He nodded.
“Not safe for you? In particular?”
Arnold Nadler stood up and looked around, but there wasn’t any floor space for him to pace, if that’s what he wanted to do, so he just sat down again in his swivel chair and turned first one way, then the other, all the time shaking his head and blotting his damp face. Then he stopped moving around, pulled off his glasses, dug at his exhausted, reddened eyes, smeared at his glasses with his dirty handkerchief.
I just waited him out.
Finally he calmed down, slowed himself down, took a deep breath and said, “Sooner or later, I knew you’d come. If not one of you, my God, maybe one of them. I guess I should be glad it’s you instead of them.”
“Well, since I’m the one who’s here, how about talking to me? About that night?”
He nodded; bounced his pencil on the surface of his desk. It flew from his fingers and landed somewhere on the floor. He put his hands, palms down, on the desk blotter. It started to get damp.
I helped him. “Let’s start with that night, Mr. Nadler. You took your dog out and ...”
“My dog? My dog? What does Pom-Pom have to do with anything?”
“Tell you what, Mr. Nadler. Let’s do it this way. It’s your story. You tell me what happened the night the Keeler boys were murdered.”
He folded his hands one over the other but couldn’t control the trembling. There was a small tic at the corner of his right eye, and from time to time he reached up, adjusted his glasses and lightly touched the jumping nerve.
“I was coming home. I had parked my car in the parking lot. It was late. In April I work late hours, long hours. People think, after the fifteenth, things slack off, but I have clients who need extensions and I only begin to get to work on their taxes after my regulars. And it piles up. So through most of April and May, sometimes even in June, I work late.”
He reached for his calendar appointment book, opened it to the week of April 14–April 20, 1975. The small boxes were filled with an illegible collection of notes. He pointed to Wednesday, April 16.
“All day, I worked. First in the city. Then I had to go over to Brooklyn. Then, in the evening, here, look, see ...” He turned the book toward me and showed me his schedule. “See, ‘P.M.: Christie’s Lounge, N.J.’—I already had a few accounts in Jersey, near Somers. But we were still in Fresh Meadows, so I had to travel. Fifteen, eighteen hours a day in April, May. That’s standard for a C.P.A. at tax time. So that night I had to go to Jersey. And the books were in worse shape than I expected. I just took them on as a new client. What a mess; so it was very late when I came home. Maybe two-fifteen, two-twenty in the morning, so—”
“Wait a minute. Are you sure of the time? Was it that late? Couldn’t have been closer to midnight? Maybe twelve-thirty?”
Nadler shook his head emphatically. “No way. Maybe two-twenty, somewhere around there.”
Which didn’t make much sense; Benjamin picked Kitty up at about twelve-thirty. But then, maybe Nadler had seen Kitty returning home; which had been closer to 3 A.M.
“Could it have been later, Mr. Nadler? Say ... three A.M.?”
Nadler looked blank.
“Mr. Nadler, I’m sorry. Look, you just go on and tell me what you saw. We’ll worry about the timing later, okay?”
“Well, so I parked my car in the parking lot and I walked toward my building.”
Which is the building adjoining the Keelers’.
“Before I got to the first court, as I came around the side from the parking lot, I noticed a car. Parked at the curb. The headlights were on and the motor was running. And what made it seem strange to me was that the doors were open. Back door and front door.”
“All of the doors? All four doors?”
He nodded. “Yeah, yeah. No. Not all four doors. Two doors, at the sidewalk side. And ... I would have just kept going, right past, only there were voices. And they sounded, you know, they sounded angry. Very angry.”
“Angry?”
“Like they were fighting. Arguing. They came from the building, a man and a woman, and it was like they’d been arguing inside and just kept on as they walked outside toward the car.”
“What building did they come from?”
“From the building where the Keelers lived.”
Neither Kitty nor Benjamin had said anything about arguing. “All right. Then what? What did you do?”
“Well, I realized they couldn’t see me, I was in the shadow. I guess I took a step or two back, so they wouldn’t see me. You know, I was embarrassed. Maybe I thought they’d be embarrassed, arguing when they thought they were alone, and then, if they saw me, it would be ... embarrassing.”
