Bessie not only remembered the case, but also recalled the name of the lawyer who’d defended the Kraus twins, a man named Abe Stennholz. She produced a cutting that had appeared in the Messenger- Gazette two years previously that noted his retirement and the fact that he’d recently lost his wife. It went on to say he intended remaining in the family home they’d occupied for the entire forty years of their marriage. In the obliging way of most Americans, Bessie offered to look him up for me in the local telephone directory. She found his name, dialled his number and then handed me the receiver.
Abe Stennholz answered the telephone himself. I explained why I wanted to meet him and at first he sounded reluctant, that is, until I told him I’d come all the way from Australia, something I’ve found works a treat with Americans. He agreed to talk to me, setting a time of three o’clock the following afternoon. I was disappointed that he wouldn’t see me that afternoon, but as my next appointment in New York was mid-morning the following day it didn’t really matter. I drove back to my hotel in Manhattan and left for Somerville again after lunch the next day.
At the time Bessie mentioned the lawyer’s name it had seemed vaguely familiar. But I couldn’t quite place it until, during our interview the following afternoon, Abe Stennholz happened to mention that his brother, also retired, had been the local Lutheran minister and very close to the Kraus family. He was, of course, the same bloke the FBI had interviewed prior to Otto Kraus’s internment. He’d also presided at the grave site where Frau Kraus, as the solitary mourner, had placed a black homemade crinkle-paper rose on Otto’s grave. Later, she’d laughingly confessed to Jimmy that her final words to her husband had been, ‘Danke,
meine saubere Frau’, whereupon she’d been unable to stop laughing.
The lawyer’s home was on a quiet street lined with beautiful old maple trees just beginning to show their autumn colour, and from the look of the houses on either side it was an older part of the town. Abe Stennholz was a tall, slightly overweight man with the smooth facial complexion of someone who is a teetotaller and has spent most of his life indoors. Perhaps his most striking features were an abundance of carefully combed snowy-white hair and the palest blue eyes, seen through square-cut frameless spectacles. He greeted me with a firm grip and without smiling, then suggested we sit on the porch, where he claimed the afternoon sunshine was pleasant at that time of the year.
Almost immediately a maid appeared and he asked her to bring out a jug of lemonade. We sat on the porch drinking the homemade lemonade, passing the usual pleasantries, prior to commencing with the reason why I’d come. He told me he was a widower of two years. Smiling and patting his stomach he declared that Martha, who hailed from Louisiana, took good care of him. I took it that Martha was the maid who’d brought the lemonade. Then quite suddenly he said, ‘Before we begin, Mr McKenzie, I ask that you understand that times have changed and attitudes towards coloured folk were very different at the time the Kraus twins asked me to represent them.’
‘Changed for the better, I imagine?’
‘Certainly. Today a case such as this one may well have turned out differently.’
‘Differently – how?’ I asked.
‘Well, quite clearly the Negro boy, Jimmy Oldcorn, wasn’t guilty of any crime.’
Given his carefully qualified opening remarks, I was surprised at this admission. ‘I guess it all happened a long time ago, sir. I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell it just the way it was at the time. What the circumstances were that caused the Kraus twins to come to you.’
He seemed reassured. ‘Well, they initially called in to see the sheriff around noon on the day they arrived home. They told him that Jimmy Oldcorn had run away when they’d appeared unexpectedly at the farm that morning. This, they claimed, had caused Frau Kraus . . .’ he stopped to explain that this was how she was always referred to in the community ‘. . . to become very distraught. They wished to report the incident, as Jimmy Oldcorn was a minor and under the foster care of their family.’
‘And that’s all they claimed happened?’
‘Initially, yes. But unbeknownst to them, the sheriff had received an earlier call from a near-hysterical Frau Kraus who claimed that her two sons had returned home and had taken to Jimmy Oldcorn with baseball bats and then thrown his lifeless body into the truck and driven away.’
