Investigation

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  “Okay, okay, George. I’ll listen. Calm down and tell me what you want me to know.”

  “Kitty,” he gasped. “Kitty. Didn’t do it. Not Kitty.”

  I didn’t interrupt him again, because then he struggled harder, and the harder he struggled, the worse it became for him. I just sat there and listened.

  “All wrong. Everyone, wrong. Newspapers, police. Terrible mistake. Not Kitty. She never hurt the kids. I got it all written out. All written in letter. You tell Sam. Tell him.”

  I was beginning to get the message. “What letter, George? George, where are you?”

  “Letter. Right here. Kitchen table. In my apartment, see. Pub. Over pub. In kitchen. Letter on table. Right here. Tells everything. Everything.”

  “George, let me come over. We’ll talk about it. I’ll bring Sam. We’ll come over together and we’ll talk about it, okay?”

  “Too late. All too late. Letter. Tell Kitty I love her. Oh, God. I love her.”

  There was a terrible desperate wheezing sound as George Keeler sucked in one last deep breath before putting the muzzle of his gun into his mouth, and while I sat and listened he blew his brains out all over the walls of his small kitchen.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE TWO PATROL-CAR COPS who responded to my urgent call had arrived in time to pull Danny Fitzmartin and Lucille Travera out of George Keeler’s apartment before they had touched anything of importance, including what was left of George. There was a cop leaning against the far end of the bar, near the door leading to upstairs. He gave me one of those meant-to-be-intimidating chin jerks and narrowing-of-the-eyes cold stares as I approached.

  “Hold it, buster. Where do you think you’re goin’?”

  I held out my hand so that he could see my shield.

  “Yeah? Well, you’re supposed to have it pinned on your jacket,” he instructed me. “How the hell am I supposed to know who you are?”

  There are so many things you can say to a hard-nosed bastard like this guy, but not one thing that’s worth the bother. I pushed the swinging door to the kitchen open a few inches; Danny Fitz was slumped against a worktable; his beefy shoulders were heaving and he was sobbing and shaking his head from side to side. Skinny little red-bubbleheaded Lucille, white as a sheet, turned from the sink and slammed a wet cloth over Danny’s face. She looked at me and with just a slight gesture of her hand, a slight movement of her head, she let me know: Lucille was in charge; she’d handle Danny.

  The young cop stationed upstairs, just outside the open door of George’s apartment, saluted the shield on my jacket. There was a look of relief that he wasn’t solely responsible anymore for what was inside.

  “You haven’t touched anything in there, have you?”

  “Oh, Jeez,” the kid said, “are you kidding? Holy God, there’s some mess in there. Richie, that’s my partner, Richie said the guy musta put the gun in his mouth. Christ, how can a guy do a thing like that?” He was babbling, looking over his shoulder toward the kitchen, then turning away; then looking back, irresistibly.

  “The reason a guy puts a gun in his mouth instead of against his temple is that it’s the only sure way. Straight up, right through the brain.

  “Oh, Jeez, you mean that’s what all that stuff is, all over the wall? Oh, Jeez, his brains?”

  “What the hell did you think it was, Officer, chopped liver?”

  He swallowed dryly and shut his mouth and pulled himself together a little. Even in the dim hall light, I could see that his face was a greenish yellow. He’d get over that; in time.

  The scene was about what I had anticipated: George had been sitting at the small table and had toppled over backward. The kitchen was so small that he was practically wedged in between the table leg and the wall. The phone, a yellow phone, was on the counter; the receiver was hanging inches from the floor. Finally, I looked down at him: George Keeler.

  The impact had knocked him back and down, and because there was no room to move, to absorb the force of the shot, he had twisted violently to one side. Had probably slammed onto the floor, then around into the wall, so that his lower body was in one direction, his upper torso in another and his head at still another angle. His face was in profile; I could see one eyeball, exposed, bulging from its socket; most of the skull on that side of the head was ripped off; hung in bits and pieces with clumps of hair and skin and brain cells on the walls and on the sides and surfaces of the stove and the sink; something was splattered on the ceiling and in sprays, like fine red mists, over the clean sheer curtains, through them onto the clean window-panes.

