Investigation

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  All I told her was that I was on my own time for a week or two, nothing else.

  “I’m going to ask you something, Kitty, and I want a straight answer.” Her hair flashed beneath her brush; it was very distracting. “Look, do you think you could cut that out for now?”

  She looked startled, as though unaware of the automatic ritual. “Brushing my hair? Oh, I’m sorry, Joe. I am paying attention.”

  She held the brush in her hands and watched me closely.

  “Kitty, who do you think killed the boys?” She shook her head and studied the hairbrush in her lap. “Look at me, Kitty.” Her face was pale and she blinked rapidly, looking past me toward the wall. “Kitty?”

  “I think I’ve known from the very beginning.”

  “Known what?”

  She focused on me now and her voice was low but controlled and steady. “That George killed the boys. There was something about him, something. When you both came back to the apartment and he said ... he said, ‘They’re dead, baby, both of them.’ ”

  “Then why the hell haven’t you said anything, all this time?”

  “Who would have believed me? Would you?”

  “How the hell could you have faced George, every day, been with him, every day, believing he killed the boys?”

  There was a curious shift between us now; I was the one who was tense and uneasy. Kitty was strangely calm, studying me, trying to learn why it was so important for me to understand her.

  “It’s hard to explain. It’s just ... George. Look, I’ve spent a lifetime with him. From the time I was a little kid I’ve turned to George. We’ve had some bad times; I’ve given him some bad times.”

  “But for Christ’s sake, Kitty, we’re talking about the murder of your sons!”

  She studied the hairbrush, absently untwined long blond strands of hair from the bristles. “Joe, he didn’t mean to hurt the boys. He didn’t mean to. It was something that happened; just the way he explained it in his letter. An accident with Georgie. And Terry: he was so deep asleep from the pills, George must have thought that he ... that he’d done something to Terry too. Joe, can you imagine what it must have been like for George to live with this? To walk around, knowing what he’d done. Joe, you didn’t know George, how he loved the boys, how he loved me.”

  “How he loved you enough to let you be dragged through the newspapers? Enough to let you be indicted?”

  “George was suffering, Joe. He was in hell. It was my fault, what happened. It really was my fault. I’ve been so rotten to him. That night. That night I deliberately tied up the phone when I knew he’d try to call me back. I knew he’d keep trying. Only ... I didn’t know that he’d come over to the apartment.”

  “Or that he’d kill your sons? You didn’t know he’d do that, did you, Kitty?”

  She jumped up angrily. “My God, it wasn’t like that—that he came over to hurt the boys, or me either. You read his letter. Can’t you get inside his head for even one minute and feel what it must have been like for him? The minute he ... he ... hurt Georgie, can you imagine what he must have felt? I can imagine it, Joe. I can understand George’s suffering. Look, maybe I needed to let it all happen to me: to be accused, to be written up in the papers like that. Maybe I had to ... I don’t know, suffer for my own sins. Maybe, maybe I had to let George feel he was protecting me, that he was the only one I could turn to. Maybe ... I don’t know, maybe that was all I had left to give to him and I felt I owed him that.”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Kitty.”

  That wasn’t true; I think I did know, at least partially. But one of the things I was worried about was her attitude toward George. Now that he was dead, was she still going to try and protect him? The way she persisted in protecting Vincent Martucci? There were so many things I didn’t know about her; things I would have to know, if I was going to help her.

  “Kitty, come on. Sit down.” She had that tough, cynical, wiseguy look on her face; her eyes glared, her mouth tightened, her chin came up slightly. She raked her long fingers through her hair, tossed her head abruptly so that her hair flipped back toward her shoulders.

  “Did George ever tell you he did it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did you ever ask him if he did it?”

  She shook her head again.

  “In order to prove you didn’t kill the boys, Kitty, it’s going to be necessary to do two things: one, prove that George did it; two, prove that you didn’t.”

  “I thought a person doesn’t have to prove innocence. I thought the great American system says you’re innocent until proved guilty. Another bunch of baloney, right, Joe?”

