Mrs. Sherlock Holmes

by Brad Ricca

  Last November, Cocchi had written his family to say that he was thinking of returning home to join the colors of the Italian army. Shortly after Ruth vanished, a letter arrived at the Italian Cocchis from Maria. She said that Alfredo had eloped with a girl who was eighteen years old and had taken all of her money, all fifteen dollars of it. She worried about Athos, who was “almost dead from privation and fright.”

  In his private office, Judge Zucconi seemed disturbed. He was keenly aware of contradictions in Cocchi’s confession. What Cocchi had described in his cell was an instantaneous crime of passion. What they had found in New York was the work of something else. Which man did they have in that cell? The picture they were learning of Cocchi in Italy was that of “an unbalanced adventurer with anarchistic tendencies.” A close investigation of letters revealed that Cocchi was suffering from “a horrible type of degeneracy manifested by attacks on children.” Zucconi couldn’t trust him, so he couldn’t underestimate him.

  When Cocchi first returned to Italy undetected, Francesco Baroncin, husband of Emma Magrini, Maria’s older sister, was worried that Cocchi had harmed his family. Baroncin persuaded Cocchi to go out to dinner one evening. Baroncin ordered the wine. “He did not tell me exactly how it was committed,” Baroncin told police, “but his meanderings indicated he had killed the girl.” Though there were “certain details that even a man of that sort is ashamed to tell,” admitted Cocchi’s brother-in-law. Cocchi’s father and brother insisted that Cocchi had told them nothing. Baroncin also told the police that Cocchi’s father had once traveled to New York to visit his son, but had left—sometime between 1913 and 1915—because of some sort of attempted violence. Baroncin said that Alfredo Cocchi was a “degenerate by heredity.”

  Cocchi’s defense lawyer was Signor Venturini, who was the best defense lawyer in Bologna—twenty-five years earlier. He was now seventy-five, creaky, and angular, but he still knew the law like few else in the city. Even though Venturini was Cocchi’s defense lawyer, he had not yet been allowed to see his client. Venturini went to court and made an official complaint against the secret manner of the investigation thus far and asked why he was not allowed to see Cocchi. Venturini also argued strongly against his client’s extradition. When the court seemed to snicker at him, Venturini referred to articles in the Italian penal code that he said not only did not admit the possibility of Cocchi’s extradition but prevented the Italian government from trying the prisoner for a crime committed abroad. “This cannot go on” he said. “The law exists, and cannot be violated. It is a matter of honor with me, to see that the prisoner gets a fair trial, as I have undertaken in my old age to defend all poor Italians whom I can serve.” He shook his finger and his eyes blazed. Venturini would not be underestimated, either.

  Venturini’s great worry was the length of time that would pass before his client’s trial. The Italian government still had to determine if Cocchi was an American citizen or an Italian subject. The trial could slog on for months as records were pulled and men argued. “I am guilty, and I want to pay the penalty,” Cocchi repeated from his cell. “Why spend your money on a lawyer? I won’t see him,” he said defiantly. It was not clear who was paying for his defense. “I would rather know the worst at once than live in this uncertainty,” Cocchi said. He allegedly told his father, several days before his arrest, that he was going to plead insanity.

  On June 26, a woman slipped into Bologna very quietly. She was taken to Judge Zucconi’s rooms to be questioned. When the interview was concluded, the person returned home to America. The secret witness was reported to be an American woman who came to Italy for the sole purpose of giving testimony concerning the motive for the crime and the circumstances behind it. The name and address of the woman were not made public. The press speculated it might have been a Miss Cruger, though they offered no proof.

  * * *

  When Wallstein reconvened his hearings on June 26, it was for Captain Cooper to testify for the second time. This time, Wallstein had questions about Detective Lagarenne. Cooper said that Lagarenne’s report was recorded on a large blue card that indicated he had searched the premises. The card also mentioned Lagarenne’s interrogation of Rubien, the taxi driver who claimed to have seen Ruth Cruger. The card summarized Rubien’s statement that a man had called him to bring his taxi to a jewelry store at 127th and Manhattan. There, the man beckoned to a girl, got in with her, and Rubien took them to the subway station at 127th and Lenox. Lagarenne stated on the report that he believed this girl to be Ruth Cruger.

