Motor City Shakedown

by D. E. Johnson

  I pressed Sutton to let the State get on with the trial. But now it was their turn to stall. The trial was to begin in December, and then January, and they actually seated a jury in March before discovering that one of the alternates had moved from the area, and another did business with my father’s company and was therefore disqualified.

  Elizabeth came to visit me for an hour every week. It wasn’t like old times—that would have been difficult through iron bars—but we enjoyed our time together. She was keeping herself busy, and her mother was doing better day by day. As I spent more time with her, my suspicions that she was involved in Moretti’s murder faded and then disappeared. She was simply too comfortable around me, which would have been impossible for her had she felt guilty.

  I actually felt less imprisoned than I had before I was arrested. The morphine and melancholy shackled me more surely than bars ever could. I redoubled my resolve to stay away from morphine if I was ever released.

  The newspaper articles had slowed, but it seemed that at least once a week one of the papers resurrected my old appellation—the Electric Executioner. Most now were editorials demanding the police reopen the case of Wesley McRae’s death, given that the evidence was sketchy once one eliminated my testimony and that of my “gun moll,” Elizabeth Hume. It would have made for great comedy had the stories been about someone else.

  After nine long months in jail, my trial finally came.

  * * *

  The trial dragged through its early stages, as District Attorney Higgins laid out his case piece by piece. Witnesses, including Detective Riordan, described the death of Wesley McRae and my belief that alleged crime boss Vito Adamo had been involved.

  My mother and Elizabeth sat behind me nearly every moment of the trial. My father came when he could. It was a relief to see them, to have someone believe in me, support me.

  Sutton did a good job on cross-examination, poking holes in the testimony where he could, but the faces of the men on the jury just kept getting grimmer and grimmer. By Friday, the few who had met my eyes on Monday and Tuesday quickly turned their heads whenever they saw me looking at them. I was glad they’d let me wear a glove, as I found myself rubbing my hand during most of the testimony. It would have been a bloody mess otherwise.

  When we returned from the lunch recess on Friday, the court was buzzing with murmured conversation. I looked out into the gallery and immediately saw what had caused the commotion. An albino man in a heavy tan overcoat was standing in the aisle in the back of the courtroom. He wore a tan fedora pulled low onto his forehead, a pair of small dark-tinted wire-rimmed glasses, and black gloves. He was speaking quietly to a young woman who stood next to him, taking notes.

  Something about her caught my eye. She stood a few inches taller than the man, was perhaps twenty-five years old, and was slim and well turned out in a white shirtwaist and a light green skirt and jacket. She was attractive, though handsome rather than pretty, with a slash of a mouth, small dark eyes, and auburn hair pinned up under a green hat.

  The bailiff called the court to order, and I turned my attention to the front of the room.

  When the judge returned, Higgins, a portly man with a red face and thin blond hair, waddled toward the bench gripping the lapels of his brown suit coat. “If it please the court, the State would like to call Maria Cansalvo to the stand.”

  Judge Morton, a stern man with waxed gray mustaches, nodded and moved his hand in a circular get on with it motion. The bailiff called for the girl.

  Sutton nudged my arm and leaned in toward me. “Keep a sympathetic and concerned look on your face the entire time she’s up there. No frowns, no scowls, no smiles.”

  Staring straight ahead, I nodded. When I heard the wooden gate creak, I turned and saw Maria Cansalvo for the first time since the night her neighbor was murdered. She was a slight but pretty young woman in a faded yellow day dress and a plain, small-brimmed white hat, with dark curly hair and large brown eyes that I still remembered intimately. She slipped past our table and walked to the front of the courtroom.

  Higgins, sweat beaded on his forehead, adjusted his wire-rimmed eyeglasses and turned to the judge. “Miss Cansalvo cannot speak English. I would like to call Ferdinand Palma to serve as an interpreter.”

  Judge Morton looked at our table. “Do you have any objection, Mr. Sutton?”

