Yes, she knew this; but it was crazy. No mother could ever kill her own child.
Did she know that Kitty Keeler was accused of killing the children at about the time she was here, on this street in Jackson Heights, and therefore couldn’t have been killing them in Fresh Meadows?
Mrs. Deluca looked at her sister, then back to me, and said, “See? I told you no mother could ever kill her own child.”
Had she mentioned the fact that she had seen this woman on that night? To anyone beside her sister?
“Just to my sister. Nobody else. Nobody asked me nothing until just now, when you did. I mind my business. I don’t get involved in other people’s business.”
I escorted the sisters to their building and up the three flights of stairs to their apartments: one lived in 3-A, the other in 3-B. I told Mrs. Deluca that I would type up what she had told me, with a confirming paragraph for her sister, then bring the statement over for them to sign. She nodded and said sure, as long as she would not be involved.
Keeler’s Korner was closed up tight by the time I pulled into the parking space behind the building. Danny Fitzmartin had told me that he had taken to closing earlier and earlier, the way business had fallen off. He couldn’t even afford the Irish singers more than once a week and they had kept business high. It was a vicious circle, Danny said. I sat in the car for a few minutes and jotted down the important points that Mrs. Deluca had mentioned.
At exactly two o’clock, I pulled out of the lot and drove at a moderate to fast speed over to Fresh Meadows. It took about twelve minutes from the pub lot to the Keelers’ parking space. I sat and smoked for a while, allowing the time that George had indicated in his confession it had taken him to quietly enter his apartment, listen to Kitty on the phone, enter the boys’ bedroom, pick up little Georgie, “quiet” him, pick up Terry, who was in a deep sleep, slip out of the apartment, back, to the parking lot, put the boys into the back seat of his station wagon and head back to the pub.
In just about thirty-seven minutes, I was back at the lot behind Keeler’s building.
When I got back to my apartment, I typed up Mrs. Deluca’s statement, along with her sister’s confirming remarks; then wrote up the result of my test run from Sunnyside to Fresh Meadows and back. I set the alarm clock for seven and fell asleep dreaming of black-clad Italian ladies with beautiful faces; they all looked like the Madonna of Forest Hills.
In my dream.
CHAPTER 11
HARRY SULLIVAN WAS THE kind of guy who people said didn’t look like a cop. Which had been one of his greatest assets when he had done undercover work. Until someone figured out that despite his skinny, concave build, pale complexion, soft manner of speaking and squinting eyes behind heavy glasses, he was a cop. At which point, what was left of Harry was found in some bad alley in Brooklyn. He survived a total of eight bullets and one broken leg. It was the broken leg that nearly put him out of the department on disability pay, until he convinced the brass he could still be of value as a lab technician, limp and all.
I stopped by the lab at twelve-thirty, which was when Harry’s partner was out to lunch. When I handed over the .38 bullet and asked him to run a comparison check with the Keeler murder bullet, Harry didn’t raise an eyebrow or bat an eye. He just set to work, humming a flat whining sound which never changed all the time he studied the two bullets and jotted down his findings on a note pad.
He took off his glasses and polished them with a tissue and said, “Of course, this isn’t definitive, Joe. You know that’ll take a while. But, as a working hypothesis, we’ve got a match here.”
When I handed him the plastic bag with the retrieved revolver in it, before he touched it he asked if it had been dusted. Then he took the gun out and laid it on his worktable. There were a couple of tests I wanted run and Harry assured me he’d let me know in a day or two what he’d determined.
Harry agreed to keep the test bullet and the gun in safekeeping under a dummy file number which could not, at this time, be connected with the Keeler murder bullet. All he asked me was, “I’m not going to be stuck with a murder weapon for an indefinite length of time, am I, Joe?”
I assured him that would not be the case; either I would ask for it by file number in the future or someone authorized by me would ask for it.
While we were talking it over, an excited young uniformed cop came into the lab.
“Hey, Harry, ya know what just come over the ticker? That Mafioso, Vincent Martucci. He just got hit in Forest Hills. Him and his chauffeur.”