  “Did you ask him how he came to that conclusion?” Wallstein asked.

  “Yes, and he said it was on account of her appearance, her clothing,” replied Cooper.

  “Did you accept this as conclusively as Lagarenne did?”

  “No, they have to show me.”

  “Were you ever able to locate the man reported as accompanying this girl in the taxicab?”

  “No, sir.”

  Wallstein wanted to talk about the motorcycle squad next. A group of them were at a restaurant near Cocchi’s when they learned that he had disappeared. As soon as they heard, they jumped on their bikes to Fourth Branch to tell the captain. Wallstein specifically questioned John L. Ochsenhirt and James Haggerty, both motorcycle cops who knew Cocchi. Ochsenhirt admitted that he was in the store earlier on the day that Ruth disappeared. He was also the man who reported that a girl and a young man had been seen in a taxicab in the neighborhood on the same night. The entire motorcycle squad was ordered to report the last two years of their paperwork. Twelve of their number had already been suspended due to the graft inquiry.

  Dooling, fresh off his own interrogation of Maria Cocchi, was the next to stomp up to Wallstein’s table. He was chomping at the bit to talk. He knew that he was not here to be pointed at and accused. He was here to share what he knew.

  “Three facts,” Dooling said, “proved that there were accomplices. First, the toolbox in the shop weighed seven hundred pounds and could not be lifted by one man. Second, the removal of the hot air flue and its replacement after the girl had been dropped through the improvised trap, required at least two persons. Third, more than one person helped carry away from the premises the earth that was taken from the tunnel grave.” The flue Dooling was referring to was the heating passageway from the first floor of the store to the cellar, which they were surmising Cocchi used to transport the body for burial. The coroner, Dr. Otto Schultze was next. He did not fear Wallstein. He testified that the smears on the tin around the hole in the floor were indeed drops of human blood.

  In Italy, Cocchi seemed to be finally exhibiting a proud kind of remorse. “I am racked with grief,” he said. “I cannot bear the remorse. I would like to go to the front and be killed in the first line.” Police had found that Cocchi had tried to enlist in the Italian army the year before, only to be rejected. The word “deformity” was typed into his application file. In Italy, Cocchi underwent corrective surgery to fix it, but the procedure left him unable to lift heavy weights.

  Cocchi even talked about the search of his cellar by Lagarenne and McGee. “The reputation I had with the police was so good,” he said, “that these detectives told me they made this inspection merely to be able to say that they had done it.” Cocchi then admitted that when the detectives searched his basement, Ruth’s body wasn’t even covered in the ground. Cocchi also elaborated on some of his name changing and trickery in getting back to Italy, though it didn’t add up. “Gueiseppe Gesundheit” was quoted in an Indiana paper explaining that Cocchi’s name was “pronounced the easiest possible way, just ordinary ‘cock-eye.’” But in Bologna, Cocchi seemed immune to real scrutiny, humorous or otherwise. Cocchi even told Milt Snyder that while in Bologna, he had begun an affair with a young girl.

  “I did it just as a joke,” Cocchi said.

  In Bologna, detectives had found a letter that Cocchi wrote to his brother Joseph dated November 27, 1916. After telling his brother that his business was doing very well i
n America, Cocchi asked, “How are things going on in Italy? Would you advise me to come back? It would be a godsend for me to have some relative here to look after my business. My son is too young to realize what a dirty mother he has. Maria does not care about the shop and we have always been quarrelling. She is having me shadowed by private detectives because she says I am after other women. I … cannot get on with Maria. I cannot even go to my house, and during the last week have been having my meals out.

  “She is an unfortunate wretch,” wrote Cocchi. “All our quarrels are due to the fact that she listens to the gossip of people who are Germans. She says we are a family of murderers and that I had to escape from Italy, where I would have been in prison. Had we been in Italy, I do not know what I would have done to her. If I had peace at home I would be the happiest man in New York.… All my work during ten years will go to the devil and my children will have nothing left, but at least the scenes of jealousy will end.”

