The Interpretation Of Murder

by Jed Rubenfeld

  All Mrs Longobardi knew - because a nice Jewish girl had come to tell her - was that there had been trouble at the factory where Betty started work today. Some of the girls had been taken away, including Betty. 'Taken away?' asked Littlemore. 'Where?'

  The mother didn't know.

  Littlemore ran to the Fifty-ninth Street subway station. He stood all the way downtown, too worked up to take a seat. At police headquarters, he learned that strikers had hit one of the big garment factories in Greenwich Village, picketers had started smashing windows, and the police had arrested the worst couple dozen of them to clear the streets. All the rowdies were now in jail. The men were being held in the Tombs, the girls at the Jefferson Market.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In the 1870s, a fanciful profusion of Victorian high Gothic sprang up on a triangular plot of land at the corner of Tenth Street and Sixth Avenue, contrasting incongruously with the otherwise disreputable workingman's neighborhood. The new polychromatic courthouse was a jumble of steeply sloping roofs, with gables and pinnacles jutting out at every height and angle; its watchtower was crowned by a 170-foot turret. A five-floor prison in the same style was attached to this courthouse, and to the jail was attached another grand edifice, which housed a marketplace. Collectively, the place was known as Jefferson Market; the conceit was that institutions of law and order ought not to be sequestered from those of daily life.

  By day, criminal cases of great import were tried in the Jefferson Market courthouse. After hours, the same tribunal became the city's Night Court, where vice cases were processed. As a result, the Jefferson Market jail was occupied largely by prostitutes awaiting disposition and punishment. It was here, in this jail, that Littlemore found a frazzled but unhurt Betty on Wednesday evening.

  She was in a large, crowded holding cell in the basement. Some twenty-five or thirty women were detained within, standing in small knots or sitting on long narrow benches against the walls.

  The cell was divided between two classes of prisoner. There were about fifteen young women in working outfits like Betty's - simple dark, solid-colored skirts, down to their ankles, of course, and white long-sleeved blouses. These prisoners were from the shirtwaist factory where Betty had for half a day been an employee. A few of these girls were as young as thirteen.

  Their colleagues were another dozen women, of various ages and far more colorful in their accoutrements and cosmetics. Most were loud and conspicuously at their ease, being familiar with the surroundings. One, however, was louder than the others, complaining to the guards and demanding to know how a woman in her circumstances could be kept in jail. Littlemore recognized her at once; it was Mrs Susan Merrill. She was the only one with a chair, which the others had deferentially yielded to her. Over her shoulders was a burgundy wrap, in her arms a baby, sleeping peacefully despite the uproar.

  Littlemore's badge got him inside the jailhouse, but it couldn't get Betty out. They stood only a few inches from each other, separated by the floor-to-ceiling iron bars, speaking quietly. 'Your first day of work, Betty,' Littlemore said, 'and you went on strike?'

  She had not gone on strike. When Betty arrived at the factory that morning, she went directly to the ninth floor and joined a hundred other girls sewing. There were, however, at least fifty empty stools in front of idle sewing machines. What had happened was this: the day before, a hundred fifty seamstresses had been fired for being 'union sympathizers.' That evening, in response, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union called a strike against Betty's factory. As the next morning wore on, a small band of laborers and unionists gathered in the street below, shouting up to the workers on the floors above.

  'They called us scabs,' Betty explained. 'Now I know why they hired me so quick - they were replacing the union girls. I couldn't be a scab, Jimmy, could I?'

  'I guess not,' said Littlemore, 'but what did they want to go and strike for anyway?'

  'Oh, you wouldn't believe it. First of all, it's hot, like a furnace. Then they charge the girls rent - for everything: lockers, sewing machines, needles, stools to sit on. You don't get half the pay they promise you. Jimmy, there was a girl there worked seventy-two hours last week, and she made three dollars. Three dollars! That's - that's - how much is that?'

  'Four cents an hour,' said Littlemore. 'That's bad.'

  'And that's not the worst thing either. They lock all the doors to keep the girls working; you can't even go to the bathroom.'

  'Geez, Betty, you should have just left. You didn't have to go and picket, with people smashing windows and all.'

  Betty was half indignant, half confused. 'I didn't picket, Jimmy.'

  'Well, what did they arrest you for?'

