Investigation (16 page)

That was how it started. By the time we parted, it was like I’d never really known Jen at all. Maybe living on her own for the first time in her life, maybe because there’d been so many changes all at once in our lives, maybe because she was spending her days around kids half her age with a whole different life style, Jen seemed all caught up in the fact that she was forty-four years old and that there were more years behind her than ahead of her.

Two years ago, Jen went with our daughter to a women’s consciousness-raising group at Hunter College. Jen dropped out after about three sessions. What she told me was, “Those women scared the hell out of me, Joe. They’re all so crazy and angry and frustrated.” My daughter accused her of being afraid of what she might discover about herself, but Jen shrugged that off.

I think maybe our daughter was right; and maybe Jen knew that all along and finally has had a chance to take a good look at herself and her life. I think she feels a little confused and scared. I know she feels cheated. She’s made that pretty damn clear, one minute blaming her own background (“I guess the nuns in Montreal really did a number on me in all those years they had to shape my life”); the next minute blaming me (“How could you
not
know it was never the same for me as it was for you? How could you honestly say you didn’t know?”).

Of course I defended myself by going on the offensive: “You mean in all these years you’ve never been able to be totally honest with me about this? To let me know? Christ, I’m not a goddamn mind reader.”

And then went further: “You were always so damn inhibited about sex, about your body, about my body, how could I have ever tried anything different with you? And I did try, Jen, you know damn well, and you know goddamn well what your reactions have always been anytime I ever—”

“Right, right. Poor Joe. Stuck with a cold frigid wife, which of course would drive any hot-blooded normal male into the arms of other women ...”

“I never said ...”

“You never had to ...”

We both went too far and neither of us knew how to undo whatever harm we’d done the other. I tried.

“Look, Jen, this is the first time in our whole lives that you and I have even
approached
discussing our sex problems. Maybe this is the first step—”

“Or maybe it’s the last step, Joe.”

In all this time, we’ve spoken on the phone regularly, on schedule, and never once has either of us acknowledged in any way what happened that night. But it isn’t as though it never happened; it’s there, for both of us. If we were living together, seeing each other every day, it would have been resolved, one way or the other, by now. But we’re a thousand miles apart, so we talk like careful strangers.

Jen questioned my diet: Was I eating enough bland foods? Had I cut down on my smoking? Was I getting enough sleep? Then, softly, almost like she was thinking aloud, “She’s a pretty girl, isn’t she, Joe?”

“Who?”

“That girl, the mother. Kitty Keeler. She looked beautiful on the news last night.”

I felt the tightness working down my throat, a steady pressure against my windpipe. “Yeah, she’s a pretty girl.”

“What an awful thing, Joe. Those poor babies. How could she have done it?”

“What?”

“That girl, Kitty Keeler. How could she have killed her own children?”

“You’ve got that all figured out, have you?”

“Well,
she did it,
didn’t she?”

“That’s terrific, Jen.” I felt anger pulling my voice tight and thin. “I mean, you’re what? about a thousand miles away from Fresh Meadows and you caught the late news and I guess you read the morning paper and you’ve got the case cracked. I’m up here, working twelve hours on and twelve hours off, and this is the start of the third day of investigation and you know more about it than I do. That’s really terrific.”

I don’t know why I said any of that. If I could have taken it back, I would have taken it back. In the silence, I could feel Jen’s hurt; her faraway hurt and anger. I was sorry. But I was tired of being sorry and I was tired of these strained, forced conversations on the telephone.

After a long silence, Jen said, “I guess I shouldn’t believe everything I read in the papers, Joe.”

“Well, they’ve got it all figured out, too. In fact,
everybody
has it all figured out.”

“Well, don’t you think she ...”

“I don’t know, Jen. Damn it, I don’t know. No one really knows anything at this point.”

But they
were
all certain. Who the hell else would have killed those two kids? All you had to do was take a look at Kitty Keeler. Everyone said that; everyone felt that. Tim knew she did it; Vito knew; even the girl’s own mother knew. So why the hell was I so mad because Jen knew, too?