  This was the first time Cocchi had written to his family in ten years.

  In New York, Wallstein continued focusing his magnifying glass on the police. In Italy, Cocchi had confessed, but he had a sharp lawyer and there was no physical evidence connecting Cocchi to the murder. He admitted to hitting Ruth with a block of wood, but no one had found it, leaving unanswered questions. As Cocchi smiled and told his endless stories, Judge Zucconi couldn’t tell if he was just stupid, desperate, or playing at some dark, larger game.

  Cocchi ended his letter to his family with a list of his customers, who included, in his words, the “best people of New York.” “All the policemen who have motorcycles come to me for repairs,” bragged Cocchi. But his last lines took on a chilling countenance:

  “A day of reckoning will come through to all my enemies in this country,” Cocchi said. The judge wondered exactly what that meant.

  15

  The Sliding Number

  On June 28, Leonard Wallstein finally called for the testimony of Lieutenant Brown, who had taken the first phone call at Fourth Branch on the day Ruth disappeared. Wallstein wanted to know why Brown had not officially reported her missing until the next day. Brown claimed that he honestly didn’t remember what happened. Given the volume of calls, this was certainly understandable, so Wallstein let him take the casebook into an adjoining room to refresh himself with its contents and perhaps spark his memory.

  When Brown returned, he handed over the book, and it was once again placed into evidence. The small book was then slid across the table to Wallstein, who opened it up to the date in question. Wallstein dipped his nose and read the page through his thin glasses. He stopped and looked closer. His eyes flashed on Brown.

  “Were you alone while you were looking up these complaints?” Wallstein asked.

  “Yes,” said Brown.

  “Did you see that this ‘4’ had been changed to a ‘5’?”

  Brown hesitated.

  “Yes,” Brown said.

  Wallstein looked even angrier. Someone had changed the 4 to a 5 in the Cruger entry and thus, February 14 had become February 15. And thus Lieutenant Brown couldn’t be accused of delaying the investigation.

  “Did you make that change?” Wallstein asked sharply.

  “No,” Brown answered.

  “Is that your handwriting?”

  A pause. “It is,” Brown said.

  Wallstein stared at him. “I strongly suspect that you made that change yourself,” he said, “and if I can prove it, I shall see that you are punished.” He waved his hand. “You can come back at 2:30,” he said. Brown protested that he had been under observation while examining the casebook. Wallstein wouldn’t even look at him.

  After a short recess, Wallstein returned. His face was red. “I find after examination,” he said, his words coming with difficulty, “that no one was watching Lieutenant Brown during his absence from this room when he was working on the complaint book. While I strongly suspect that he did tamper with the book, I do not wish to make the charge at the moment.” Wallstein knew Brown had done it, but there was no way to prove it.

  “I answer telephone inquiries,” said Brown. “I make $2,250 a year and you accuse me of having altered the records?”

  “No, I don’t accuse you,” said Wallstein. “But I strongly suspect you.”

  When the hearings ended that day, new stories began to surface about the case. According to the Sun, Cocchi’s father, while visiting New York a few years before, attempted to attack Maria Cocchi. The scandal was hushed up, and the father was forced to return to Italy. Mrs. Cocchi reported it to a policeman, but nothing was ever done. Maria had told the district attorney that she took the policeman’s badge number and still had it written in her prayer book.

  News had also come that Cocchi had hid himself for six days at the Society for Italian Immigrants before leaving New York in February. Cocchi said that he was housed at a loading house along with a hundred other Italians waiting departure. After staying in port for an extra two days, the ship finally cleared on Washington’s birthday. The loading house was under the direction of a priest named Father Gaspar Moretto.

  The reporters and detectives descended on the Saint Raphael Society House at 8 and 10 Charlton Street that same night. When he opened his door, Father Moretto, who was young, short, and heavyset, was much surprised to see a pack of reporters. Moretto admitted that he knew Cocchi. He had gone to his shop about four or five years earlier to have a motorcycle repaired.