  ' 'Cause I quit. They told us we'd go to jail if we quit, but I didn't believe them. And nobody was smashing windows. The policemen were just beating people up.'

  'Those weren't policemen.'

  'Oh, yes, they were.'

  'Oh, boy,' said Littlemore. 'I got to get you out of here.' He beckoned to one of the guards and explained to him that Betty was his girl and wasn't part of the strike at all; she was in the lockup by mistake. At the words 'my girl,' Betty looked down at the floor and smiled with embarrassment.

  The guard, a pal of Littlemore's, answered penitently that his hands were tied. 'It ain't me, Jimmy,' he said. 'You got to talk to Becker.'

  'Beck?' asked Littlemore, his eyes lighting up. 'Is Beck here?'

  The guard led Littlemore down the hall to a room where five men were drinking, smoking, and playing a noisy game of cards beneath a flickering electric bulb. One of them was Sergeant Charles Becker, a bullet-headed fireplug of a man with a powerful baritone. Becker, a fifteen-year veteran on the force, worked the most vice-ridden precinct in Manhattan, the Tenderloin, where the city's glittering casinos and brothels, including Susan Merrill's, mixed with the gaudiest lobster palaces and vaudevilles. Becker's presence at the jail was a stroke of good fortune for Littlemore, who had spent six months as a beat officer in Becker's squad.

  'Hey, Beck,' Littlemore called out.

  'Littlemouse!' boomed Becker, dealing cards. 'Boys, meet my little brother detective from downtown. Jimmy, this here's Gyp, Whitey, Lefty, and Dago - you remember Dago, don't you?'

  'Dago,' said the detective.

  'Couple two-three years ago,' Becker told his cronies, referring to Littlemore, 'this guy solves a pump-and-jump for me. Hands me the perp' - this was pronounced poyp - 'who's been paying the price ever since. They always pay the price, boys. What you doing here, Jimmy, bird- watching?'

  Becker heard him out, nodding, never taking his eyes from the poker table. With the roar of a man who savors a grand display of magnanimity, he ordered the guards to let out the detective's bird. Littlemore thanked Becker profoundly and hurried back to the cell, where he collected Betty. On their way out, Littlemore poked his head into the card room and thanked Becker again. 'Say, Beck,' he said. 'One more favor?'

  'Name it, little brother,' replied Becker.

  'There's a lady in there with a baby. Any chance we could let her out too?'

  Becker stubbed out a cigarette. His voice remained casual, but the jocularity of Becker's cronies suddenly came to a halt. 'A lady?' asked Becker.

  Littlemore knew something was wrong, but he didn't know what.

  'He's talking about Susie, boss,' said Gyp, whose real name was Horowitz.

  'Susie? Susie Merrill's not in my jail, is she, Whitey?' said Becker.

  'She's in there, boss,' answered Whitey, whose real name was Seidenschner.

  'You got something going with Susie, Jimmy?'

  'No, Beck,' said Littlemore. 'I just thought - with her having a baby and all -'

  'Uh-huh,' said Becker.

  'Forget I said it,' Littlemore put in. 'I mean, if she -'

  Becker bellowed to the guards to let Susie out. He added to this command several choice imprecations, expressing outrage at a baby's being locked up in his jail and yelling that if there was 'any more ba
bes' in the lockup in future, they should be brought directly to him. This remark produced a gale of laughter from his crew. Littlemore decided he had better go. He thanked Becker a third time - this one generating no reply - and led Betty away.

  Tenth Street was nearly deserted. A breeze stirred from the west. On the jailhouse steps, in the shadow of the massive Victorian edifice, Betty stopped. 'Do you know that woman?' she asked. 'The one with the baby?'

  'Kind of.'

  'But, Jimmy, she's a - she's a madam.'

  'I know,' said Littlemore, grinning. 'I've been to her place.'

  Betty slapped the detective across the jaw.

  'Ow,' said Littlemore. 'I only went there to ask her some questions about the Riverford murder.'

  'Oh, Jimmy, why didn't you say so?' asked Betty. She put her hands to her face, then his. She smiled. 'I'm sorry.'