  Sutton stood and allowed that he didn’t. When he sat, he looked at me, shrugged, and whispered, “Palma used to be a Detroit city detective. He’s interpreted in other cases I’ve had. I think he’s all right.”

  I nodded and pulled on my collar. The air in the courthouse was stale, and it was hot. I wished someone would open a window.

  The judge nodded to the bailiff, who called Ferdinand Palma to the stand. Palma, a stocky man in his midthirties, strolled up to the bailiff like he was taking a walk through the park. He wore an impeccable white summer suit—Brooks Brothers, I thought—with a crimson handkerchief in his breast pocket and a matching carnation on his lapel. His hair was so soaked with pomade it looked like he combed it with a pork chop. Palma wasn’t a handsome man, but his self-assurance made him almost seem so.

  The bailiff swore in Miss Cansalvo, who took her seat in the witness box, and then Palma, who stood nearby on the jury side of her.

  Higgins waited until everyone was comfortable. “Miss Cansalvo, you live at 2400 Rivard in apartment 304, do you not?”

  She looked at Palma, who asked her the question in Italian. “Sì,” she answered in a quiet voice.

  He asked her if anything unusual happened the night of August 6. Palma interpreted, and her answer took about a minute. When she finished, Palma turned to the judge. “Miss Cansalvo was awakened by a shout in the apartment next to hers. She couldn’t fall asleep again. While she was lying awake, she remembered she didn’t leave any milk out for her cat. She was setting it outside when she saw a man lurking in the hallway, wiping off the doorknob of her neighbor’s apartment.”

  “And approximately what time was this?”

  Palma asked Miss Cansalvo. Her reply was, “Two in the morning.”

  “What did the man do?”

  She said he’d wiped off the doorknob and tried to hide his face, even covering it with a handkerchief like the Old West bank robbers she saw in flickers at the nickelodeon.

  Higgins harrumphed and gripped his lapels again. “Is that man in this courtroom today?”

  When she said he was, Higgins asked her to point him out.

  Palma translated. Miss Cansalvo looked at me for the briefest moment before raising her hand and pointing at me. “Lo,” she whispered. “Will Anderson.”

  * * *

  Sutton walked around our table and slowly approached Miss Cansalvo. He was impeccable in a dark gray suit with matching waistcoat, an ivory and gray ascot, and a pair of black oxfords shined to a high gloss.

  He paused for a moment, looking into her eyes, then began. “Miss Cansalvo, I commend you for coming forward even though you must have known this testimony would lead to your deportation. That had to be a difficult decision.” He looked at Palma, who translated.

  Her eyes narrowed a bit, but she said, “Sì. Grazie.”

  Sutton nodded and cupped his chin in his hand. “And it must have been a difficult decision to leave Sicily in the first place, to travel alone to a new country. Not many people would do that, unless of course they had good reason to leave. Why did you leave your homeland?”

  Palma translated. Miss Cansalvo’s response was that she left because she was poor and couldn’t find a job. She had heard that America was the land of opportunity.

  With a sympathetic smile, Sutton nodded. He looked every bit the doting grandfather. “And how did you get here?”

  Palma repeated the question in Italian and listened to her response. She started and stopped several times, clearly unsure what she should say. When she finished, Palma said, “There is a man in Palermo who arranges such things. She paid him and traveled to Canada by ship,
then by train to Windsor, and another boat to Detroit.”

  Sutton nodded again. “Who brought you across the river from Windsor?”

  She said it was a fellow Sicilian, though she did not know his name.

  “Whom did he work for?”

  She didn’t know.

  “Do you know the name Vito Adamo?”

  When Palma translated, she said, “No.”

  “What business was Carlo Moretti engaged in?”

  She didn’t know.

  Sutton sighed and gave her an admonishing glance. “Miss Cansalvo, you can be honest with us. You lived next door to Moretti for almost a year.”

  “Objection!” Higgins barked. “Asked and answered.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Morton said. “Move on, Mr. Sutton.”