“Go on.”
“So, anyway, I stepped back and waited. For them to get into the car and drive away.”
“And? Did they get into the car and drive away?”
Nadler didn’t look at me; he looked at his hands.
“Mr. Nadler, what kind of car was it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know cars. Dark. It was a dark car.”
“Big car? Small car? Compact? What?”
“Oh, it was a big car. Big.”
“Big?” A Datsun? Big? “You sure of that? It wasn’t a small car?”
Nadler shook his head. In a dull flat voice he said, “It was a big black car. Cadillac maybe; or a Lincoln. Something like that.”
“A Cadillac or a Lincoln? Not ... not a green Datsun?”
“A Datsun? No. No, that’s a small car. This was a big car.”
He was waiting for me; he would answer whatever I asked him, but he wasn’t going to volunteer on his own.
“Did you speak to either of the people you saw walking toward this car? To the man? To the woman?”
He shook his head. “Oh, no way. No way. I just stood there in the shadows and waited. Until ... until they got into ... until they ...”
“Mr. Nadler.” Those small hairs stood up at the base of my neck; my throat felt dry and tight as Nadler squared his shoulders, licked his lips, and let his hands fall into his lap. There was a kind of final resolve in his posture: a decision finally made. He turned his face toward me and watched me closely.
“Arnold. Tell me exactly what you saw and heard that night.” He nodded and kept focused on me. “Get it all out and over with, you’ve been living with it long enough.”
His voice came out steadier than it had been; there was a sound almost of relief at finally telling what he’d kept bottled up.
“I stood and watched them come toward the car. I was not more than ten feet away from them. They each, the man and the woman, they were each carrying something.” He looked down at his hands, sucked in a deep breath. His voice broke, but he kept on. “Detective Peters, they were each carrying a child. They looked like they were sleeping. The children. The man, he ... he was a big man. Very large. Look, I’ll be honest. I was scared to death. Something about him; about both of them. He sort of pushed the woman toward the car, then he, my God, he sort of threw the child he was carrying into the back seat.” Nadler twisted his fingers together and licked at his lips. “There was, like, a thud when he threw the child into the back of the car. The woman said, I don’t know, something like ‘My God, you hit his head.’ ”
The welt on Terry Keeler’s forehead; the unexplained abrasion that was never publicized.
“And what did the man say, or do?”
There were tears streaming down Arnold Nadler’s cheeks. He seemed unaware of them; his voice was ragged and thin. “The man just sort of pushed her into the car, into the back seat, and he said something like ‘What difference does that make now?’ and when the woman got into the back seat, with the child in her arms, he, the man, slammed the back door. Then he slammed the front door and walked around and got into the car, on the driver’s side and drove off. I waited until the car turned the corner. And then ... I went ... I went home. To my apartment.”
Arnold Nadler was soaked by the time he f
inished talking. I had seen a box of tissues on the gravel-voiced woman’s desk; I stepped into that office and came back with the box, which I handed to him. He took a wad of tissues and blotted his face, blew his nose, then wiped the inside of his shirt collar. His hands trembled so badly that he dropped the tissues onto the floor, started to reach for them, then stopped and held out his hands.
We both watched the terrible trembling. “This is how I’ve been ever since that night. The next day, of course, we all heard about ... about the Keeler boys and all. And then all the newspapers printed stories about ... about Mrs. Keeler and all her ... gangster friends. I was afraid, Detective Peters,” Nadler said. “I was scared to death. I still am.”
I did not want to ask Arnold Nadler one more question. Particularly, I did not want to ask him the single most important question. But I asked him.
“Mr. Nadler, did you recognize the woman you saw carrying a child into the back seat of that car?”
“Oh, yes. It was her.”
“Her?”
He nodded and blinked rapidly. “The mother. Kitty Keeler. I recognized her. You know, from the neighborhood. I recognized her right away. I don’t think I’d ever seen the man before. It wasn’t her husband, that much I do know. He was a big, dark, heavyset man. He looked ... like ... a gangster.”