  They embraced. They were still embracing a minute later, when the heavy oaken doors to the jail creaked open and a shaft of light fell on them. Susan Merrill was in the doorway, burdened with the baby and a hat of enormous proportions. Littlemore helped her out the door. Betty asked to hold the baby, whom the older woman willingly gave over.

  'So you're the one who sprung me,' Susie said to Littlemore. 'I guess you figure I owe you something now?'

  'No, ma'am.'

  Susie cocked her head to get a better look at the detective. Reclaiming the baby from Betty, she said, in a whisper so faint Littlemore could hardly hear it, 'You're going to get yourself killed.'

  Neither Littlemore nor Betty responded.

  'I know who you're looking for,' Susie went on, the words barely audible. 'March 18, 1907.'

  'What?'

  'I know who, and I know what. You don't know, but I know. I ain't doing nothin' for free, though.'

  'What about March 18, 1907?'

  'You find out. And you get him,' she hissed, with a venom so violent she put a hand over the baby's face as if to protect her from it.

  'What about that day?' Littlemore pressed again.

  'Ask next door,' whispered Susie Merrill, before disappearing into the gathering dusk.

  Rose swept us out of the apartment - a kindness on her part. She certainly didn't want Freud involved in cleaning up. As for Brill, he looked as numb as a soldier with DaCosta's syndrome. He would not be coming to dinner, he said, and asked us to make an excuse for him.

  Jones took the subway to his hotel, which was farther downtown and less expensive than ours, while Freud, Ferenczi, and I decided to walk to the Manhattan, cutting through the park to do so. It is extraordinary how empty New York City's largest park can be in the evening. At first we traded hypotheses about the extraordinary scene in Brill's apartment; then Freud asked Ferenczi and me how he ought to reply to President Hall's letter.

  Ferenczi declared that we must send a denial at once, preferably by wire, explaining that the misconduct alleged against Freud was actually committed by Jones and Jung. The only question, as Ferenczi saw it, was whether Hall would take our word for it.

  'You know Hall, Younger,' said Freud. 'What is your opinion?'

  'President Hall would accept our word,' I answered, meaning that he would accept mine. 'But I have been wondering, Dr Freud, whether that might not be precisely what they want you to do.'

  'Who?' asked Ferenczi.

  'Whoever is behind this,' I said.

  'I am not following,' said Ferenczi.

  'I see what Younger means,' Freud replied. 'Whoever did this must know these allegations concern Jones and Jung, not myself. So: they induce me to incriminate my friends, at which point Hall can no longer say he is confronted by mere rumor. On the contrary, I will have corroborated the accusation, and Hall will be obliged to take responsible measures. Possibly he bars Jones and Jung from speaking next week. I keep my lectures, at the expense of disgracing two of my followers - the two best placed to carry my ideas to the world.'

  'But you cannot say nothing,' Ferenczi protested, 'as if you are guilty party.'

  Freud considered. 'We will deny the charges - but that is all we will do. I will send Hall a short letter stating the facts: I am married, I have never been dismissed from employment at any hospital, I have never been shot at, and so on. Younger, will that put you in an awkward position?'

  I understood his question. He wanted to know if I would feel bound to inform Hall that while Freud was innocent of the charges, Jones and Jung were not. Naturally, I would do no such thing. 'Not at all, sir,' I answered.

  'Good,' Freud concluded. 'After that, we leave it to Hall. If, for the sake of this "handsome donation," Hall is prepared to keep the truths of psychoanalysis from being taught at his university, then - you will forgive me, Younger - he is not an ally worth having, and America can go to the dogs.'

  'President Hall will never agree to their terms,' I said, with greater conviction than I felt.

  Outside the Jefferson Market jail, Betty Longobardi had five words for Jimmy Littlemore. 'Let's get out of here.'

  Littlemore was not so eager to leave. He led Betty toward Sixth Avenue, with its river of men and women streaming north on their way home from work. At the corner, a few steps from the ornate courthouse entrance, Littlemore stopped and wouldn't budge. Over the earthshaking roar of an elevated train, he told Betty excitedly about his eventful day.

  'She said you were going to get killed, Jimmy,' was Betty's reply, which struck Littlemore as less appreciative of his achievements than he had hoped.

  'She also said we should ask next door,' he answered. 'It's got to be the courthouse. Come on; we're right here.'

  'I don't want to.'

  'It's a courthouse, Betty. Nothing can happen in a courthouse.'

