Mrs. Sherlock Holmes

by Brad Ricca

  Kron sat with his drink and shook his head. At his core, he was, first and foremost, a detective. And he remained skeptical of La Rue. He felt he was being led by the nose.

  “That’s great,” replied Kron. He was glad that Grace was going to work with the police. But he still had his doubts. “I’m never keen on being mixed up with white-slave cases,” Kron said. “You haven’t only the trouble of getting your man, but you have the ‘victims’ to win over. If they won’t testify, or if, as is so often the case, their testimony is declared worthless, all your labors have been for nothing.”

  Meanwhile, the papers had begun to recognize Grace for her solution of the Cruger case. “Mrs. Grace Humiston continues to make things hum,” one reporter wrote. Henry Cruger made good on his word and gave Grace a check for one thousand dollars for finding his daughter. “I refused to accept the check and he refused to take it back,” said Grace. “If he continues to refuse I shall use the money as a foundation for a fund to establish a home for girls in the country, as a memorial to Ruth Cruger.”

  On June 20, The Evening World, which had been liberal in its coverage of the Charlie Stielow case, ran the names of all the girls in the city who had gone missing since January 1 of that year. They printed eight hundred names in that edition. The list—with names like Rachael Phillips, Becky Levy, and Mary McBride—started on the front page and continued for three subsequent pages of small black type. The newspaper also urged that a fund be started to build a public monument to the fallen Ruth Cruger. The idea was first proposed by Benoni Tabijian, a news dealer who lived in the Crugers’ neighborhood. “I suggest a monument over the grave,” he said. He thought it should read “Ruth Cruger, died to save her honor.”

  As the police tried to make headway into the attempt on Consuelo La Rue’s life, the mayor, on the advice of Woods, appointed a commissioner of accounts, Leonard M. Wallstein, to investigate why the police department failed to find Ruth Cruger. On June 21, Mayor Mitchel also announced that he would keep Woods on as police commissioner. “I believe the city as a whole has felt that the work of the police department was and is steadily improving,” the mayor said. New Yorkers read it in disbelief.

  Leonard Wallstein was the perfect man for the job of ferreting out police irregularities. For one, he was unusual in that he was not a Tammany Hall Democrat. In 1915, Wallstein investigated the city coroner system and found that most of the coroners—who were appointed, not elected—weren’t even doctors, but included plumbers, musicians, and even a milkman. Wallstein found that at least half of recently filed death certificates were incomplete or wrong, making them useless to investigators. Suicides, abortions, and many murders were simply labeled “death,” if they were even labeled at all. Wallstein watched coroners sip from their flasks in open court as their records amounted to nothing, sabotaging hard-fought prosecutions. Wallstein gutted the coroner’s office, making many enemies in the process. Wallstein had a high, pulled-back hairline. His quick eyes pierced at his frightened subjects from behind near-invisible glasses. For the Cruger investigation, the mayor had given him the full power of a justice of the state supreme court to summon witnesses and compel testimony. Wallstein was dangerous because he was beholden to no one but the truth. The phrase he hated most was “passing the buck.” He would not stand for it.

  The first thing Wallstein did was to visit Cocchi’s shop. He walked out the whole miserable place, now stamped down by feet and mostly empty. He worked his way to the rear room and into the basement, delicately putting his toes into corners. His silver cuff links shone in the darkness. There had been new discoveries at the shop since Ruth’s body had been recovered. A list, written in Cocchi’s handwriting, had been found in a desk; it was filled with the names of girls. They were ostensibly customers, but their presence on a separate list made investigators wonder if this wasn’t a secret ledger of some kind. The first name, Elsie Goldberg, had already admitted to being attacked by Cocchi. Another new discovery made the police look even worse: all along the heat register, which ran from the floor to the cellar, were small spots of human blood. Wallstein could still see them.

  Wallstein then went with Inspector Faurot to the Fourth Branch detective house to interview Captain Cooper. When Wallstein left, he took a number of books and reports with him.

