Investigation (20 page)

I wasn’t too sure what I was supposed to think. “You’re the one with the college education, Tim. You tell me.”

Tim shoved his hands in his pockets and clicked some coins together; he walked to the window, then turned and stared at me.

“It’s a
device,
Joe. To put some pressure on Kitty. She’s some tough little cooky. If seeing her two kids down in the morgue didn’t break her, maybe a little restriction of her freedom might. Legally, it’s feasible. Obviously there was more than one person involved in transporting the boys’ bodies. Kitty would be the clearest threat to that person, therefore a possible target. Hell, to be technical about it, there have been a few nut letters and phone calls.”

There are
always
a couple of nut letters and phone calls, but I didn’t point this out to Tim, since he knew it as well as I did and he wouldn’t have appreciated hearing about it.

“When is all this going to happen, Tim?”

“We’re working on it right now. I just sent Geraldi out to pick up Judge Donlevy; Kelleher caught up with him at his golf club in Westchester. Soon as he finishes his game, he’s going to come in and sign the necessary papers. Which is where you come in, Joe.”

The bodies of the Keeler boys had been released that morning. I was to meet Kitty Keeler at her brother’s house in Yonkers, escort her to her apartment to pick up clothes for the boys, then bring her to the Kelly Brothers Funeral Home in the Bronx, which is where the bodies were now. Then call in; if it was all set, I was to bring Keeler back to the office. Without telling her exactly why.

Kitty walked through the mob of reporters, photographers and cameramen as if she was a movie star who’d been doing it all her life. Head up, normal pace, into the car without a sign of being aware of the voices that called out to her in that strangely intimate way. “Hey, Kitty, c’mon, Kitty baby, give us a break.”

“Hey, babe, take off the glasses. Let’s get a look at those big blue eyes.”

“Hey, Kitty Killer, you kill any kids today?”

She pulled off her glasses and snapped her head around to see who had called out the last thing; a series of flashbulbs went off as I pulled the car away from the curb. She sat, one hand over her eyes, massaging lightly before she put her dark glasses on again.

“How come George isn’t with you?”

“He’s still with your partner.” Then, lower, angrier, “As if you didn’t know.”

My partner. Catalano? “George is with Catalano?”

“With Soft-Soap Sam. He’s been very helpful, taking George back and forth to the ginmill. He’s all heart, isn’t he?” Her voice was bitter and restrained. “I would have thought Sam would’ve been assigned to buddy-up with me. He’s the type, isn’t he?”

“He’s a type, all right.” Catalano; hanging around George Keeler?

When we pulled into the cul-de-sac at Fresh Meadows, there was an identical group of new people waiting for Kitty to walk from her car to the building.

“What are they, a bunch of magicians?” Kitty said; which is exactly what I was thinking.

The young cop, with a couple of days of experience behind him, cleared a path for us. There were more people here than in Yonkers; more curious sightseers who had somehow gotten the word that Kitty Keeler could be seen, in person. A few strange types, glassy-eyed with excitement: the string-bag-clutching old nuts who swarm around murder scenes hoping to touch someone, anyone, even remotely connected to tragedy.

Someone close to hysteria began to shriek, “I touched her! My God, she looks just like her pictures. We’re with ya, Kitty baby, we’re on your side.” You couldn’t even tell if it was a man’s or a woman’s voice; somehow, nut voices don’t have genders.

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and followed the uniformed man; he held the door open for us, then closed it and stood facing the crowd, using a strong, professional, calm voice.

Kitty dropped the bunch of keys, and when she retrieved them she couldn’t seem to find the apartment door key; when she found it, she couldn’t fit the key into the lock. She held the keys toward me and stepped back until I opened the apartment door, then she went inside. She hadn’t been home since the morning the children’s bodies were found: Thursday.

The apartment had a faintly closed-up feeling; Kitty ran her finger over a table and frowned at the dust. She picked up an overflowing ashtray and brought it to the kitchen. The technicians hadn’t cleaned up after themselves. There were a few stained, empty coffee containers and a few wadded-up sandwich wrappers. Kitty snatched a brown paper bag and began cleaning up. She stopped, hand about to reach for another ashtray.

