by Susan Kandel
Joseph Albacco Jr. (Class of ’55, Ventura City High) worked as a linotype operator at the Ventura Press, the area’s major weekly. Joe’s boss, Ventura Press editor and publisher Mr. Anson Burke, remembered December 13 well because he had been preoccupied all day about the looming possibility of a strike. He had meetings with union officials in the morning and an unusual number of phone calls to juggle, as his secretary, Miss Mildred Rose, was out sick. Joe, one of his forty-nine employees, had merited scarcely a thought.
Arriving well before 8:00 A.M., Joe shared a breakfast of doughnuts and coffee with several coworkers. He joked about a baseball game over which he had lost ten dollars the previous night, and complained about an old back injury that seemed to be flaring up. No one at work knew December 13 was his wedding anniversary until reading about it in the paper the following day.
Mr. Thomas Malone, who had known Joe since grade school, worked on the city desk. He and Joe usually bought lunch at the Italian deli on Main and walked through the alley to eat in the park across the street from the San Buenaventura Mission, under the old fig tree. December 13 had been no different. That day they talked about the weather, Mr. Malone’s ailing mother, and the military’s increased presence in the county. They also discussed the new freeway, the U.S. 101, which would run from the Conejo Grade to Camarillo, cutting the trip to Los Angeles from five hours to just over two. The paper had been running a series of editorials complaining about how the elevated sections proposed for Ventura proper would block out views and access to the beach in the downtown area.
After lunch, Joe stopped at a phone booth to make a call. It lasted no more than three or four minutes. But, according to Mr. Malone, this was unusual for Joe. There was shouting, and Joe seemed agitated during the short walk back to the office. Despite Mr. Malone’s inquiries, Joe wouldn’t reveal to whom he had been speaking or the subject of their conversation.
Jean left work at 4:15 P.M. on the dot. On her way out, she wished Miss Seaton a nice weekend and told her that she might have a surprise for her very soon. Miss Seaton testified at trial that Jean’s manner was coy, which surprised her, given that Jean was normally a serious sort of girl.
At approximately 4:20 P.M., complaining of a headache, Joe went to see the company nurse, Mrs. Bianca Adair. She gave him two aspirins and sent him home to rest, no follow-up required.
At 4:30 P.M., Jean stopped in at C&M Locksmiths at the corner of Main and Santa Clara. She picked up a set of house keys, explaining that her husband had lost his, and asked after two other keys that weren’t yet ready. She chatted amiably with the proprietor, Mr. Lorenzo Calabro, but bustled out when she caught sight of the clock, clearly in a hurry. At approximately 4:40 P.M., she went into the used bookshop on Valdez Alley, browsed in the California section, and purchased a two-volume history of Ventura County. A present for her husband, she explained to Mr. Roger Sorenson, the store manager. On her way to the market on Thompson Boulevard, Jean stopped to chat a moment with a friend, Miss Diana Crisp, who worked at the Be Mine Hair Salon next door. Diana complimented Jean on her suit. Jean laughed and said that she had hidden the receipt from Joe since it wasn’t on sale and they were supposed to be saving for a house on a better street. At the market, Jean paid cash for her groceries (a roast, some baking potatoes, and a head of iceberg lettuce), though she had opened a house account just the week before.
At 4:30 P.M., Joe was seen driving above Register Street, heading west, just beyond the county courthouse.
At 5:30 P.M., Jean’s neighbor, Mr. Josiah McGruder, a retired plumber, saw Jean approach her house, stop abruptly for a few moments, as if lost in thought, and then go inside. She was loaded down with packages.
At 6:30 P.M., Mr. McGruder thought he heard the screen door swing open at the Albaccos’. He looked out the window and saw a person, whom he could not positively identify, enter the Albacco residence.
At 7:15 P.M., smelling something burning on the stove, Mr. McGruder knocked on the Albaccos’ front door. When he got no response, he went around to the back door. He called out and, still getting no response, entered the premises, where he saw the body of Mrs. Albacco on the kitchen floor.
At 7:30 P.M., the police arrived.
