Investigation (10 page)

“What about the bullet in the second boy’s head?” Walker, Geraldi’s young partner, was a little puzzled.

Vito swung around heavily toward me. “Joe? Show him how to account for the bullet.”

“Either of two ways: One, that the kid was dead from the sleeping pills, and the bullet was an afterthought, to make it look like someone took him from his bed to kill him. Or, two, that the kid wasn’t dead, and the bullet, again, was to make it look like someone took him from his bed to kill him. The bullet in the kid’s head was a cover.”

Neary mentioned some of the names found in Kitty’s phone book. “I’m having all names checked by Paul Sutro. Joe, you know Sutro, right? Used to work in Special Services, then retired and is working for the State Organized Crime Unit.”

“Yeah, I know Paul.”

“Joey,” Vito said, “what’s your impression of the little mother? You seen her before and after the kids were found.”

None of them had seen Kitty Keeler yet; just her picture in the newspaper; just her quick appearance on the TV news. I remembered the inappropriate hostility, the unprovoked challenge, the blatant sexuality in her every move. I wondered if a woman who had just killed her two children could have carried that performance off. And then I remembered a certain look, a frozen instant when her eyes sought mine, just before I left the apartment with George. To identify the murdered boys. It had been a look different from the rest of her behavior, but I still wasn’t sure.

“She looks like the kind of girl who would have the kind of names in her telephone book that Kitty has.” That was true.

“What about the husband—George? You think he’s involved?” Geraldi’s partner asked.

“He seems to have an alibi,” Neary answered.

I thought of George for a moment; remembered his anguish when the kids were missing. It had seemed real, but it could have been caused by knowledge of the children’s murders. Except if his alibi held up. Thinking of George, I remembered Kitty Keeler; her unexpected tenderness and concern for George. That had seemed real, too.

“Now, I want to point out,” Neary told the squad, “that there is
very heavy pressure
from the top floor on this case. And that pressure bounces right on me. So, from me to you: get out there and bust your asses on this case. If you all like working in this squad, that is.”

Neary spent the next half hour giving out assignments. The men were instructed to ring doorbells systematically; were told to hit the bars, drugstores, food shops, beauty parlors, barbershops, drygoods shops, restaurants; hit every department in Bloomingdale’s Fresh Meadows branch; check the movies. Reinterview every person who had already been interviewed by the uniformed force. They were to determine if anyone at all had seen anything at all that might relate to the Keeler case. If anyone had seen any of the Keelers, mother, father, either child, anytime, under any circumstances at all, after 7:30
P.M.,
Wednesday, April 16. The men were additionally told to ask about the presence of the white Porsche and Patti MacDougal. Teams were assigned to check out the names of all persons listed, male and female alike, in Kitty Keelers telephone book.

“We have to find out who helped Kitty Keeler. Someone did. She didn’t do it all by herself.” Neary voiced the common feeling in the squad. In effect, the investigation we were undertaking was not to determine
who
killed the Keeler kids, but to prove that
Kitty Keeler
killed them and to locate her accomplice/accomplices.

Tim, Vito and I went into Tim’s office. Vito crushed the lit end of his cigar between his fingers, then slipped the dead stump into his pocket. Vito and all of his clothing always smelled of cigar butts. Vito leaned over, picked up Tim’s reading glasses and studied his notes.

“Jeez, Timmy, I better get me reading glasses. My eyesight’s gettin’ bad as yours.”

“That’s old age, Vito,” I told him.

Vito is a very physical guy. He punched me on the arm with what
he
thought was playful force; the pain ran down to my elbow and up to my shoulder.

Tim pulled open a bottom drawer and took out a bottle of Dewar’s. He didn’t bother to ask; we each had a shot in silence, then Tim leaned back in his chair.

“I want Kitty Keeler taken down to the morgue. I want her to see those kids
before
the funeral home pretties them up.”

I nodded. “Right, Tim. What time you want me to pick her up?”

Tim shook his head slowly, then pointed his chin at Vito. “You, Vito. You’re to take her. I’ll let you know when. Probably late afternoon tomorrow. I’m hoping to have enough to bring her in for interrogation by tomorrow night. There are a hell of a lot of questions that we haven’t asked, and that she hasn’t answered. Including the fact that she called her husband last night at eleven-twenty; and that she got a phone call at three
A.M.
Vito, get over to the phone company tomorrow. Find out if she made any out-of-town calls.”

