The Iceman (31 page)

When Kuklinski’s home on Sunset Street in Dumont was searched, two more firearms were discovered in addition to the .25-caliber Beretta that was found under the driver’s seat of the red Oldsmobile Calais. A 9mm Walther automatic pistol, model P-38, was recovered from the master bedroom, and a neglected Mossberg twelve-gauge bolt-action shotgun was wedged behind some garden tools on a garage wall.

The Newark office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms ran a trace on these weapons, but both handguns were too old to yield any information. The rusty Mossberg shotgun, however, was traced to a firearms wholesaler in Mahwah, New Jersey, who had sold the gun to the Two Guys department store in Hackensack on August 2, 1979. On the day before Christmas 1979, the gun was purchased by a Robert Patterson of Bergenfield, New Jersey. When the police questioned Mr. Patterson about the shotgun, he told them that he’d bought it for his brother, Rich, who was now living in Jupiter, Florida.

Rich Patterson was very nervous when he returned to New Jersey to answer questions about the shotgun, but his nerves didn’t keep him from talking. In fact, the young man had quite a bit to get off his chest when he sat down with state investigators who wanted to know how his gun had gotten into Richard Kuklinski’s garage.

The answer was simple: Rich Patterson had lived with the Kuklinskis from 1983 to early 1986. He had been engaged to Merrick, the Kuklinskis’ older daughter. Richard Kuklinski had liked him, and he had wanted them to get married.

But before moving in with the Kuklinskis, Patterson explained, he had briefly had an apartment of his own, a small studio just a few miles from Dumont at 51-1 Fairview Avenue in Bergenfield. Patterson swallowed hard and paused before he continued with his story. He seemed suddenly shaken. When he finally collected himself, he told the state investigators about the weekend in February 1983 when he and Merrick Kuklinski and a group of friends went away to a hunting lodge in upstate New York. He wasn’t sure which weekend it was, but he did remember that one of the other boys in the group had fallen onto a wood-burning stove and burned himself so badly he had to be taken to the hospital in Ellenville, New York. (Hospital records later confirmed that the young man Patterson mentioned had been brought to the emergency room with severe back burns on Saturday, February 5, 1983.) Other than that trip to the emergency room, the weekend
had been pretty uneventful. He and Merrick returned home late Sunday night, and Patterson spent the night at the Kuklinskis’.

The next morning Richard Kuklinski asked “young Rich,” as the family called him, to give him a hand with something. They got into Kuklinski’s white Cadillac, and Kuklinski let young Rich drive. It had just snowed, and the roads were slippery. Kuklinski told Patterson to head toward the Blazing Bucks Ranch in West Milford. Patterson knew the way. The family had taken him there many times to go horseback riding.

On the way Richard Kuklinski told the young man that something had happened at his apartment that weekend. Kuklinski, who had a set of keys to the place, had let a friend stay there. The friend had been living at a motel on Route 46 because he was in some kind of trouble. Kuklinski had been helping him, bringing him food so he wouldn’t have to go out and risk being seen. But when Kuklinski had gone to Rich Patterson’s apartment to check on his friend sometime during the weekend, he found the man dead. He’d been shot. The body, Kuklinski said, was in the trunk. He said he wanted to dispose of it in the woods so that young Rich wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of having to explain to the police how someone had gotten killed in his apartment.

Gripping the steering wheel with bloodless fingers, Patterson followed Kuklinski’s directions to an old logging road near the ranch. He pointed to a place at the side of the road and told Patterson to pull over. Other than the reservoir there was nothing but woods on this road. Kuklinski told him to shut off the engine and pop the trunk. Young Rich obeyed, but he couldn’t bring himself to get out of the car. Driving there with the body in the trunk had already given him the creeps. Touching the thing was unimaginable.

Sitting behind the wheel of the Cadillac, staring into the rearview mirror, Patterson heard a few thumps in the trunk. The trunk lid slammed shut, and Patterson saw Richard Kuklinski, his future father-in-law, dragging something wrapped in dark green plastic
garbage bags through the snow. Knowing what it was, Patterson could imagine the shape of the dead man inside. Richard Kuklinski disappeared into the trees with his bundle.

