Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 09/01/12 (13 page)

 
Later that evening, Gus Oliver sat at a desk in the plush law
offices of Andrew Saks. Spread before him lay photocopies of Suffolk County
Police Department’s file contents relating to the murder of Francis Dermott
McAdams. Included were numerous eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch photographs of
the body, crime scene, and various objects and locations deemed pertinent to the
investigations.

On October 7, 1959, some six months earlier, in a heavily wooded area beside a
gravel road near the Poospatuck Indian Reservation, within the small Long Island
community of Mastic, a man’s body was found. The victim had been shot to
death.

County investigators, working with the two-man Mastic Police Department, soon
learned that the deceased was a sixty-four-year-old retired New York City police
captain, Francis McAdams, who had recently moved to Shirley, a town not far from
where the body had been found.

It was later learned that the victim’s house was located less than a quarter-mile
from that of another former New York City resident, Lily O’Rourke.

The Suffolk County investigators visited McAdams’ home where, accompanied by
Shirley police chief Gene Worthy, they methodically searched the house.

The divorced McAdams had lived alone. Found among his belongings was a thick,
battered scrapbook. Curious, Worthy sat at the small kitchen table leafing
through the scrapbook, its yellowed, dog-eared press clippings dating from the
early nineteen twenties until McAdams’ retirement in 1956.

One series of articles in particular caught the chief’s eye. In 1927, at what had
apparently been an infamous and legendary New York speakeasy,
thirty-two-year-old McAdams, then a lieutenant, had been involved in a deadly
face-to-face shootout with a known associate of Lucky Luciano, thirty-year-old
Guiseppe Cataldo Rudialaro, a.k.a. Joe Rudi. The shooting had taken place inside
the second-floor brothel of the speakeasy where Rudi served as bouncer. There
had been only one eyewitness present: Lily O’Rourke Cosenza, the
twenty-seven-year-old wife of the establishment’s owner, Dominick Cosenza.

Chief Worthy quickly turned pages, finding follow-up stories detailing how, after
sworn testimony from both McAdams and Lily, the Grand Jury reached its decision:
Not only was the shooting deemed justified, but in slaying Joe Rudi, Lieutenant
McAdams had saved his own life, and most probably Lily’s. But with careful
reading, those same articles hinted at the possibility of a somewhat more
sinister and unspecified scenario.

“Hey, Inspector,” Worthy had called. “I think you need to see this.”

As the current investigation continued, it was discovered that Lily had often
been seen in McAdams’ company since his recent arrival in Shirley. Inquiries to
the New York City Police Department provided details of the checkered,
criminally themed life of Lily O’Rourke Cosenza, as well as indications of a
somewhat less than noble police career for Francis McAdams.

Tire tracks found in the mud near the body proved unreadable as to tire type or
wear but did reveal that the car that left them had a front-wheel track width of
58.0 inches and a rear track of 58.8.

The 1955 four-door Chevrolet Bel Air registered to Lily O’Rourke had identical
dimensions.

A search warrant was issued, the car examined carefully, however no forensic
evidence was found. A search of Lily’s house turned up two unregistered
handguns, a .22 automatic and a snub-nose Colt .38 revolver. Although McAdams
had been shot twice with a .38, the recovered bullets did not match Lily’s
weapon.

Autopsy indicated the body had been lying in the woods for not less than five,
nor more than ten days, and that McAdams had initially been murdered somewhere
else and his body merely dumped in the woods. Examinations of both his and
Lily’s homes were negative for traces of blood or other forensics.

Gus continued to read through the file, finishing up with a long, detailed report
from the New York City police. When he was done, he slipped off his reading
glasses and rubbed at his weary eyes.

He needed to meet this Lily O’Rourke.

 
On Friday morning Gus visited the women’s wing of the Suffolk County
jail, Lily O’Rourke sitting opposite him at the table in an interview room. Her
matronly prison garb seemed oddly at opposition to her pretty grey eyes and
medium-length chestnut hair, only lightly speckled with grey. Despite the slight
facial puffiness indicative of a heavy drinker, she was an attractive woman with
a touch of sensuality emanating from her. Gus Oliver found it easy to believe
that a man in his sixties, such as Andrew Saks, would find Lily alluring and,
Gus speculated, perhaps easy to believe.

“So, Gus,” she said, “welcome to the club.”

“The club? Which club is that, Lily?”

She smiled with her answer. “The ‘Let’s help the poor girl get outta jail’ club.
I guess if Andrew Saks is the president, you must be second in charge.”