Tim checked out my morning assignments, but he kept looking at me as though he wasn’t paying attention to what we were talking about. Like he was thinking about something else; about me. Finally he said, “Joe, you’re gonna be the
good
guy. To Vito’s
bad
guy.”

“That’s not a good idea, Tim. I don’t think Kitty would consider me in that role.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know; she and Catalano hit it off pretty good. Do you think maybe ...”

Tim automatically said, “That son-of-a-bitch. Forget him; he stays buried as far as I’m concerned.”

“Then one of the younger guys, Walker or—”

“Joe. I said you.”
Tim held a stare. I wasn’t about to start playing eyeball games with him.

“Look, Tim. I don’t know why, maybe because I stuck with George this morning, but this broad doesn’t seem to like me any better than I like her, so—”

“Joe,” Tim said sharply, “I’m not
asking
you to go
steady
with the girl. I’m
telling
you to play
good guy,
to Vito’s bad guy.” Tim let his authority sink in.

What the hell; he’s the boss. His head was on the line, not mine. “Tell me when and where, Cap. You call the signals.”

Tim took out his bottle and refilled the shot glasses. This time it hit me right in the midriff with a blast. The ulcer wanted milk, not booze; the rest of me wanted booze and sleep, because it was pretty clear that we were all going to be keeping long hours for a while.

T
HE BRONX MAY HAVE
taken longer than some other boroughs to change, but when change started, it went fast. Almost en masse, those white middle-class citizens who hadn’t already moved out to Long Island, Westchester or Jersey poured into the fortresslike skyscrapers of Co-Op City. The only people left when the blacks and Puerto Ricans came spilling in were the old people who still paid nearly the same rents as they had for more than twenty-five years. Who had been fixed in income, fixed in a particular neighborhood, in a particular building, in a particular apartment. They stayed as though serving a life sentence; their next and only move would be in a box. For the first time in their lives, people like Kitty Keeler’s mother, Mary Hogan, became conspicuous: part of a minority of white, elderly, vulnerable, frightened people.

Mrs. Hogan carefully reset the three locks inside her door, then led me down a long dark hallway toward the living room. She hesitated at the doorway to the kitchen, asked if I’d like some tea, then continued into the living room.

It was from another era. The overstuffed furniture had probably been recovered several times, but it was in perfect condition, with handmade doilies on arms and along the backs. It was all dark and serviceable. The end tables gleamed with high polish and were topped with ornate lamps whose shades were covered by cellophane wrappers. Heavy clean curtains covered the windows; there were some dark-green plants and some artificial flowering plants; an old black-and-white television set; a small bookshelf that held some religious statues and some children’s books. There were photographs of children everywhere: baby pictures, Communion and Confirmation mementos, class groups, rows of kids in dark parochial-school uniforms; gawky adolescents, girls thin and shy, boys looking sheepish in Navy and Army uniforms; wedding pictures, graduation pictures; a couple of yellowing newspaper clippings with a blurred picture of the high-school basketball star. More baby pictures, one generation overlapping the other. A studio portrait of Kitty taken in cap and gown: face a little fuller, much softer, lips slightly parted, sensuous but at the same time innocent; nothing innocent coming from her eyes, which stared directly at the camera, something challenging and knowing and cool coming from her eyes. All the time I spoke to her mother, Kitty watched me, lips parted, eyes shrewd and clever.

Mrs. Hogan’s eyes riveted on my mouth; I had forgotten she was hard of hearing. Even so, her concentration was unnerving; it had the quality of a frightened animal trying desperately to figure out what was expected of it; anxious not to miss a clue. She had something of the dazed, shocked look of an accident victim who hasn’t yet fully understood or experienced the extent of her injury. There was something abstract and vague about her. She ran her hand nervously down from her neck, caught at the rim of her apron.

“Oh, my, I didn’t realize,” she said, staring down at herself. She untied the apron and folded it into a neat square, which she held on her lap and fingered and patted.

