Grace looked at the reporters. “Not a word to-day,” Grace begged them, ominously. “The publication of the La Rue girl’s story means that two more girls may be killed.”
The next day, a meeting occurred at the DA’s office between Grace, District Attorney Dooling, and Captain Costigan to discuss La Rue. Grace conferred with Kron over dinner that night. Could that girl really have been right the whole time? Kron wondered if Grace had been following up with La Rue after he had dismissed her story. Faurot’s men were digging up cellars all over the city based on La Rue’s testimony. For all the girls who had gone missing in different places across the city, they had apparently never checked the basements.
“Rorke believes as I do,” Grace said, “that the girl’s story is true. Tomorrow morning he is going to take up the matter with the Police Department. This is our great opportunity to wipe out one of the biggest gangs of these ghouls. They are going to give me a score of detectives to work on the case,” Grace exclaimed. “We are going to clean out the whole rotten crowd.”
Kron sat with his drink and shook his head. At his core, he was, first and foremost, a detective. And he remained skeptical of La Rue. He felt he was being led by the nose.
“That’s great,” replied Kron. He was glad that Grace was going to work with the police. But he still had his doubts. “I’m never keen on being mixed up with white-slave cases,” Kron said. “You haven’t only the trouble of getting your man, but you have the ‘victims’ to win over. If they won’t testify, or if, as is so often the case, their testimony is declared worthless, all your labors have been for nothing.”
Meanwhile, the papers had begun to recognize Grace for her solution of the Cruger case. “Mrs. Grace Humiston continues to make things hum,” one reporter wrote. Henry Cruger made good on his word and gave Grace a check for one thousand dollars for finding his daughter. “I refused to accept the check and he refused to take it back,” said Grace. “If he continues to refuse I shall use the money as a foundation for a fund to establish a home for girls in the country, as a memorial to Ruth Cruger.”
On June 20, The Evening World, which had been liberal in its coverage of the Charlie Stielow case, ran the names of all the girls in the city who had gone missing since January 1 of that year. They printed eight hundred names in that edition. The list—with names like Rachael Phillips, Becky Levy, and Mary McBride—started on the front page and continued for three subsequent pages of small black type. The newspaper also urged that a fund be started to build a public monument to the fallen Ruth Cruger. The idea was first proposed by Benoni Tabijian, a news dealer who lived in the Crugers’ neighborhood. “I suggest a monument over the grave,” he said. He thought it should read “Ruth Cruger, died to save her honor.”
As the police tried to make headway into the attempt on Consuelo La Rue’s life, the mayor, on the advice of Woods, appointed a commissioner of accounts, Leonard M. Wallstein, to investigate why the police department failed to find Ruth Cruger. On June 21, Mayor Mitchel also announced that he would keep Woods on as police commissioner. “I believe the city as a whole has felt that the work of the police department was and is steadily improving,” the mayor said. New Yorkers read it in disbelief.
Leonard Wallstein was the perfect man for the job of ferreting out police irregularities. For one, he was unusual in that he was not a Tammany Hall Democrat. In 1915, Wallstein investigated the city coroner system and found that most of the coroners—who were appointed, not elected—weren’t even doctors, but included plumbers, musicians, and even a milkman. Wallstein found that at least half of recently filed death certificates were incomplete or wrong, making them useless to investigators. Suicides, abortions, and many murders were simply labeled “death,” if they were even labeled at all. Wallstein watched coroners sip from their flasks in open court as their records amounted to nothing, sabotaging hard-fought prosecutions. Wallstein gutted the coroner’s office, making many enemies in the process. Wallstein had a high, pulled-back hairline. His quick eyes pierced at his frightened subjects from behind near-invisible glasses. For the Cruger investigation, the mayor had given him the full power of a justice of the state supreme court to summon witnesses and compel testimony. Wallstein was dangerous because he was beholden to no one but the truth. The phrase he hated most was “passing the buck.” He would not stand for it.
The first thing Wallstein did was to visit Cocchi’s shop. He walked out the whole miserable place, now stamped down by feet and mostly empty. He worked his way to the rear room and into the basement, delicately putting his toes into corners. His silver cuff links shone in the darkness. There had been new discoveries at the shop since Ruth’s body had been recovered. A list, written in Cocchi’s handwriting, had been found in a desk; it was filled with the names of girls. They were ostensibly customers, but their presence on a separate list made investigators wonder if this wasn’t a secret ledger of some kind. The first name, Elsie Goldberg, had already admitted to being attacked by Cocchi. Another new discovery made the police look even worse: all along the heat register, which ran from the floor to the cellar, were small spots of human blood. Wallstein could still see them.
Wallstein then went with Inspector Faurot to the Fourth Branch detective house to interview Captain Cooper. When Wallstein left, he took a number of books and reports with him.
“I shall begin the investigation immediately,” Wallstein told the press. “The hearings will be open to the public and will begin tomorrow on June 21, Friday morning, in the Municipal Building in Room 1200. All who have been guilty of misconduct, malfeasance, or negligence may be discovered and punished.” He promised there would be no stepping on toes of the other investigations, especially Swann’s fledgling grand jury.
The night before Wallstein’s remarks, Henry Cruger wrote a letter to Mayor Mitchel. He put it in his pocket and carried it himself to the mayor’s home at 258 Riverside Drive. Then Henry went home, took out an envelope, and sent his letter to the New York Herald. They ran it the next day, on June 20, 1917.