At 7:45 P.M., Joseph Albacco came home, with a pack of cigarettes in his hand and dried blood on the cuff of his shirt. He was taken in for questioning, held overnight, and charged, the following morning, with murder in the first degree.
The trial was brief. The cause of death was determined to be blunt trauma to the head. The murder weapon was never found. But that didn’t stop the prosecutor. There was trouble in the marriage. Talk of another woman. Joe had left work early for no real reason. That looked bad. There was no sign of forced entry. That looked bad, too. The blood on his shirt tested AB positive—his wife’s type. And he had no alibi. No explanation whatsoever of where he had been. It added up. At least, the jury saw it that way. But it was hardly an open-and-shut case.
Sitting in the prison parking lot, too nervous to do anything except pick at the tassels on my suit, I went over the details in my mind again and yet again. Any way you looked at it, there were dozens of lingering questions. What had that frantic phone call been about? If it had been Albacco at the door at 6:30 P.M. that evening, as the prosecution had contended, why had his neighbor been unable to make a positive ID, especially since it wasn’t even dark out? And if Albacco had indeed killed his wife, wouldn’t he have changed his bloodstained shirt before appearing back at his house at 7:45 P.M.? Why had he been carrying cigarettes when neither he nor Jean was a smoker? Most curious of all was the missing murder weapon. Where was it? I stopped myself short. It was hardly my business. Any of it. Erle Stanley Gardner was my business, and all this case meant to me, all it could ever mean to me, was a chance to get the real dope on an old pro.
Right.
6
Joseph Albacco smiled as he sat down, and I knew right away this would be the strangest conversation of my life.
I smiled back through the thick wall of Plexiglas. A drop of sweat trickled down the inside of my blouse. I wondered if he could see it blazing a trail across the silk. I pulled my jacket tighter around me. I was hot and cold, but colder than I was hot.
“Talk right into the receiver,” he said kindly. “The only difference between this and a phone call is we can see each other.”
“Oh.”
“So, you’re Italian. Me, too. There was a Caruso I knew when I was a kid. Ran a grocery store near my house. Any relation?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I replied. “We’re all in New Jersey.”
“Except you,” he said, grinning.
“Right,” I said stupidly.
I had lost control already, probably from the moment I laid eyes on him. Joseph Albacco’s hair was silver, thick and coarse, and his face as craggy as a relief map of the Rockies. I had expected something like that: he was a sixty-six-year-old man who had spent most of his life behind bars. But I hadn’t expected him to be tall, well over six feet, nor strong—and not from lifting weights, but because that’s the way he was made.
I pulled myself together. “Mr. Albacco,” I said, clearing my throat, “the warden did explain why I’m here, didn’t he?”
“Yes. I understand you’re doing some work on Erle Stanley Gardner.”
Handsome, too. It spooked me that I noticed. I was supposed to be a neutral observer. No emotions. Cool as a cucumber. That was my whole problem. Even as a kid I’d run fevers so high the doctors wanted to hospitalize me every time I got the flu. It was my mom who was the cool one. I was some sort of mutation.
“That’s right,” I said self-importantly. “I’m writing a book about him, a biography. And while I was doing research, I came across a letter you wrote him, a long time ago, right after you were…incarcerated.” That was one of those words I’d never actually used in conversation. “You asked him for help. Do you remember?”
He paused, as if gathering up steam. I thought then
that this was a story he had been waiting a long time to tell.
“I remember the day I wrote that letter. Every last detail.” The rest came out like a soliloquy.
“I had been here only a few months. I didn’t think I was going to make it. I didn’t think I would stay sane. I was so angry I’d been punching the wall in my cell for days on end and was starting to make a hole in it. The plaster was loose. Falling in bits. I was afraid they were going to think I was trying to escape. So I panicked. I tried to cover the hole with my pillow, a towel, anything, but it was always there. And so I called the guard to show him. I didn’t want to be accused of anything. They thought I was nuts. Totally gone. But I was sent to see the chaplain, not the prison psychiatrist. I don’t know why. I cried. I was only twenty years old. I thought I’d be freed any day, and I guess that was the moment it finally dawned on me. That was the day I realized I might never see the ocean again.”
