George went a little red; every time he revealed something that Kitty did to him, it was with a combination of apology and acceptance. Hell, he only got what he deserved from her, right?
“Ya see, I guess she was still sore at me, so she didn’t call me right after the doctor left. Like, to make me keep waitin’, ya know?”
I decided not to ask George if he, personally, had given the kid the measles. He’d probably say, “Yes, if Kitty says so.”
“Okay, so you spoke to her last night at eleven-twenty?”
“No, no. I couldn’t come to the phone right then. See, I was in the middle of a hassle with these Irish folk singers I got working on Wednesdays and weekends. They’re havin’ this real donnybrook, because they’re supposed to be on a break, from eleven-fifteen to eleven-thirty, and one of them started doin’ an old-country song for one of the old-timers and the other guys got sore, yellin’ how he was breaking the rule. That it was eleven-twenty and they were supposed to be off until eleven-thirty and all.” George Keeler shrugged; apparently, nothing in his life went smoothly.
“So that’s how you know Kitty called you at eleven-twenty? Okay. When
did
you talk to her?”
Poor George (I had already begun to think of him as “poor George”) kept dialing his home number all night long, from eleven twenty-five to well past two this morning. All he got was a busy signal; Kitty had obviously taken the phone off the hook.
“So you didn’t talk to her until this morning? When she called you? At about seven-thirty?”
“Yeah, right. Boy, I was sound asleep, but the minute I hear the phone ring, I come wide awake, like that!” He snapped his fingers. “The minute I hear it, I say, Oh, boy. Kitty.”
And that was when Kitty told him the kids were gone and he better show up with them and fast.
“And I tole her that I didn’t have the kids, so I got dressed, and come right over here, and looked around the grounds and all, and called you guys.”
George Keeler threw his hands up; his heavy eyebrows came low over his light-gray eyes and he chewed on his lip waiting for me to tell him what to do. I leaned back against the bench and took it slow, so George would realize that none of this was anything unusual to me.
“Look, George, let’s do it this way. We’ll go over to your place and bring your boys home and forget the whole thing, okay? I mean, as far as I’m concerned, this isn’t a police matter. We’ll bring the kids back and you and your wife work it out between you. Nothing to do with us. What do you say, George?”
George Keeler stood up, shook his head, looked around as though trying to orient himself, then he leaned down into my face. His voice was raspy and strained as though he was talking over a very sore throat, but it was the look in his eyes that really said something to me.
“Jesus Christ Almighty, haven’t you been listenin’ to me? I
don’t have
the kids. I don’t know where the hell they are. They’re just two little kids and I don’t know where they are!”
Everything about George Keeler convinced me that his anguish was real. Of course, the source of this anguish was still unknown, but he was a deeply disturbed man. There was one other suggestion.
“Look, George, maybe Kitty took the kids someplace? Maybe to get even with you. You told me she was sore at you in the first place, and then you didn’t come to the phone when she called. Maybe she packed the kids up and took them to a friend’s house, to give you a hard time?”
His face didn’t relax into that bland, accepting expression. He shook his head abruptly and said in a positive, hoarse voice, “Kitty don’t play them kind of games.”
I believed him and suggested we return to his apartment.
It was obvious the minute we walked into the living room. Catalano leaned forward and put his coffee cup on the cocktail table with the casual ease of a man who has made himself at home. When he spoke to Kitty Keeler, it was in the comfortable way of an old friend. That was among Catalano’s gifts: to become an instant old friend.
The first thing that Kitty said to her husband was, “Well, George, you finished playing games? You ready to bring the kids home?”
Sam distracted her, a hand on her arm, a certain persuasive pressure, a let-me-handle-this wink. He told me what Kitty had told him: the pediatrician came at around seven last night; diagnosed measles; left about seven-thirty. The sick boy went to sleep; the older boy, Terry, had supper with his mother, stayed up to watch TV until about ten and then was put to bed.
“Did either of the boys get up again during the night?”
Instead of answering me, Kitty Keeler flicked her thumbnail against her front teeth and narrowed her eyes. She finally pulled her thumb away from her mouth and said, “Look. Did George tell you about how he did this to me before? Did he tell you about the last time he took the kids on me?”