“Is it all right? I mean, can I ... touch things now?”

“Yeah, they’re all finished.”

She looked around the living room with annoyance; she kept touching things, straightening things, moving items a fraction of an inch. Finally she decided that was all she could do for now.

“Did they ... find anything?” she asked. “You know. Whatever it was they were looking for?”

“Don’t worry about it. Everything’s under control.”

She thought about that for a moment or two, went into the kitchen with the bag of debris, then stood in the doorway. She gestured vaguely. “Look, do you want coffee or anything? Or just coffee, I guess. I don’t think there’s anything else in the house. I have to ... I’ll have to go shopping, I guess.” She seemed somewhat confused; not quite sure if she should be a hostess to me.

“No, I don’t want anything. Or do you have Gelusil? Or Turns? Or something like that?”

She shook her head; caught me pressing my hand into the burning spot where the ulcer was biting at Mogliano’s cousin’s spicy sauce.

“Wait a minute.” She ducked into the kitchen, came back with a glass of milk.

I took a small taste; it was sour, but I didn’t tell her. I waited until she went into her bedroom to get a suitcase for the boys’ clothes. Then I spilled the sour milk down the kitchen drain and rinsed the glass. I could hear her banging around, opening the sliding closet doors, displaying the rainbow colors of her clothing. When she came back into the living room, she was wearing a different outfit: a dark-blue denim pants suit with a light-blue turtleneck. She had tied a small red railroad man’s scarf over her hair, knotted in back of her neck. Her face was pale against the bright color. She held up an expensive leather suitcase; an over-nighter.

“You think this will be big enough?”

She sounded uncertain; as if she needed reassurance, which surprised me. She was nervous and on edge; I hadn’t realized how drawn and pale she really was. She looked from me to the suitcase, then back at me.

“That’ll be fine. You want some help?”

She considered that for a moment, then shook her head. It seemed to take a certain determination and resolve for her to go into the boys’ bedroom. But she went.

I walked to the window, looked outside at the grassy lawn, then turned back into the living room. It had the impersonal feel of a motel room; there was no evidence of the kind of people who lived here. Something caught my eye; a bright-yellow object was sticking out from beneath a chair. I picked it up: a small plastic rectangular object with little protuberances along one edge, indentations along the other edge. A piece from a child’s game, building blocks that locked one into the other. I slipped it into my pocket, deliberately not thinking about what child’s hand had dropped it; and wouldn’t ever pick it up. There was something odd, something I couldn’t quite identify. The outside playground noises and the low humming of descending jets faded into the background as I became aware of the silence, ominous and total, within the apartment. I crossed the living room and stood just inside the open doorway of the boys’ bedroom.

Kitty Keeler was standing between the two beds, her back to me. She held something in each hand; her arms were stretched outward as though she was offering what she held. She was rigid and motionless; then she swayed slightly, caught her balance; then, suddenly aware of the intrusion into her privacy, she whirled around and faced me, her arms still extended stiffly.

She glared at me suspiciously, then she said softly, in a barely controlled whisper, “Look.
Look!”
She was holding a pair of rolled-up socks in each hand. Arrayed on either side of her, on each of the two beds, was a carefully selected outfit: small navy-blue blazer, gray flannel slacks, white turtleneck, set of underwear for each child.

“Isn’t this crazy?” She began to laugh. “Look at this. I’m matching the socks to the charcoal-gray pants and I’m standing here and I’m wondering if I should match the socks to their shoes instead of to their slacks.” Her body shook with the deep gasping sounds of her laughter. She suddenly brought both hands up to her face and held the socks against her mouth, muting the sounds of her voice. When I moved toward her, she pulled her face up and shook her head. “No. No, don’t. Please, don’t touch me. But isn’t it funny? I mean, I’m standing here trying to decide what color
socks
they should wear. To be
buried
in!”

It was there again, more clearly than before: the terrible expression of pain in her eyes; unblinking, unaccepting, unbelieving pain. Her mouth opened, but there was no sound now. She bent over suddenly as though kicked in the stomach, with that same kind of gasping, suffocating sound. I caught her, tried to ease her down onto one of the beds, but she pulled away and said wildly, “No, for God’s sake, I don’t want to sit on their
clothes!”
As though the clothes were their bodies.