  “I shall begin the investigation immediately,” Wallstein told the press. “The hearings will be open to the public and will begin tomorrow on June 21, Friday morning, in the Municipal Building in Room 1200. All who have been guilty of misconduct, malfeasance, or negligence may be discovered and punished.” He promised there would be no stepping on toes of the other investigations, especially Swann’s fledgling grand jury.

  The night before Wallstein’s remarks, Henry Cruger wrote a letter to Mayor Mitchel. He put it in his pocket and carried it himself to the mayor’s home at 258 Riverside Drive. Then Henry went home, took out an envelope, and sent his letter to the New York Herald. They ran it the next day, on June 20, 1917.

  “The work of the department has been marked by great stupidity, if not inspired by ulterior motives,” Henry wrote. “They refused to send out a general alarm until the lapse of twenty-four hours and they said Cocchi was a reputable business man.” Instead of trying to find his daughter, Henry said that the police only wanted to find “some flaw in her character.” Instead, “[t]he much boasted efficiency of the Police Department was proved to be a hollow mockery by the persistent work of a woman,” wrote Henry. Henry called for Woods to be removed from office. He also had no faith in Wallstein’s inquiry. “Any investigation,” wrote Henry, “by the present Commissioner would not be worth the paper the report was written on.”

  A couple of days later, Henry was in his apartment, now draped in black, when he received a personal letter from the mayor of New York City. Mayor Mitchel apologized to the accountant who had lost his dear daughter. “We will leave no stone unturned to determine why the work of the police was not more effective and to make as certain as possible that such things do not occur in the future.” The mayor tried to absorb the blame of his men. “I want to assure that my inquiries,” he wrote, “into the matter convince me that the Police Department held no theory which in any way reflected upon the character of your daughter and that no statement containing such a reflection ever issued from the Office of the Commissioner. You have been misled in this regard. In fact, I am told that their investigation revealed nothing in any way discreditable to your daughter. For the failure of the police to discover the body and to prevent the escape of the murderer there is no excuse. Culpability will be established shortly, and whether it consist of mere stupidity and incompetence, or of worse, it will be punished.” The mayor also defended Woods. “Through a period of unprecedented stress and public excitement,” Mitchel wrote, “a well-disciplined, well-organized, loyal and foresighted Police Department has insured and maintained public security, tranquility and order.” He signed it “Very truly yours.”

  Henry Cruger’s emptiness could not be filled by even emptier political speak, no matter how well intended it might be. During the search for his daughter, Henry Cruger had disobeyed almost every request of the New York Police Department. He had no regrets about that. He was even glad when the letter from Mayor Mitchel later ran in the paper for all to see. Henry couldn’t help imagining what the outcome would have been had the police actually believed him in the first place. Now, as he looked across his apartment, its chairs empty, he felt as if he were in that basement.

  Henry had started writing his letter to the mayor, as floating thoughts and words, as he followed his daughter’s body to her grave. Ruth Cruger was quietly buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, in Westchester County on June 18. The papers reported that her body was encased in a casket sealed with steel and lead. The only attendees were the Crugers and Mrs. Grace Humiston. As Henry led his crying, bundled family back to the car, his letter stitched itself together in his mind.

  The night before Ruth was taken to
her rest, the papers reported that ghouls had stolen some of her personal effects. Thieves had taken a gold stickpin and five shell hairpins from the little bundle of trinkets that had been placed in a shallow metal tray next to her body in the morgue.

  13

  The Pointed Finger

  There were so many people elbowed into room 1200 that workers had to fetch benches and camping chairs just to accommodate them. The crowd consisted of uniformed policemen, detectives, and maybe six or eight women, some of them still in their teens. Squirming around tables in the back were members of the press, with their overcoats, notebooks, and pencils. They had all come to the very new, forty-story Muncipal Building at One Centre Street to find out how far the police had slipped up in not finding Ruth Cruger. People walking in saw a gilded figure spark on the top of the building. The statue depicted a woman holding a shield and a five-point crown meant to symbolize the five boroughs of New York finally come together as one. It was called Civic Fame.

