Investigation (6 page)

She began to tell me the story of her life: how she had entered the country two years ago as a domestic from Glasgow, Scotland, with a guaranteed job in the household of an unsuspecting New Jersey doctor and his family. How she had spent most of her time eating, polishing her nails and entertaining the Avon Lady while ignoring any number of household catastrophes. She patted her hips, which seemed about to burst the overly stretched blue stretch slacks, then her cheeks, which were puffed out as though someone had put an air hose into her mouth and just kept pumping. Then she dug around through a collection of pictures and papers on her dresser top until she found what she was looking for. It was a photograph of a tall, slender smiling pretty girl who might have been a distant relative of the current Patti MacDougal, but it was, of course, a photograph of the previous Patti MacDougal, less some fifty pounds she had put on while enjoying the good life. Judging from the way her clothes fit her, she hadn’t gotten around to shopping for larger sizes.

“How do you know Mrs. Keeler, Patti?”

“Oh, I met her through my friend Marge Kennicutt. She came out a year before me, you know. I’ve been through so many different jobs, you see.” Patti grinned at her lack of ability to settle down. “And last November I was really out of it, if you take my meaning, and Marge let me move in with her for a bit, but she was newly married, and I was in the way and all, but so anyway. See, Marge got a call from Mrs. Keeler, that she was needed for a few days, or could she recommend a girl to stay with the boys—”

“You’re
the Scotch girl.”

Patti gasped and pushed her lips out as though to whistle. “You mean you’ve heard of me! A policeman, and you’ve heard of me!”

“Not officially, Patti, don’t worry about it.”

She considered that for a moment or two, then ducked her head down and looked up at me from under her eyebrows and a lock of dark hair that had fallen over her face. “It’s
Scots,”
she told me. “Not
Scotch.
Scotch is something you drink; I’m not something you drink, you see?”

It was a few seconds before I realized that Patti was being coy; that she was fluttering those stubby, blue-beaded mascaraed eyelashes for my benefit.

All the time we were talking, Patti MacDougal was feeding herself one of the creamed varieties of canned soup. She walked around, one hand holding the handle of the greasy white enamel pot filled with the lumpy stuff, the other hand guiding a long-handled wooden spoon from the pot to her mouth. Before she resettled on the bulging, buggy armchair, she extended the pot toward me: wouldn’t I like some? Then she sat down and proceeded to lap up the thick soup with an obvious, total enjoyment.

“You and Mrs. Keeler are on good terms, then, Patti? In spite of what happened last November?”

The sight of Patti delicately biting at a solid glob of soup didn’t do my ulcer any good.

“Oh, she’s that nice, really she is. No, she wasn’t angry with me.” Patti shrugged her shoulders and laughed girlishly. “It
was
bad of me, though, and I was
that
sorry.”

From time to time, Patti baby-sat with the boys, but only for an evening or a morning. She admitted, with a grin, she wasn’t that trustworthy to baby-sit for longer periods of time.

“How come you borrowed Mrs. Keeler’s car, Patti?”

A few days ago, Patti had had an accident with her Volkswagen and she called Mrs. Keeler for help. Mrs. Keeler apparently knows any number of men who can handle any manner of catastrophes. On Mrs. Keeler’s advice, Patti called a Mr. Mogliano, and within half an hour a tow truck arrived and the battered VW was taken away for repairs, which, she had been assured, would cost her only a nominal fee.

“Well, so, that was over the weekend, and, see, I had this very important appointment for last night, and my car wasn’t ready, and there I was, up the creek. Without a car, do you see?”

She called Kitty Keeler for advice; was advised to hop a cab to Fresh Meadows for the loan of the Porsche. Upon her solemn promise to be very careful.

“Oh, and it’s a beautiful machine, the Porsche, you know.”

“What time did you see Mrs. Keeler yesterday, Patti?”

She had arrived at 4
P.M.,
stayed with the boys for about forty-five minutes, while Kitty went marketing, then stayed on to have a cup of tea.

“How was Mrs. Keeler, Patti? Was she upset, because George was sick? And she couldn’t go to Phoenix because of that?”