  His gun was probably under his body; maybe still clutched in his hand. That would be for Homicide to find and remove. There was still the smell of gunpowder, an acrid, familiar smell, intensified by the constricted space of the compact kitchen.

  On the small yellow enamel table, centered and held in place by a round flowered bowl filled with sugar, was a legal-letter-sized white envelope. In small, neat, very legible writing, almost like type print, were the words “For the District Attorney”; beneath that were the words “For the newspapers.”

  I heard Chris Wise’s voice; he had one of those voices that echo and vibrate in small enclosed places.

  “Jesus, Joey,” he said, “haven’t these goddamn people stopped killing each other and themselves yet?”

  The uniformed cop turned and stared, his mouth slightly open; he was in awe of the honest-to-god tough Homicide Squad boss, so Chris played to him a little, showing off his tough callous nature. It was hard to tell if the kid was impressed or scared to death; he was starting to turn gray underneath the yellow-green.

  The homicide technicians had to take turns, one at a time: photographing, diagramming, collecting. The guy from the Medical Examiner’s office showed up in about twenty minutes; he bent over George’s body, fiddled around with a stethoscope; touched here and there, then stood up. He was a small, skinny guy with a bright-pink face and a head of thick bushy black hair.

  He put his hand on Chris’s arm and said, “Chris, I’m sorry. I did my best. But. This man is dead.”

  “Jesus, you butcher sawbones are all alike. Can’t do a goddamn thing for a man.”

  The young cop took it all in; he absently leaned against the doorjamb, one hand pressing for balance.

  “Jesus Christ, you dummy,” Chris shouted at him, “get your fucking hands off the door! That what they teachin’ these kids at the academy these days?” He shook his head and told the kid, “When the fingerprint man gets finished here, you have him take a set of your prints so we don’t waste time looking for a match-up.”

  They finally turned George over onto his back. The gun was clenched in his right hand so tightly they had to pry his fingers open. It was still loaded and had to be handled very carefully. George’s head fell over to one side; the right side of his face was still intact, undamaged, with a puzzled, sad, surprised expression.

  “You caught this, Joe?” Chris asked.

  I told him about George’s phone call; the conversation that took place.

  Chris picked the envelope off the kitchen table and handed it to me. “Then I guess this is yours; just see that we get Xeroxes.”

  One of the homicide men went through George’s pockets and placed the various items on the kitchen table: wallet, keys, comb, handkerchief, two sticks of gum, nebulizer, small vial of large yellow capsules which I recognized as his asthma medication, a few scraps of paper with penciled notations. As he emptied the last pocket he looked up at me and said, “They’re all yours, Joe. Just make sure we get a catalogue.”

  He gave me a large clasp envelope and I began to drop the items into it. I walked into the other room: a small bed-sitting room that had a foam-rubber sleeper couch, a chest of drawers and a small portable TV set. All neat, clean, compact. I went to the window and pushed the curtains aside for better light; went through George’s wallet. Pictures of the little blond boys; I recognized the studio portrait: it was the one that had been widely publicized
when they were found dead. There was a picture of Kitty, a little younger, grinning. It had apparently been cropped from a larger photograph; you could see that someone else had been in the picture and had been cut away. A picture of Kitty in cap and gown—copy of the picture on the wall in her mother’s house. I checked the bill section of the wallet: three tens, two fives, seven singles. I marked the amount on the outside of the clasp envelope. I felt a slight bulge under George’s driver’s license, pulled out the license and a series of business cards. Checked through them, briefly: service cards from his liquor distributor, glass-supply house, a Queens real-estate agent, a wholesale butcher; a few miscellaneous business cards.

  I shoved the driver’s license back underneath the celluloid-covered square and gathered the business cards together. They were slightly sticky, and as I was collecting them the cards on the top and bottom of the pile stuck to my fingers and the rest of them went fluttering to the clean blue carpet. I picked them up and as I reached for the last card, a card I hadn’t noticed before, I wasn’t sure of what I was seeing. Because it didn’t make any sense at all.

  I brought the card over to the window; studied it in the daylight; it was embossed on one side:

  Marvin L. Schneiderman

  Commissioner of Investigation

  111 John Street, New York, N.Y. 10038

  267-6000

  I turned the card over, and handwritten in blue ink was: “Kitty. If ever I can help—in any way—your pal, Marv (237-4401).”