Gus shrugged. “I haven’t joined any club, Lily. Tell you the truth, after reading
the case file, I doubt I’ll be applying for membership.”

“Look,” she said, “I’ll tell you what I told Andrew. If they throw me in the gas
chamber for this, it’s not exactly Joan of Arc going to the stake, you know?
Maybe I even deserve it—hell, I’ve done some hurt in my life. But—if right and
wrong mean anything to you, then I’m telling you: I didn’t kill this guy. Twenty
years ago, if it became necessary, yeah, maybe I would have. But now I’m
fifty-nine years old and all I wanna do is watch
Dobie Gillis
and
Rawhide
on TV. If I start missin’ the good old days, maybe I’ll
tune into
The Untouchables.
I watch TV, sip some bourbon, and go to
bed. Alone, thank God. No more need to have some hairy ape pawing at me.” She
smiled. “No offense.”

Gus nodded. “None taken. So, you’ve made your speech. Want to hear mine?”

“Sure. Case you ain’t noticed, I really got nowhere to go.”

“The way the police see it, you had means, motive, and opportunity. You were seen
with the guy plenty, no doubt you knew him. In fact, far as the police can find
out, last time he was seen alive he was with you. You own two illegal guns,
probably know how to use ’em. Maybe even had a third that’s now at the bottom of
Moriches Bay. You’re no stranger to violence or criminal behavior, and it sure
was no coincidence that McAdams decided to move out of the city and, of all the
places in the world, buy a house close enough to yours he can hit it with a
rock. Then there’s the tire tracks. Pretty good match for your Chevy.”

“You maybe want to read that file again, Gus. It should tell you I’m the only
person out here he knew. Who else would he have been seen with? And remember,
the
tracks
don’t match, only the track widths match. You know how many
Chevys there are on the road?”

“No. Plenty, I guess.”

“Yeah. And the cops don’t even know what date he was killed, so I have no
opportunity to alibi myself. And as for motive, I know what the cops say. NYPD
told them all the rumors of how I skipped out of New York and dropped Cosenza
from my name because I was carrying a ton of mob dough in my pocket, dough I
supposedly robbed from the boys. So the cops figure McAdams was crooked and
maybe sent out to find me, then decided, ‘What the hell, I’ll just rob the dough
from
her
and skip.’ Or, if the jury don’t like that one, the cops
figure they’ll just say McAdams was gonna blackmail me, threaten to tell the
goombas where they could find me. So I killed him. Let me ask you something,
Gus: How stupid do you figure I am? If I
did
kill him, don’t you think
I’d know the cops would be knockin’ on my door in under twenty-four hours? Hell,
I even look good as a suspect to
myself.
You think I don’t realize
that? Believe me, if for some reason I had to kill McAdams, he would have
accidentally drowned in his tub or tripped down his staircase or maybe swallowed
some pills to end it all. I sure as hell wouldn’t shoot the son of a bitch and
dump him two miles from my house.”

Gus pondered it. “According to the reports, when the police first came to see
you, you said, ‘Well, what kept you? I’ve been expecting you boys.’”

She nodded. “Yeah. I said that. See, I had no idea McAdams was dead. I just
always figured sooner or later the local cops would somehow find out about me
and pay a visit. Maybe ask me to get out of town.” Now she smiled. “Or maybe
shake me down for some of the millions I’m sitting on.”

“What
about
this money the New York police say you have?” Gus asked.

She snorted with her answer. “Damn, Gus, you think I’d be ringing up groceries
and selling girdles if I had a pile of dough? I never once held a legit job
until I kissed the old life goodbye and moved out to these sticks to grow old
and die. Hell, I’ve made more money on my back than any ten women you know ever
made standing on their feet. And I spent every dime as fast as I made it.”

“That’s it? That’s your answer?”

“Look. After my husband got murdered by the Brooklyn mob, they took over
everything, every one of his rackets. And Big Dom Cosenza didn’t believe in
stocks and bonds, Gus. Every cent he had was cold, hard cash. You wanna know
where that dough is? Go ask Tommy Boy Alfredo in Brooklyn. He’ll tell you where
it is: In his back pocket, that’s where. If he thought I was holding out on him,
he’da beat the truth out of me and then tossed me in the river.”

Gus thought for a moment. “What about the guns?”