“But why had you thought otherwise?” I asked. “You were convicted of first-degree murder, Mr. Albacco. Surely you understood what that meant.”
“They didn’t have anything on me, not really. But it was an election year. The D.A. had something to prove, and the attorney the court provided was afraid to get in his way. It didn’t much matter to me, not at first. I thought it’d all come out in the wash when they found him,” he explained. “The person who killed her…my wife, I mean.” He looked down at a ring on his finger. It looked like a wedding band. I didn’t know you could keep those in prison.
And then, softly, “Or that I’d hear something from—”
“From whom?” I asked.
“Not important.” He smiled that smile, then shook his head and went on. “You know, Ms. Caruso, what’s interesting to me is that the police never did investigate. Never asked anybody a question, not really. They decided I was guilty and that was the end of that. I couldn’t say where I had been that night, so I had to be the one responsible.”
“So, Erle Stanley Gardner?” I prompted.
“So Erle Stanley Gardner. I wrote him a letter. That same evening. After talking to the chaplain, I knew I needed someone to save me, and no matter how many Hail Marys I said, it wasn’t going to be God. I thought Gardner might be the one.”
“Why?”
“It sounds so stupid now. You see, my whole life, I’ve loved mysteries.”
“Me, too!” I exclaimed, horrified at my eagerness.
“Yeah, read every single Perry Mason book, just like every other red-blooded American. Read Argosy, too, all that stuff about the Court of Last Resort. Even thought I’d go to law school one day. And I knew this man, at least through my family. I thought he’d take me on as a cause. You know, the good kid who’s been falsely accused. He’d ask the right questions, do the footwork, and nab the real culprit. Prove me innocent, something like that. I suppose I was arrogant enough, or desperate enough, to think I’d strike him as worth the trouble.”
“And you never heard a word from him. That must’ve been disappointing,” I murmured.
“Oh, I did hear from him,” Albacco interjected. “The very next week.”
I nearly choked. There was no correspondence in the file. Nothing at all.
“Yeah, he called me here at the jail, and we spoke briefly. I was scared out of my wits, of course, but he was encouraging. Patient. Asked me how I was doing and all. We talked about the case, and I gave him Maddy Seaton’s phone number. She was Jean’s best friend. He thought it’d be worth seeing if she knew anything more about what was going on with Jean those last few months. Something had changed, I knew that. And Maddy and Jean were like sisters. They had no secrets.”
“So what did he say when you next spoke?”
“We never spoke again,” he said flatly. “That was our one and only conversation. I don’t even know if he got in touch with Maddy. And then he abandoned the Court of Last Resort.”
“Oh,” I said.
“There’s not much more to it. So here I am. Here I’ve been.”
I shouldn’t be here, I thought to myself. I should not be here.
“I’m not an intellectual like you, Ms. Caruso.”
“I’m hardly that.”
“But if you’re alone long enough,” he continued, “like I’ve been these past years, you can’t help but think. Constantly. You brood. You wonder. You come up with theories. Theories about everything. I’ve got a theory about life. It’s a maze, full of false starts and wrong turns, blind alleys, dead ends. You know what I’m talking about, Ms. Caruso. You’ve encountered your share.”
I felt myself shivering. It was the sweat.
“There’s a path you’ve got to find, though, and it’ll take you right where you were meant to go. I haven’t found my path, as it turns out. I know that because this isn’t my destination.” He looked up. “How about you?”
I was dizzy now. The room was spinning.
“I-I feel somewhat awkward,” I stammered, looking down at my hands. I could still see the traces of my own wedding ring. I thought about the day I took it off for good. “I’m afraid I’ve misled you. I’m here doing research on Erle Stanley Gardner. Trying to get a fix on him. That’s all. I’m sorry.”
I looked up and our eyes met, and just for that moment I thought I could see the young man he had been—untroubled, in the way of people accustomed to being liked. I had never been untroubled a day in my life, never felt that kind of ease in my own skin. I wondered what it would feel like. And what kind of emotional bruising this man must have taken after all these years.
