by Peter Watson
Foley’s first witness was Joshua Hampson, a black cobbler who had himself been arrested running from the scene of the shooting. He denied taking part, however. Instead, he said he had seen four men standing under a balcony of the sidewalk on Girod Street. They had held guns and, when Martell approached, had started firing. He had run, he said, simply to get away from the shooting. He identified three of the four men as sitting in the dock of the court.
The second witness was Emma Foster. She lived near the scene of the crime, had heard the shooting and looked out of her window. She had seen one of the defendants, Ruggiero Solazzo, standing in the street. Under cross-examination she confessed that when she saw him, Solazzo had been unarmed and, in fact, partially undressed, but it was definitely him, she said.
The third witness was Zachary Peeler, who said he had been walking behind Martell on Girod Street when the shooting started. He identified three of the defendants and added that one of them, Ruggiero Solazzo, had been wearing a yellow oilskin rain cloak. The defense naturally made much of the fact that one witness said Solazzo was partially undressed and another said he was wearing a yellow oilskin.
Because Angelo was not anxious to visit the court during the trial, he had agreed to meet with Harrison Parker every morning for breakfast, at the Pickwick, to review progress on a day-to-day basis. That gave the mayor time to talk to Clarence Foley each evening, after that day’s session in court, and gather the D.A.’s reactions. In these early days of the trial, Parker reported that Foley was pleased by the early witnesses, who had, he felt, made a good impression on the jury and survived their cross-examination reasonably well. There were discrepancies in their stories—like the yellow oilskin testimony—but he felt the jury would discount that. Shocking events had occurred in rapid succession and witnesses could be expected to be fuzzy about the details. But the overall picture was clear enough: the people they saw at the scene of the crime were now in the dock. Foley’s plan, in fact, had been to present three “uncontaminated” witnesses at the beginning of the trial, and the other four at the end of the trial, with those who they suspected had been “got at” in the middle.
The only bad news at this early stage was that di Passo was still ill. His temperature was excessively high and he was unable to hold down any food.
“Quattro Strade! Quattro Strade! Change here for Rocalmuto and Camicetti.” The stationmaster had a rasping voice, which immediately jerked Silvio out of his slumber.
He looked out of the train window. It was strange that this was the first time he had been on a train in Sicily, but thank God for the railroads. He remembered when travel across the island was arduous and prolonged. These days, Cammarata was only hours away.
His journey had been remarkably trouble-free. He had disembarked from the Ragusa, after an eight-day voyage, at Tunis and immediately boarded a French boat bound for Marseilles that called at Porto Empedocle, the port of Agrigento on Sicily’s southern coast. Silvio had put ashore without attracting attention. Then he had caught a train that took him along the Aragona valley, north to Cammarata. Cammarata was about twenty miles from Bivio Indisi; but he was going there because it was where Smeralda now lived. After much thought he had decided that only Bastiano’s wife, his aunt, who had acted as his own mother for many years, could be trusted with the knowledge that he was back in Sicily. And she would surely know all the information he needed.
Silvio studied the train station through the carriage window for the second time. All the railroad buildings were painted a dark blood red, to set them apart from others. He heard a whistle sound. There were three stations between Porto Empedocle and Quattro Strade, and he knew by now that the whistle preceded the departure of the train. As it moved forward, picked up speed, and began to rock from side to side, he tried to doze again. But he couldn’t help wondering if the local Mafia had moved in on the railroads yet. They must provide fertile ground for some profitable rackets.
On the fourth day of the trial proper, the Wednesday of the second week, just as Clarence Foley was beginning his examination of Mary Wrighton, the fourth witness, one of the defendants stood up in the dock and shouted, “I want to confess! I confess everything!” He then climbed over the railing of the dock and made to leave the courtroom.
