Cowles started an official interrogation on the fourth day, but Francis Sweeney sulked and stormed and refused to answer. He’d taken a dislike to Cowles and wanted Eliot’s attention.
“I don’t want to be questioned by an underling.”
“Do you know your name?” Cowles inquired.
Sweeney’s mouth opened and closed, like a fish in a tank, and he didn’t answer.
“Please state your name for our records,” Cowles repeated.
“Ask Eliot Ness!” the man bellowed. “The man who got Al Capone but can’t catch the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. What a disgrace. Cleveland deserves better.”
“What is your name?” Cowles repeated, weary.
“You know my name. My question is, What is your name? You can be assured I will be shouting it from the rooftops when we are through here.”
“Do you understand why you are here, Dr. Sweeney?” Cowles asked him for the umpteenth time.
“Because Eliot Ness has an axe to grind. Do you know who I am?”
By the sixth day, Sweeney was considerably less manic, but they were running out of time. They were already on very shaky legal ground, and the longer they occupied that room, the more likely word would get out to the press.
Leonarde Keeler began a round of testing, trying to coax cooperation from a very unmotivated subject. Sweeney was connected to the device, his arms folded, his expression petulant.
“I want Mr. Ness to ask me questions,” Sweeney said. “I want to match wits with the director himself.”
Eliot ignored him.
“Or Mike. I want Mike to ask me questions. He’s hardly said two words. My feelings are hurt.” Sweeney used Malone’s name with glee.
The interrogators had been careful not to address each other, but over five days, it was bound to happen.
Malone rose to leave; he was obviously a distraction, and he could hear just fine from the adjoining room. Eliot followed him.
“Don’t leave, Mike. Where are you going?” Sweeney protested. “Do you have a lady you need to get home to? I heard you and Eliot talking about her. You love her, don’t you, Mike?”
Malone’s heart lurched. Sweeney was indeed wily. But Malone continued through the door, Eliot on his heels.
“Are you a T-man too, Mike? A famed Prohibition agent from the glory days? Is that how you know Eliot Ness? We met once, Mike. At the Lexington Hotel. Don’t you remember? You wore the same suit you wore the other night at the gala.”
“What the hell?” Eliot whispered.
“You aren’t in the papers like Eliot. Eliot enjoys being in the papers, don’t you, Eliot?” Sweeney’s voice grew more boisterous, projecting so they would not ignore him.
“I followed the Capone case. And the trial. Fascinating. That’s when I became a fan of our boy, Eliot. When the government sets its sights on you . . . it’s over, isn’t it?” He chuckled.
“I wanted to come up and shake your hand at the gala. But I thought maybe you were undercover. I did tell Martin and Marie I thought you might be a spy. I’m not sure they believed me. Were you there watching me? This is so exciting.”
Eliot was frowning. Malone was rigid. And they stood, facing each other, listening to the man in the other room. Sweeney kept talking.
“Martin got me into the trial. Did you know he was a judge? He has lots of pull, Martin does. Our fathers were brothers. Martin and I are like brothers. You know his father wanted him to be a doctor and my father wanted me to study law? We both disappointed our fathers. We laugh about that.”
“Did you kill Edward Andrassy?” Keeler asked Sweeney, redirecting his attention with a voice that was perfectly mild.
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Did you kill Flo Polillo?”
“I don’t speak Spanish.”
“Are you Francis Edward Sweeney?”
“Only when my mother was cross with me.”
“Did you reside at 5026 Broadway in 1934?”
“What year is it now?” He laughed uproariously. “I don’t even know what day it is.”
Leonarde Keeler persisted, but Sweeney wanted to talk to Malone, and continued flinging questions toward the adjoining room.
“Does anyone know who you really are, Mike? It’s sad, honestly. Eliot takes all the credit when men like us run circles around him.”
“Did you work at St. Alexis Hospital?” Keeler asked.
“Are you there, Ness?” Sweeney called. “Are you angry?”
“Did you kill Rose Wallace?” Keeler continued.
“Mike? Do you know Rose Wallace?”
“Are you the man they call the Butcher of Kingsbury Run?” Keeler intoned, undeterred.
“Am I the Butcher? I’m nobody, who are you?” he chortled. “Are you nobody too? Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell! They’d banish us, you know.”
“We’ve got nothing, Eliot,” Cowles said. David’s hair stood out in little tufts above his ears, and discouragement rimmed his eyes and bowed his shoulders.
“We’ll get a warrant to search his residence,” Eliot said, jaw set.
“His current residence is listed as Congressman Sweeney’s house,” Cowles reminded him. “And if we do that . . . what’s the point of all this? We’ve gone to great lengths to keep this quiet. You want to storm the congressman’s house now?”
“My professional assessment is that he’s suffering from psychosis. But . . . I can’t tell you whether he’s a killer,” Grossman said.
Eliot frowned. “Keeler? What’s the ruling?”
Leonarde sat back in his chair. “He’s not being truthful.”
Cowles moaned. “That’s not especially helpful, Leonarde.”
“I couldn’t get a good baseline, David. If I don’t know what the truth looks like with a subject, I can’t very well assess when they are lying.”
“And he lied on almost every single question we asked him. He even lied about his own name,” Ness added.
“Did he kill those people, Leonarde?” Malone pressed Keeler. “Yes or no?”
“According to the polygraph . . . yes. He did. If he didn’t, I might as well throw my machine out the window. But I agree with Dr. Grossman. He’s psychotic. And that makes the test a whole lot more unreliable. It makes his responses more unreliable. He is severely unwell.”
“We’ve got to shut this down, guys,” Cowles worried. “We’ve got to shut this whole thing down.”