11 in Kennedy Mansion Say All Was Quiet : Crime: They report no sounds of struggle on the night a woman says she was raped there. Police say they hope to end the investigation this week.

Eleven occupants of the Kennedy mansion here at the time a rape allegedly occurred on March 30 have told police they heard nothing, even though most were sleeping with their windows open, according to sources close to the investigation.

Their accounts are buttressed by U.S. Weather Service data that recorded the temperature as never dropping below 76 degrees with humidity at a sweaty 85%, and the fact that the house has no air conditioning.

Those who say they heard no disturbance include William and Mary Lou Barry, longtime Kennedy associates, who were sleeping in a room directly overlooking the swimming pool, the sources said. It was near the pool where a 29-year-old woman alleges she was tackled and raped by William Kennedy Smith. Smith is the 30-year-old nephew of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who was in the mansion at the time the rape allegedly occurred.

Although he has declined to be questioned by Palm Beach police, Smith in a statement issued by his lawyers denied using force on the woman and called her accusation “a damnable lie.”

The woman told police she struggled to fight off Smith and told him to stop, was examined by doctors 10 hours later and found to have bruises, abrasions and a possible fractured rib.

The wind during those rainless hours was blowing at 16 m.p.h. toward the house from the south where the pool is located. A Kennedy house guest told of trying to nap in the mansion but being able to hear normal conversation from the pool area, a source familiar with the investigation said.

Such seemingly conflicting facts illustrate the difficulties that Palm Beach police have encountered investigating the rape allegations.

Police Chief Joseph L. Terlizzese said Monday that he hopes his department’s investigation will be wrapped up and turned over this week to State Atty. David H. Bludworth. Bludworth, a prosecutor for Palm Beach County, then will decide whether to file charges, take the relatively rare step of referring the case to a grand jury or to drop the matter.

A DNA examination in the case, being conducted by the FBI laboratory in Washington, will not be completed for another two weeks. But the examination will only establish whether Smith and the woman had sexual intercourse--not whether it was consensual.

“It’s not your neighborhood incident that can be handled by a neighborhood squad car,” Terlizzese said in an interview. His detectives have had to question “several dozen people,” residing in four different states and to deal with “a dozen or more attorneys” representing those staying at the mansion, a woman friend who came to retrieve the alleged victim at the mansion and others in the case, he said.