Because Jen had said she was a pretty girl and I know what Jen means by that. Because I’ve gone through years and years of coming home after fifteen-, sixteen-hour investigations, tired, aching, needing a hot shower and sleep, and there was Jen, trying not to but always asking me: “Does she mean anything to you, Joe? You spend more time with these people than you do with us; with the kids, with me. Sometimes you
must
feel
something
for one of these women you get involved with on a case.”

Jen wasn’t asking me if Kitty killed her kids; she was asking me how I felt about Kitty. And at this point, although I hadn’t even acknowledged it to myself, I
was
beginning to feel
something
about Kitty.

“Listen, Jen. You caught me on my way out. I have an interview right in Forest Hills Gardens.”

“You mean
policemen
have to work on
Saturdays?”

“Well, the
bad guys
work on
Saturdays,
don’t they?” It was an old joke between us, going back to when we were young and laughed a lot together.

We said a few more safe things to each other, then Jen said, “Talk to you Tuesday night, then. Love you, Joe.”

“Right. I love you, Jen.”

Whatever the hell that means.

I had another cup of coffee, another cigarette, a couple more antacid tablets. I doodled circles and arrows on the notepad next to the telephone and then I began to trace large and small question marks with little circles underneath.

If Kitty Keeler didn’t kill her kids, then who did? She was the only logical one, but there wasn’t anything logical about any of her actions, assuming she did kill them.

Keeler wasn’t a stupid girl; why the hell would she have dumped the bodies so close to home?

Why the hell didn’t she come up with a better story than just “I went to bed; I went to sleep; I woke up; the kids were gone”?

Why had she called Martucci, person to person, twice that night? She must have known that would be easy to check out.

Why was she coming on so hard, antagonizing everyone who might possibly help her? The media could go either way: make you want to hang the bitch or make you want to jump on a white charger and save her.

Why the hell did I come up with that particular image? There was
nothing
helpless about Kitty Keeler. Maybe something a little vulnerable beneath the surface toughness; maybe something a little injured in the dead center of her beautiful cold eyes. There
was
another Kitty, another facet we hadn’t seen: a girl who was loving and concerned about that lady, Mrs. Silverberg. I’d seen a flash of it when she’d reacted to George’s near-collapse after he’d found the boys. There had been something pure and selfless and uncontrived about her concern for George.

All of our assignments had been to prove that Kitty Keeler killed her kids, instead of a wide-open investigation, which would ultimately prove she did it if in fact she was guilty. What bothered me was that we seemed prepared to prove her guilty even if she wasn’t.

If I was feeling somewhat protective of Kitty Keeler, it was more because someone had to play devil’s advocate rather than because the girl seemed to want or need a protector.

I think.

One block into Forest Hills Gardens and you’re in another world at another time. It’s a protected enclave of private tree-lined streets untouched by the incredible development of the rest of Forest Hills. There are no thirty-two-story apartment buildings, no bachelor pads or groupie-stewardess setups. Although the enclave is a part of the borough of Queens in the City of New York, the Gardens Association maintains a private sanitation service, a staff of gardeners and maintenance men and a force of security guards who patrol on foot and motorbike. Unauthorized vehicles—without a numbered Gardens sticker—get window-sized, iron-glued notices pasted over each window informing the owner that “Forest Hills Gardens is not a parking lot.” The second violation, and the car gets towed away at the owner’s expense. Not friendly, but effective.

Most of the homes were either Tudor or Normandy mansions set back among trees, shrubs, velvet lawns and formal gardens. The home of the Vincent Martuccis was imposing by any standards. It was a huge old castle set so far back and so concealed by hedges and twisting brick pathways that I wasn’t sure where the front door was located until I was nearly on top of it. I ignored the small neat sign advising “All Service to Rear Door”; the sign beneath it, just as neat but more ominous, advised me to “Beware of Trained Dogs.” As soon as I touched the buzzer, the chimes and the trained dogs went off. Even through the heavy door, I was convinced that the barking was of the no-fooling-around variety.

There was a slight variation in the small round mirror set at mouth level in the door: I was being viewed. There was a small clicking sound, and a voice came at me from the cluster of tiny pinpoint holes set into the doorjamb. I held my shield up to the mirror and gave my name to the pinholes.