  I pulled out my own wallet and slid the card in among the collection I had gathered through the years. I put the rest of the cards underneath George’s driver’s license, shoved the wallet and the other things into the clasp envelope along with the unopened suicide letter.

  Tim came up to the apartment, took a quick look at George, then found me in the bedroom. He shook his head.

  “Tough, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You talked to him, Joe? You heard him pop off?”

  “Yeah.”

  We walked down the narrow stairway, through the pub; a couple of squad guys were talking now to Danny, who looked terrible, and to Lucille, who stood over him like a tiger. Tim drove to the office in his car; I followed in my Chevy.

  Tim was in his office, talking on the telephone, by the time I arrived; I’d stopped off to take care of a couple of things, including getting a container of vanilla malted milk. Į dropped the envelope of George’s personal belongings on Tim’s desk, sat down and drank some of my vanilla malted. It was very, very sweet, which was good because I had a terrible craving for something very, very sweet. Tim finished with his phone call. He reached for the envelope, opened it and dropped the contents on the top of his desk.

  “Kitty hasn’t been notified,” Tim said quietly. “You want to do it?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Tim got up, fingered through the Manhattan telephone directory, then dialed Jay T. Williams’ office number; asked for the man, waited, then spoke quietly. Then he hung up. “Williams will tell her, Joe.” I nodded. “Know what that corn-pone bullshit artist said when I told him what George did?” I shook my head. “He said—direct quote—‘Oh, that stupid son-of-a-bitch, what the hell was he thinking of?’ How about that?”

  I shrugged and watched Tim arrange the items on his desk. He reached for his letter opener and slit the envelope, took out a thick wad of folded legal-pad yellow sheets, all covered with George’s neat, meticulous, readable print. “Jesus, looks like he wrote a book,” Tim said. He smoothed the pages flat under his hands. “Want a drink, Joe?”

  I held up my container of vanilla malted.

  “Look, Joe, that was a rough call you got from George. You look terrible. Would you feel better if you took off, Joe?” I shook my head. “Look, Joe, what the hell. There wasn’t a goddamn thing you could have done for George at that point. There was no way you could have helped him. Stop worrying about it.”

  I leaned my head back and swallowed the last of the thick sweet, sweet malted milk, then came forward and put the container on the edge of Tim’s desk and stared at him; just stared.

  “Joe. C’mon, kid, pull it all together.” Then he repeated what he’d said. “Stop worrying about it.”

  Finally I stood up, reached in my back pocket for my wallet, slid my fingers behind my driver’s license and took out two small Xerox copies: one of the front of Schneiderman’s card; one of the back of Schneiderman’s card. I reached over, turned on Tim’s lamp, and put the pieces of paper flat on his desk, with the light shining on them.

  “It isn’t George I’m worrying about at this point, Timmy. It’s you I’m worrying about.”

  Tim stared at me, then looked down at his desk. I sat down again and leaned back. I was wishing I had another thick sweet, sweet vanilla malted.

  CHAPTER 4

  IT TOOK TIM NEARLY an hour to reach his wife. She was up in Albany for some kind of special legislative meeting. His call took her away from the dinner table; I’d imagine she lost her appetite after speaking with Tim.

  When she spoke to Tim in his office, all he told her was to copy down a phone number; hang up; wait five minutes; then dial the number he’d given her. We’d picked out, at random, one of the telephones in the bank of phones on the first floor. We were reasonably certain it wasn’t tapped; Tim was reasonably certain that most of the squad phones were. I stood guard over the phone, although the building was pretty empty by now. It was close to nine-thirty. Tim got downstairs in time to snatch up the receiver on the first ring. He closed himself in and hunched over the phone. After about ten minutes he came out along with a cloud of cigarette smoke. Usually, Tim doesn’t smoke too much.

  “We’re going over to Ken Sweeney’s house, Joe. In Brooklyn Heights.”

