CHAPTER 8
July 1964
It was another hot and muggy day in the city, even at nine in the morning. The air was thick and wet, and perspiration dripped from the skin of every New Yorker. In Battery Park, city dwellers found little respite in the slight breeze coming off the Hudson River, while in midtown pedestrians moved slowly, fanning themselves with folded copies of the Post or the Daily News. Downtown on Centre Street, Mel Glass was too distracted to notice the stifling heat. He took a sip from his coffee cup and studied a pile of paperwork on his desk as he leaned back in his chair.
Detective John Justy stood in the doorway of Glass’s office. He was beaming. “I hear you picked up a new case, Counselor.”
Mel nodded. “Yeah, yeah,” he answered as casually as he could. “Come on in—sit down.”
He tried to hold back the wide grin, which was forming along the corners of his face. He waved Justy in; then he folded his hands neatly on the metal lip of his desk. Justy pulled back the desk chair from the corner of Mel’s office and sat down.
“I have some thoughts on how we should proceed.”
Justy crossed his legs and tapped the end of a cigarette on Mel’s desk. “I’m listening—”
“Well,” Mel began, “the Brooklyn detectives believe the girl in the photo is Janice Wylie.”
“I got that much, Mel,” Justy inserted with a sigh.
“Hold on, John—now let’s take a look at Detective Bulger.”
“Okay, let’s. . . .”
Mel looked intently at Justy. “Bulger comes in because it’s payday on Friday, right?”
“Right,” Justy answered, trying to evaluate where Mel’s line of thinking was going.
“So he hears about Whitmore confessing. He’s standing there in the station house with the checks. And then you’ve got these two Brooklyn cases a week apart—the Minnie Edmonds murder and the Alma Estrada attempted rape—in close proximity, and the Edmonds case is a stabbing. So there are already two cases that need to be solved, and solved fast.”
Justy shifted in his chair. “Honestly, Mel, do you really think Detective Bulger just made it up for an arrest? That’s one hell of an accusation.”
“No, not exactly,” Mel answered, treading carefully, “but I am saying that Bulger bet a lot on that image. I mean, he studies a photo that’s found on the suspect and becomes utterly convinced it’s that of Janice Wylie—the Janice Wylie, of East Eighty-eighth Street.”
“Crazier things have happened,” Justy reminded Mel, stretching his legs out in front of him.
Mel stood up and walked over to the door of his office. He scanned the dingy hallway and then loosened his brown-striped tie. “Right, but we also now know that Janice Wylie’s mother, Janice Wylie’s father”—Mel stepped back over to his desk, hovered behind it and leaned over, his palms pressed on various court documents, which were splayed on top—“and Janice Wylie’s friends all say that the girl in the photo isn’t Janice Wylie.” His eyes were wide and focused.
Justy stood and walked over for a better look at the court documents, then nodded perceptively. “So Bulger’s wrong,” he stated, closing his eyes momentarily.
Mel waved his left index finger in the air. “Not necessarily,” he disclosed, with a mischievous grin, “but it seems the best way to confirm who is actually in that photo is to find out where it was taken, and at the very least, find one of the girls in the photograph.”
Justy parted his lips and was about to counter Mel, when he noticed that Mel was gazing past him at something else.
“What? What is it?” he asked, swinging his arms out.
“ADA Glass?” a steady voice called out from the doorway.
Justy twisted his neck and glanced behind him. A black woman in a white dress and hat stood in the doorway, staring at Mel with a look of mild irritation. Mel knew immediately it had to be her—she looked like Whitmore. Brown skin, gentle but tired eyes, black hair with bangs curled down and a sleeveless white dress with ruffles at the nape of her neck. In fact, on closer inspection, he couldn’t get over how much she and her son resembled one another—only she seemed weary from years of hard living. She was a thin woman, with a small frame. She looked like she was in her late thirties. Her eyes were puffy, as if she hadn’t slept in years. She appeared cross to Mel, as if she’d been provoked her whole life and was just waiting for the next insult. He offered his most reassuring grin.
“You must be Mrs. Whitmore.”
“Bernadine, please,” she answered, stepping through the archway. She gave Justy a malign glance and then added, “You asked to speak with me here in your office.”