Patti stopped licking the last of the soup from the spoon. “Oh, my, you do know all sorts of things, don’t you? Well, she was upset, some, I’m sure. Because, see, Mrs. Silverberg, the old lady from next door, is in hospital and all—”

“Did Mrs. Keeler ask you if
you
could stay with the boys?”

Patti laughed indulgently at her own shortcomings. “Oh, noooo, she wouldn’t want me for that period of time. I’m not all that reliable, I admit it on myself, you see.”

“What time did you leave the Keeler apartment?”

“At just after five, it was. Oh, and I drove the Porsche, and I don’t mind telling you, my young man of the night was that impressed.”

Very carefully, I led her into a discussion of the kind of mother Kitty Keeler was. According to Patti, Kitty was about on a par with the Virgin Mary.

“I’ll bet you didn’t know I’m Catholic,” Patti bet me. “Most people are surprised to learn that there are Catholic Scots.”

She sure had me there; I’d never have guessed. She continued her testimonial, then launched into a detailed account of her date, which really sounded terrific.

“So then, this morning, when you put on the radio you heard about what happened to the boys, to Terry and George?”

Patti stopped speaking in the middle of a word; she shrugged her shoulders and shuddered as though a chill ran down her back. Her small eyes filled with tears and they spilled down her round cheeks, leaving long royal-blue streaks of mascara.

“And you haven’t seen or spoken to Mrs. Keeler since ... what was it, five o’clock last night?”

She nodded absently, then jerked her head at me. “Oh, no, wait, that wasn’t what I said, was it?”

“I’m sorry. I must have misunderstood, Patti. Did you see or speak to Mrs. Keeler after five last night?”

She became evasive; her face screwed up with indecision. I leaned forward and reached for her hands; they grasped mine with a surprising tension.

“What’s wrong, Patti? What is it you’re not sure you should tell me?”

“How did you know that?” she asked in wonder. It’s been a long time since I was so impressive.

“Because you’re a nice girl and I can see you’re worrying about something. It’ll be better if you tell me; then you won’t have to worry about it anymore. Patti?”

“Well, you see, last night I drove my gentleman friend to his place and left right away. He’s coming down with the flu and didn’t want me to stay around. He lives in Manhattan, you see, so as I was driving over the bridge to Queens, I fell to thinking that why ever should Mrs. Keeler be without her car in the morning? It was good enough of her to lend it to me; the least I could do was to return it, and take a taxi-cab home you see?”

“Very thoughtful, Patti.” Very carefully, I asked her, “So you went back to Mrs. Keeler’s apartment late last night” What time would that be?”

“It was two-thirty. This morning. I pulled into the parking lot, see I know her parking space, it’s all reserved and all, and I knew it was two-thirty, the news was just coming on and all.”

“And what happened then? You went to Mrs. Keeler’s apartment at two-thirty?”

“Well yes.” She hesitated: this was the tricky part; the part of it that had her worried. I squeezed her hands lightly: they were very cold.

“Did you see her at that time? Patti?”

“Well. No. See, that was the funny thing. I went to the apartment door and tapped. I didn’t want to wake the boys so I didn’t ring the bell at first.”

“What about waking Mrs. Keeler? Didn’t you think she’d be asleep at that time?”

“Oh, no. Mrs. Keeler is so used to working late-night hours, at the spa, you see. She hardly ever gets to sleep before three or four, she’d told me that. Besides. I’d seen her bedroom light on around the back, you know, when I came from the parking lot.”

“Okay what happened then?”

“Well, she didn’t come to the door. So finally I rang the bell. I hated to do that, it’s such a loud bell, but, you know, I thought maybe she’d the telly on and couldn’t hear me tapping.”

“Did she come to the door?”

Patti shook her head, staring at our collection of fingers.

“Then what did you do? Did you hear anything from inside? The boys crying or calling out or anything?”

“It was quiet inside. From what I could hear with my ear at the door.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Well, then I drove home. Back to here, and I got ready for bed. And then ...” She wavered; drew her hands onto her own lap.

“Come on, Patti, then what?”

Apparently she couldn’t talk unless I squeezed the words out of her hands. They were still cold, but, at the same time, now they were sweaty.

“Well. I was sort of worried, you know. Her not coming to the door and all. So ... I went out into the hallway there, where the phone is. And I called her. Mrs. Keeler.”

“And ... ?”

