“I had never seen Ruth Cruger before she came to my shop to have her skates sharpened,” Cocchi said again during Zucconi’s next visit, or maybe even the one after that. Cocchi looked away at the wall or at something else. He was shaking again. The dungeon cell was cold.
Judge Zucconi started to push from his chair to leave. Maybe another day passed. Interrogations, long ones, took time. There was no clock in the room. Zucconi kept visiting Cocchi but never got any further. “From the very beginning Ruth did all in her power to attract my attention,” Cocchi finally said. “I felt something strange when her dark penetrating eyes were fixed on mine.”
The judge sat still. Cocchi had said “Ruth.”
“I was still more disconcerted when she came again February 13th to get her skates,” said Cocchi, now trembling even more. “An overpowering attraction for the young woman seized me. What happened afterwards seems like a dream.” Cocchi looked at the wall. “My memory at this point fails me utterly.” He kept speaking, but the shaking cut off his words. Almost like it was laughter.
“It must be true I attacked and killed her,” Cocchi said. He looked at the judge, almost as if he wanted confirmation. “But God help me I didn’t mean to.” Cocchi said she must have fallen and hit “some vital spot.” Cocchi said it must have been an accident.
Cocchi started to tremble and shake even more, to the point that sweat began pouring from his brow. The guard was summoned, and they at first thought Cocchi was having an epileptic fit. No one in the prison had ever seen anything like it. They called for the doctor.
On June 25, 1917, the same day in New York City, Helen Cruger, Ruth’s sister, arrived in Wallstein’s interrogation room. She wore a black-and-white checked suit, a brown straw toque hat trimmed with brown leaves and flowers, and low-cut black shoes. People stood up when she walked in. Wallstein asked that she not be photographed, in accordance with her wishes. The press photographers, who had been scrambling for any new photo to print, put down their hollow cameras and watched her with their eyes.
Helen sat down and told Wallstein that she had tried to meet with Chief Inspector Faurot three days after Ruth disappeared. When Wallstein asked why, Helen said that she had information to share about her sister’s disappearance. Helen had strongly suspected Cocchi after their brief but strange encounter at his store. But she couldn’t get in to see Faurot. She even had a letter of introduction that her father had helped secure. Wallstein looked at the letter—which was perfectly customary—dated February 16, 1917, and addressed to Faurot. Since Helen was told that Faurot was out, she talked to Lieutenant William Funston instead.
“I told the whole story from the beginning,” said Helen, who spoke in a low-pitched, agreeable voice. The people in chairs could see the resemblance to her sister. “I tried to point out that this was not one of the ninety-nine cases that the police said girls always were found in,” she said, holding on to her tone. “I told him that was the line they were working on and I argued the point with him,” Helen said. “I told him all the reasons why they should not regard this as one of the ninety-nine cases.” Helen told the lieutenant that Cocchi had ready answers to her questions and that they sounded almost rehearsed. She also said that all the policemen she had talked to—and she paused because this was important—had called him “Al.”
People looked at each other and understood. Wallstein’s inquiry wasn’t just meant to understand how the police had failed. His questioning was meant to determine, just as an early rumor had suggested, if the police had possibly been involved in the very crime itself.
14
The Man Who Laughs
The Italian doctor took Cocchi out of the cell and gave him a glass of clean water. When Cocchi returned, he was much calmed. As Cocchi’s words stopped and started in his mouth, he still shook slightly. He continued with his story.
“When I returned home I was like a person in a trance. I remember speaking of this peculiar mental condition as though I was ill.” Cocchi paused. “I had been constantly quarrelling with my wife. This day, the 13th, when I ate my mid-day meal at home, I drank five glasses of California wine to make me forget my trouble.” He paused to drink more water.
“In a nervous condition I went to my shop about 1:20 o’clock, when there immediately entered the girl who before noon had left her skates for sharpening. She was very beautiful and I lost my head. When she went to the rear of the shop to get her skates without seeing me, I barred the street door with a block of wood. Then I started to embrace the girl, but she was very strong and threw me backward. I tried again and succeeded, despite her resistance.
“I picked her up and dropped her into the repair room,” said Cocchi, matter-of-factly. He stopped for a moment. “She fell about twelve feet below, striking a motor cycle sidecar on her side, but she was not hurt. All the while she was screaming ‘Police! Police!’” He stopped again. “When I joined her in the lower room, my head was gone. I tried again to embrace and kiss her, but again did not succeed; she was so strong. I said ‘Please don’t say anything, I have two children,’ but she would not listen.” He seemed to be seeing it play out before him. Cocchi looked away again. He said the next part slowly, while still shaking. “Finally, exasperated by her resistance, I grabbed in my left hand a stick of heavy wood a yard long and struck her twice or thrice across the back of the neck, holding her with my right hand. She groaned and sank down.
“I swear before God and man that I did no carnal violence to the girl,” Cocchi said earnestly. “If she had pardoned my first offensive act and listened to my prayers to tell nobody I would have let her go without touching a hair of her head. This is my first offense, but it is of such a nature that I cannot believe it to be true. The greatest punishment is to think what suffering and agony my wife and children are undergoing, as notwithstanding our misunderstandings, we love each other most tenderly.”
Judge Zucconi listened as his clerk wrote furiously. The story had obviously changed, but his ears had missed something. The judge pressed Cocchi for specific details about Ruth’s death. After admitting hitting her with a block of wood, Cocchi had ended his story there. Cocchi collected himself, then continued.
“After I had seized her and tried to throw her down I got scared,” Cocchi said. “I remembered my wife.”
The judge pressed him, but that is all Alfredo Cocchi would say.