Investigation (25 page)

Haley and Finn both said, “No, sir.” Vito and I didn’t say anything.

“Vince, you want me to call your driver? Have him bring your limo around? Just say the word.”

Each time Tim spoke, it was as though a blow had landed on Martucci’s bowed head. In a thin, breaking voice, Martucci said from between his hands, “What do you want from me?”

During the ride out to Queens, he had already offered money, any amount, anything, but he had been met with silence.

“It’s very simple, Vincent,” Tim said. He turned and indicated the tape recorder on the desk, next to the telephone. “We just want you to tell us, exactly, what you and Kitty Keeler talked about on the telephone the night her children were murdered.”

Vincent Martucci rocked his head from side to side, not because he was refusing the request made of him, but because he knew that he could not refuse.

As much as we all knew about Vincent Martucci, as strongly as we all felt about him and his long and vicious career, no one, not even Vito Geraldi, took any pleasure in his complete and total degradation. I can’t speak for the others, but I know that my own feeling, in this and in similar situations, was one of personal shame. Maybe the sight of Vincent Martucci crying and cringing like a frightened child established a kind of common humanity between us; none of us were feeling particularly superior or satisfied with ourselves.

“My poor Kitty,” he whispered hoarsely. “Oh God, my poor Kitty. How can I do this to her?”

“Because you have no choice,” Tim Neary said.

I
T TOOK ED QUIBRO
six days to present the case against Kitty Keeler to the Queens grand jury. The biggest headline during that time was
KITTY, GEORGE CLAM ON KIDS’ KILLING,
over a front-page picture of Kitty and George dashing for a car as they were leaving the courthouse, after claiming Fifth Amendment rights. The next-biggest headline was
KITTY K’S LOVER BACK FOR SECOND DAY;
in smaller bold print, over Vincent Martucci’s picture, was the question “Martucci Key to Keeler Kids’ Killing?”

On May 26, 1975, the Queens grand jury returned two indictments against Kitty, charging her with first-degree murder of both of her sons. The
News
headlined
KITTY K. INDICTED! WHO HELPED KILL KIDS?
The
Post
put it this way
:
MRS. KEELER INDICTED IN DOUBLE MURDER.

Vito Geraldi, Sam Catalano and I arrived at the Madison Avenue hotel at a prearranged time to serve the arrest warrants. George Keeler, his face the color of damp cement, stood to one side of Kitty; Jay T. Williams stood to the other side. Jeff Weinstein stood behind them, towering over all three. We all rode down the four floors in the same elevator. When we hit the lobby, there was a casual, subtle rearrangement. Williams and Weinstein eased George back slightly; Kitty came alongside me. When George reached for Kitty’s arm, she turned and said firmly, “George, you ride in Jaytee’s car. Go ahead; you’ll be right behind me all the way.” Then, with a sharp unyielding demand, “George, we’re going to do this the way Jaytee said.” She studied his face for a moment, as though debating which was the best approach. Her hand rested lightly on his arm; she whispered something to him, so quietly I couldn’t make out the words. Then she turned from him abruptly and walked beside me without breaking pace, without looking up until she was settled next to me in the back seat of the unmarked squad car.

We booked Kitty at the 107th Precinct in Fresh Meadows. Everything was low-key and routine; at least it was for us. Kitty’s face was ashen and from time to time she touched the corner of her eye where a nerve began to twitch. When the desk sergeant asked her to empty out her pocketbook, George tried to move in. Kitty whirled around and pushed him back.

“Goddamn it, George.” She said to Jaytee, “Get him out of here. Make him sit down somewhere.”

Jeff Weinstein took George away; Jay T. Williams stood next to Kitty radiating good will and reassurance.

“We’re going to go upstairs now, Kitty,” I told her. “We’re going to take your fingerprints.” For some reason, even to me, it sounded like an apology. When I took her arm, she yanked away from me. “It’s all right,” I told her.

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself,” Kitty said, head up, chin jutting, eyes blazing.

For the rest of the booking and arraignment procedures, Kitty was under very tight, angry control. During the ride from Queens into Manhattan, where she was photographed with a Bureau of Criminal Identification number on a plaque around her neck, then back to Queens for appearance before a magistrate, Kitty never glanced out of the rear window. She knew that Jaytee’s white Mercedes was directly behind us. She didn’t speak one single word beside me in the car; no one spoke, not even Vito, who chewed on an unlit cigar.