‘In effect, she thought she was reporting a murder?’
‘Yes. She’d entered the hothouse to see a fair amount of blood and thought they’d killed the boy.’
‘Didn’t the sheriff find it rather strange that a mother would report her sons? I mean, they’d only just returned from active service that very morning.’
‘Well, of course. He’d driven directly to the farm to discover a distraught Frau Kraus, who’d led him to the tomato hothouse where he observed the blood on the floor. They then returned to the kitchen where she handed him the two baseball bats she claimed she’d found in the hothouse. The sheriff explained that she should have left them at the scene and not handled them. Frau Kraus told the sheriff she had washed the baseball bats. She was a fanatic about cleanliness,’ Abe Stennholz explained. ‘She would wear up to a dozen different freshly starched aprons every day. Now she had unwittingly destroyed perhaps the most important evidence in a prosecution that might be brought against the Kraus twins.’
‘How did the sheriff react to this?’
‘You mean about her destroying the evidence?’ Abe shrugged. ‘It was well known that Frau Kraus was . . . er, a little strange. I guess he accepted that, if the baseball bats had contained traces of blood, she’d acted in good faith. Especially when she seemed determined that the twins should be charged for Jimmy’s presumed murder.’
‘Did he send out a police alert to find them?’
‘There wasn’t any need. Shortly after the sheriff returned from the farm they turned up at his office in East Main Street, unaware, of course, that Frau Kraus had called him and that he’d been out to the farm. Sheriff Waterman took down their statement and then asked if they’d told him everything, at the same time cautioning them to be careful how they answered. He then asked them if they’d personally harmed the boy. The twins, perhaps realising the sheriff knew something in addition to what they’d just told him, admitted to . . . let me think of the exact phrase, that’s right . . . to teaching him a lesson by giving him a bloody nose.’
‘So he arrested them?’
‘Not so fast, Mr McKenzie,’ the lawyer chided me. ‘There was no proof that they’d killed the boy – the sheriff only had Frau Kraus’s word for it.
‘What about the blood in the hothouse?’
‘Hardly definitive proof. After all, they’d admitted to giving him a bloody nose. The blood on the floor could well have been from that incident.’
‘But they’d beaten him severely with the baseball bats!’ I protested.
Abe Stennholz bristled visibly. ‘Oh, you know this for certain do you, Mr McKenzie? The sheriff only had Frau Kraus’s word that she’d found the baseball bats in the hothouse, and even if true, she hadn’t witnessed them used on the boy – and furthermore, they apparently contained no trace of blood.’
I realised that I was getting a little ahead of myself. I would need to be careful with this man. I apologised to him, silently hoping I hadn’t blown the interview.
Abe Stennholz looked sternly at me, and then said, ‘Perhaps a little background might be useful, Mr McKenzie. At the time all this happened Somerville was a tight-knit community where the Kraus twins were well known and popular. They’d been the local high-school baseball and football heroes and Diamond T. – that is, Sheriff Waterman – had been their football coach. Both of them had won sport scholarships to college that Otto Kraus, their father, hadn’t allowed them to accept. The community, Sheriff Waterman among them, had consequently regarded the twins as the victims of a stubborn and selfish father. At the time America was not far from entering the war and Otto Kraus was a German and a foreigner who’
d denied his two sons a baseball scholarship, the dream of every American boy.’ Abe paused. ‘Putting it as politely as possible, there were not a great many tears shed in the community when Otto Kraus was interned and subsequently died. The newspapers at the time suggested he may have been a spy and that he’d committed suicide by taking poison. To add to the status the Kraus twins held in the town they’d enlisted and fought with honour in the Pacific, having participated in the battle of Iwo Jima. This was their first day home from the war and the sheriff clearly saw that he would need to be very sure of his facts before he arrested them as murder suspects.’
‘But what about Frau Kraus saying she’d seen them dump Jimmy’s body in the back of the Dodge truck?’
