Philip Carlo - The Ice Man

On October 30 Polifrone spoke to Richard and told him he’d be with the coke buyer at the Lombardi stop at ten o’clock the following morning. Richard said he’d be there.

October 31 was also a particularly cold, gray day, more like mid-February. A frigid wind whipped across the Lombardi rest stop. At 10:00 A.M., Polifrone and Detective Paul Smith, posing as the Jewish rich kid, were sitting at an outdoor table in the grassy area. It was so cold their breath fogged. Teams of detectives surrounded the rest stop. Polifrone feigned giving Detective Smith a bag of coke. The detective feigned looking into it. They didn’t know if Richard was there, watching from afar or not.

This was, in fact, all kinds of ridiculous. Seeing this superficial ruse wouldn’t sway Richard one way or the other. Still, Bob Carroll and Polifrone felt it was worth a try. According to all the surveillance teams, however, Richard was nowhere near them. Finally, after being out in the cold a half an hour, Polifrone and Smith went in different directions, not knowing if Richard had seen them or not.

Richard wasn’t even in Jersey that day. He had a murder contract to fill in South Carolina. Another gambler had borrowed money from the wrong people and refused to pay, threatening to call the police. Richard was dispatched and killed the man as he came home with groceries, shot him dead with a .22 equipped with a silencer as he stepped out of his car. He returned to Dumont and took Barbara shopping. Barbara was already talking about the Christmas holidays, the type of tree she wanted this year, gifts she’d buy, who would get what, even her plans for the window decorations. Silently, Richard listened; he had, she knew, never become excited by the holidays, but he was even more removed from what she was saying now. Richard had changed. What, she wondered, could it be? She asked him.

“Nothing,” he said.

“You feeling okay?”

“I’m fine, just thinking,” he said.

“What about?” she pressed.

“Business,” he said with finality, ending the conversation.

That evening the family had a nice dinner, veal Milanese and mashed potatoes, one of Richard’s favorites, but Richard was silent and withdrawn, just chewed his food and stared at something only he saw. After dinner Merrick asked if he’d like to go feed the ducks.

“No, not now,” he said, and went and watched a game show, thinking about doing away with Pat Kane, thinking about money—making enough money to get out of the life, to go straight. Money was the key. It always had been. He was leaving the following day for Zurich, and he planned to press Remi to get checks more frequently. He looked forward to being away. He didn’t want to be around people, even his own family, now. He wanted to be alone.

The following day, Richard got into his Camaro, drove to the airport unobserved, and boarded a plane for Zurich. One of the first things Richard asked Remi when he saw him was if he knew anyone that could get cyanide.

Again the task force stopped hearing Richard on the phone. Days went by. They held a meeting on the evening of November 13. By now Dominick hadn’t heard from Richard for two weeks.

Polifrone wanted to wait, to not chase Richard. He said that Kuklinski was cunning, that he was staying away to get the mark off balance. Deputy Chief Buccino had concerns: What if Kuklinski killed again? What if he secured cyanide somewhere else? What if it became public knowledge that they could have arrested him but didn’t and he killed someone? “We cannot leave this guy on the street much longer!” he said.

He had a valid point. Ron Donahue, however, agreed with Polifrone: they had to be patient, he said, the first rule of a good hunter. “This guy is big game, and that’s how we have to work him, play him,” he said.

Like this it went back and forth, as task force members took discreet shots from the Jack Daniel’s bottle with Richard’s picture on it.

They discussed sending Pat Kane and Volkman to Kuklinski’s house again “to rattle his cage.” That had seemed to work before.

In the end, Bob Carroll decided to side with Polifrone and give it some more time. The last thing he wanted to do was move prematurely. The case had to be “airtight,” carefully orchestrated. They would have one shot, and it had to be a bull’s-eye.

“Let’s send Kane to go see him again, see what happens,” he said. “It worked last time.”

Two days before Thanksgiving, November 22, 1986, Richard was still in Europe, waiting for the largest check he’d gotten to date. Barbara went shopping for all the fixings of a Thanksgiving feast. Her car was filled with bags of groceries when she pulled into the drive of her Dumont home. Barbara’s mother used to serve lasagna before the turkey, but everyone would fill up on the pasta and not eat the turkey, so Barbara stopped making lasagna.

Daughter Chris was now seeing a guy named Matt. He was the only man she had loved, and being intimate with him was “special,” not any kind of rebellion, as in years past. Daughter Merrick was going to marry Mark, her new boyfriend. Barbara liked him and was pleased Merrick had found “a nice boy,” as she thought of him. When Barbara pulled up in front of the house that day, Matt came out to help bring the packages inside. He was a strapping, good-looking man, always polite. Barbara liked him too. Richard did also. As Matt and Chris and Barbara were bringing all the bags of food into the house, seemingly out of nowhere, Detectives Pat Kane and Ernest Volkman appeared, walked up the driveway.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Kuklinski,” Kane said, “I’m Detective Kane and this is Detective Volkman.” Both of them showed their shiny gold badges.

“We are looking for your husband,” Volkman said. They knew Richard wasn’t there. His car was gone. They were doing this for one reason: to rattle Richard, to cause him to react, to upset him, his family life. The task force knew Richard loved Barbara, was exceedingly protective of her and his family. That was obvious by the phone calls he had with her that they had eavesdropped on.

Startled, Barbara regarded them with surprise, which quickly turned to disdain. “Is something the matter?” she asked, not pleased by this sudden, unexpected presence. Who the hell did they think they were?

“We need to talk with him,” Kane said.

“What about?” she asked.

“He home?” Volkman asked, curt and unfriendly… rude, she thought.

Barbara was still very much her own woman, still had a razor-sharp tongue, a somewhat supercilious attitude.

“You know where he is?” Kane asked.

“No,” she said.

“Can you get in touch with him?” Kane said.

“I just said I don’t know where he is—what’s this about?” she demanded, not asked.

“You have a number where you can reach him?” Volkman put in.

“I don’t. I don’t know where he is, don’t you hear?” she asked.

Now Matt came out of the house. Chris, a worried look about her face, stood at the doorway holding the family dog, Shaba, by the collar. Shaba, a large Irish wolfhound, was barking at the two detectives.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” Chris called.

The two detectives moved toward Matt. “Are you Richard Kuklinski?” Volkman asked.

“No,” he said.

“What’s your name? What are you doing here?” Volkman asked.

Really annoyed now, Barbara put herself between Matt and the two detectives. “None of your business!” she said. “Where do you two get off? What’s this about?” she again demanded.

Kane said, “We need to talk to your husband about a couple of murders.”

“What?” she said. “Murders?”

“Murders we think he committed,” Kane added.

Barbara couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She felt as if she’d been slapped with a red-hot hand. “You have a warrant to be here on my property?” she asked. “No.”