“Maybe I can help,” I heard myself saying. “Maybe I could ask a question or two. I have some more research to do in Ventura anyway.”
“You’re not obliged,” he said. “I didn’t mean to railroad you.”
“You didn’t. I’d be doing it for my book.”
And at that moment, I actually thought I would be.
On the way out, I went to see the chaplain as promised. Our visit was brief. Someone was using his office so we met in the chapel. This was unfortunate because houses of worship, even those inside houses of detention, tend to make me feel guilty. This meant I’d be calling my mother back tonight, broken in spirit (which is how she likes me best), and maybe even second-day air-mailing her a box of See’s Scotchmallow bars, her favorite candy.
Father Herlihy was one of those ancient Irishmen with a nose the size and hue of a pomegranate. A massive fellow, who seemed to be suffering from gout but beaming all the while (hey, he had it better than his parishioners), he rose from the front pew so slowly I didn’t know if he’d make it without toppling over. I offered my arm, which he took gratefully. Then he promptly sat back down. I sat down next to him, directly opposite the pulpit, which was incongruously (given the crime-stained setting) ornamented with bas-relief angels.
With a brusqueness his appearance belied, Father Herlihy asked, “Joseph Albacco is a wronged man, and I’d like to know, Ms. Caruso, as a good Catholic, how will you be assisting him?” I have to admit I was speechless after that one. The last time I’d been a good Catholic Richard Nixon had been president. And a good Quaker.
“Ms. Caruso,” he repeated, “something must be done. And soon. Mr. Albacco has a parole hearing scheduled in less than three weeks, and it has to go differently this time. He has suffered long enough.”
“For something he did or didn’t do?”
He glared at me. “My dear, I made your visit here possible because I have an interest in seeing justice done. Joseph and I came to Tehachapi the same year, soon after it was rebuilt, and we have grown old together. Sadly for him, I might add, because our friendship has come at the expense of his freedom.”
“I don’t understand why he hasn’t been released after all this time.”
“He received a sentence of thirty-five years to life. There is no guarantee of parole.”
“But it doesn’t make sense.”
He was impatient now. “There are flaws in the system.”
“Such as?
”
“To be awarded parole, you must admit culpability. You must accept responsibility and evince regret. This puts those who have been wrongly convicted in a rather difficult position.”
“How do you know Joseph didn’t kill his wife?”
“You’re a smart woman,” he answered. “And given that, surely you understand that sometimes the truth never comes out, for whatever reason. Because we are too ashamed to acknowledge our guilt. Because we are trying to prevent others from bearing our pain. Because the forces of evil have too much at stake in keeping it buried. Nonetheless, it remains the truth.”
I stopped him right there. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I can see you’re not telling me everything you know.”
“Do I need to remind you that I’m a priest?” he retorted. “I am hardly in a position to divulge privileged information, nor to bring the facts of Jean Albacco’s murder to light. Joseph thought Erle Stanley Gardner might be in such a position. But that was a long time ago. Now the burden has fallen to you.”
“To me?”
“You are a Catholic. Surely you will understand what I’m trying to say. Joseph Albacco has not committed a mortal sin. Not yet. But for years now, he’s been holding on to a long rope, and he’s come to the end of it. Listen to what I’m saying to you, Ms. Caruso: there will not be another parole hearing.”
The man was speaking in riddles. I was lost. Had Joseph been threatening suicide? Was that what he was trying to tell me? My god.
“Father Herlihy,” I finally said, “I’d like to help, truly I would, but it sounds like you have too much faith in me.”
“My dear,” he said, “it sounds like you don’t have enough.”
7
On the long drive home, Father Herlihy’s words reverberated in my ears. The din was deafening, and I didn’t like it. I thought about Joseph Albacco and how desperate he must be. About how big his cell was and when he had last gotten a phone call or eaten a good meal. I thought about his theory of life and about the sorry fact that I had theories about everything under the sun except the things that really mattered.