  “I apologize, Your Honor. But you have to admit, it’s difficult to believe—”

  “I said, move on,” the judge said, this time louder.

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Sutton turned back to Miss Cansalvo. “Just so I’m clear, you came to this country illegally, secreted across the border by Sicilian men engaged in illegal activity, just as Mr. Moretti was—”

  “Objection!” Higgins shouted again. “It has not been established that Mr. Moretti was involved in anything illegal.”

  “Sustained.”

  Sutton shot an annoyed look at the judge before turning again to Miss Cansalvo. With a casual air, he said, “Knowing you would be deported, you must have had a very compelling reason to come forward. Why did you?”

  Palma translated. Miss Cansalvo said, “Giustizia.”

  “Justice,” Sutton said. “I admire you, Miss Cansalvo. Risking so much for ‘justice.’ And for a man you didn’t even know well enough to know what he did for a living. Admirable.” After a moment passed, he said, “No other reason?”

  She said no.

  “Hmm.” Sutton spoke slowly, almost to himself. “You are willing to be deported, to go back to the country from which you fled, a country with no jobs and no prospects, for no reason other than justice.” He moved closer to her, leaned in, and quietly said, “We would all understand if you were, let’s say, forced into this testimony by members of the Sicilian underworld. It would be terrifying for one such as you, alone in a strange country. So please tell us the truth, Miss Cansalvo. Who forced you to identify my client as the man outside Carlo Moretti’s apartment?”

  As Palma translated, Miss Cansalvo’s eyes grew wide. She glared at Sutton. “Nessuno.” She jabbed her finger at me and said in heavily accented English, “It was him.”

  I shot a glance at the jury. Most of them were tight mouthed, staring at Mr. Sutton. He was dancing on the edge. Now he went on the attack, firing questions at her, trying to poke holes in her testimony. She held up well, responding calmly and assuredly. Although she hadn’t seen a knife or any blood on me, she had no doubt whatever about whom she saw. My face was burned into her memory.

  When Maria Cansalvo left the witness box, I looked at District Attorney Higgins. He was sitting back in his seat, smirking. His fingers were interlaced over his bulging brown waistcoat. To all appearances he was the cat that swallowed the canary. I thought he was smiling because his witness had held up under questioning from the most respected defense attorney in town.

  Unfortunately for me, he was smiling for an entirely different reason.

  * * *

  Higgins stood and said, “Just one more witness, Your Honor. The State calls Arthur Preston to the stand.”

  Preston had been on our witness list, simply to establish that I had an alibi for part of the evening. I couldn’t think of any reason Higgins would call him other than to clarify when he and his wife left my apartment. It seemed odd that the district attorney would end his case with a small detail, rather than with the eyewitness.

  Preston scurried up the aisle, nervously smoothing his pencil-thin mustache and his greased-back ginger-colored hair. He wore a tight black suit, a little too tight, with a white shirt, a winged collar, and a black tie. His puffy face was a little puffier than usual. That, and the dark rings under his eyes, indicated another night of hard drinking.

  The bailiff swore him in, and Higgins got right down to business. “Mr. Preston, how do you know the defendant?”

  Preston brushed something off the front of his jacket and looked up at Higgins. “We—my wife and I, that is—moved into the apartment across the hall from Mr. Anderson in June 1911. We saw him a few times in the hall, and he invited us over for dinner on August sixth of last year.”

  “When, that night, did you last see Mr. Anderson?”

  “We had dinner and a couple of drinks. We left at nine thirty-two.” He turned to the judge. “I looked at the clock when we went back to our apartment. We have a large wall clock in the foyer. It was my grandmother’s. She—”

  “Thank you, Mr. Preston,” Higgins said. “When did you next see Mr. Anderson?”

  “The next morning. I was going to work early.”

  The next morning? I sat up, startled. I hadn’t seen Preston again until the night the police caught me. How could he have seen me?

  Preston looked at Judge Morton again. “I’m the Detroit Salt Mining Company’s head accountant. My department is busiest at the beginning of the month, so I make sure everyone is in the office by six A.M. I get there earlier, being the boss and all. Have to set the example, you know.”