This was not quite as shocking as it sounded. For the fact was that, as the second week of the trial began, it had become increasingly clear that not all was well in the dock. One of the defendants was fidgety and prone to sobbing without warning. This was none other than Gino Fazio, the man di Passo had milked and reduced to a wreck. Fazio was still racked by the effects of dysentery, which weakened him further.
Following his outburst, he was gently but firmly restrained by the court police, who could see that he was still ranting. He was led away, still shouting and sobbing, to the cells underneath the court. Foley quickly suggested that a doctor be called; the judge immediately agreed. There was then a ten-minute recess. This suited Foley. It gave the jury time to consider what Fazio had said. Yes, he was clearly under immense mental strain, but that didn’t necessarily mean that what he had said was wrong.
After the court resumed, Foley made no reference to Fazio, continuing as if nothing had happened. It would have been inappropriate to gloat. He returned to his examination of the latest witness, Mary Wrighton.
She was one of those who had seen a group of men running from the scene of the crime. She was asked if she recognized any of the men in court. She pointed to Girolamo Regalmici, sitting next to Vito Liotta.
When Falmouth rose to cross-examine her he asked if she had been asked to identify anyone on a previous occasion.
“Yes, in the Parish Prison. The day after the shooting.”
“And?”
She lowered her eyes.
“Well?”
“I … I failed to identify anyone.”
“Including Girolamo Regalmici?”
She looked down, and nodded.
Next came a black laborer, Joseph Lansing, who claimed that he had been walking a little way behind Martell, on Girod Street, when he saw four or five men fire on the chief. He identified Vincenzo Liotta and Antonio Siculo, in the dock, as among these men.
Falmouth began his cross-examination of Lansing by asking if he had gone straight home from work that night.
“Yessir.”
“But the shooting occurred at about ten twenty-five. Wasn’t that a little late for you to be working?”
“Well, maybe I did stop off on the way. I ain’t sure.”
“Could you have stopped off at McCleery’s Bar, on Canal Street?”
Lansing looked wary. “Yeah. Yeah. Could’ve been.”
“How many drinks did you have?”
Pause. “One or two.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure.”
“I’ll repeat the question, Mr. Lansing. How many drinks did you have that night? Think carefully before you answer.”
“I … I don’t need to think. A coupla drinks. Three. Four at the most. I swear.”
Falmouth brandished a bunch of papers at the judge. “Your Honor, I have here five affidavits from customers of McCleery’s Bar to the effect that on the night of the twenty-third of March, Joseph Lansing had been drinking in that bar since about five in the evening, when he actually finished work, and that when he left he was incoherently drunk.”
The next witness was Raymond Hattersley, who testified that he had seen a group of men running down Girod Street, one of them wearing a yellow oilskin rain cloak. However, under cross-examination by Falmouth, Hattersley admitted that it was dark that night and that the oilskin could have been any pale color. He also admitted that the color yellow had been suggested to him by the policeman who had interviewed him. Again, Falmouth made much of the fact that two men now seemed to have worn a yellow oilskin.
That evening Harrison Parker called a special meeting at the Pickwick, with Angelo Priola and Clarence Foley.
“I’ve invited t
he D.A.,” said Parker to Angelo, “because we are presented with a problem. Falmouth is making mincemeat of the witnesses who have been intimidated, and instructed to change or contradict their stories. We have reports that Liotta’s men have abducted relatives of some witnesses and are holding them until that witness’s testimony is over, and completed satisfactorily from their point of view.
“The question is this: Do we proceed with all our original list of witnesses, and hope that the drip-drip effect will work with the jury? Do we believe that the sheer number of witnesses is so great that the jury will decide that not all of them can be lying, and convict? Or do we cut out all those witnesses we think Liotta has got to, and proceed straight to the last four, who we can be certain of? That way we lose the drip-drip effect, but we also prevent Falmouth from casting doubt on our whole case. What do you think?”
Angelo spoke first. “Do we have any idea of the defense they’re gonna mount?”
