteria began to shriek, “I touched her! My God, she looks just like her pictures. We’re with ya, Kitty baby, we’re on your side.” You couldn’t even tell if it was a man’s or a woman’s voice; somehow, nut voices don’t have genders.
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and followed the uniformed man; he held the door open for us, then closed it and stood facing the crowd, using a strong, professional, calm voice.
Kitty dropped the bunch of keys, and when she retrieved them she couldn’t seem to find the apartment door key; when she found it, she couldn’t fit the key into the lock. She held the keys toward me and stepped back until I opened the apartment door, then she went inside. She hadn’t been home since the morning the children’s bodies were found: Thursday.
The apartment had a faintly closed-up feeling; Kitty ran her finger over a table and frowned at the dust. She picked up an overflowing ashtray and brought it to the kitchen. The technicians hadn’t cleaned up after themselves. There were a few stained, empty coffee containers and a few wadded-up sandwich wrappers. Kitty snatched a brown paper bag and began cleaning up. She stopped, hand about to reach for another ashtray.
“Is it all right? I mean, can I ... touch things now?”
“Yeah, they’re all finished.”
She looked around the living room with annoyance; she kept touching things, straightening things, moving items a fraction of an inch. Finally she decided that was all she could do for now.
“Did they ... find anything?” she asked. “You know. Whatever it was they were looking for?”
“Don’t worry about it. Everything’s under control.”
She thought about that for a moment or two, went into the kitchen with the bag of debris, then stood in the doorway. She gestured vaguely. “Look, do you want coffee or anything? Or just coffee, I guess. I don’t think there’s anything else in the house. I have to ... I’ll have to go shopping, I guess.” She seemed somewhat confused; not quite sure if she should be a hostess to me.
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