'Jeeez, Charlie. Maybe they were guilty!'
'May be.'
We drove on past the Fresh Pond Bowladrome and fruit stand. I could feel Mary glaring at me.
'Don't play games, dammit! You've got me hanging now. Did they or didn't they?'
'Did they what?'
She punched me in the arm. It hurt. She'd make a good featherweight, I thought, and I told her so. She hit me again.
'Okay, okay,' I said. 'An interesting thing was this: right after the South Braintree robbery the police in New Bedford were closing in on a known gang of robbers they were watching because of a suspicious license plate and a stolen car that might have been used as the escape vehicle. This gang, called the Morelli gang, was based in New York and Providence. One of the Morelli brothers lived in New Bedford. But the New Bedford cops cut short their investigation.'
'Why?'
'Because in early May they heard that the criminals had been arrested: Sacco and Vanzetti. So they dropped it. It's a shame they did, too, because the Morelli gang had a history of robbing factory freight cars, especially those of Slater and Morrill. In fact, some of its members had cased the Slater and Morrill plant more than once.. .'
'And how did they know that the cops in Brockton had the right guys?'
' 'Cause the cops in Brockton said so. Chief Michael Stewart of Bridgewater was obsessed with the idea that a band of anarchist robbers was living in the South Shore area, and that they kept their getaway car in a shed. Finding such a shed and having been told that the car usually kept there wasn't running well and was being repaired, Stewart ordered a stakeout on the local garage that was fixing the car. It was an Overland, a now-defunct make of auto. Four men came to the garage to claim the car. Told it wasn't ready, they departed. Two left riding a motorcycle. Two left on foot and boarded a streetcar: Sacco and Vanzetti.'
'And what were they doing at night getting a car and carrying guns? Huh?'
'They wanted to use the car to collect some radical literature they'd recently distributed. An associate of theirs, a guy named Salsedo- Andrea Salsedo- was held illegally and interrogated by the FBI in New York. He was also detained for eight weeks in a fourteenth-story room of a building there. All this was done without formal criminal charge, you understand, in violation of his fundamental rights. On May third his crushed body was found on the pavement below. The Feds said that he must have leaped to his death. Suicide, or so they said. Sacco, Vanzetti, and the rest of the anarchists were scared stiff. They feared the same fate. That's why they were armed; that's why they were out trying to get the car rolling so they could make the rounds and get rid of the incriminating literature.'
'And why weren't the two other guys accused of the crime too?'
'They were. One had an alibi through his employment and the other was very short- so short all of the witnesses agreed he couldn't have taken part. So the police got Sacco and Vanzetti by process of elimination. Even then, their fingerprints did not match any found on the getaway car when it was discovered abandoned. The prosecution later dropped the whole question of prints.'
'Charlie: were they guilty?'
'From what I've read, I'd say no. Armed robbery was against their characters as revealed by their lives. They simply weren't violent men or criminals. Protestors, yes. Angry men who disagreed with the status quo, yes. But killers and robbers, no. And the prosecution's claim that they pulled the job leaves too many ends dangling, too many details unexplained and floating in a vacuum. Where were the guys who helped them? Not only did the defendants not tell, but there was nothing about their past histories or personal associations that connected to the robbery. The fifteen grand that was taken- where was it? The defendants didn't have it. Moreover,. there was not a trace of it anywhere around the two men. Certainly the sick old car they came to collect wasn't the one used in the lightning-quick robbery. No sane person would use it in any robbery. The guns they were carrying seemed to be the most damning and inexplicable pieces of evidence. Yet the ballistics tests performed by the prosecution were misinterpreted and used to mislead the jury. Finally, both men did have alibis.'
'Well if they had alibis what was the problem?'
'The alibis, on both counts, had serious flaws: they depended on the testimony of fellow Italians.'
Mary snapped her head around and let out a few choice exclamations. I blush even now to think of them.
'Uh-huh. That's how a lot of your countrymen feel about it. Now as a comparison, when the case against the Morelli gang is considered, all- not some, but all- the loose ends are gathered up neatly and tied into a bow: the gang's need for money to pay for upcoming defense lawyer's fees and bail; the money itself, which appeared at the right time and in the right amount; the getaway car, which as I mentioned earlier first tipped off the New Bedford cops; the getaway route, which was accurately described by the guy who should've been the defense's star witness in a new trial; and finally… three big things.'
'What were the three big things?'
One: the fact that the Morelli-gang hypothesis explains each and every participant in the crime, down to the last detail as described by the witnesses. Two: the Morelli gang was composed of robbers and killers; the past of each gang member ties him with robbery and crime as a way of life. And three: are you ready? Remember I said there should have been a star witness? He was a guy in jail with Sacco and Vanzetti at Dedham. He was the guy who sparked the investigation of the Morelli bunch in the first place. Know why? Because in nineteen twenty-six, six years after the holdup and a year before Sacco and Vanzetti were put to death, he confessed ta taking part in the robbery and described it in every detail. Know what else? He wrote out a sworn statement that Sacco and Vanzetti weren't there!'
Mary squirmed in her seat and drew her breath in sharply, her eyes bugged out in her anger.
'You're shitting me!'
'Nope.'
'And those bastards executed them anyway?'
'Yep.'
'Charlie, you're shitting me!'
'Cross my heart…'
'Bastards!' she shouted, smacking the dashboard with her fists. She does this on big slabs of clay to get the air bubbles out before firing. The clay could take it; the Audi, despite its engineering, probably couldn't.
'Easy, kid. The guy's name was Celestino Madeiros, a Portuguese boy who was already indicted for murder in another holdup. He was executed the same night as Sacco and Vanzetti. He had nothing to gain by the confession. He said he felt sorry for the two guys held wrongly. He felt especially sorry for Sacco's wife, Rosina, and their son, Dante.'
We were now passing Mass. General Hospital, and swept around it and over to Causeway Street. Then a right turn onto Washington and we were there. The whole time Mary sat silently, glowering through the windshield. We met Joe in the open-air patio court for a drink. I ordered a dry Tanqueray martini and got it wet, which invariably happens in any Italian restaurant, and we waited for our table. Mary sipped on a Campari, having forsworn peppermint schnapps forever.
'What's the matter, Sis?' asked Joe, who couldn't help noticing her subdued state. She told him, and we launched into the case a am.
'I agree with you, Doc. There was an invisible hand behind it all, pulling the strings and pushing the buttons. The worst thing though was the prosecution's constant claim that this and that evidence showed that the defendants could have committed the crime. Their alibi witnesses could be lying to protect their friends; therefore they were lying. The men could have been in South Braintree, so therefore they were there, and therefore they did commit the robbery. Bullshit! American law says the prosecution must prove guilt. It does not say the defense must prove innocence. They were marked men.'
He rapped the table twice as he said the words again: 'Marked men.'
We went in and ordered dinner. I had the house specialty, which is steak a la Mafia. It was great. We all shared the antipasti and pasta, and a liter of good house red. Three couples came in, obviously young studs and foxy mamas from the North End. They wore the local outfit. The women, who were gorgeous, had on tight blouses, choker necklaces, and pants that were sprayed on. This ensemble was set off by four-inch stiletto heels. Their hair was swept back, short, thick, black, and slightly wet. Their faces were heavily made up and their cheeks blood-