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, I feel a little guilty about being such a good liar. But then I soothe my conscience by reminding myself that this ability saves a lot of long-drawn-out explanations and trouble. When I arrived in Forest Hills Gardens, all I told Tim Neary was that I had flown back from Miami last night. That things were not so great between Jen and me. Which was true; that part of it anyway. Since Tim had other things to worry about at that moment, he didn’t have any questions. Just a quick sympathetic hand on my shoulder.
The scene in the Martucci kitchen was pretty bad. Vincent and his chauffeur, William “Willie” Donato, had been sitting down to a lunch of scrambled eggs and peppers. The thick bright-red stuff all over the food wasn’t ketchup. Vince, who apparently had been seated with his back to the outside kitchen door, must have fallen face down into his plate of food before hitting the floor. There were globs of egg stuck in his eyebrows. A long thin fried pepper was pasted on his forehead like an Indian woman’s jewel.
There were golf clubs in an expensive leather golf bag leaning against a kitchen counter. It was learned that the two men had been out early in the morning and had played eighteen holes at Martucci’s exclusive club in Manhasset.
It was a cinch we’d never run down who had monitored Martucci’s whereabouts, but you had to admit, the job was well done. It was Mrs. Martucci’s “volunteer day” at a hospital on Long Island; the Martucci children were at school; the Martucci maid was on a day off. By rough estimate, there were a minimum of four hit men. It was well coordinated and they knew exactly what they were doing. The front door was riddled—probably at the same time that the kitchen door was blasted open. The two Martucci Doberman attack dogs had been stationed in the front entry hall. That was where they were found: beautiful, sleek and dead.
Assistant District Attorney Edward M-for-Martin Quibro appeared on the scene about a half hour after I arrived. He had to be physically restrained from grabbing and touching possible evidence. He was a menace at a crime scene. He was determined to impress the importance of the catastrophe on us.
“My God,” he told us, “this man was the whole Keeler case. I had it all sewn up. This couldn’t have happened at a worse possible time. How the hell could you people have let this happen, Neary?”
Tim stared straight over Quibro’s neatly combed head, then suddenly shoved him with a good forearm blow. Quibro went flying into a wall before he could slide down to the floor. Tim was at his side, yanking at an arm, asking if he was all right.
“Jeez, Ed, you almost stepped in that puddle of blood. You wouldn’t want to get all that mess on your nice shiny shoes, would you?”
Tim went over to one of the squad guys and said, “Get that little bastard the hell outa here.”
It was a couple of hours before the two bodies could be removed. Just as the mortuary ambulance was leaving, Mrs. Martucci pulled into the driveway and parked her Mercedes behind a squad car. I intercepted her as she was about to enter through the kitchen. It was still pretty messy.
“What’s happened?” she asked quietly.
I told her. Then I walked her around to the front hall. The dogs were still there, but they were covered over. She stopped for a moment, gracefully bent down, lifted the canvas covering. Then she let it drop. She turned and said to me, “I never liked these animals. Too large. Unpleasant personal habits.”
Mrs. Martucci offered some brandy to Tim and me; we both declined and watched as she po
ured some for herself, settled gracefully on the center of a small velvet couch. With an elegant, gracious gesture, she directed us into chairs facing her.
I could see Tim’s reaction to her beauty; he hadn’t seen her before. She waited for us. She apparently had no questions of her own.
“Mrs. Martucci, what time will your daughters be home from school?”
She ran a fingertip around the edge of her glass and said, “Normally, they would be home at three o’clock.” She checked her watch. “Just about now. But they have been invited to spend the weekend at a schoolmate’s home.” She paused and her cool stare seemed to dare me to question the arrangement. “This appointment,” she explained, unasked, “was made several weeks ago.”
“And is Friday your maid’s regular day off?”
“No. Her mother has been ill for the past month. So I have permitted Pearl, that is the maid, to take off Fridays and Saturdays to tend to her mother, who lives in Brooklyn. The other days of the week are divided up amongst Pearl’s sisters. Jamaicans are very devoted to their family.”
“And do you do volunteer work at the hospital every Friday, Mrs. Martucci, or was it just this Friday?”
Her mouth turned up slightly in the corners; cool, controlled amusement. “Every Friday. I live a well-regulated life.”