“Yes, he did. He also told me that he didn’t take the boys last night.”
“And you believe him?” Her moist mouth twisted downward in an expression of contempt. She moved her head so that the long silky hair swished around her shoulders. “You really believe him, after what he did the last time?”
“Yeah, but this is
this
time.”
She stopped shaking her head, leaned back against the couch, reached for a loose pillow and hugged it to her body, all the time biting down on her lower lip, holding it between her teeth, then letting it roll back into place.
“All right,” she said, doing me a favor. “Georgie woke up when Terry went to bed. His fever was up again, so I gave him a baby aspirin, rubbed him with alcohol and took him to the bathroom.” She stood up, crossed the room to the window, stood motionless, then spun around with a dancer’s ease. “There’s no point to any of this. George has the kids.”
It was hard to figure if the hostility was directed at me or through me to her husband. Kitty seemed to have chosen sides: her and Catalano against me and George. Matching her stare, I said, “George, do you have the kids?”
Keeler went to his wife, hands reaching for her shoulders. “I swear to God, no. Kitty, I don’t have them, God is my witness.”
She shoved George away, folded her arms across her body, threw her head back and studied the ceiling. She gave a loud, irritated sigh.
Kitty had been dealing with George for too long. I figured, the hell with this. I snapped my notebook closed, put it into a rear pocket. “Look, lady, if this whole thing is just too boring for you, that’s all right with me. They’re
your
kids.”
We both ignored George’s sudden gasping panic. She said, “
I
didn’t send for you.”
Catalano jumped up. “Kitty, hey, we’re just trying to help.” Then, impartial referee, “She’s just upset, Joe.”
He gave her the benefit of his complete attention; his voice hummed around her, soothed her, convinced her to “put up with” me. She crossed one leg over the other, nibbled on her pinky and asked, “What was the question?”
“When was the last time you saw your sons last night? And under what circumstances?”
She thought it over, then shrugged. “Terry got up later in the night for a drink of water. He dropped the plastic cup and that woke Georgie. So I took Georgie to the bathroom, then had to change him and his sheet because he was soaked with sweat. Then I took a coupla sleeping pills and a hot shower and went to bed.”
“Those things aren’t good for you, Kitty,” George told her; she ignored him.
“What time was that?”
“What time was what?”
Catalano interpreted for me. “What time was it, Kitty, that you last saw the boys last night?”
She examined her pinky carefully, then nibbled on it some more. “One o’clock. That’s when Terry got up. About that time. And it was about one-thirty when I took the sleeping pills and my shower and went to bed.”
“Did you see your sons at all after one-thirty this morning?”
She shifted some hair from her shoulders to her back. “Nope.”
“From the time you went to bed until you woke up this morning, did you hear anything, anything at all, unusual in the apartment?”
She smiled at Catalano, awarding him points. “That’s just what
you
asked me, Sam.” Then, blank-faced, to me, “No, nothing at all. No noise, no nothing.”
“Did you leave your sons alone in the apartment at any time last night?”
“No.”
“As far as you know, did anyone, anyone at all, come into the apartment last night?”
She closed her eyes, tapped an index finger against her temple, then snapped her eyes open and said, “Yeah. The doctor.”
Catalano said softly, “No, Kitty. Joe means anyone besides the doctor.”
“Oh. Is that what Joe means?”
The little mother was just a little too cute for me. I pulled out my notebook and didn’t look up at her again. “Let’s have a description of the boys, Mrs. Keeler. Start with the older boy, Terry.”
The descriptions were of two unextraordinary boys: three and a half and six years old. Both tall for their ages; very blond hair; blue eyes; fair skin. Both dressed in two-piece cotton knit pajamas. Terry’s pajamas had yellow smiling moon faces; Georgie’s had a big yellow duck face on the front of the top half and a big yellow duck bottom on the back, with little yellow ducks on the pants. And Georgie had a measles rash all over his face and body.
“Is any of their clothing missing, Mrs. Keeler?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t look.”