  “You better believe it’s another bunch of baloney. If you were to go on trial tomorrow, with the kind of publicity you’ve had, not to mention the fact that you’ve given your attorney nothing to work with ...” Which reminded me of another important question. “Kitty, have you told any of this to Williams? What has ole Jaytee said about it?”

  “About my being with Billy Weaver?” She shrugged. “I didn’t bother to tell him anything.”

  “You didn’t bother to tell him? Lady, you don’t need a lawyer, you need a keeper!”

  “Listen, do you think for one minute he gives a good goddamn if I killed the kids or if I didn’t kill the kids? You want to know about Jaytee Williams? I’ll tell you, Joe. To this day,” she clenched a fist, “to this very minute, he hasn’t asked me, not once, he hasn’t asked me if I killed the kids, if I had anything to do with it. You know what he said? You want to hear good ole Jaytee’s approach to the law? ‘Why, it don’t matter one little good goddamn, Miz Kitty, whether a person is guilty or innocent. Don’t nobody on that jury really care one way or the other. What they want is to be convinced that the person on trial either deserves to go free or deserves to go to prison.’ ” She spoke in a biting imitation of the good-old-Southern-boy drawl Williams used; she had caught his inflection and pace perfectly. She dropped it abruptly and said, “I’m very convictable right now, Joe. People want to convict me of something. After all, I haven’t behaved the way ‘people’ think I should, the way a ‘mother’ should have reacted, so what the hell, convict Kitty of murder if that’s the only charge you can come up with.” Then, remembering what I’d asked her originally, “No, I haven’t told Jaytee Williams about my leaving the kids alone and meeting Billy Weaver. What for?”

  “Why didn’t you tell Jaytee Williams that Vince Martucci is a homosexual?”

  “What for? What would be the point?”

  I just stared at her, wondering when she’d start thinking about her own situation.

  “Damn it, Joe. Vincent is a friend!”

  “A friend?” I turned my face away, then said in a quiet neutral voice, as though giving her information she didn’t already have, “Kitty, Vincent Martucci is murdering you.”

  “He had no choice. You know that better than I do. You were a part of it!”

  If things stayed at this level, there wasn’t going to be very much accomplished. “Okay, okay.” Then, more out of curiosity than anything else, “Kitty, have you ever been in touch with Marvin L. Schneiderman since you met him in the Bahama spa?”

  “Who?”

  “George carried the card he gave you in his wallet. You haven’t forgotten Marvin L. Schneiderman, have you?”

  “Of course I’ve forgotten him. Joe, what the hell good could he have done me? Sure, I’ve seen his picture in the papers; I’ve seen the election posters and ads. Look, I met him once; he was a nice guy. Can you just see the headlines if someone could connect his name with mine and—” She stopped speaking abruptly; then her eyes flashed with understanding. “Oh my God. I heard on the radio last night that he’d had a heart attack. That he had to drop out of the mayor’s race. Is that why? Because a couple of years ago he gave me his business card, with an offer to help out in any way he could?”

  It sounded very cold-blooded, the way she put it. In fact, it was v
ery cold-blooded. It added to her opinion of the American system.

  “You know, Joe, it would be funny if it wasn’t so awful.”

  She spent the next few minutes worrying about Marvin L. Schneiderman. A few minutes earlier she’d been worrying about her dead husband and how bad he’d felt about murdering their two kids. Then she’d worried about her “friend” Vincent Martucci, who had betrayed her. I wondered who she’d start worrying about next.

  “A couple more questions, Kitty, then we’ll take a ride to Jackson Heights.”

  She sat down and watched me closely with a combination of suspicion and antagonism. She was making it very difficult to get some points on her side of the balance sheet—unless loyalty counted, in which case she’d score very high. However, it wasn’t proof of her loyalty we needed. It was proof of her innocence.

  “Kitty, did you ever tell George that you left the boys alone that night?”

  She shook her head. “No. I was ashamed.” She tried to judge how I received that. “Look, I was ashamed, can’t you understand that? What kind of mother leaves two little kids alone, and one of them with the measles?”