  The rumors that were passing across the chairs only served to charge the air even further. A few hours before the hearing, Captain Cooper and Detective Lagarenne had been relieved of duty by Commissioner Woods and put on official suspension. Also suspended was Frank McGee, who had been alongside Kron as they dug through the street and into the black cellar. Lagarenne and McGee were the primary detectives of record on the case, and Cooper was their immediate supervisor. They were all expected to testify.

  When Wallstein walked in, he stopped all the hushing with a glare. He began by asking any members of the police department who were present to rise. Eight men stood up in their dark blue, heavy uniforms. Everyone stared at them. Wallstein instructed them to leave until they were called to the witness stand. Some of them exited more slowly than others.

  The first witness called was the acting chief of detectives, Captain Alonzo Cooper, who gave his age as forty-five. He had been in charge of Fourth Branch since August 1, 1914. Cooper knew that he was fighting for his career, if not more than that. Wallstein himself did all the questioning.

  “I asked you to make a search of your branch for all papers in connection with the Cruger case,” Wallstein asked. “Have you found any others?” Wallstein looked everyone in the eye when they answered him, even if they mostly did not. Cooper nodded and handed up a bunch of papers he said were found in Cocchi’s private desk drawer. Wallstein looked through them quickly. One of the items was an Italian passport.

  “When did you get this?” asked Wallstein.

  “Shortly after Alfredo Cocchi went away,” Cooper answered. “February 16 or 17, I think.”

  “Who gave it to you?”

  “Sergeant McGee.”

  “Where was it found?”

  “In the home of Cocchi and his wife.”

  Wallstein turned it over in his hands. “Has it been out of your possession since then?” he asked.

  “Yes,” answered Cooper. “I think some of the detectives had it at times.”

  Cooper then passed up a small brown book that was about four or five square inches. Wallstein asked Cooper to identify this item and where it was marked for the clerk.

  “It’s the Record Book of the Fourth Branch and the entry of Feb[ruary] 14, 1917,” said Cooper.

  Wallstein read the entry aloud. It was a short announcement that Ruth Cruger, eighteen years old, was missing from her home on Claremont Avenue. She had last been seen at 2 P.M. on February 13. Lieutenant William Brown was listed as the officer who took the initial complaint.

  “How many cases of missing persons have been reported to your branch in the last year?” Wallstein then asked Cooper, switching gears.

  “I can’t answer that, but I can find out by telephoning to the department.”

  “In the last year, what detectives have been assigned to such missing persons?”

  “Detectives Lagarenne and McGee.”

  Commissioner Wallstein then produced a deep yellow card from the sheaf of papers. Cooper identified it as a D.B.B. card, which contained a memorandum of the time of the initial report and a description of Ruth Cruger. Cooper looked at it and proclaimed that the message had been sent at 10:15 on February 14.

  Wallstein continued. “Is it a rule of the Police Department to delay for twenty-four hours the sending out of a general alarm?”

  “I can’t say it’s customary, but it frequently occurs,” answered Cooper.

  Wallstein then asked why, under the category of “Publicity,” the word “Yes” had been crossed out in favor of “No.”

  “Is it the custom of the bureau to be guided by the person making the complaint as to whether there is to be publicity or not?”

  “Yes, it is. The officer receiving the complaint has no discretion. There are no specific orders on it.”

  Wallstein adjourned the proceedings for lunch.

  In the afternoon, Wallstein called up Victor Blady, a friend of Cocchi’s who was always seen around the shop and was known by the nickname Jersey. Blady said that he was in the shop between nine and nine thirty on the night the Cruger girl disappeared. This contradicted what a young errand boy said, who saw Blady between six thirty and seven. A report that one of the uniforms found during the cellar excavation fit the six-foot-five Victor Blady perfectly was neither confirmed nor denied. Blady’s story was that he was there because of keen interest in the motor sled that Cocchi invented, built, and drove on Broadway last winter. Blady testified that there were other men in Cocchi’s shop when Ruth went there at noon and left her skates. Wallstein wanted to know what they were doing. If it was digging, it could prove that the whole thing was a premeditated act. Blady said he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Blady’s final comment was that he thought “the crime may have been committed by a woman, moved by jealousy, who, since the murder, has been shielded by the police department.” Blady’s testimony was dismissed as that of a personal friend.

