“I was a rookie back then,” said Sheehan. “Got the courthouse beat, which was a plum assignment. Sat in a booth, watched people wander in and out. Sometimes, when there was something big like the Crater inquest, I worked a courtroom and handled witnesses.
“Judge Crater led a triple life. By day he was a judge, by evening he was a happily married man living in an apartment on Fifth Avenue, by night he was a playboy. The inquest examined witnesses from all of his lives.
“Crater’s wife was matronly, and the dancers, as they were called, were flashy. And then there was Helen Meltzer. She was a nobody from nowhere who no one cared about except possibly the judge. She was from his daytime life, his secretary. Her testimony wasn’t all that interesting. It basically led nowhere. And you could se