“I just want to talk with you a little, Mrs. Hogan. About Kitty. And her family.”

She nodded dumbly; there was no objection, no resistance, no resentment, no wariness. Just a resignation and an expectation. It was hard to see her eyes; the reflection from the lamp by my side glinted them out under her glasses.

“Mrs. Hogan, George Keeler is considerably older than your daughter, isn’t he?”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, old enough to be her father. More than old enough, I guess. Kitty’s father died when she was an infant,” she added. “There were the four boys. And Kitty, the last.”

“It must have been hard for you, Mrs. Hogan, all alone like that.”

Mrs. Hogan’s mouth tightened; her hands folded narrow pleats into the apron. “I worked to support my children; I never took anything from anyone. And I wasn’t ashamed of the work I did; there’s no shame in honest work. Kitty was ashamed of it, that I worked as a waitress downtown in Schrafft’s. None of the boys felt that way. Just Kitty.”

She bit down on her lip to keep the words from spilling out unchecked.

“How did Kitty get to know George?”

“Well, he owned his own establishment then, up on Webster Avenue. And my oldest son, Richie, worked for him. And Kitty was good at figures, arithmetic and bookkeeping and the like; so when she was in her last year of high school, she worked several hours each day, doing the books for George and all.”

“And they started to see each other then? Go out together?”

For a minute, I thought she hadn’t caught the question, but before I could repeat myself she shook her head.

“No. It wasn’t like that at all. She quit working for George when she finished high school. And was very put out that no one had thought to set money aside for herself, to go on to college if you please. Four other children, four sons, and all together they never caused me the heartache from that one girl.”

Mrs. Hogan pressed the palm of her hand over her mouth tightly; turned her head to one side; brought herself sharply under control.

“She was raised in a decent home. Really she was. I don’t know where she got all her fancy ideas from. Always
wanting, wanting
all kinds of things. Maybe from the movies, or the television, I don’t know. But my Kitty was never satisfied, never. She left one good job after another. She was
bored,
she said.” Mrs. Hogan looked at me questioningly; as if I might have the answer.
“Bored.
She’d leave a well-paying job, time and time again, because she said it was
boring.”
It was incomprehensible to her.

“Well,” I offered, “young girls are like that.”

“No one ever asked me if I was
bored
with carrying trays of food and cleaning up after people and then coming back here to do for the children.” She shook her head sharply, admonishing herself.

“How did she come to marry George?”

She thought for a minute or so, watched her hands crushing the apron, then finally, resigned, weary, she said, “Well, it was no secret; not to anyone. My Kitty never felt ashamed of herself in her life, only ashamed of her mother and brothers. She ... she worked for ... some man in an office, I don’t know exactly. But ... he was married, you see. And ... there she was. Pregnant.” Mrs. Hogan raised her chin, held her head up. “And he, the man, left New York; lock, stock and barrel. Had been planning to all along. And George. Poor George, he loved Kitty; he worshipped her from the time she was a child. Married her; gave her anything she wanted. That beautiful apartment in Fresh Meadows, just like in the country. All the clothes she wanted, anything at all. But not even being married and having babies settled Kitty. Not my girl. She just wanted—
something,
I don’t know. God knows. So she got that job, at that ... that ‘health spa.’ ” Mrs. Hogan sighed without realizing how loud and terrible the sound was. “I don’t understand any of it, any of the kind of people Kitty knows. She’s just lucky she has George to put up with her at all.”

“Do you see much of Kitty, Mrs. Hogan?”

She kneaded and twisted and released and clutched the apron. Her mouth tightened and she shook her head. A long thin strand of grayish-red hair had come undone from the knot at the back of her neck and fell on her cheek. She reached up ineffectually and tried to smooth it back. “No. We don’t see each other. Not much.”

She knew nothing of Kitty’s plans; very little, actually, of Kitty’s life. When asked what kind of mother Kitty was, Mrs. Hogan was sharp and bitter.

“Oh, the
best,
according to herself,” she said sarcastically. “You’ve only to see how nicely dressed her boys are; all the fine things they have, all the places they’ve been. But she’s hardly ever with them herself. Hires baby-sitters everywhere she goes. It’s easy for her, she can come and go as she pleases with hardly any time for the boys and—”