Yes, a police officer did come to his apartment the next day, but he had already left for an early-morning appointment with a client. Nadler showed me his appointment book in confirmation. His wife had nothing to tell the police officer; Nadler didn’t tell her anything until a few days later, when he insisted they move out to New Jersey without delay.
Just out of curiosity, to tie up a dangling loose end, I asked him what kind of dog he had.
“Pom-Pom? Oh, she’s a Pekingese. She’s very old; nineteen years, something like that. My wife had her since before we were married.”
So Arnold Nadler wasn’t even the man with the sheep dog.
And there was still something else he hadn’t told me and wanted to tell. He was just waiting for me to ask.
“Mr. Nadler, what else do you know that might be helpful?”
He knew the license number of the large black automobile that was used to transport the bodies of the Keeler boys to the dumping ground on Peck Avenue.
He might not be on top of all the various makes and models of automobiles, but when it came to numbers, Arnold Nadler had a brain like a computer.
CHAPTER 14
THE CAR, A 1975 BLACK Lincoln Continental, was registered to Lorenzo Pellegrino.
Lorenzo Pellegrino was the companion, bodyguard, chauffeur and henchman of Alfredo Veronne.
I sat in my apartment for hours reading and rereading every report, interview, speculation, confession and statement regarding every aspect of the murder of the Keeler kids.
For the first time, I read Harry Sullivan’s report in its entirety and caught what I had missed by skimming. I underlined the key finding with red pen: “... therefore it is the conclusion of the undersigned based on the above described tests, that subject revolver has been submerged in salt water solution as described in paragraph 3-subdivision b, for a period of no less than one week and no more than two weeks.”
No more than two weeks.
According to George Keeler’s confession, he had tossed his unregistered .38 revolver into Flushing Meadow Bay on the night of the double murder of his sons: sometime around 3 A.M. on Thursday, April 17, 1975. Nearly two months ago.
There was a pattern of events dating from May 27, 1975, the date of George’s suicide and detailed confession.
The pages and pages of typed and handwritten reports began to blur; word ran into word; line ran into line. I began to feel disconnected: by fatigue; by an unwillingness to admit and analyze the growing discomfit and suspicion I had been feeling for several days.
One of the basic rules when concocting a false story is to keep it loose; keep it easy; keep it fluid; avoid too many precise details; incorporate your surroundings; use what you see at the moment to reinforce your claims.
Like garbage cans on the edge of the sidewalk late at night.
Kitty. Kitty.
When I switched on the television, I was surprised to catch the eleven-o’clock news. It felt more like three o’clock of a very bad morning.
None of the international horrors made any impression; too far away, remote, impersonal.
On the national scene, some poor dope tried to hold up a bank in Cleveland, using a little gun he’d carved out of soap. A bright-eyed grandmother-type bank teller laughed into the camera when praised for her courage in standing up to the would-be bandit: “Why, for heavens sake, the paint was coming off all over his hand. It wasn’t anything but a cake of Ivory soap and that’s pretty much what it looked like.” Laugh-laugh. “I’m not about to hand over my day’s receipts to someone who waves a bar of Ivory soap in my face!”
I must have nodded off for a minute or two when the newscaster’s voice cut through my dulled exhaustion with the words “... Alfredo Veronne has been in seclusion for most of the last three or four years, living quietly at his estate in Kensington, the most exclusive enclave in exclusive Great Neck.”
The overvoice described what was being shown: old news clips dating back to the days of the Kefauver hearings. A younger, steel-faced Alfredo Veronne respectfully declining to answer. A straight-backed, Homburg-wearing Veronne deferring to his attorney as he bolted from court steps to waiting limousine. A quick rundown of some of his more sensational arrests, illustrated by shots of Veronne being escorted in handcuffs from squad car to precinct for booking; follow-up shots of Veronne hurrying, head down and face concealed in time-honored gangster fashion, from Criminal Courts Building to a taxi while his attorney expressed indignation over “excessive bail.”