“You wait dere please jus’ a minute.” The accent was West Indies. The dogs barked again, but a sharp command shut them up.

Another sliding of the viewer; a different voice. “I’m Mrs. Martucci. What is it, please?”

I identified myself again; there was the sound of heavy locks being undone. The door opened on a chain and she asked, politely, for some identification, which she checked quickly; then she shut the door, undid the chain and allowed me into a huge marble entrance hall. The trained dogs, two sleek Dobermans, sat quivering with emotion; a deep rumble vibrating in their throats and four glassy, vicious eyes convinced me not to offer them a pat on the head. They waited for me to follow Mrs. Martucci, then they backed me up, one on each side. I put my hands into my pockets; I didn’t want them dangling behind. She led us into a huge room with a stone fireplace that stretched from floor to high ceiling across one entire wall. A young girl sat against the velvet-topped railing in front of the fireplace and she stopped in the middle of a sentence, so that a second girl, poised at the edge of a velvet chair, became curious and turned toward me.

The dogs ran, one to each girl. The younger girl, against the railing, closed her eyes and offered her face to the dog nearest her. I thought the kid was crazy; her whole head could easily fit inside that dog’s opened mouth.

“Lucia,” Mrs. Martucci said sharply, but with a maternal pride, “don’t let him do that to you.” The dog was slobbering a thick pink tongue all over the girl’s face. “Girls, you must excuse yourselves now.” She told them in Italian to take the dogs with them. I added a silent
grazie.

“I hope I haven’t interrupted you.” There was a breakfast tray set between the two velvet chairs.

She waved her hand: it was of no matter. A very small very black woman in a light-gray uniform stood in the doorway waiting.

“Bring another cup, and some fresh coffee, Pearl, and some of the small glazed cakes. Thank you.”

She snapped on the lamp beside her chair, and for the first time I saw her clearly. Maria Martucci was a Madonna. She was totally unexpected. She had a pale, unbelievably elegant face with high prominent cheekbones, a regal nose, wide lips and the blackest, brightest eyes framed by thick long lashes. Her hair was black and very heavy, worn off her face, twisted into a knot at the back of her neck. She wore a dark wine-colored long velvet gown which clung to her tall body sensuously. The only jewelry she wore was a narrow gold wedding band, and at her throat, just in the hollow, rested a tiny gold crucifix.

It was hard to figure why the hell Vincent Martucci was at this moment having coffee in a crummy Yonkers luncheonette with Kitty Keeler when he could be here, with this magnificent woman. Kitty had a fresh, cute, girlish beauty. Maria Martucci was the real thing: a woman whose beauty increases with time.

She moved her head to one side politely; apparently she was accustomed to the effect she had on people.

“Mrs. Martucci, I’m sorry if I’ve intruded on your breakfast, but I must ask you questions about a very serious matter.”

“Yes?” Her eyebrows, black against her white skin, raised expectantly.

“You’ve heard about what happened to the children of Mrs. Kitty Keeler?”

A shudder went through her body, working across her shoulders, then down along her spine. Her hand went to her throat; she touched the tips of her fingers to the crucifix. “Terrible. Terrible. Little babies.” Then one shoulder moved forward and she said softly, flatly, “The will of God is difficult to comprehend sometimes.”

“I don’t think God’s will had anything to do with this, do you?”

“Everything
is God’s will.”

There was a certain tension coming from her, but it disappeared as she turned, polite, expectant, to watch the maid set a silver tray on the coffee table. Mrs. Martucci leaned forward, indicated that she would handle it from here. The maid disappeared without a sound, as though she vaporized. Mrs. Martucci concentrated on pouring coffee into the large thin cups, added sugar, cream, stirred it quickly, then, half smiling, handed the cup and saucer to me. “You must try these little cakes; I make them for my children. They are so fond of them.”

I tasted the coffee, then put saucer and cup down on the table, shook my head at the dish she held toward me, sensing she was trying to distract me. It wouldn’t have been hard. There was something very erotic about her.