  The next day, Maria Cocchi arrived to give her testimony, and the room welled with anticipation. As Wallstein started his questioning, Mrs. Cocchi fainted, causing the room to gasp. She recovered—steadied herself—and returned to her chair. She nodded to her interpreter. Wallstein kept his questions very focused on the police activities in the case. He was not interested in idle gossip. Neither was she. She silently stuck out her hand and produced a white card. Wallstein took it and turned it over. It read:

  Take care of Alfredo Cocchi. He’s O.K.

  BILLY EYNON

  When Wallstein read the tiny card out loud, the crowd nodded and the reporters wrote. Everyone knew that Billy Eynon was an active motorcycle cop. Wallstein was very familiar with these types of cards, though he wished that he were not. The holder of the card could show it to any motorcycle squad member who had pulled him over for speeding and walk away without a ticket. According to his wife, Cocchi had gotten it from Eynon for working on his bike. Cocchi apparently liked to speed. But it wasn’t the card itself that cast a shadow over the proceedings, it was the phrase at the end: “Take care of Alfredo Cocchi.”

  “There were always policemen around his place of business,” Maria said. “I have entered his shops many a time and found him talking mysteriously with policemen. I never heard what they were saying. They did not talk when I was around.” Maria paused for a moment before continuing. “Always,” Maria said, “he worked hard to get money so he could go back to Italy and live like a prince. He was good to his children, but stingy with me. He could not keep away from women.” The rumor circulated that her son and daughter had been taken away from her and placed with the Children’s Society.

  Maria also mentioned Edward Fish, the private detective who was also a friend of Cocchi, but apparently Wallstein’s men could not find him. According to Maria, Fish had once been a policeman.

  As the testimony wore on, the story that was slowly being patched together was that Cocchi and the motorcycle police seemed to have been involved in some kind of grafting operation. The scam would work, more or less, when motorcycle cops wo
uld hand out their summons to citizens for minor traffic infractions. Later, through an emissary, these cops would approach the citizen and say that their ticket could be fixed if they went to see someone such as Cocchi, who would then offer to fix the ticket for a price. Once the exorbitant price was paid (in cash outright or by buying a profoundly marked-up item from the store, such as a monkey wrench), the profits were split between the fixer and the cop who originally issued the ticket. The summons itself, written in pencil, would be erased and used again. Cocchi’s connection to Eynon, his tight relationship as repairman to the motorcycle squad (he had spare cop uniforms in the store lockers), and other drifting rumors seemed to be solidifying the overall picture of Cocchi’s police ties.

  One of the last things Wallstein did that day was to motion to one of his men, who then brought a small folded cloth to his desk. When Wallstein unwrapped it, the crowd took in the sight of a long, sharpened table knife with a metal handle. It had been found in the rear of the basement where the body was discovered. The knife was identified as Cocchi’s. He kept it in his desk drawer on the street floor of his shop. Wallstein momentarily held it aloft, suspended in midair, all eyes upon it. The tip was invisibly sharp.

  The policemen who testified all asked to sign a waiver of immunity from prosecution. When they got to the stand, the general police defense was that they had no idea what they were dealing with in Cocchi. They had no experience with such a rare and obscure type of crime. They claimed that there was nothing in their experience to help them in arriving at a correct conclusion. There was no motive, they argued, until the autopsy of the body revealed that the young woman was slain by an assassin of a kind rarely found in this country—a “ripper.” They admitted to being completely unprepared for this kind of monster. Wallstein knew from the coroner doctor’s report that Ruth had been cut through on the left side of her body in a mysterious way. The cut had severed some of her intestine, but it was more of a surgical wound than the stabbing kind.