  Compared to a father who strangles his two kids and dumps their bodies in a lot and puts a bullet into one of them, it didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world a mother could do.

  “All right, next question. Why the hell did you insist you last saw the boys between one and one-thirty A.M. on the night they were killed?”

  “Because I figured if I had been home with them, I would have checked on them at about that time.”

  “But you weren’t home with them, Kitty. Why did you stick with that time even after the Medical Examiner’s report stated they were probably both dead, or Georgie dead and Terry unconscious, by that time?”

  I knew exactly what she was going to say. And she said it.

  “Because everyone kept asking me was I sure, was I sure, was I sure it was between one and one-thirty and ...”

  “And you got mad at everyone and said, ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ ”

  “Well, what could I do at that point, Joe? Change my story? Say, ‘Wait a minute, I was wrong, it wasn’t that time after all’? Then everyone would know that I was lying!”

  “But everyone did know you were lying.”

  “I didn’t want everyone to know I’d left them alone, Joe. Can’t you understand that?”

  The funny thing is, as I was getting to know more and more about Kitty, in a way I did understand.

  I drove her over to Fresh Meadows and from there to Jackson Heights. She thought it was stupid not to go directly to Jackson Heights from her new apartment, but since I was driving she didn’t have much choice. All I asked of her was to stop fighting me, at least for an hour or so; to let herself go back to that April night, to remember sitting next to Benjamin the Cuban in his little green car. After about fifteen or twenty minutes of riding up and down the residential streets, which were a mix of four- and six-story apartment houses and two-story attached one-family homes, Kitty picked out the building.

  I knew it was the right building because earlier in the day I had checked out the phone number Kitty used to contact Billy Weaver. It was registered to a woman who I assumed—according to her name—was related to the Puerto Rican Benjamin the Cuban. Probably his mother, who resided in the six-story tan brick building which Kitty indicated.

  “Don’t look at me, look out the window. Where did the car stop that night?”

  “I don’t know, Joe. I—”

  “Look out the window, Kitty.”

  It was a one-way street, so they had had to approach it the way we were approaching it. She just shook her head. We went around the block once more, and as we approached the tan building slowly, Kitty jerked her head up.

  “Right by those garbage cans, Joe. Stop right there. I remember because I had some trouble getting out of the car.”

  “All right, now face the side, look out the window. You got out of the car, right? You had to get around the garbage cans, right? Did he help you, the driver, did he come around the car and give you a hand or anything? Damn it, don’t turn and look at me, Kitty.” I pushed her shoulder toward the car door. “I wasn’t there, you were.”

  “Joe, I don’t remember, I don’t remember. I got out of the car, and the garbage cans were there. I think they were there, I don’t know. It was so long ago.”

  “Did he come around and offer you a hand around the garbage cans? Did you rub against them? Did you get garbage on you? Did you say anything to him about it? Did you—”

  “Joe! Wait a minute, wait a minute! Don’t say anything. Just wait a minute.”

  Kitty got out of the car. I slid over to her side of the front seat, watching. She walked over to the curb, edged her way along the collection of metal cans, then around them to the sidewalk. She stood there, straining, almost willing herself to remember something.

  “Joe, oh my God, Joe!” Kitty jumped into the front seat and grabbed my arm. “Joe, there were some women. Two or three, I think. Dark clothes, Joe, you know, like ... like Italian women wear, all dark, black like in mourning. He ... Benjamin did come around the car, and he was ... wait a minute, he was moving toward me like he was going to help me, and then there were those women and one of them started to say something to him. I don’t know what, something angry, very angry. She was talking in Italian, I think. He just brushed her off and ... and ... he sort of grabbed my arm and rushed me toward the building, and the woman—my God, Joe, I remember, she said something to me, something like ... Joe, she said, ‘You better stay away from him, miss, that guy’s a bum. You ask my daughter, miss.’ ” Kitty’s voice was excited. “I had forgotten all about it until now. But there were those women. And they saw me, Joe, they saw me.”