  My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would explode.

  Higgins leaned against the rail, took a deep breath, and let it out while looking toward the window, seeming to savor the moment. After a few seconds, he turned to Preston again. “What time did you see him?”

  “It was five thirteen A.M. I had just looked at my watch.”

  Higgins nodded and smiled. “And where did you see him?”

  “He was entering his apartment via the fire escape.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  We resumed on Monday, this time with Mr. Sutton taking the offensive. For more than two weeks, he hammered away at the prosecution’s case. The albino man and the auburn-haired woman sat in the back of the gallery every day. I asked Mr. Sutton if he had any idea who the albino was. He didn’t, and I didn’t bother him about it given that he had a larger concern, namely keeping me out of prison. He worked methodically, recalling all the prosecution’s witnesses, including Maria Cansalvo. By the time he finished with her, I don’t think even she was sure she had seen me.

  Arthur Preston was another matter. His time fixation and the certainty with which he spoke made his testimony unshakable. The net impact was to verify every bit of the State’s evidence, because if Preston was right, the testimony of every other State’s witness made perfect sense.

  Sutton’s badgering had no effect on the jury other than to make them angry. They were clearly convinced I had murdered Moretti. By the time Sutton rested his case, I was as certain as I could be that I would spend the rest of my life in prison.

  Judge Morton pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it. “Gentlemen, I think we’ve had enough for today. We’ll listen to closing statements tomorrow morning.” He banged his gavel. “Court is adjourned.”

  When the judge left through a door in the front of the courtroom, I turned to speak with my father, but my eyes first rested on the albino, who was standing by the door, staring at me behind his little dark glasses. A broad grin was plastered across his face, teeth yellow against the pallor of his skin.

  * * *

  The judge asked Higgins to give his closing statement. He ran his fingers over his head, making sure his thin blond hair was still pomaded in place; then he shuffled the papers on the table in front of him before ponderously rising to his feet. I think he was being dramatic, but it looked like he had difficulty lifting his bulk from the chair. He plodded around the table and approached the jury, all of whom were following his every movement. Thunder rumbled in the distance. I looked out the window. Raindrops began to slap against the glass.

  Higgins took a
deep breath, sighed, and began. “Gentlemen of the jury, the decision you have before you is a simple one.”

  Four of the men in the jury box nodded in agreement.

  “We have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. William C. Anderson, Jr., did with malice and forethought brutally murder Carlo Moretti early in the morning of August seventh, 1911. We have established that Mr. Anderson had motive—revenge. We have proved that Mr. Anderson believes Mr. Moretti’s alleged employer was a direct cause for the death of Wesley McRae, his”—Higgins paused and turned to me—“homosexual friend.” Pointing back at me, he again turned to the jury. “Will Anderson needed someone—anyone—to pay for the death of this friend. It was Carlo Moretti’s bad luck that Anderson turned his rage onto him.

  “We have heard from the coroner that Mr. Moretti was killed sometime between midnight and four A.M., and an eyewitness puts Anderson at Moretti’s apartment at two o’clock.

  “Further, we have proved that Mr. Anderson had opportunity. Trying to establish an alibi, he invited his new neighbors, the Prestons, over for dinner. However, they left his apartment more than four hours before Anderson brutally murdered Carlo Moretti by slitting his throat—in his own home.

  “Picture that, if you will—Anderson’s cold eyes burning with rage as he ripped a dagger through poor Carlo Moretti’s neck with such strength that he nearly took off his head. Think of the gouts of blood spasming out of Carlo’s jugular vein, splashing off the wall, ending the all-too-short life of a twenty-four-year-old man.”

  He shook his head mournfully. “For revenge. Misguided revenge. Revenge against another man. Should Carlo Moretti have been punished? Nay, should Carlo Moretti have paid with his life, for…”

  The door at the back of the courtroom banged open. Higgins looked, and his voice trailed off.