Investigation (31 page)

“Go ahead, Joe. Ask me.” When I didn’t respond immediately, she clenched and twisted her hands until the stick broke with a sharp crack and she flung the pieces into the weeds as though they had suddenly turned to fire. All traces of childlike vulnerability were gone. Her expression was tense and cynical. “Go ahead, damn you.
Ask me!”

“Ask you what, Kitty?”

She shook her head, looked around wildly, then focused her anger directly at me. “That’s what all this has been leading up to, right? You’ve managed to do what no one else has done. You’ve broken me down, haven’t you? Did you bring my confession along with you, Joe? Tell me how you worked it out.” She smiled bitterly, a quick tight pulling back of her mouth. “Did you all sit around the office and work it out, line by line, the way you did for Vincent, or did
you
sit down all by yourself, Joe? Have you got it with you, Joe, in your pocket maybe?”

I caught her wrist as she reached into my pocket. She gasped at the sudden, surprising pain, but I didn’t release her. “Is that what you think, Kitty? That I brought you up here to break you down?” She raised her chin and her eyes were sharp and cold beneath the odd thick light lashes, revealing a hatred and contempt too intense for words. “Is that what you
really
think?”

Unintentionally, I had twisted her wrist, and when she winced with the pain I dropped my hold on her. She rubbed her wrist and said contemptuously, “You bet that’s what I really think!”

There was nothing of the Kitty she had revealed during the night; there was only the tough, angry, smug and knowing woman, glaring at me, challenging me, provoking me to respond to her. Finally I said, “Uh-huh. You’re
right,
lady, you’re
absolutely right.
That’s what this has been all about.
You are goddamn fucking right!”

I walked back toward the cabin, breaking a new path, kicking and swiping at weeds and low-hanging branches as though they were deliberate obstacles put there just to annoy me. There was a sharp biting sensation just to the right of my stomach which two early-morning cups of black instant coffee hadn’t helped; I figured a third cup wouldn’t do too much more damage. I lit another cigarette with a vicious satisfaction: let the ulcer choke on that for a while. The minute the water began to boil, I poured it into the already stained mug on top of a spoonful of stale powdered coffee.

“Joe?” I didn’t turn toward her until she spoke again. “Joe, I didn’t kill my sons.”

Her hand was lightly touching her throat, trying to ease the rasping soreness that made her voice so strange and intense. I poured the untasted coffee in the sink and watched as it disappeared, leaving a dark ring around the drain.

“Kitty, if you
did
kill the boys—” I held my hand up toward her and she bit back words and clenched her teeth and watched me closely. “Let me finish. If you
did
kill the boys, tell me now. Before we go any further. Tell me
now
and I’ll move heaven and earth to get you the best possible deal that can be worked.” My mind raced ahead, picturing Sweeney and Tim and Kelleher and all the angles and maneuvers. “I promise you, Kitty, there
are
deals that can be made. I promise you, I’ll help you.”

She dropped her hands to her sides and held her eyes on mine. “As God is my witness, Joe, I didn’t kill my boys.” Then she blinked and looked away. “But ... but ...”

As she wavered, I felt a sensation in my stomach like a heavy lump of ice so cold that it began to burn. There was a look of misery on her face so totally undisguised that I wanted to comfort her, to protect her, but at the same time I felt a hard, ugly anger at her evasiveness. My hands went to her shoulders, shook her insistently until she threw back her head, locked her eyes tight against seeing me.

“But
what,
Kitty? For God’s sake, if there’s anything to tell, tell me
now!’

She opened her eyes, took a deep breath through her mouth, and in a shattered, ragged voice she said, “I left them alone, Joe.
I left them alone for more than two hours that night.”

W
E SPENT MOST OF
the afternoon in the cabin, Kitty talking, me listening, interrupting, jotting down notes. She answered the most specific questions without hesitation and, it seemed, with a sense of relief.

It was dark by the time we reached her apartment, and Kitty looked exhausted. She was unable to speak above a whisper. When I stopped in the hall, indicating that I wasn’t coming in, she said in that painful, eerie voice, “Help me, Joe. I’ve only got two weeks. I told you Jaytee says if I don’t accept the plea-bargaining they’ve offered by June sixteenth, they’ll put me on trial for first-degree murder with no concessions. He says if I take the offer, they’ll put me in prison for maybe three or four years. Against risking the next thirty years of my life. Isn’t that crazy, Joe? If I say I’m guilty, they’ll put me away for three or four years. If I say I’m innocent, they’ll put me away for thirty years.” She shook her head, ran her fingers along her throat. “Oh God, Joe, help me. Jaytee says ...”

I put my index finger against her lips. “Screw Jaytee. Go on inside, Kitty, and make some hot tea and lemon and a shot of whiskey and go to bed. You need sleep; you look awful.” I took my finger away and kissed her lightly, lightly on the lips and on her forehead.

“You’ll call me, Joe?”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” And then, speaking to a flash of terror which just touched the surface of her ... face, “It’s going to be all right, Kitty.
Trust me.”