As we entered the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, heading back toward Kew Gardens, I offered Kitty a cigarette. When she reached for it, I noticed her hands for the first time. Her fingers.

I took her left hand in mine without a word; examined it, then her right hand. Across the top of each nail was a ragged, bloody slash of soreness where she had either bitten or pulled the nail away. She stared at her fingers as though they were a total surprise to her. She looked up at me, then back to her fingertips, with that confused, puzzled expression I had seen at Kelly Brothers, when she had looked from one dead child to the other, not recognizing them. I pressed her wrist slightly and she jerked her head up, narrowed her eyes, pasted her lips together tightly and yanked her hand from mine. She folded her arms and buried her hands and stared out the window, the back of her head to me, for the rest of the trip.

Jaytee Williams was skillful at directing most of the attention from Kitty to himself as we hurried from the car to the court building. He blocked her without seeming to; protected her innocently while giving his statement to the press and television people.

The worst moment for Kitty came in the courtroom. She stood, rigid and vague, her eyes burning sightlessly into space, while the legal procedure took place all around her: impersonal, quiet, steady, routine, devoid of passion of any kind. The low humming of voices seemed to hypnotize her; not even George’s dangerous wheezing sounds seemed to penetrate. I stood to her left; Jaytee Williams a comforting presence to her right. When he spoke to her, his face close along the side of her neck, his hand playing up and down her arm, she turned, puzzled, totally unprepared for what was happening, since she hadn’t been following any of it; not any of it.

She twisted around; finally saw the woman in uniform standing behind her, obviously waiting. Waiting for Kitty. She turned back to Jaytee, her hands on his body, clutching and pulling in a frantic rhythm at his vest and jacket. He caught her hands in his, hunched down quietly, his head bent to hers; he walked her to the side of the courtroom, his arm around her, preventing her from seeing George, who was struggling with Jeff Weinstein—struggling for breath and struggling to get to Kitty. Sam Catalano helped Weinstein; they got George out a side door.

“Now, you are not
listenin’
to me, Kitty,” Jaytee said firmly, “and you are not behavin’ the way I expect you to behave. Now, you
knew
what to expect, honey. This is only gonna take maybe one, one and a half hours at the very most.” As he spoke to her, he shook her from time to time; he alternated between scolding and reassuring her. “Soon’s you start actin’ like mah girl, honey, that’s how soon Jeff and me gonna get that bail bond all arranged and get you ta hell outa here and back with ole George where you belong, y’heah?” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders; his head ducked down and he seemed to be whispering right into her ear. All I heard of it, when he drew back, was, “Now, you remember, you gotta be brave for ole George, honey. That man
needs
you.”

Kitty nodded; took Jaytee’s large white handkerchief, turned away to wipe her face. Her back went stiff again; she raised her head, turned away from her attorney without another word and went toward the woman court guard. I accompanied them through the barred door off the front of the court; down the flight of steel stairs, through another steel-barred door at the entrance to the detention quarters.

There was an exchange of signatures; I verified delivery of Kitty Keeler; they verified acceptance. We never looked at each other as Kitty went in one direction and I went in another.

Tim and I sat in his office and watched. Jeremiah Kelleher on the eleven-o’clock news. “There is little feeling of satisfaction in any of this,” Jerry said seriously and quietly. “The whole case, from beginning to end, is a tragedy.” He was careful not to divulge any details, but he did say, somewhat smugly, I thought, “As I told the parents of Queens County right at the very start of this tragedy, we had no reason to assume that
their
children were in any danger. We never, at any time, had any serious doubt that the solution would lie within the walls of the Keeler apartment.”

Tim stabbed at the television button and Jerry’s face disappeared, swallowed down the drain at the center of the picture tube. Tim’s eyes were red-rimmed and he didn’t do them any good by rubbing at them every few minutes.

“He’s terrific, isn’t he? Isn’t it wonderful how things are working out for him, that son-of-a-bitch. He got the indictment in time for the primary; all the goddamn free publicity in the world.” Tim slumped into the center of the green leather couch. He took a long swallow of Scotch, leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Jesus, Joe, wouldn’t it be something if we picked up some guy tomorrow, some total stranger, someone from left field, who sits down and tells us he killed the Keeler kids? Hands over the gun, comes up with all kinds of proof. Some guy who has access to
all
the homes of
all
the children in Queens.”