“Yes, Mrs. Whitmore, thank you. Please have a seat.”
She sat at the far end of the rectangular table protruding from Mel’s desk. Her back was to the wall, with Justy and Mel seated beside her on either side of the table.
“Mrs. Whitmore, I am Assistant District Attorney Mel Glass and seated across from me is Detective John Justy. I asked you to come here today because I need to find the truth about your son’s case. I want to tell you right now that anything you say here will not be used against him in any way. Also I want to advise you that you do not have to answer any of my questions—you can leave at any time.”
Bernadine tilted her head, fixing her hard, tired brown eyes on him. “You say, Mr. Glass, that you’re searching for truth, but I haven’t seen a whole lot of truth come out of these here courts, so excuse me if I don’t exactly believe that you’re looking for the same truth I am.”
Mel blinked and fixed his eyes on Mrs. Whitmore. “Mrs. Whitmore, I know this is a horrible situation for you, and I know this is probably the last place you’d like to be right now, but you could be very helpful if you answered a few questions for me.”
He paused for a moment and then added, “But it’s entirely up to you. You can walk out right now and not tell me anything.”
Bernadine Whitmore could feel her hands trembling and wondered if ADA Glass and Detective Justy could sense her weakness. She swore she wouldn’t let them see her cry—she swore she wouldn’t let them break her. And yet, as she gazed at Mel Glass, she couldn’t help but think he might be on her side. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something in his eyes told her he was a God-fearing person who, just maybe, meant what he said. There was something about his expression—something in the way he sat, perched tall and thoughtful in his chair—that seemed to embody integrity.
“He didn’t hurt no white girls.”
Her voice began to crumble as she reached into her pocketbook for a handkerchief. Mel grabbed one from inside his jacket and quickly offered it to her. She extended her hand, looked intensely into his eyes and nodded approvingly when she accepted his offer.
“Mrs. Whitmore, please,” he tried, “I just need to ask you a simple question.”
She immediately stiffened and pulled herself together. She shifted in her chair and glanced over at Detective Justy and then back at Mel. Then she opened her mouth and her voice came steadily.
“My son may be slow, but he’s not stupid. He has an excellent memory when he puts his mind to it, and he’s quite a capable artist.” She straightened her spine against the back of the chair and swallowed. “If I put my faith in you, Mr. Glass, what’s to stop you from thinking me a naïve woman, who will be abused by the law just like my son?”
Mel nodded, but he said nothing.
“My George ain’t ever been in Manhattan before, so why anybody thinking he done all these terrible things? Why?”
Her eyes welled up with tears, but she willed herself to hold them back.
“Mrs. Whitmore, I understand you’re upset, I really do, and for good cause. If you put your trust in me, I promise that I will never deceive you. More than anything I’m only interested in finding the truth.”
She watched Mel’s eyes soften. He reached for the file that was situated in front of him on his desk. He opened it and pulled out the photograph of the blonde sitting atop the Pontiac convertible. Mel flipped it over and scanned the handwriting on the back: To George From Louise. Then he handed it to Mrs. Whitmore.
“Please tell me, Mrs. Whitmore, do you know where your son found this photo?”
Mrs. Whitmore glanced up warily. After a moment she accepted the photograph. First she held the side with the handwriting on it up close to her eyes and then she flipped it over, studying the girl in the image. She handed it back to Mel after a few moments and again looked directly into his eyes.
They stared at each other a few seconds more and then Mrs. Whitmore nodded her head. She sniffled, blew her nose with a handkerchief from her purse and then managed to say wearily, “When I first visited my son in jail, I asked him where he found the photograph because the newspapers were making a big deal of it. The police in Brooklyn keep saying he stole it from the girls’ apartment, the ones they say he killed. So I kept saying to him, ‘Just tell me the truth. Where did you find the photograph? ’ My son is a good boy. He would never hurt anyone. He said, ‘Mama, don’t be mad at me. I know you told me so many times not to go to that garbage dump at home and pick through all that trash. But that’s just what I did, and I found the picture there.’