A few minutes later Kuklinski returned and got into the car. He told Patterson to head home. On the way back Kuklinski said it would be best if they just forgot that this had ever happened.

Young Rich was afraid to go back to his apartment, and he was certainly never going to sleep there again. Two days later he did return, though, to collect his things. Richard Kuklinski went with him. While Patterson gathered his belongings, Kuklinski got down on his hands and knees and scrubbed the red-brown stain on the gold-colored carpeting where he said the dead man had bled after he was shot. As Kuklinski worked on the bloodstain, Patterson noticed a few pieces of Tupperware on the kitchen counter that weren’t his. They looked as if they had been laid out to dry after being washed. He was pretty sure he’d seen these containers before at the Kuklinskis’ house.

The investigators asked Patterson if Richard Kuklinski ever mentioned the dead man again after that.

Only once, Patterson said, and he didn’t exactly mention it. That spring the family was up at the Blazing Bucks Ranch, and once again he had gone with them. Kuklinski, who never rode himself, had been reading the local West Milford newspaper. He pointed to an article and told Patterson to read it. The article was about a body that had recently been found in the vicinity by a man out riding his bicycle.

Young Rich and Merrick eventually broke off their engagement, and Patterson moved out of the house. The dead man was never mentioned again.

With the information provided by Rich Patterson, Investigators Paul Smith and Ron Donahue went to the studio apartment at 51-1 Fairview Avenue in Bergenfield with a photographer and a state police chemist to look for the stain in the carpet. The current
resident, a flight attendant who lived there only part of the time, told them that she remembered there being some discoloration in the rug when she moved in, but she couldn’t recall exactly where it was, and she definitely didn’t remember its being red or brown. She said she had had the entire carpet professionally cleaned before she moved in several years ago.

With the resident’s permission, Smith and Donahue moved the furniture and proceeded to pull up the carpeting, hoping to find some trace of blood on the canvas backing and foam rubber padding. They started with the edge closest to the window, which was where Patterson had remembered seeing the stain. Dust flew into their eyes and the odors of former tenants filled the air as they yanked at the old carpeting. They pulled up four feet worth and folded it back.

There was no sign of any staining on the canvas backing.

They ripped up the foam padding and folded that back.

Nothing.

Paul Smith was disappointed. Rich Patterson had been definite about the bloodstain being near the window. If there had been a stain, there should have been some trace of it on the underside. Even professional cleaning doesn’t clean that well.

“C’mon, Paulie, let’s put it back and get outta here,” Ron Donahue said. “I told you this was gonna be a waste of time.”

Paul Smith tapped his foot on the bare wood floor. “Why don’t we pull up a little more? What the hell, we’ve come this far.” He avoided the gaze of the woman who lived there. He’d promised her that they wouldn’t make a mess.

Donahue frowned at the young investigator. “This is a waste of time, I’m telling you. If there was a bloodstain here, Kuklinski would’ve gotten rid of the whole goddamn carpet. He’s no dummy.”

“Ronnie, we’re here, for chrissake,” Smith said under his breath so the woman wouldn’t hear them argue. “What’s it gonna hurt to do a little more?”

Donahue smirked and shook his head. “If it’ll make you happy, Paulie. But don’t listen to me. I’ve only been doing this friggin’ job since you were in short pants.”

“Just give me a hand, will ya, Ronnie?”

Coughing and blinking, they pulled up four more feet of carpeting and padding.

Still no stains.

Paul Smith cursed under his breath.

“See, Paulie? What’d I tell you? Now let’s put it back so we can get outta here.”

“Hang on a minute. Let’s just pull up a little bit more. I got a feeling.”

The older investigator looked at Smith as if he were crazy. “You got a
feeling
? What’re you, a friggin’ psychic now?”

“C’mon, Ronnie, just a little more.”

Ron Donahue looked to the woman who lived there and shrugged, giving her a helpless look.

Paul Smith glanced at her waiting in the doorway. Her arms were folded, and all of a sudden she didn’t look like a nice, accommodating flight attendant anymore. She was scowling at him. “You told me you wouldn’t make a mess.”

Paul Smith coughed into his fist. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but this is a murder investigation. Don’t worry, though. The state will reimburse you for any damages.”

She rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Go ahead then. Do what you have to.”

“Thank you. We’ll put it all back the way it was. I promise.” Smith and Donahue moved her table and chairs onto the exposed wood floor and tipped her foldout couch up on one end to make room.

“There’d better be a something under here,” Ron Donahue whispered to Paul Smith. “This lady’s gonna call the governor if there isn’t.”

“Just shut up and help me, will you, please?”

They heaved the carpeting back over on itself with a dusty
whomp
. The padding was stuck to the canvas backing, and they had to tear it away to get a look.

Paul Smith blinked back the grit in his eyes, then beamed at what he saw. It was as if he’d found the pot of gold at the end of a long rainbow.

Ron Donahue’s jaw dropped.

“I told you I had a feeling, Ronnie.”

A large brown blob-shaped stain was on the canvas backing, and its twin was on the foam padding. The stain had even soaked through the padding and penetrated the hardwood floor. Paul Smith took out a tape measure to get the exact location of the stain. It was twelve feet seven inches from the window.

While the photographer started to take pictures, Herbert Heany, the state police chemist, tested the dried stains on the carpeting, the padding, and the floorboards. He tested four separate areas for the presence of human blood.

Paul Smith hovered over him like an expectant father. “Well? Is it or isn’t it?”

Heany took his time and made sure of the results before he looked up at Paul Smith. “It’s positive,” he said. “Four for four. It’s all blood.”

Smith slapped Donahue on the back. “See? What’d I tell you, Ronnie? The Patterson kid was right about the stain. His geography was just a little screwed up, that’s all.”

The flight attendant coughed to get their attention. She wanted to know when they were going to put her apartment back together.

“Soon.” Paul Smith put on a straight face and tried to contain his glee and project a more professional image for the citizen whose home they’d just torn apart. “Just as soon as we finish up here, ma’am. As I mentioned, this
is
a murder investigation.”

As Deputy Attorney General Bob Carroll proceeded to assemble the evidence against Richard Kuklinski, the matter of Danny
Deppner’s death remained a problem. They had Rich Patterson’s statements that he’d witnessed Kuklinski dumping a body in the woods. They knew that Danny Deppner must have died in Patterson’s Bergenfield apartment, and the bloodstains found under the carpeting supported that contention. They had Patterson’s statement about seeing the Tupperware in his kitchen that didn’t belong to him. It was possible that Kuklinski had brought cyanide-laced food to Deppner in those plastic containers. They had the medical examiner’s report describing the pink lividity on Deppner’s chest and shoulders, which
could
have been caused by cyanide poisoning. Focusing on the deaths of Gary Smith and Danny Deppner, Bob Carroll wanted to draw a line between these two cases to show that both men were killed in the same manner and that these two murders formed a pattern. By proving a consistent method of killing, he could bolster the state’s case against Kuklinski.

In his heart Bob Carroll had no doubt that Kuklinski had gotten rid of Deppner the same way he’d gotten rid of Gary Smith, by poisoning his food, but
proving
it would be difficult. Cyanide isn’t the only toxin that causes pink lividity on the skin. According to Patterson’s statement, Kuklinski had told him that
someone else
had killed the man who’d died in his apartment. And even though disposing of a body is a crime in itself, it does not necessarily prove murder. But that was what Bob Carroll needed to prove if he was going to nail the Iceman. He hoped that Dr. Geetha Natarajan, the forensic pathologist who’d done the autopsy on Deppner, might be able to help him.

The air was warm and moist with the coming of spring when the deputy attorney general drove to the Office of the Medical Examiner in Newark. He entered the two-story brick building through the bays where the bodies were brought in, signed himself in with the guard, and walked down the long marble hallway past the “work room.” The smell always caught him by surprise whenever he came here. It smelled like a very ripe pet shop.

Pushing through the metal door at the end of the hall, he entered the offices where a secretary was handling the phones while technicians in lab coats rushed in and out of the warren of small offices that lined the outer wall. He found Dr. Natarajan’s office. The door was open, but he knocked anyway to get her attention.

The attractive woman who usually had a ready smile for everyone snapped her head up from her cluttered desk and pushed the hair off her forehead. Her dark eyes flashed at him. “I’m mad at you,” she huffed.