“She answered; on the first ring, in fact. I was relieved to hear her voice. That she was ... all right, you know?”

“What time was this, Patti? And what did she say?”

“It was a minute or so after three; the news was on again.” She gestured vaguely toward her table radio. “And so, well, I told her that I had stopped by, with the car for her, and all. But, well, I think she was angry with me. Or annoyed.”

“Why? What did she say when you told her about knocking on the door and ringing the bell?”

“Well, she said that she’d been under the shower and had the radio on in the bathroom and didn’t hear me at the door.”

She looked up at me with her small runny eyes, waiting for me to ask the right question; unwilling to volunteer anything more.

“But you didn’t believe that, right, Patti?” I took a calculated guess. “The bathroom window faces the parking lot, doesn’t it?” She nodded. “Was the light on in the bathroom at that time?”

Patti shook her head. She looked at me hopefully. “Maybe she was bathing in the dark? Do you think that might be possible?”

I shrugged; that made her feel a little better.

“Patti, did you see anyone, anyone at all, either in the parking lot or near the building? Did anyone see you there at two-thirty this morning?”

She hadn’t noticed anyone; it would take days of bell-ringing and hundreds of interviews to determine if anyone in the vicinity could confirm the fact of Patti’s presence in Fresh Meadows at the time she claimed.

When I told her that I’d drive her to the squad office, she smiled, shoved the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hands, and dug through a morass of garments in the small closet until she finally bent down and yanked out a short bright-blue fake-fur jacket. When she put it on, she looked like a stuffed blue teddy bear.

We hit the street just as Sam Catalano got out of his car. He waved and called to me. I waved back, got the Porsche’s keys from Patti, tossed them to Sam just before I got behind the wheel. The Porsche was parked right behind my car.

“See you later, Sam. They’re waiting at the 107th for the Porsche. Try to get back to the squad before Captain Neary.”

I couldn’t hear what Sam was calling out to me, so I just waved as we drove past him.

W
HILE I WAS IN
Neary’s office giving him the essentials of what Patti MacDougal had told me, Patti was making friends in the squad room. To keep her happy until her statement was typed and ready for her signature she’d been provided with a bag of Burger Kings and a couple of chocolate milkshakes.

“Jesus Joe, let’s get her story confirmed.”

“I’ve notified Wise. And I pulled Collins and Schwartz from the Peck Avenue location and told them to question the owner of every car in the Fresh Meadows parking lot. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

It wasn’t that Tim was generous with his authority as squad commander; he wasn’t. At the point where the case was ready to be all pulled together, he would remind us both that even though I was the senior first-grade detective in the squad, he was the boss so far as credit was concerned. District Attorney Jeremiah Kelleher waited upstairs to remind Tim that in the event of failure it was also all Tim’s.

“I wish the goddamn Medical Examiner would call. Even with tentative information.” Tim was cracking his knuckles: a sure sign of building tension; “Have you seen the early edition of the
Post?
They got someone working in my squad or what?”

Some enterprising, ambitious anonymous reporter, trying to earn his byline, had gotten hold of the fact that there were more than a hundred men’s names in Kitty’s pink leather telephone book. And that of the names checked so far, more than half were known to the police in connection with various interrelated criminal matters. That was how this anonymous reporter described it: “various interrelated criminal matters.”

“The paper got that almost as fast as it was relayed to me, Joe.” Tim whistled softly between his teeth, and his eyes glazed over for a moment. Then he blinked and smashed his hand down on his desk. “Hey, where the hell is that dago son-of-a-bitch Catalano?”

Tim Neary has nothing against Italians. His wife, Catherine, is Italian. It was the first thing he told me about her, years ago when he asked me to be his best man: “She’s Italian, Joe, but a terrific girl.”

I convinced him that Sam was safely out of the way. After turning it over in his mind, Neary said, “Good. Good. In fact, Joe, give him a call over at the 107th and tell him he’s to stay with the Porsche. He’s not to let it out of his sight.”

“He’s probably on his way back here by now, Tim.”

Tim smiled tightly. “Good. The minute he gets here, tell him to turn his ass around and get back to the Porsche. The son-of-a-bitch.” Then, just in case, he asked, “You don’t think the car has any connection to the case, do you, Joe?”