‘Yes, of course, I hadn’t forgotten about that. Given the known nature of the person, this may well have been the ranting of an hysterical woman. It was at this point that Sheriff Waterman advised the Kraus twins of their rights. He then confronted them with their mother’s testimony that they’d thrown Jimmy’s lifeless body into the back of the truck. They strenuously denied this, but admitted to the boy resisting them and so between them they’d lifted him into the truck.’
‘Don’t you suppose that if Jimmy had been relatively unhurt he would have jumped from the truck?’ I asked.
‘Ah, good question – that’s precisely what they claimed happened. They explained that they’d intended driving him out of the county and sending him on his way somewhere in Bergen County, but instead he’d escaped by jumping from the back of the truck somewhere along the Kinderkamack Road. The sheriff then advised them to see a lawyer. As I’d represented the family in several other matters in the past, they came to me.’
‘Did Sheriff Waterman put out a state-wide alert for Jimmy?
‘An APB? Certainly.’ I took this to mean an All Points Bulletin, or something similar.
‘Then why didn’t the highway patrol who found Jimmy report back to the Somerville sheriff’s office? As I understand, the Mother General of Holy Name Hospital called Sheriff Waterman five days later?’
‘I can see you’re well briefed, Mr McKenzie. The same point was made during the trial. In fact, the answer was simple enough. The APB described the victim as a fifteen-year-old Negro boy and the two patrolmen later testified that the victim of the hit-and-run was, in their opinion, a male in his early twenties. Jimmy Oldcorn at fifteen was six foot tall and well muscled. His face was badly swollen and cut and this probably concealed the fact that he was only a teenager. In fact, the highway patrol report stated that they’d picked up an adult Negro male and, furthermore, the ambulance report described the accident victim as a Negro male of about twenty. As Jimmy wasn’t capable of talking until five days later, it took that long to identify him.’
‘And, of course, with Jimmy alive, circumstances changed.’
‘Well, not quite everything changed. But you’re correct in as much as we no longer had murder suspects on our hands.’
‘You said not quite everything changed?’
‘Yes, Frau Kraus stubbornly refused to withdraw her evidence.’
‘Which was that Jimmy was attacked with two baseball bats and beaten unconscious, or, as she claimed, murdered?’
Abe Stennholz smiled. ‘Yes, but as I previously mentioned, my clients strenuously denied this account, saying they’d merely taken the baseball bats they found in their bedroom in order to scare the boy. But, in fact, one of them had punched him in the face, which had caused his nose to bleed. At no time had the bats been used. They pointed out that they were both big men and quite capable of handling a teenage boy without having to beat him senseless with baseball bats.’
‘And this explained the lack of blood on the bats?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘So you suggested Frau Kraus lied about washing the bats?’
‘Well, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that nobody in their right mind would do such an absurd thing.’
‘So, she was either crazy or she was lying?’
Abe smiled. ‘Don’t you think if either was the case she would have to be considered . . .’ he seemed to be struggling for a word, and finally said, ‘unreliable?’
‘You mean she’d be lying not to protect her sons but in order to harm them?’
‘Quite right. Not the actions of a mother or someone of sound mind.’
‘Unless of course she was telling the truth and truly wanted justice for Jimmy Oldcorn. You said yourself she was obsessed with cleaning. Given this fact, wiping the bats clean was stupid but at least a plausible action, don’t you think?’
Abe Stennholz smiled. ‘Mr McKenzie, I was working for the defence, not the prosecution. Now let me ask you a question. What if there had been a more compelling reason for doubting the true state of her mind?’
‘What could this possibly be?’
‘Well, for instance, if the Kraus twins had arrived to find the boy in bed with Frau Kraus.’
This, of course, was the claim the sheriff had used to confront Jimmy in hospital, but I didn’t let on that I knew about it. ‘But that didn’t happen,’ I ventured instead.