Foley shifted in his seat. “All I know, all I’m allowed to know, is that the defense expects their side of the proceedings to last about eight days. Which, going by other criminal trials, means that they’ll have anything from eight to twenty witnesses, all of them—I’m willing to bet—giving Liotta and his people rock-solid alibis. He has two aides with him in court, who I’m sure relay all the testimony to the defense witnesses. Those boys are coming and going all the time.”
“So their tactic has been to mount as many witnesses as we have, right?”
The district attorney nodded.
“And whereas we gotta provide a list of our witnesses in advance, they do not. Right?”
Again Foley nodded.
Angelo looked at Parker. The mayor stood and showed Foley to the door. “Thank you for coming, Clarence, thank you very much. I’ll see you tomorrow at the courthouse.” He closed the door and returned to his seat.
“The problem, as I see it,” he began, “is that the way things are arranged, they can have prior knowledge of our case, but we can’t have prior knowledge of theirs.”
“But we can,” said Angelo, suddenly excited. “I should’ve thought of this before. We couldn’t get at them before the trial started because, obviously, Falmouth wouldn’t go out to interview these people himself. He would send an aide, and we didn’t know which aides he was using. But now we do. Foley told us: they sit by him in court all day long.” Angelo nodded to Parker. “We need a coupla men in court tomorrow. I’ll arrange it. Have someone point out these aides and we can have them followed. As more of the story given by our witnesses emerges, then the aides transmit that to their side so they can contradict it specifically. Once we know who’s giving evidence, we can exert a little pressure of our own. Right?”
Parker smiled. “Right.”
Angelo went on. “Let’s make sure all the witnesses give evidence. Real foxy. That gives us more time to get to their people. I wanna know as soon as we find anyone. Okay?”
Over the next few days the trial dragged on, with witness after witness contradicting himself, or failing to live up to the high expectations the prosecution had for them when the trial had started. One witness described some of the guns used. Then changed his mind. One woman said she had seen men running down Girod Street on the night in question, then agreed with Falmouth that she hadn’t actually heard the gunfire and that the men she saw running were actually going toward the spot where Martell had been killed. A third witness also saw running men. This time they were definitely running away from the scene of the shooting and they shouted at her in Italian. Under cross-examination she admitted that she only assumed the language was Italian. She didn’t speak it herself, so couldn’t be certain. Asked to be specific about the time this episode took place, she said nine forty-five, before the shooting. Having started so well, the case against Liotta was beginning to collapse.
Cammarata hadn’t changed. Silvio stood at the edge of the main square—if you could call it that—and looked at the church of San Giovanni. The fountain set into the façade still wasn’t working. Dogs still slept in the shade of the porch. The bakery on the other side of the piazza still advertised its wares on the same blackboard. How far he was from New Orleans and the trial.
Silvio had decided to start with Smeralda, but all he knew was that she lived in Cammarata, nothing more exact. He was therefore gambling on the fact that she would be at Mass and hoped to intercept her or follow her when she came out of the church. He had walked from the station, about five miles away, and was a little tired. He was happy enough to wait for the service to end.
When it did end, not many people came out. Those who did were mainly old. But Smeralda was among them. She was gray now, her hair swept back in a bun, with a lined face that was surprisingly hard. Brown, with cracks running down it, like the crevices on the slopes of Mount Busambra. He didn’t move. He couldn’t show himself in public. He would follow her home.
She stood talking to two other women for a while, then moved off, heading west. Silvio followed her at a distance. She turned into a tiny street that was really the edge of the town, overlooked by the gray bulk of Mount Cammarata itself. Halfway along, she disappeared into a dark doorway. Silvio followed her straight in but then stood inside the doorway for a moment. He let his eyes adjust to the gloom and listened. The doorway was in fact a short passage that led to a courtyard. Across the courtyard was another door and a window. He could see Smeralda moving about.
He walked down the corridor and across the courtyard. He didn’t knock but just stood in the second doorway and said softly, “Smeralda.”