Then a live shot to outside the Veronne mansion; quick interviews with guarded, reluctant neighbors: “I really never met the family. We all tend to stay pretty much to ourselves in this community.” A woman caught off guard: “A gangster? You’re kidding. I always thought he was a retired European film director. Now, where could I have gotten that?”
The live shot picked up on several nuns being hurried from a station wagon to the front door and then inside the mansion. Attempts were made to identify them: from what order? for what purpose?
Finally a young priest stepped outside the door and responded to the persistent questioning: “Look, gentlemen, Mr. Veronne has personally contributed millions of dollars, literally millions of dollars, to so many charities, I doubt if he could remember them all himself. Because of his charity, thousands of children with deforming diseases have been restored to a useful life. Elderly indigents have been guaranteed dignity and protection in several homes financed solely by Mr. Veronne. There are many, many people, in religious orders and outside of religious orders, who want to offer prayers on his behalf this night.”
The priest smiled, nodded, ignored questions and disappeared back inside the Veronne home.
“And so, Jim,” the newsman on the spot said, “we have the strange and conflicting picture of this man Alfredo Veronne. On the one hand, the vicious and feared crime lord, known for his brilliance and ruthlessness; on the other hand, philanthropist and benefactor to untold numbers of helpless. His family and friends and beneficiaries from religious orders all over the country arrive at his fortresslike home in Kensington, Great Neck, Long Island, to keep the watch through the night, as Alfredo Veronne prepares to face that final, ultimate judge, who will not accept the plea of the Fifth Amendment....”
I switched to another channel and caught another wrap-up of the career of Alfredo Veronne: an interview with Paul Sutro, who stated that in his estimation Veronne had one of the most brilliant, Machiavellian minds he’d ever encountered. That, given the opportunity and the education, in a different setting Veronne would have been able to move mountains or arbitrate the most complex international disagreements to the satisfaction of all concerned.
As Paul Sutro’s voice droned on, repeating almost verbatim what he had already told Tim Neary and me about Alfredo Veronne’s brilliant, problem-solving mind, I began to dig through pages and pages of reports, then remembered that I hadn’t typed up what I was looking for: it was still just a series of cryptic notes in one of my notebooks.
I read it over carefully.
Jamaica Hosp. 12/23/70; Dr. J.Lattimore-neuro-surg. R.Mogliano—contusions/abrasions; C.Mogliano—possible concussion; X-ray work-up; curious re condition—why girl cripple? why no past corr.surg. & therapy? Lattimore opin: girl should have had surg. 8–10 yrs. ago; too late now; patient transf. via priv. ambul.
What Dr. Lattimore had told me was that the young husband had been puzzled by his questions; had assumed the girl had been hopelessly crippled as a very young child. When Ray had approached Alfredo Veronne with questions about the lack of corrective treatment of the girl’s condition, Veronne had made it very clear that the matter was not open for discussion in any way. Lattimore’s educated guess, without any other information, was that Veronne had deliberately neglected therapy for the girl, possibly as a means to keep her close to him, dependent on him.
Before I left my apartment, I gave myself the onceover in the bathroom mirror: freshly shaved, clean-shirted, dark-suited and necktied, I looked as respectable and respectful as any other “family man” coming to pay my last visit to Alfredo Veronne.
I parked a couple of streets away from Veronne’s mansion. I didn’t want my Chevy to stand out among all the Continentals and Cadillacs and Mercedes.
Small quiet groups of people were being admitted as other small quiet groups were leaving the mansion. I just walked along, right past the uniformed private guards, the television and newspaper cameramen; just kept my head down sadly, stepped back politely so that the lady next to me could enter first. We were all ushered into the dimly lit marble reception hall. A tall slightly graying, beautifully tailored and well-tanned guy thanked us all for coming and shook each hand. Apparently he was one of Veronne’s sons; I heard someone call him by name, so that when he took my hand I just said, “Anthony, Anthony. Terrible, terrible.” He agreed with me and we both looked sad.
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