  “No detectives came near me,” Moretto said, “but Miss Cruger’s sister came here with a very nice young man, a Catholic, and asked me if I knew anything about Cocchi. I am sorry, I told them, but I don’t know anything about them.”

  “Have you seen him since February 13th?” one of the reporters asked. There was a long pause. Father Moretto replied in broken English.

  “When a man comes to a priest and talks, the priest can say nothing about it,” he said.

  “We are not speaking of the confessional,” said the reporter. “We asked if you had seen Cocchi since February 13th.” The priest became even more disturbed. He half turned away, wrung his hands, started to speak, hesitated, and finally turned to them.

  “If the Judge asked me in court—” He left the sentence unfinished. The question was repeated. Father Moretto then turned, without replying, and entered the house.

  A few moments later, he appeared once more on the doorstep and said firmly, “I have not seen Cocchi now.”

  “You mean that you have not seen him since February 13th?”

  “That is what I mean,” said Father Moretto, shaking his head vehemently. “I have not seen him.” Then, after a pause, he went on:

  “If you watch the papers, in a few days, you will see that Cocchi has gone insane—but I am not a doctor.” He then went back inside, closed his door, and refused to come out again.

  At Maria Cocchi’s next interrogation by Swann, her lawyer told the district attorney how some prison officials at the Harlem jail tried to force her silence about any police friendships with her husband. One of the guards told Maria, according to her attorney, “that if she continued to involve policemen in the Cruger case, she would be killed as soon as she left the prison.”

  On June 29, Detective Lagarenne finally appeared before Wallstein. There were many questions as to how he was in Cocchi’s shop the day after Ruth disappeared and did not suspect—or thoroughly search—the very ground he had been walking on. Many of the people in the audience already knew his name; in May 1914, he had been commended for obtaining the arrest and conviction of the great criminal Gregario Giordano, which Wallstein noted in the record. Lagarenne was a hero, which is why he became a detective.

  “You suspected Cocchi?” asked Wallstein.

  “No,” answered Lagarenne.

  “Why did you never have him under surveillance?”

  “I can’t recall.”

  “Did you talk to the neighbors about his character?”

  “No.”

  “You we
ren’t interested in that until he disappeared?” asked Wallstein, with a hint of contempt.

  “No.”

  “Did you believe Cocchi when you talked with him?”

  “I did,” answered Lagarenne.

  “You thought she was a voluntary runaway, didn’t you?” asked Wallstein.

  “That was my opinion.”

  “Well,” said Wallstein. “Your opinion was wrong and absolutely immaterial.”

  Wallstein paused, staring the man down. He was clearly not going to give him anything.

  “You did not lift that workbench up?” asked Wallstein.

  “No.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Cocchi to remove the workbench?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Wallstein then asked if Lagarenne had once been placed on trial for failing to prevent a burglary on his patrol post. Lagarenne admitted that he had.

  “Well,” said Wallstein, angrily. “You are excused, and you don’t have to come back.”

  That very night, Wallstein sent a letter to Commissioner Woods urging that Lagarenne be brought up on charges of gross negligence. In writing up the charge, Woods noted that Lagarenne “failed and neglected to keep Cocchi under surveillance and didn’t open up easily accessible and locked areas, including drawers and closets.”

  The next day, Detective McGee followed his partner on the stand, though telling a somewhat different story. McGee answered every question with a full answer and admitted that he could have done a better search of the cellar. This enormous, sweating man who had helped dig out the cellar with Kron even started to weep. “In sight of God and man,” McGee said, “I did the best I could on that search. I did everything I could.” Wallstein looked at him from across the table. He had seen McGee’s dossier. He had once shot at a fleeing burglar who was running down Broadway. McGee ordered him to halt, but the thief kept on going. McGee stood still and shot him through the neck, then walked slowly up to the wounded criminal with his gun drawn. He found a shaking, bleeding boy.