  Back inside, Littlemore showed his badge to the clerk, who told them where the records office was but expressed the opinion that nobody was likely to be there at this hour. After climbing up two flights of stairs and working their way through an empty maze of corridors, Littlemore and Betty came upon a door marked records. The door was locked, the room behind it dark. Breaking and entering was not the detective's ordinary modus operandi, but under the circumstances he felt justified. Betty glanced around nervously.

  Littlemore jimmied the lock. Shutting the door behind them, he switched on an electric lamp. They were in a small office with one large desk. There was a rear exit. This was unlocked; it opened onto a more capacious storeroom. Here they saw cabinet after cabinet of labeled drawers. 'There are no dates,' said Betty. 'Only letters.'

  'There'll be a calendar,' said Littlemore. 'There's always a calendar. Wait till I find it.'

  It did not take him long. He returned to the desk, where there were two typewriters, blotters, inkwells - and a stack of leather-bound ledgers, each more than two feet in width. Littlemore opened the first one. Every page within represented a day in the life of the New York Supreme Court, Trial Term, Parts I through III. The pages that Littlemore flipped through all indicated dates in 1909. He opened the second ledger, which proved to be the calendar of 1908, and then the third. Leafing through its pages, he quickly came to March 18, 1907. He saw dozens of lines of case names and numbers, set down by a practiced hand in pen and ink, often crossed out or overwritten. He read aloud:

  'Ten-fifteen a.m., day calendar, Part III: Wells v. Interborough R. T. Co. Truax, J. Okay, Wells. We've got to find Wells.' He rushed past Betty back to the storeroom, where in a drawer marked w he found the case of Wells v. IRT: a paper-clipped set of three pages. He looked through them. 'This is nothing,' he said. 'Maybe some subway accident. They never even got to court.'

  He went back to the ledger. 'Bernstein v. same,' he read. 'Mensinub v. same. Selxas v. same. Boy, there's at least twenty of these IRT cases. I guess we have to look through them all:

  'Maybe those aren't what we're looking for, Jimmy. Isn't there anything else?'

  'Ten-fifteen a.m., Trial Term: Tarbles v. Tarbles. A divorce?'

  'Is that all?' asked Betty.

  'Ten-thirty a.m., Trial Term, Par
t I, Criminal Term (January Term continued). Fitzgerald, J. People v. Harry K. Thaw.'

  They stared at each other. Betty and Littlemore recognized the name at once, as would anyone else in New York and nearly anyone in the country at that time. 'He's the one - ' said Betty.

  ' - who murdered the architect at Madison Square Garden,' Littlemore finished. Then he realized why Betty had stopped: heavy treading could be heard down the hall.

  'Who is that?' she whispered.

  'Turn off the light,' Littlemore instructed Betty, who was standing next to the lamp. She reached under the shade and fiddled nervously with the buttons, but the result of her efforts was to switch on another bulb. The footsteps stopped. Then they resumed; they were now undoubtedly approaching the records office.

  'Oh, no,' said Betty. 'Let's hide in the storeroom.'

  'I don't think so,' said Littlemore.

  The footsteps grew close, halting just outside their door. The knob turned, and the door swung open. It was a short man in a fedora and a cheap-looking three-piece suit, the inner breast pocket of which bulged as if he were carrying a gun. 'Ain't there no men's room?' he asked.

  'Second floor,' said Littlemore.

  'Thanks,' said the man, slamming the door behind him.

  'Come on,' said Littlemore, heading back into the filing room. The case of People v. Thaw occupied a good two dozen drawers. Littlemore found the trial transcript: there were thousands of pages in four-inch sheafs, bound by rubber bands. The transcript was illegible in places, with uneven letters, no punctuation, and whole sentences of garbled words. For the date of March 18, 1907, there were only fifty or sixty pages. Littlemore, flipping through them, quickly came upon several sheets of paper that looked different from the others: cleanly typed, organized into separate paragraphs, well punctuated. 'An affidavit,' he said.

  'Oh, my gosh,' Betty replied. 'Look!' She was pointing to the words grasped me by the throat and whip.

  Littlemore hurriedly turned back to the affidavit's first page. It was dated October 27, 1903, and began, Evelyn Nesbit, being duly sworn, says -