  Which was terrific. We now had witnesses to the fact that Kitty had come to this apartment building in Jackson Heights. All I had to do was find the women, question them, get them to remember the incident. And then get them to remember the date and time it happened. And then get them to agree to sign a sworn statement to that effect and agree to testify in court to what they’d signed.

  I said to Kitty, “Well, it’s a start.” And then I drove her back to her apartment, left her at the door and went home to wait for a call from Ray Ortega.

  A little after midnight, Ray called.

  “Joe, you a Mets fan?”

  “I’m a fair-weather Mets fan. I root for them only when they’re winning.”

  “That’s a lousy attitude, Joe. You don’t deserve the terrific box seats for tomorrow’s game.”

  CHAPTER 8

  I ARRIVED AT THE designated location in the Shea Stadium parking lot about fifteen minutes earlier than the time we’d set. So did Ray Ortega. He turned to the guy with him and must have told him to wait, then Ray came over to my Chevy.

  “He’s pretty nifty, isn’t he, Joe?” We both studied Benjamin the Cuban. “Those threads are custom-made, three hundred and sixty bucks. And his shoes, they’re custom-made half boots, two-fifty. And that’s through a friend.” We continued to consider him for a while until he finally reacted the way he was supposed to: he fidgeted, took a couple of quick drags on a newly lit cigarette, then tossed it away; looked around, trying to be nonchalant; tried not to look at us and was obviously wondering what the hell kind of information we were exchanging about him.

  Ray handed me two box-seat tickets. “I’m going to catch the game, Joe. If you don’t come in, give me a call at home tonight.”

  He jerked his head and Benjamin strolled over to be introduced. What I could see of his face, underneath his probably very expensive dark glasses, wasn’t bad if you like swarthy, square-chinned, even features, full black mustache to match thick curly black hair, and a smile full of gleaming white teeth. Frankly, I’m sure it must be a pain in the ass at times to be Hollywood handsome, but that was his problem, not mine.

  After Ray left, we settled in the front seat of my car, and when Benjamin took his glasses off I could s
ee what he’d been hiding: very large, very black eyes. Without a word, I handed him a picture of Kitty Keeler. His eyes got even wider and he gave the picture back to me with the innocent protests of a priest being asked if he’d posed for an obscene picture.

  “Hey, no way, man. I don’t know this chick. Never saw her in my life.” A fine sweat broke out on his otherwise cool forehead; probably over his mouth too, but you couldn’t tell because of the mustache.

  “She knows you, Benjamin.” He kept shaking his head. “She says she does.” Then I slipped it to him. “She says you helped her get rid of her kids’ bodies.”

  His eyes opened so wide at that, it didn’t seem possible. “Oh, hey, wow, man. Hey, wow.” He continued his eloquent protest for a while, then finally said, “Jeez, all I ever did was to drive the lady to a meet with Billy that night; and then back to her apartment. Hey, man, I don’t know nothing about her kids or anything at all like that. Hey, man, you can’t lay something that heavy on me. Hey, you wanna know about me, you ask Ray Ortega, Ray knows me since I was a little kid, ya know?”

  He dragged on the cigarette he’d just lit, started to cough, then threw the cigarette out the window.

  “You don’t really enjoy smoking, do you, Benjamin?”

  When he finished coughing he said, “Hey, gee, I gave up butts last Thursday. Only I got nervous today and forgot.”

  “You got a couple of things to be nervous about, Benjamin. Tell me about that night when you picked the lady up and drove her over to her meet with Billy Weaver.”

  Billy Weaver had called him up; given him the lady’s name and address; told him to pick her up and bring her to an apartment in Jackson Heights. Then, a couple of hours later, Billy told him to bring the lady back to Fresh Meadows. He did and that was it.

  “Like the next day, I pick up the newspaper and there’s this chick’s picture on the front page and the story says her little kids was kidnapped and killed. The night before. Listen, I didn’t see her kids; man, I didn’t even know she had kids. I mean, I couldn’t care less, ya know? I never even set foot in her apartment or nothin’, just ducked into the hall, hit her bell, bam-bam-bam, and waited for her. Drove her to see Billy; drove her back. That’s it.”