“And what about your husband? Did he go golfing every Friday? Did he follow a well-regulated schedule in his life?”
I could sense Tim’s reaction to all this; he glanced at me, then back to the woman, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Everything we had said, back and forth, had the light baiting tone of people who said one thing in words, another thing beneath the words.
“Vincent did whatever he chose to do; whenever he chose to do it. He never confided his plans to me.”
She had nothing further to offer us. She did not know her husband’s friends; she did not know her husband’s enemies. She knew little of his business or his business connections. She supposed there must be many people who wanted him dead. And probably many others who wanted him alive.
“How about you, Mrs. Martucci?”
Her fingers spread around her brandy glass, and her dark eyes quickly checked out Tim, then came back to me. With a very slight movement of her shoulders, she gave her answer: one way or the other, what was the difference?
She decided she would go to her sister’s home for the next few days; until “things” were decided.
She went to the leather-topped desk and on a heavy cream-colored piece of notepaper with her name engraved on it she wrote out her sister’s address and phone number. When she held it out, offering it to me, I reached for it. She didn’t release it immediately: it formed a connection between us.
She said softly, her eyes fastened on my lips, her tongue flicking to the corners of her mouth, “It does not really matter to me; any of this. It is all the same. He was of absolutely no use to me. And I am a woman of many needs.” She smiled and released the slip of paper. “I shall be at that location. If you should want me.”
She led the way to the front door; Tim gave me his impressed hey-what-goes-on-here look. I winked at him and shrugged.
The late New York Post headline read: KEY KEELER WITNESS KILLED. I couldn’t wait to see the headline on the early edition of the News.
Jeremiah Kelleher generously provided one of the smaller courtrooms for a meeting of all concerned: Homicide Squad members, D.A.’s Squad members, Paul Sutro and a couple of his fellow crime-family specialists.
Jerry opened the meeting by informing Captain Chris Wise of Homicide that he was to feel free to call upon the services of the office of the Queens District Attorney and his staff at any time, in any capacity, to assist in his handling of this homicide. Which was a very nice way of telling Wise it was all his.
Chris Wise, in a very reasonable voice, under the circumstances, asked a very reasonable question. “I would like to know why the fuck this sitting duck of a dummy was walking around without some protection?”
Edward Martin Quibro jumped right in. “It was the job of the District Attorney’s office to obtain an indictment in the Keeler case. Which we did. The witness was under protective surveillance for several weeks both before and after his appearance before the grand jury, and this surveillance was called off at the insistence of the deceased. Issued through his attorney.”
Chris Wise stared at Quibro blankly. Then he said, “I would like to know why the fuck this sitting duck of a dummy was walking around without some protection?”
I sat on one of the polished courtroom benches next to Tim Neary, who kept tapping his ballpoint pen on his notebook in time with whatever the hell he was whistling through his slightly parted lips. It was not his near-losing-control whistle. It was more his what’s-all-this-to-do-with-me.
I leaned close to Tim. “Timmy, just between the two of us, how come you didn’t continue a surreptitious surveillance on Martucci?”
Tim looked around quickly, then winked at me and pulled his mouth down with the grimace of a ten-year-old admitting he hadn’t done his homework. “Jeez, Joe, with all the other stuff that’s been going on,” he winked, “you know, I just forgot to assign anyone.”
Jerry Kelleher, who had positioned himself in front of the judge’s bench, quietly made his exit in the middle of a very heated exchange between Quibro and Wise, set off by Paul Sutro’s charts, which revealed that any one of approximately thirty crime-family members would benefit by the demise of Vincent Martucci.
Kelleher stopped for a moment, nodded at Tim and said, serenely, “Keep the faith, Timmy.”
“You bet,” Timmy answered.
The Keeler case was no longer the responsibility of either one of them. The primary was little more than a week away and Jerry Kelleher was running unopposed. He would undoubtedly become the next Mayor of the City of New York. In which case, Tim Neary would be our next Police Commissioner.