She looked up, startled. Then her eyes widened. Finally, the lines around her mouth tightened. “How dare you come here, you brute. You should have stayed in America, or hell. Vattene! Get out!”
“Smeralda! I didn’t do it! You can’t believe that I did. I was tricked, set up. That’s why I’ve come back. To settle things. Sono orfano!”
“Bah! You’ve come back for Annunziata. You can’t fool me, even if you can fool yourself. Leave her alone, bruto. She’s going to be married. Now, I say again. Go. Via! Via!”
“Smeralda, I swear I did not kill those children. Alesso did it and shifted the blame onto me. Why would I do such a thing?”
She raised her arm and pointed her finger at him. “Because you are bad, unnatural. Disumano. I don’t know what streak of evil in you makes you prey on Annunziata. Your father was such a good man. But that streak of evil must also account for what you did in Bagheria. Bah!” And she waved him away, dismissing him.
Silvio was shocked. It had never occurred to him that people like Smeralda would link his “unnatural” love for Annunziata, as they put it, with the killings in Bagheria. But it was, he supposed, obvious enough in their old-fashioned, superstitious world.
He got a grip on himself. He had hardly made a good start on his return and he had to salvage some of the situation.
“Smeralda, listen to me for a moment. Please. You were my mother once; don’t turn on me now.”
She turned back to look at him, but her face hadn’t softened.
“Tell me, first, what news of Bastiano?”
“He’s in Ucciardone, where you should be.”
“Is he well?”
“No, he is not well. They are breaking his spirit. He will not make old bones.”
Silvio sighed. “Smeralda, after the orphanage business, I ran away. I had to. But now I’ve come to try and settle things. So that the truth will be known. I’m not a good man, but I’m not the bad man that you think. Please believe me.”
The look on her face was quite clear. She did not believe him. He realized that now. He should not have come here.
“I ask you one thing only. If you won’t help me, then at least tell no one I’m here. Please, Smeralda, do this one thing for me.”
Her face didn’t soften. She just stared at him until he turned and walked away.
After three days of following Falmouth’s aides each time they left the court, Angelo’s men fina
lly got lucky. The aides visited three people on the same day, all of whom turned out to be defense witnesses. Angelo’s men were able to discover through the New Orleans grapevine that they were Liotta’s people.
This breakthrough was discussed at the next Pickwick breakfast. “Now,” said Angelo, “we’ll keep following the aides. We need to know the identities of all their witnesses if possible.” He turned to Parker. “There’s one other thing I need to know. How long will the case last from here on?”
Parker steepled his fingers. “I saw Foley again last night. We have four more regular witnesses—all strong, people who Liotta didn’t get to. Say four days for them, with cross-examination. It doesn’t look now as though di Passo can give evidence. He’s still too weak, still running a fever. I’m sorry, but there it is. A disaster, an expensive disaster.”
“So,” said Angelo. “It’s now Tuesday, which gives me four days to get things organized. That should be enough. I can’t act too soon because if I do, that alerts Liotta to the fact that we know who his people are, and it allows him time to find fresh witnesses.”
That night Angelo was late arriving home. After the trial, and despite his liver trouble, he needed to relax—at cards. So it was past midnight when he let himself into the house. He was surprised to see a light flickering in the living room, and even more surprised to see Anna-Maria still up. She looked tired, ravaged by her bereavement.
“Couldn’t you sleep?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “But I wanted to wait up anyway. I have some news. Nino’s escaped from jail.”
Angelo stared at her. “How? When?”
“Frank Cassidy told me. It came through on the police wire. In case he comes here. He tricked his way out of the prison hospital.”
Angelo sat down. “The old fox. D’you think that’s what he’ll do? Come here, I mean?”
“Maybe,” said Anna-Maria. “But that’s not my main worry.”
He looked at her.
“He’s more likely to go to Sicily. There’ll be sbirri crawling all over the island. They’ll be looking for Nino—but they might just stumble across Silvio.”