‘Well, as a matter of fact, when Frau Kraus seemed determined to implicate them, the Kraus twins were finally forced to submit that it did. In an attempt to protect their mother, they’d not revealed the true facts, which were that, upon their arrival home, they’d found her in bed with the Negro boy.’
‘But she would deny this, and so would Jimmy.’
‘There wasn’t any Jimmy,’ the lawyer reminded me. ‘He’d effectively disappeared.’
At this point, I’m ashamed to say, I lost it again. ‘Disappeared! Is that what you call it? The sheriff frightened the life out of him in hospital, then gave him twenty dollars and instructions to catch the bus to New York or he’d be in serious trouble with the law!’ I cried.
Abe Stennholz leaned forward, a look of surprise and annoyance on his face. ‘Oh? That’s news to me, Mr McKenzie! Just where did this information come from?’
‘Are you saying that isn’t what happened?’
‘Of course I am! There has never been the slightest suggestion that the sheriff did any such thing. The hospital report showed that Jimmy Oldcorn left the premises sometime in the early hours of the morning, and of his own accord.’
I gave him a lopsided grin and shook my head, forced to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the sheriff hadn’t informed Abe Stennholz of this essential little detail.
‘The law can only deal with the prevailing facts, Mr McKenzie,’ Abe Stennholz now claimed self-righteously.
‘Which left your case very simple. That Frau Kraus was discovered in bed with Jimmy Oldcorn by her sons returning from the war. Acting to protect her honour, they’d “helped” Jimmy on his way. If she denied this is what happened it could be taken as yet another instance of her disturbed state of mind. After all, no mother “in her right mind” would protect herself at the cost of her children. But here was a woman who was prepared to see her children accused of murder, rather than risk being indicted for corrupting a minor. Is that it?’
‘Well, yes, that seems correct. The court would need to accept her testimony or that of the twins.’
‘And you felt certain her word could be proved to be unreliable? That she had a motive, albeit a misguided one, for seeing that the twins were found guilty?’
Abe Stennholz shrugged. ‘As the defence laywer I was obliged to make the best possible case for my clients. However, I sincerely believed what they told me. It hardly seemed plausible that they’d see the Negro boy off the property simply because Frau Kraus had allowed him to occupy their bedroom. Finding him in bed with her was a much more compelling reason for such an action.’
‘So, in these changed circumstances, chasing Jimmy from the property and sending him away with a bloody nose was a very understandable reaction and could hardly be regarded as a major assault?’
‘That was my contention, Mr McKenzie. I feel no need to apologise for it
,’ Abe Stennholz said, looking steadfast.
‘What about the Mother General at the Holy Name Hospital? Wasn’t she prepared to bear witness that she believed Jimmy had been beaten into a state of unconsciousness? How did you handle that?’
‘Handle what? I had nothing to do with it! Are you suggesting I conspired to . . .’
About to get the lawyer badly off side, I quickly interjected. ‘No, of course not, sir. I meant, what happened with the hospital testimony? Wasn’t the Mother General going to testify?’
Abe Stennholz seemed only slightly mollified, but thankfully continued with the interview. ‘In fact, she never appeared in court. As I was told, the doctor who attended to Jimmy when they’d brought him in, as well as the doctors who subsequently looked after him during his stay in hospital, were not prepared to swear that his injuries had been caused by a severe beating. At the time, the police had appealed for anyone witnessing the hit-and-run to come forward, and until Jimmy was able to talk, the medical staff were quite prepared on the evidence presented by his condition to accept that he’d been the victim of a hit-and-run accident. With no reliable eyewitness able to claim the boy had been beaten it was an understandable conclusion. I understood at the time that the public prosecutor decided against using Mother General Black’s testimony.’
‘So the case became Kraus versus Kraus? No witnesses, no victim present and no official statement from Jimmy.’
‘Yes, that is correct.’
‘So if you could prove Frau Kraus was an unreliable witness, you were home and hosed?’
‘Home and hosed? I don’t understand?’
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