It was Edward M. Quibro who was now on the line. He was an unknown who needed the satisfactory wind-up of the Keeler case to recommend him to the voters come November. Dropping charges against Kitty Keeler would hardly be considered a satisfactory windup by the voting public. Without Martucci, Quibro’s case was all circumstantial, to say the least.
After about an hour more of buck passing and senseless speculation, Chris Wise picked his hat up off the counsel’s table, planted it firmly on his head and announced to anyone who cared to do anything about it, “I’m not saying one more fucking word until this fucking jackass gets the hell outa this room.”
At which point Tim Neary and I assisted Quibro from the courtroom with assurances that he would be kept posted on the entire situation. Tim couldn’t help saying, “After all, Ed, we all realize how much you have riding on this case.”
We watched Quibro hustle down the hall, buckling the straps of his briefcase as he went.
Paul Sutro was waiting for us in Tim’s office. He was settled comfortably on Tim’s couch, everything about him relaxed and easy. Everything except his large, dark, hooded eyes. It must have been a trick of the lighting, the way certain shadows fell on his large strong profile, or the way he held himself, but Paul Sutro could have modeled for one of those marble heads of a Roman emperor. His fringe of black hair fitted him like a wreath. He was a living encyclopedia on the structure and machinations of organized crime. He collected bits and pieces of information the way other guys collect rare, exotic stamps, and he displayed his treasures with the same kind of reverence and respect. The word was that Sutro was writing a book; the odds were that he wouldn’t live long enough to see it published, but my money was on Paul. He seemed to be the exception to the “rule of silence.” People talked to Paul. For their own reasons, of course. But he had a way of finding out more than people thought they were telling him.
“Well, what’s the inside word, Paul? Was Vinnie’s hit the start of something or the end of something? Or did somebody just do Kitty Keeler a big favor, or what?”
“Well, o
bviously the hit was the end of Vinnie,” he told us, “but the word is that it’s the start of something a helluva lot bigger than Vincent Martucci. We’re going to see some blood in the streets before things settle down, Tim.”
“You don’t mean that someone’s gonna avenge Martucci, do you?”
Sutro shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “No, Tim, no. Vincent was dead the day it was known that he testified before the grand jury. No one argues with that. And not because of Kitty Keeler. Actually, she has very little to do with it. It was the fact of his having testified at all; about anything, anyone. You don’t do that and live. The word out was that he and Kitty had a falling out, a lover’s quarrel, and he testified against her because of it. But no matter what the reason, the fact is the same: he broke the silence. Now, a man who does that once might as well do it again; what the hell has he got to lose at that point?”
“What about Keeler’s accomplice?” Tim asked. “Couldn’t this Mister X, Y or Z or whatever the hell have blasted Vincent for his own protection?”
“Anything’s possible, Tim, but it’s unlikely. Very unlikely. There are too many things moving behind the scenes. A few nights ago, Alfredo Veronne held a meeting with his sons. A kind of ‘passing of the crown’; there are going to be power moves, shifts, a reorganization in the East Coast ‘family.’ A certain number of resignations—by execution, disappearance, ‘industrial accidents’—like someone getting mixed in with the concrete foundation of a new building. That sort of thing.”
“Wait a minute, Paul.” I was puzzled. “Wadda ya mean, Veronne is passing the crown now? I saw Veronne what? six, seven weeks ago, and he looked to me like he’d been out of touch with things for a long time. I mean, the man was barely alive.”
“He’s been alive, Joe. And he’s been the controlling force of this part of the organization right up until a few days ago. He’s been ruling, quietly, from his bed, Joe.” Paul tapped his forehead. “He’s a Machiavellian, Joe; brain like a devious computer. Feed in the information, spell out the problem, and click-click-click, out come ten different solutions, each one viable. He’s one of a kind, Joe. None of the other old-timers really understand any of the changes needed in the modern world. The only one to understand and appreciate the various power structures and methods of modern business has been Veronne. He was the only really far-sighted one; he prepared his sons for the modern organization. Two of them have law degrees; two of them have master’s in business administration. The other old-timers, it was all one big bucket of blood with money as the prize. Only Veronne was sophisticated enough, with a rare native intelligence, to understand the overlapping of the old organization into various areas of legitimate industry and government. A very remarkable man.”
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