“Twenty-two was a gift,” she said with a shrug. “For my thirtieth birthday from
that jackass I was married to. The thirty-eight was his. What should I have done
with ’em, tossed them in the trash? Given ’em to the cops? When I walked away
from everything, I just put them in my suitcase.”

“How do you explain McAdams moving out here? Did you tell him where you
were?”

“No. Last thing I wanted was a man around.” She gave Gus a wink. “But, since I’m
being honest, that’s a fairly recent concept for me. See, back in the day, I’d
always be stringing two, maybe three guys along. I had a big appetite. Francis
McAdams was just one of those men. After Dom was killed, Francis started coming
around again, but I short-circuited any idea of picking up our affair. So, he
gets divorced and starts thinking about me. I was the kind of dame a guy tends
to remember. He tracks me down and moves out here. Stupid bastard brought me
roses the first night he knocked on my door.” She shook her head. “I might have
been happy to see him if it was a quart of Wild Turkey.” She curled her lips.
“Roses,” she said dismissively.

Gus stood up. “Okay, Lily. I’ll be in touch. Or may Andrew will be.”

She smiled up at him, her grey eyes twinkling. “Well, now, ain’t that the
smoothest brush-off I ever got.”

“Not sure yet, Lily,” Gus said. “I need to nose around some, make a few calls.
We’ll see.”

“Maybe you believe me?”

“Lily,” he said, his voice cold, “I figure I’m standing in the shoes of a whole
bunch of men who maybe believed you. And that might not be the smartest place to
be standin’.”

She laughed out loud. “Damn, Gus, I like you. Refreshing change from the morons I
spent most of my life around.” She let her smile fade, and her eyes grew sad. “I
understand, Gus,” she said. “Whichever way it goes, I’ll understand.”

 
Late that same afternoon, Gus sat in Andrew Saks’s office.

“So, Gus,” the lawyer asked. “What have you learned with all your phone
calls?”

Gus kept his face neutral with his reply.

“General Motors’ legal department told me almost eight hundred thousand nineteen
fifty-five Bel Airs were sold new. All with the exact same track measurements.
Plus, well over a million more GMs, Fords, Chryslers, Ramblers, and Studebakers
had the same or damn near same measurements. The NYPD Internal Affairs tell me
Francis McAdams was always known as a shady policeman. Nothing ever proven, but
he seemed to have mob ties dating back to that long-ago shooting at The Alimony
Prison.”

“I know that,” Saks replied.

“Seems to me,” Gus went on, “this is one hell of a circumstantial case against
Lily.”

“Yes, it is. But it’s perfectly legal to convict on circumstantial evidence. And
as you know, Suffolk County juries consist of farmers, fishermen, housewives,
tradesmen, and small-business owners. How do you think they’ll react to a lurid
tale involving a gun moll and brothel madam who came out here from New York City
and murdered a crooked cop and God knows what else?”

“Well, now, one of my two sons is a lawyer. I assume you tried to suppress Lily’s
past from being heard by a jury?”

“Of course. But her relationship with McAdams goes back at least thirty-three
years. The judge agreed with the prosecutor—it’s all very relevant to motive
and, therefore, admissible.”

“Andrew, you may be up against it here. Tell you the truth, I’m not sure why
you’re so convinced she’s innocent.”

“Gus, I’ve met thousands of people in trouble. My hunches are rarely wrong.” Here
he gave Gus a smile. “That jury you were screened for, the drug case. Those two
boys hadn’t been in this office two full minutes before I knew they were guilty.
I believe you came to the same conclusion simply by looking around the
courtroom.”

Gus nodded. “Yes. But that sort of thing can be a two-edged sword. I bet the
police are convinced, based on
their
gut feeling, that Lily is guilty.
That could lead to a little ‘creative’ testimony from them at the trial. That’s
one reason the law requires more than gut feelings. The law requires
proof.
And, to tell the truth, I need a little myself. Proof she’s
not
a murderer.”

“I understand, Gus. Have you learned anything else?”

“Weather Bureau says there was a lot of rain in late September and early October.
The body was found October seventh and had been there five to ten days. The
crime-scene photos show tire tracks made in very muddy ground, so sloppy muddy
the treads couldn’t be effectively cast. What I’m thinkin’ is, why would someone
drive off a nice solid gravel road and risk getting stuck in the mud with a dead
body in their trunk? Why not just dump the body at the side of the road and
drive away? The police think it was because Lily wanted the body hidden in the
woods and wasn’t strong enough to wrestle it outta the car and drag it thirty
yards to where it was found, so she drove her Chevy in closer.”