At eight o’clock the phone rang. Of course it was Jen. Of course I had forgotten to call her last night. And of course she was going to be cheerful about it and not mention it: martyrlike. And of course that was just my guilty conscience on the defensive.

“Hi, Joe. I was afraid you’d miss me, so I decided to call you.” I could hear voices in the background, conversation, then Jen good-naturedly asking for a little quiet. “Sorry, Joe. It seems I’m holding everybody up for dinner.”

“Who’s everybody?”

“Oh, just Fred and Ellen,” naming her brother and his wife; then a pause, then, “And Dave Waters. You remember Dave, he used to be Fred’s partner out on Long Island.” And then, softer, in a rush, “He lost his wife a few months ago and Fred’s been after him to come down to Florida. And he finally came.” Then, in a more normal voice, this part not confidential, “Guess who beat Fred and Ellen at doubles today, Joe?” I heard the laughing, the friendly groaning and teasing. I remembered Dave Waters. Big guy, blond athlete type. Yeah, I remembered Dave.

“That’s terrific, Jen. I’m glad you’re having fun.”

“Are you, Joe? Having fun?”

“What the hell does that mean?” And then, feeling righteous to keep from feeling guilty, “Oh yeah, Jen. I’m having a helluva good time. Dinner, theater, cocktail parties ...”

“That why you didn’t get a chance to call me last night?”

She slipped it in fast, with that light, close-to-laughing sound she used when she was sore but didn’t want to admit she was sore, just in case she was wrong.

“Yeah, that was why, Jen. Too much bouncing around with the beautiful people. I’m sure
you
know how it is.”

“Hey, hon, I was only kidding. Listen, there are three hungry people waving fists at me. Have a good weekend, Joe. Call me Tuesday night, okay?”

We had stopped calling each other at random; we had run out of things to say to each other randomly. Our conversations on “regular call nights” had fallen into a well-regulated pattern: an exchange of basic fundamental information—health, the weather, my job, her schoolwork, did either of the kids call; and then the tense good-byes, both of us aware of too many things left unsaid, neither of us able to say them.

Tonight, she sounded young, happy, talking to me, then to the others in the room with her. She used her teasing voice; I could picture the special smile that went with that voice.

“Jen. Come home.” I hadn’t planned to say it; I’m not even sure if I meant it. There was an abrupt silence, but whether it was because she was listening to what the others were saying or because she was considering what I had just said I don’t know.

Finally, quickly,
routinely,
Jen said, “Love ya, hon.” And then she hung up before I had responded, routinely.

I took a long alternating hot-cold shower but couldn’t shake the sense of wariness, remembering Jen’s bright, eager happy sound: guess who beat Fred and Ellen at doubles?

I thought about Dave Waters and I wanted to call her back, to warn her: watch out, Jen; you’re too innocent; you won’t know how to handle it; it might become too important to you. I had a sense of being moved toward changes in my life, changes which had always seemed so far in the future that they were safe to talk about and think about. But November wasn’t far off; a twenty-year segment of our lives was coming to an end. Jen had said that going back for her degree was her first concrete step toward the future, toward the rest of our lives. But I wondered if it had hit her too, this vision of our lives ending under the hot glaring Florida sun, roasting us as wrinkled and brown as baked potatoes until we just blended in with the dusty sand. I had caught something almost frantic in her voice, not just tonight, but other nights, other phone conversations when we had exchanged nothing more than information. We couldn’t just keep avoiding it, just letting things happen because neither of us could admit we felt trapped by plans made years ago by the two other people we were then.

Jen couldn’t let Dave Waters just “happen.” Any more than I could let Kitty Keeler just “happen.”

It took a couple of hours just to
begin
to get an idea of how my investigation would proceed. The long narrow extension table, opened to its full length and just about stretching from one side of the living room to the other, was filled with stacks of reports, memos, case notes, statements, observations. Going through all we had previously collected, weighing one statement against another, one claim against another, one assumption against another, took total concentration. I doctored my ulcer with a cream-cheese-on-toast, two glasses of not too cold milk, a handful of Gelusils. I only took a few drags on each of the cigarettes I went through during the night.

Starting at the very beginning was Kitty’s statement: brief, blunt, devoid of any details. “I put the kids to bed; I went to bed; I woke up the next morning; the kids were gone.”

In her second statement, taken by Quibro, she was ready for the more specific questions which we hadn’t been prepared to ask her originally: yes, she made the phone calls to Martucci; they discussed personal things; yes, she spoke to Patti MacDougal on the phone; no, she didn’t believe Patti had actually come to Fresh Meadows to return the Porsche at 2:30
A.M.
, as claimed.

It was obvious to everyone that Kitty was lying when she said she’d called George at 10:15 instead of 11:20. It was obvious she was lying when she said she’d tended to the boys from 1
A.M.
to 1:30
A.M.
and that they were alive and well at that time. It was assumed she was lying because she had murdered her children and had decided to bluff it out.