Grinning tightly at his fantasy, Tim continued, “And we’d work it out so this guy gives himself up to Marvin L. Schneiderman, right on the six-o’clock news.” He laughed shortly. “I’d like to see old Gorgeous Jerry go on the tube and talk about
that.
Jesus, wouldn’t that be something?”

“You want me to go out and find him, Tim?”

Tim pulled himself upright. His eyes centered on me and didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, “You
really
think she didn’t do it, Joe? For Christ’s sake, no one else
could
have done it.”

“About two million people
could
have done it, Tim.”

“Right. And only
one
person did do it.
Kitty.
With help from someone else. And that’s where it’s at right now. That’s where our focus is: we have to find the guy who helped her.” He stood up and walked behind his desk, pulled open the bottom drawer, took out the bottle, poured another inch, put the bottle away, sat down. He rubbed at his eyes again. He looked exhausted; his voice was drawn and tired. “Joe, you were here; you heard what Martucci told us. Line for line, exactly what we had figured out ourselves, right?”

“That’s the point, Tim.”

He drank some Scotch and glanced up at me as though he hadn’t heard what I just said. “What? What’s the point?”

“Tim.” I took a long deep breath, leaned forward and crushed the butt end of my cigarette and immediately lit another one. “Tim,
that’s the point. Martucci.”

He snapped his head back slightly; brought himself sharply into focus. There was nothing vague or tired about him now; he knew I was about to tell him something and he wanted to be very prepared. Even his voice was different: sharp, renewed, tight, demanding. “Okay, Joe. Something’s been bothering you for quite a while. Since the night we bagged Martucci. Either you’re gonna forget all about it or you’re gonna tell me what it is, right now. And
then
we’ll
both forget it.”

“Martucci didn’t volunteer one single solitary bit of information, Tim.” Tim’s eyes were glazed and staring; he was whistling softly, but he was listening and hearing me. “Martucci gave back, verbatim, word for word for word, whatever we fed him.” I stood up; had to move around. All my muscles were tensed and cramping. “ ‘When Kitty called you the first time, Vince, did she say, “Vince, I just strangled Georgie”?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Yeah what, Vince?’ ‘Yeah, Kitty called and said Vince-I-just-strangled-Georgie.’ ‘Did Kitty say, “I gave Terry some sleeping pills and now he won’t wake up”?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Yeah what, Vince?’ ‘Yeah, Kitty said I-gave-Terry-some-sleeping-pills.’ And blah-blah-blah!” I walked over to the window and stared out without seeing anything but flashing lights: car lights, traffic lights, street lights, apartment lights. I turned around, leaned against the windowsill. Tim had swiveled around to face me; his hands were clasped across his stomach and his face was set into a blank, noncommittal expression.

Tim knew what I was talking about. Maybe he hadn’t realized it while we were doing it: all of us, we all did it to Martucci; we gave him, line for line, what we wanted him to say; what fit in with what we’d already figured out.

“Jesus, Tim, the only thing Martucci
couldn’t
tell us was who Kitty called to help her get rid of the bodies. And that’s because
we
don’t know who she called, so
we
couldn’t tell
him.”

I sat down again; slid my legs under his desk. Tim took out the bottle and poured about an inch into my glass, none into his this time. I swallowed it and tried not to feel what it was doing to my ulcer.

“That’s what we’re going to do now, Joe. That’s assignment number one. That’s the loose end in the case. We’re willing to deal with Kitty in return for whoever helped her.” In a quiet, rational voice, Tim said, “In fact, finding her accomplice is almost more important than bagging Kitty. She killed the kids in an emotional state; whoever helped her did what he did in cold blood. In fact, he probably killed Terry; no one thinks Kitty fired the shot into him.”

“That’s it, Tim? No discussion? You have nothing to say about Vincent Martucci’s statement?”

Tim shook his head slowly and steadily. “Nothing at all, Joe. Not a goddamn thing; not a goddamn fucking thing at all. Vincent Martucci’s statement is going to convict her. There is nothing at all to say about it.”