Harmony Newsome had died in Marquette Park on August 6, 1966. The day of the civil rights march, accompanied by an eight-hour riot performed by the local community.
At first, police and fire officials thought Newsome had fainted. It wasn’t until they couldn’t revive her in the ambulance that the fire department realized she was dead. Because of the confusion in the park and the amount of debris left behind, police had been unable to locate exactly where she died or to find the murder weapon.
The medical examiner testified that Newsome had been killed when a sharp object penetrated her brain through the eye. The detectives in charge of the case, Larry Alito and George Dornick, testified, claiming that right after Christmas, 1966, an unnamed neighborhood informant led them to Steve Sawyer. Otherwise, given the crowds in the park when Newsome was killed, they probably would never have made an arrest.
Marilyn Klimpton was leaning over me. It was five-thirty, and she was leaving for the day. “Sorry to interrupt, but I called your name three times, and you didn’t hear me. I’ve left letters for you to sign. And you still need to get back to Darraugh Graham.”
I smiled as best I could and attempted to follow her report on her progress today. As soon as the door closed behind her, I went back to the transcript. After three days in custody, Sawyer had confessed to the murder. Alito read the confession out in court. Sawyer had been in love with Newsome, but she wouldn’t pay attention to him. She got “hincty” when she went away to college.
JUDGE GERRY DALY: Hincty? Is that some kind of colored word?
ASST. STATE’S ATTORNEY MELROSE: I believe so, Your Honor.
JUDGE DALY: Could I have that in English, Counselor? (Laughter in the courtroom.)
ASST. STATE’S ATTORNEY MELROSE: I believe it means “stuck-up,” Your Honor, although I don’t speak their lingo, either.
According to Sawyer’s confession, he thought he could kill her during the riots and have the murder be blamed on the white people in the park. Judge Daly questioned Sawyer briefly. The public defender assigned to Sawyer raised no objections, either during the reading of the testimony or during the judge’s questioning. He didn’t call any witnesses. He didn’t try to get the name of Alito’s and Dornick’s snitch.
Sawyer’s responses to the judge seemed vague and unconnected, and he kept saying, “Lumumba has my picture. He has my picture.”
The jury deliberated an hour before returning their guilty verdict.
I reread my father’s testimony, shivering. It was as though my nightmares of the early morning had been a prophecy of what I would find here. My father, sent to execute the warrant, described Sawyer’s shock and his attempt to flee, described cuffing him, described telling him his rights. Miranda was new that year. The transcript included some ribald byplay between State’s Attorney Melrose and Detective Dornick over Sawyer’s rights.
Dornick and Alito, the detectives in charge. Larry Alito had been my dad’s patrol partner for a year or so around 1966. My dad hadn’t liked him much, and I could remember him complaining about Alito to my mother. There was one night when he came home depressed: Alito had been promoted to detective, while he, Tony, with ten times the experience, was still in uniform. My mother consoled him, saying, “At least you don’t have to work with that prepotente any longer.”
The sky outside my high windows darkened as I sat on the couch, staring into nothingness. When I finally turned on a light, I saw it was after eight o’clock. I signed my letters and took a last look at the transcript before putting it into the Gadsden file. I’d been brooding so much over my father that I hadn’t noticed the name of Steve Sawyer’s lawyer. Arnold Coleman, my old boss, now a judge. He’d been a green, young public defender in 1966, but he couldn’t have been so green he didn’t know he was supposed to raise an occasional objection. Like to the racially charged language in the court.
And why hadn’t he demanded the identity of Detective Alito’s snitch? Could that have been Lamont Gadsden?
16
ALITO OFF GUARD
“IS THIS YOUR IDEA OF A JOKE, VICKI?”
I’d waited an hour for a word with Bobby Mallory. Dropping in unannounced on a senior police officer is never a really brilliant idea, but at least he was actually in the building. The sergeant guarding access to those shiny new offices in Bronzeville didn’t know me, but Terry Finchley, one of Bobby’s aides, was nearby. He isn’t exactly a fan of mine, but he did grunt at the sergeant that it was okay to send me upstairs to wait for a break in Bobby’s schedule.