We had all worked these assumptions into a rational, reasonable, believable timetable of Kitty Keeler’s movements on the night of April 16-17; then we had fed these assumptions, one at a time, to Vincent Martucci and we had rehearsed him so carefully that his testimony to the grand jury seemed to cover all contingencies. I went through my notes, then typed up my own version of Vincent Martucci’s statement to the grand jury:

SYNOPSIS OF VINCENT MARTUCCI’S TESTIMONY TO GRAND JURY

Kitty Keeler was supposed to have come out to Phoenix with me on Tuesday, April 15, 1975, to prepare for the Celebrity Opening Night Party the next night. She couldn’t come at that time because her youngest son, George, got sick with the measles and her regular baby-sitter was sick in the hospital. Kitty couldn’t find anyone else who could stay with the boys; especially since the little one was sick. Kitty said she’d try to fly out as soon as she worked something out.

On Wednesday night, April 16, 1975, at 11:30
P.M.
,
Kitty Keeler telephoned me at my office in Phoenix. She sounded hysterical and kept saying, “Vince, I killed Georgie. I killed Georgie.”

I got her to calm down and tell me what happened. She said it had been a terrible day. She and George, her husband, had been fighting on and off about Kitty coming out to Phoenix. George didn’t want her to go; he was afraid Kitty would stay out there for good. And she had tried all day to get a baby-sitter, even for two or three days so she could come out, but she couldn’t get anyone.

Kitty said that all day long, all night, Georgie had been crying and throwing up and she spent hours holding him, rocking him, cooling him off, getting him back to sleep. Then, she said, Terry started to complain that he had a sore throat and she knew that was how it started with the younger boy and she knew Terry was going to come down with the measles too. She told me she gave Terry two sleeping pills, so that he would sleep through the night, because she was too exhausted to be up all night with him, too. Both boys were asleep, then at about 10:30, Kitty said, Georgie woke up. He had vomited all over his bed; Kitty changed the bed, put fresh pajamas on the kid, took care of him and all. She took him to the bathroom but the kid said he didn’t have to go, so she got him into bed and like two minutes after she left the room, the kid calls her. He wet the bed; so she changed the sheets again, and changed the kid’s pajamas and took him to the bathroom and kept him up awhile, maybe fifteen minutes, and the kid says, yeah, he’s ready to go back to bed. And Kitty said she kept asking the kid if he was sure he didn’t have to go again, or throw up or anything, and the kid says
y
eah he’s sure and Kitty goes into the kitchen to have a cup of coffee and she no sooner takes one mouthful of the coffee when the kid calls her that he’s thrown up again. Kitty rushes into the bedroom, puts on the lamp, and there’s the kid sitting up in bed in a mess of vomit.

Kitty said she started to shake the kid; she said she kept yelling at him, like why didn’t you tell me before this happened? why did you wait until I left the room? And she said she just kept shaking him, shaking him like he was a doll, and her hands were on his neck and then he was very quiet. And she tells me that she carried him into the bathroom and washed him off, then back into the bedroom and put him on his brother’s bed while she changed the sheets again and then she puts the kid into clean pajamas and back into his own bed.

She tells me that Georgie was very quiet and didn’t move and she thought maybe she was just tired, she thought it looked strange. She says she went back to the kitchen and tried to take a swallow of coffee but her hands started shaking and she couldn’t hold the cup and she thought she heard the kid, Georgie, call her, so she rushed back into the bedroom and put on the overhead light, but the kid hadn’t moved, so she tried to shake him, to wake him up, and then she noticed the other kid wasn’t moving either and she couldn’t wake him up and she thought that both kids were dead.

So she called George, her husband, but he couldn’t come to the phone so she called me and she tells me “I must have choked Georgie. Vincent, I killed Georgie. I didn’t mean to.” And then she tells me the sleeping pills musta killed Terry and she keeps sayin’ what am I gonna, do, Vincent.

So I tell her to call the kids’ doctor. Have him come over and she should say she doesn’t remember what happened; she don’t know what’s wrong with the boys.

And Kitty says she can’t do that. She says what kind of a mother would he think she was. Then she says, crying again, she gotta get someone to help her; she gotta get someone to take the bodies out of the house, to make it look like they been kidnapped. I tried to talk her out of it, but she got hysterical again and then she hung up.

I tried calling her back, but her line was busy. I tried calling George Keeler’s number over in Sunnyside, but that was busy too. Then my maître d’ comes into the office and tells me some Congressmen just arrived and I get all tied up with them.

Then, later, I don’t know, they tell me it was 3:10
A.M
. New York time, Kitty calls me again. She sounds very strange, very calm, like she was talking in her sleep. She says, Vincent, it’s all taken care of. Someone came to help me. She says, Vincent, he did a terrible thing. He threw the boys away in the lot. He shot one of them, I don’t know which one. I didn’t get out of the car. She says, he shot one of them so it would look like a kidnap-murder. She asked me what she should do, so I tell her to take a couple of sleeping pills and go to bed, then in the morning to call George and act like she believes that he got the boys, just like he done that time in November, and she should just say she went to bed that night, then got up and the boys were gone. That she didn’t know any
t
hing more about it and that she should stick to that story no matter what ...