  Ken Sweeney lives in a narrow brownstone that looks terrific from the outside and like a madhouse inside. His wife, a pretty girl named Mary, cleared a path for us, pushing and shoving at kids and scooping up toys and magazines and half-eaten candy bars all the way through a series of rooms, including one that contained not only a large dining table with eight chairs but a bed, an easy chair, a large blastingly loud color television set and about five or six kids, all arguing about what program to watch. They all looked alike, and in a quick scan I thought they all looked like their mother. They were all dressed in pajamas and flannel bathrobes.

  When we reached the kitchen, Mary chased another group of kids out and told them to go to bed. She went along with them to make sure they headed where they were supposed to. Ken Sweeney stood up from the long narrow kitchen table, which was cluttered with half-finished glasses of milk and littered with crumbs and cake wrappers. He was also dressed in pajamas and an old flannel bathrobe, which was threadbare at the elbows and tied around the waist with a stringlike belt. Ken wiped a milk mustache from his upper lip.

  “Either of you guys want some milk? Maybe a Twinkie if these gluttons of mine left any.” He found one, held it out toward us, shrugged, unwrapped it and shoved most of it into his mouth. He collected glasses with both hands, swept the debris onto the floor and waved at us to sit down. Ken poured some more milk down his throat, finished the last bite of his Twinkie.

  “Jesus, look at the mug on that guy, will ya, Joe? End of the world, Tim, right?”

  Tim was breathing through his mouth, almost like he’d been running. He took the Xerox copies of the card from his pocket, handed them to me. I handed them to Ken.

  He dug a pair of half-frame reading glasses from his bathrobe pocket and considered Marvin L. Schneiderman’s generous offer to his friend, Kitty.

  Ken pursed his lips thoughtfully, then looked up over the tops of the glasses. “Who got the original?” His bright clear blue eyes slid from Tim to me. Ken winked. “You’re a cool kind of bastard, aren’t you, Joe? How come this?” He tipped the Xerox at me.

  I pulled the cigarette from my mouth and shrugged. “Ya never know, right?”

  Ken considered that for a minut
e and shook his head. “I tell ya, Tim, I don’t know why this guy never took those exams. You’d be right up there, top of the heap by now, Joe.”

  “Not me, Ken. I’m book dumb, reality smart.”

  “Where it counts, kiddo, where it counts.”

  Tim was getting tighter by the minute. I thought he was going to blow by the time Mary stuck her head in. “Sorry,” she said softly. “Ken, dear, for just a minute.”

  Sweeney snatched up a remnant of a marshmallow cooky, shoved it in his mouth and told us, “Back in a minute. Bedtime for the troops.”

  It took about five minutes, then he was back. “Okay, now, all set. We all got the last cases of the whatever-the-hell flu. All and every one of us, except, of course, Mary. We never let her get anything. Who the hell would take care of the rest of us, right, Mary-Mary?”

  She beamed in the doorway, just her head in the room. Very quickly, very softly, she said. “Anything stronger than milk to drink? No. All right. And, Ken, I’ll catch the phone if it should ring, don’t you bother yourself. You’ll have a little quiet and privacy now, boys.”

  “There she goes, bless her heart.” He put his glasses back on again, handled the papers we’d given him, pursed his lips, drummed his fingers on the table and sort of hummed to himself.

  “This is a bit of a bitch, now, isn’t it? Gimme the goddamn original, Joe. I won’t eat it up.” He turned it over and over between his fingers. “Let’s see, now. Marv was Commissioner of Investigation 1969 until 1972, up to three years ago. Yeah-yeah, until ’72. Quit after his dear wife may-she-rest-in-peace passed on. Well, we got us a bit of a dilemma, haven’t we, Tim?”

  “Wadda ya think, Ken?” Tim’s voice was thin and urgent.

  “Ya mean about this?” Ken held the card up by the corner. “Ya mean why don’t I just take a match and incinerate it, right here and now, and good-bye-Charlie, the hell with it, let’s hold our breaths, fellas, and hope to Christ no one else in the whole entire world ever gets wind of the fact that our Marvin L. Schneiderman, our good white knight in clear and shiny armor, had at one time, under whatever circumstances, for whatever reason and toward whatever end, written in his own handwriting a little ‘anytime I can be of service’ to little Kitty Keeler? And in parenthesis, in his own hand, printed out for the lady his unlisted and private home telephone number?” Ken shook his head, then winked at me. “Tell him some of your ‘reality common sense,’ Joe?”