Motor City Shakedown (7 page)

I think the guard knew what I did, because he hauled me out of the room, shoved me down the corridor, and threw me into my cell without removing the chains. They weren't taken off until the next day. But that was all right.

Whether she was involved in Moretti's death or not, Elizabeth wasn't a suspect.

*   *   *

Now I told Mr. Sutton again to keep everyone away. It would be humiliating enough to see them in court. We went through the preliminary hearing and bail hearing with no surprises—the prosecution had more than enough evidence to bring the case to trial, including an eyewitness who could put me at Carlo Moretti's door at his approximate time of death. Judge Morton denied me bail even when Mayor Thompson and Governor Osborne pressured him. The judge told Mr. Sutton he wouldn't grant bail even if he got President Taft and Pope Pius to vouch for me. Word had it that Morton had been a friend and confidant of Elizabeth's father—Judge Hume.

The next month dragged by. Most days I did nothing but sit on the floor of a windowless six-by-eight cell, my back propped against the redbrick wall, no one but the guards for company. My father's position in the community kept me out of the general population, for which I was grateful, but after my previous experience I wasn't as afraid of spending time in jail as I'd been.

I was simply miserable, plagued with as bad a melancholy as I've ever had. Every night I dreamed about morphine. Most of the dreams had me taking a dose, only to panic, remembering after the fact—and before the morphine took effect—that I had quit. That realization woke me, robbing me of what I was sure would be the dream equivalent of a morphine high. I tried to negotiate with the guards for drugs or alcohol, for anything that would bring me the peace I needed, but Riordan had sent out the word—if anyone brought me
anything,
they'd be out on the streets. I wondered if he thought he was doing me a favor. I smoked—a lot—but it did nothing to assuage my cravings.

I thought about the morphine in the back of my wardrobe. My father said he'd pay my rent until I was freed, however long that took. Assuming no one cleaned out my apartment too thoroughly, fifteen ounces of morphine awaited my return, which in my weak moments was enough to keep me going. But the longer I thought about it, the more often I thought of the opium addict who had seen through me. He had taken on some sort of otherworldly presence in my mind. I wasn't even completely sure he had been real. Was he a vision of a future me—a hideous, toothless monster, frightening children and eliciting pity from the charitable?

I had to free myself from the drug.

Mr. Sutton petitioned the court for a change of venue, arguing that it would be impossible to find twelve men in Detroit capable of trying my case without prejudice either for or against me. He argued that any man who was unaware of my fame had to be illiterate and deaf, and one who hadn't formed an opinion regarding my innocence or guilt had to be an imbecile.

Judge Morton rejected the petition out of hand. Sutton filed motion after motion with no result. It was clear to me that without some breakthrough, I had no chance whatsoever.

*   *   *

A guard wearing a filthy blue wool uniform with no top button shoved me to a small interrogation room—four plaster walls that at some point long ago had been white, with a heavy oak table and a pair of chairs on the scuffed plank floor.

Sutton was pacing the back of the room. His briefcase lay open on the table. “Ah, Will.” Sutton, a human perpetual motion machine, crossed the floor to me in an instant and shook my left hand. He closed the door behind me and gestured toward a chair.

I shook my head. Standing gave me a better view out the window of a Detroit street scene—cars, trucks, and people racing by, some glancing nervously toward the police station. Life. As opposed to whatever this was.

Sutton resumed his pacing. “We need to make this a case of mistaken identity. No one is going to believe that you just happened upon the body. The papers have already raised too many questions about that mess with John Cooper. We have to convince the jury you weren't there.”

“What about the truth?”

“My Lord, Will.” He stopped abruptly and pointed at me. “You were seen running from Moretti's apartment. Shortly thereafter his body was discovered. Any extenuating circumstances will be thrown out the window.”

“But no one saw me with a knife. The man who killed Moretti would have been soaked in blood. I didn't have any on me.”

“Perhaps that would be enough if your name were Sister Mary Theresa of the Blessed Sacrament. But your name is Will Anderson, the Electric Executioner, a man who has admitted to killing once already.”

“In self-defense.”

“Yes, in self-defense against a man who was allegedly being helped by this man—a man whose head was nearly cut off. For all anyone knows—hell, for all I know—you went there with the intent of killing Moretti, but someone beat you to the punch.”

I started to protest, but he held up his hands. “It doesn't matter. At least you were smart enough this time to keep your mouth shut, so we can present our case any way we want. We have no choice but to go with a flat-out denial. You weren't there. Only one witness can identify you—Maria Cansalvo, a nineteen-year-old illegal immigrant who lives alone and works as a housekeeper. She doesn't speak English, and she didn't get past primary school. I can destroy her credibility.”

“How are you going to do that?” I thought of the girl.

“It's common knowledge that organized gangs are bringing in the illegals. We can't prove it was Adamo, but we can certainly establish it as a possibility. Given that a single phone call could get her deported, the people who brought her in have a great deal of control over her actions. She could very well be doing the bidding of Vito Adamo in identifying you as the man who killed Moretti.”

“But … it's not right.”

Sutton stopped pacing. “Listen, Will. After the trial, she's going back to Sicily whether you go to prison or not. What do you say to being a free man when she leaves?”

A blue Newcomb-Endicott delivery truck, a Detroit Electric, passed through my view of the street. “What do you think my chances are?”

He smiled. “Good. You just need to relax and let me do the work.”

“All right.” I was glad he was confident, but I was still concerned about the girl.

Sutton clapped me on the back. “Look at the bright side. If all else fails, we have excellent grounds for appeal based on Morton denying the change of venue.”

“That's the bright side?” I said. “To have to go through this twice?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

One morning, while lying on my cot, I realized that once I went to prison I would be in with the general population, and it would likely be at the state prison in Jackson—the worst prison in the state, with the most heinous criminals the Michigan state justice system could cull from the public. My safety would be entirely up to me. In my condition I'd be somebody's rag doll, barely worth a cigarette. My hand would make it difficult for me to defend myself if I was completely fit, and I was far from fit.

I dropped to the floor and did a hundred sit-ups. It took me all morning, but what else did I have to do? After lunch I started on squat thrusts and running in place, before starting again on my hand-stretching exercises. The next morning I woke almost unable to move, but I did another hundred sit-ups. This time my sore stomach muscles stabbed me with every one, but I gritted my teeth and took it. By the end of the month I was up to two hundred sit-ups, one hundred squat thrusts, and an hour (approximately, since I had no watch) of running in place. I was also able to almost completely straighten the fingers of my right hand.

Now I needed upper body strength. I started working on push-ups. Using my right hand to support myself was incredibly painful, but I worked through it. At first I struggled through ten, then twenty, then fifty, then a hundred, then two hundred. About two months in I realized I was no longer exercising out of fear, but because it made me feel good, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

My mind became alert, and I stopped constantly thinking about morphine. I started taking visitors, and spent time with my family and friends. I began reading again. Elizabeth and my parents brought me books and magazines—Elizabeth leaned toward Upton Sinclair, Jane Addams, and Mother Jones; my mother to Mary Johnston and Booth Tarkington. My father brought me trade magazines—
The Automobile
and
Horseless Age
.

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.