She pulled herself up straight, extended the socks again and said, “What color socks should they wear?” She blinked rapidly, but there were no tears in her eyes. “Well, don’t you think it’s funny? Don’t you?”

“What color are their shoes?”

She jerked her head back as though she’d been hit. She rubbed her cheek with a pair of the socks and stared, uncomprehending.

“What color are their
shoes,
Kitty?”

She let her hands drop to her sides and said quietly, “Saddle shoes. Blue-and-white saddle shoes.”

“Navy-blue socks,” I told her. “Do you have navy-blue socks?”

She nodded dumbly, then moved to the chest of drawers, switched socks, and dropped one pair on each bed. Then she knelt in the closet and dug around for the shoes. She pulled them out and held them up toward me. “They’re dirty.”

She fingered the soiled spots on the shoes and seemed unable to deal with the situation. She slumped against the side of a bed and was completely, totally vulnerable; defenseless. Her fingers trembled as she dabbed at a smudge on one of the shoes. A chill passed through her body; she shuddered and tightened her shoulders.

“Kitty?”

I called her a second time and she turned her face up toward me. It was devoid of all pretense, all masks, all armors; it was ragged and suffering and filled with despair.

Kitty, did you kill your sons?

Kitty,
why
did you kill your boys?

Kitty, tell me all about it; you’ll feel better when you do. It will be over with once and for all. It’s the only way you’ll ever be free of it.

Kitty, talk to me.

All I said was, “Where’s the shoe polish?”

I helped her to her feet, surprised at the fragility of her body; she seemed weightless. I put paper towels on the counter in the kitchen, painted the white parts of the shoes with the liquid polish, then asked her for small plastic bags for the shoes. As I cleaned up the counter, she put the shoes into the bags; all but one shoe.

“There’s a broken lace,” she said in a helpless, despairing voice. She turned her face to me: defeated; no solution.

“I’ll pick up a new pair tomorrow morning.” I took the shoe from her hand and put it in the plastic bag. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be all right.”

We went back into the boys’ bedroom and she began folding the clothes, but she kept dropping things. Her hands were shaking and she tried to hide them, but without a word she stepped back and watched as I folded the clothing and packed the suitcase. Just as I was about to close the suitcase she came forward, reached a hand to touch one of the small navy jackets: just touched it lightly, wordlessly, then drew back.

“Will it be all right? The clothes? Will they look all right? I want the boys to look good. Does everything match?”

“Everything will be fine. Come on.” I handed her a bag of shoes. She seemed reluctant to leave the room.

“Have I got everything? Have I forgotten anything?” Her hand went to her face. “I have the most awful feeling. Like, I’m forgetting something really important.” She turned, her eyes swept the room. “Oh, God, what? What have I forgotten?”

“You haven’t forgotten anything, Kitty. Come on.”

She turned to the small round child-sized table, touched the open coloring book, fingers slid over the incompletely colored picture of an astronaut. She picked up two crayons and put them back in the crayon box; closed the book; put it on a toy shelf. She studied the rows of toys and reached for a stuffed yellow duck. It was worn and bleached-looking.

“This is Georgie’s. Do you think ... ?”

“Sure, if you want to bring it, why not?”

Kitty took a long, slow, deep breath; she pulled herself up straight, rearranged the expression on her face; took control of herself. She tossed the stuffed duck, with a quick sharp motion, against the wall. It landed, upside down, on one of the beds.

“What would be the point?” she asked. Briskly, toughly, she said, “Let’s get the hell outa here. This room is making me feel morbid.”

I picked up her keys and sunglasses from the kitchen counter. “Put these on, Kitty, and keep your head low and we’ll rush right through that mob out there.”

She took the sunglasses, held them without putting them on. She pulled her arm from me, stood motionless. There was a visible gathering of strength filling her; she was drawing on a kind of anger. She was no longer vulnerable; that moment was over.

“I’m not worried about those crazy bastards out there, or any other bastards, Peters, so you can just stop playing Mr. Good Guy right now.”

She pushed past me on her way out. The funny thing was, I really hadn’t been playing a role with her.