“I can’t say it’s customary, but it frequently occurs,” answered Cooper.
Wallstein then asked why, under the category of “Publicity,” the word “Yes” had been crossed out in favor of “No.”
“Is it the custom of the bureau to be guided by the person making the complaint as to whether there is to be publicity or not?”
“Yes, it is. The officer receiving the complaint has no discretion. There are no specific orders on it.”
Wallstein adjourned the proceedings for lunch.
In the afternoon, Wallstein called up Victor Blady, a friend of Cocchi’s who was always seen around the shop and was known by the nickname Jersey. Blady said that he was in the shop between nine and nine thirty on the night the Cruger girl disappeared. This contradicted what a young errand boy said, who saw Blady between six thirty and seven. A report that one of the uniforms found during the cellar excavation fit the six-foot-five Victor Blady perfectly was neither confirmed nor denied. Blady’s story was that he was there because of keen interest in the motor sled that Cocchi invented, built, and drove on Broadway last winter. Blady testified that there were other men in Cocchi’s shop when Ruth went there at noon and left her skates. Wallstein wanted to know what they were doing. If it was digging, it could prove that the whole thing was a premeditated act. Blady said he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Blady’s final comment was that he thought “the crime may have been committed by a woman, moved by jealousy, who, since the murder, has been shielded by the police department.” Blady’s testimony was dismissed as that of a personal friend.
The next day, Maria Cocchi arrived to give her testimony, and the room welled with anticipation. As Wallstein started his questioning, Mrs. Cocchi fainted, causing the room to gasp. She recovered—steadied herself—and returned to her chair. She nodded to her interpreter. Wallstein kept his questions very focused on the police activities in the case. He was not interested in idle gossip. Neither was she. She silently stuck out her hand and produced a white card. Wallstein took it and turned it over. It read:
Take care of Alfredo Cocchi. He’s O.K.
BILLY EYNON
When Wallstein read the tiny card out loud, the crowd nodded and the reporters wrote. Everyone knew that Billy Eynon was an active motorcycle cop. Wallstein was very familiar with these types of cards, though he wished that he were not. The holder of the card could show it to any motorcycle squad member who had pulled him over for speeding and walk away without a ticket. According to his wife, Cocchi had gotten it from Eynon for working on his bike. Cocchi apparently liked to speed. But it wasn’t the card itself that cast a shadow over the proceedings, it was the phrase at the end: “Take care of Alfredo Cocchi.”
“There were always policemen around his place of business,” Maria said. “I have entered his shops many a time and found him talking mysteriously with policemen. I never heard what they were saying. They did not talk when I was around.” Maria paused for a moment before continuing. “Always,” Maria said, “he worked hard to get money so he could go back to Italy and live like a prince. He was good to his children, but stingy with me. He could not keep away from women.” The rumor circulated that her son and daughter had been taken away from her and placed with the Children’s Society.
Maria also mentioned Edward Fish, the private detective who was also a friend of Cocchi, but apparently Wallstein’s men could not find him. According to Maria, Fish had once been a policeman.
As the testimony wore on, the story that was slowly being patched together was that Cocchi and the motorcycle police seemed to have been involved in some kind of grafting operation. The scam would work, more or less, when motorcycle cops would hand out their summons to citizens for minor traffic infractions. Later, through an emissary, these cops would approach the citizen and say that their ticket could be fixed if they went to see someone such as Cocchi, who would then offer to fix the ticket for a price. Once the exorbitant price was paid (in cash outright or by buying a profoundly marked-up item from the store, such as a monkey wrench), the profits were split between the fixer and the cop who originally issued the ticket. The summons itself, written in pencil, would be erased and used again. Cocchi’s connection to Eynon, his tight relationship as repairman to the motorcycle squad (he had spare cop uniforms in the store lockers), and other drifting rumors seemed to be solidifying the overall picture of Cocchi’s police ties.
One of the last things Wallstein did that day was to motion to one of his men, who then brought a small folded cloth to his desk. When Wallstein unwrapped it, the crowd took in the sight of a long, sharpened table knife with a metal handle. It had been found in the rear of the basement where the body was discovered. The knife was identified as Cocchi’s. He kept it in his desk drawer on the street floor of his shop. Wallstein momentarily held it aloft, suspended in midair, all eyes upon it. The tip was invisibly sharp.
The policemen who testified all asked to sign a waiver of immunity from prosecution. When they got to the stand, the general police defense was that they had no idea what they were dealing with in Cocchi. They had no experience with such a rare and obscure type of crime. They claimed that there was nothing in their experience to help them in arriving at a correct conclusion. There was no motive, they argued, until the autopsy of the body revealed that the young woman was slain by an assassin of a kind rarely found in this country—a “ripper.” They admitted to being completely unprepared for this kind of monster. Wallstein knew from the coroner doctor’s report that Ruth had been cut through on the left side of her body in a mysterious way. The cut had severed some of her intestine, but it was more of a surgical wound than the stabbing kind.