“Well, look now.”
She apparently considered this another challenge, something she had to decide to do or not to do. Finally she got up. “Sure, why not?”
It took her four or five minutes. Nothing was missing. When asked, she came up with an eight-by-ten studio photograph of the boys. They appeared to be little versions of their mother, with small teeth showing through plastic smiles.
When the telephone rang, George Keeler jumped as though he’d touched a live wire. It was loud and he grabbed it in the middle of the second ring; he listened, then said, “Detective Peters, it’s for you.”
“I’ll take it in the kitchen.” There was a yellow wall phone offering a little more privacy. Keeler hung up as soon as he heard my voice.
“Joe? Can you talk?”
I had left the Keelers’ phone number on Tim Neary’s desk; he probably was going to ask what the hell I was doing in the middle of a domestic quarrel, which is what I had been asking myself.
“What’s up, Tim?”
His voice went flat and expressionless; the official kind of voice used to relay the kind of information Tim Neary had.
“Joe, I’m going to read the descriptions of two D.O.A.s that just turned up over on Peck Avenue. That’s about six blocks from where you are. I haven’t been there, but I’ll relay what I just got from the precinct. Two male Caucasians. Subject number one—approximately three to four years old; death apparently by strangulation. Subject number two—approximately five to six years old; death apparently caused by an as yet undetermined caliber gunshot wound at the base of the right side of the skull. Both victims blond hair, blue eyes; both dressed in yellow-and-white cotton knit pajamas.”
“One kid’s pajamas has smiling moon faces; the other kid’s has a yellow duck face.” I tried to swallow the sour lump that had become wedged in my throat.
There was a long silence, then Neary said, “Them’s our babies.” He gave the exact location. “You got the father there, Joe? For an identification?”
“Yeah. Is there a doctor at the scene, Tim? The guy’s an asthmatic. I think he’s gonna need some help.”
“Probably someone from the M.E.’s office. Listen, get back to me with the confirmation—or whatever—as soon as you can. And, Joe? Put Catalano on for a minute; I want him to seal the premises. We’re dealing with a double homicide.” He couldn’t resist adding, in an irritated voice, “Christ, Joe, that’s just what I need right now, huh?”
I couldn’t think of anyone who really needed a double homicide, now or at any other time. I went back into the living room. “Sam, captain wants to talk to you. He’s not happy about the report you did on the Flushing bank heist.”
Sam’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t say anything; both Keelers were watching us closely. I went over to George and said, a little too loudly, “Hey, George, tell you what. Let’s you and me take a ride over to your ginmill in Sunnyside. That way, we’ll have touched all the bases and your wife will believe that you haven’t been conning her. What do you say?”
When Catalano came back from the kitchen, his color had changed. He was still smooth and easy and he kept coming on with the blond mother, flexing his body, holding attention to himself, keeping it all under control. But his color had changed. And, for some reason, I think Kitty Keeler noticed it. I looked at her over my shoulder, just before we left the apartment and caught something: something in her eyes, some glint of terror or pain or anticipation. Something I would have to think about later.
There were a number of official vehicles in the immediate vicinity when I pulled my Chevy alongside a squad car which had been parked haphazardly on Peck Avenue. There was an ambulance with the word
MORTUARY
printed front, back and on both sides. The whole area had a look of urgency.
“I gotta check on something for a minute, George. Be right back.”
There were uniformed personnel to deal with the curious neighbors, who really presented no problem: they were frightened middle-aged women for the most part. The homicide people were at work, measuring, photographing, cooperating with the forensic people, who were taking invisible samples of whatever substances they deemed should be brushed or scraped into the inevitable plasticine envelopes. A CBS-TV camera crew had just arrived; a crew from the
Daily News
was flashing pictures.
Captain Chris Wise of the Queens Homicide was present and in charge. Chris had been my boss for nearly four years and we knew each other for longer than that. He nodded to me, then jerked a thumb to indicate where the bodies were.
“Understand you guys took a call, Joe, about two missing kids this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I don’t think they’re missing anymore.” He turned toward the street, where my car was parked. “Who ya got, the father?”