“Oh, Mr. Glass”—she looked at him sorrowfully—“I did tell him plenty of times not to go to that garbage dump in Wildwood. I figured if he found something valuable, it probably belonged to some white folks and they would claim he probably stole it. But George just loved going there—I imagine for the adventure of what he might find. But he wouldn’t lie to me—that’s where he found it.”
Mrs. Whitmore took a deep breath and then continued.
“This girl Louise, whose name appears on the back side of the photo, is a girl from Wildwood, and my George dated her a summer ago. She’s a sweet girl, Mr. Glass, so don’t go stirrin’ up any trouble with her. Lord knows, she ain’t done nothin’.”
Mel nodded his head in earnest appreciation. “Thank you, Mrs. Whitmore. Thank you very much. You have helped me a great deal, and hold me to my promise to you.”
He leaned forward and added with resolution, “I will find the truth.”
Mel stood and extended his hand, which Mrs. Whitmore greeted with hers. Mrs. Whitmore stood up then and slipped her dress gloves back on her delicate fingers. Mel pushed his chair back; it let out a loud screech. Detective Justy walked over to escort her out the door. She gripped her pocketbook with both hands, as if her whole life were stuffed in its contents. She turned and glanced out into the busy hallway, where various members of law enforcement rushed back and forth. Then she jerked her head back around and gazed at Mel. She smiled, a trace of satisfaction; and then, taking a step back toward the archway of his door, she said, “Well, Mr. Glass, you sure got your work cut out for you, ’cause a whole lot of folks mistakenly think my son killed those two girls.”
She paused in his doorway for a second and then added, nodding at him perceptively, “You know what I mean, don’t you?”
He held her steely gaze and gave a gentle nod. “Mrs. Whitmore, I assure you that this office will find the truth, regardless of what others may believe about your son.” Mel watched her as she walked back down the corridor at a steady clip toward the sixth-floor elevator.
Mel shook his head and, not missing a beat, walked back over to his desk. Justy followed. Mel grabbed his magnifier and scanned the image of the two girls and the convertible.
“You know,” he said, pulling the lens forward and backward over the photograph, “I think I ought to speak to an arborist.”
“What?”
Mel waved Justy over and pointed to a blurred area at the right top of the image. “Those look like tall trees.”
Justy scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, so?” Mel looked at Justy and set the photo and the magnifying glass down. “Well, maybe it’s like Occam’s razor.”
Justy fell back into the chair across from Mel’s desk. “In English, please?”
“If I show this to an arborist, we might be able to save everybody some time and narrow the search for these girls. After all, Mrs. Whitmore corroborates her son’s insistence that he got the photo from the garbage dump in Wildwood.”
“Wow, you’re serious,” he said, trying to keep Mel’s pace, “but just because the photo was in Wildwood doesn’t mean the girls in it are from there.”
In a flash Mel packed up his files, grabbed his jacket and started to head down the hall. One of the elevator doors was already open as Mel and Justy neared the end of the hall. He quickened to a slight jog and Justy followed suit. Reaching his arm out, Mel caught the closing elevator door on the far right-hand side. He smiled apologetically to the already rushed crowd of law enforcement and citizens in the car and stepped in with Detective Justy. The doors closed and they descended downward to the street.
At ground level Mel searched his pockets for a subway token. Justy held the main door open for Glass and then asked, “Hey, where are you gonna get this arborist?”
Mel stepped out into the noisy downtown street. He glanced back at Justy and grinned. “You know the maxim Occam’s razor,” he stated once more.
“Mel, what the hell is an Occam’s razor?”
Mel folded his jacket on his sleeve and held his briefcase tightly in the other hand.
“My, my . . . famed detective Justy, the maxim is attributed to William of Occam, an English scholastic philosopher who believed that assumptions introduced to explain something must not be multiplied beyond necessity. Simply, John, the simplest explanation in a complicated scenario is usually correct.”
Justy looked truly amazed.
Mel paused and then acknowledged, “I’m going to take the train up to the Museum of Natural History. I happen to know the curator there, who might lead us in the right direction.”
“Sounds like you’re on a roll, Mr. Law Review. Who am I to contradict,” said Justy doubtfully.
“Oh, come on,” Mel countered, “what’s the worst that could happen? I get another shot to see the T. rex, one of my favorite ancient creatures.”