eyes were glassy and the rip in the throat had been concealed by dressing the corpse in a high collar, but the face was recognizable.
Di Priemo glanced down and stiffened. “Yes,” he agreed, taken aback despite himself. “I know that man, of course I do. He’s my brother-in-law. What’s the matter with him? Sick?”
“He’s dead,” said Petrosino.
Even the detective, with his years of experience, was surprised by what happened next. There was a moment’s shocked silence. Then Di Priemo, the tough Sicilian counterfeiter, swayed and collapsed—some sort of faint, Petrosino thought. It took a minute or two to revive him, and longer before he could continue. When he did, his demeanor had changed from suspicious to downright uncommunicative. “My brother-in-law lived in Buffalo,” was all he would say. “He had a wife and family there. His name is Benedetto Madonia. His wife is my sister.”
Di Priemo gave the Italian detective an address in Buffalo, but he refused absolutely to say more. Petrosino could get not a syllable out of him concerning Madonia’s murder or the dead man’s relationship with Giuseppe Morello.
He telephoned the news back to New York in any case, andMcClusky called it through to Flynn. The Chief was sitting in his office with a Sicilian translator when the phone rang, working his way slowly through the piles of letter books and correspondence seized from Morello’s room. He felt sure that he had seen Madonia’s name somewhere earlier that day, and leafing back through the Clutch Hand’s untidy ledgers, he eventually found it. Scrawled along the edge of an interior page were the words “Madonia Benedetto, 47 Trenton Avenue, Buffalo, New York.” The note, Flynn observed with interest, was in Morello’s handwriting. Unlike the other entries on the page, it had been scribbled in red ink.
BY THE TIME PETROSINO got to Buffalo, Madonia’s wife had heard what had happened to her husband.
The salacious
New York Journal
, which had better contacts and deeper pockets than any other paper in New York, got word of Petrosino’s trip to Sing Sing from an informant at police headquarters as soon as the Italian detective phoned in his report. A hurried telegram to the paper’s stringer in Buffalo brought the reporter and a local beat policeman to Madonia’s apartment in a two-story frame house that evening. The two men found the oldest of the barrel victim’s children, twenty-one-year-old Salvatore, sitting outside enjoying the spring air.
Harry Evans, the Buffalo policeman, was a man of limited tact. Introducing himself, he bluntly explained: “The New York police believe that the Italian who was found with his throat cut is your father.”
“I don’t know about that,” Salvatore answered warily.
“Is your father home?”
“My father is in New York, but we expect him home in a few days.”
Evans pressed his point: “Do you know whether or not your father is alive?”
“I guess he is.”
It was only when the reporter handed Madonia the
Journal’s
photo of his father’s body lying in the New York morgue that the news sank in. Badly shaken, the dead man’s son burst into tears, then ran blindly back into the house in search of a family portrait. He held the snapshot and the folded copy of the
Journal
side by side. There was no room for doubt; the two photographs depicted the same man.
“You had better come in,” the young man told his visitors.
—
PETROSINO ARRIVED at the Madonia house the next morning to find the whole family in mourning and the dead man’s wife in bed. Lucy Madonia had been unwell even before word of her husband’s brutal murder reached her. Now she looked drawn and ill, older by far than her forty-two years.
It took Lucy a long time to admit that she knew anything of her husband’s activities. He was just a mason, she insisted in response to Petrosino’s questioning, and had never been in trouble in his life. Yes, Benedetto had done what he could
Di Priemo glanced down and stiffened. “Yes,” he agreed, taken aback despite himself. “I know that man, of course I do. He’s my brother-in-law. What’s the matter with him? Sick?”
“He’s dead,” said Petrosino.
Even the detective, with his years of experience, was surprised by what happened next. There was a moment’s shocked silence. Then Di Priemo, the tough Sicilian counterfeiter, swayed and collapsed—some sort of faint, Petrosino thought. It took a minute or two to revive him, and longer before he could continue. When he did, his demeanor had changed from suspicious to downright uncommunicative. “My brother-in-law lived in Buffalo,” was all he would say. “He had a wife and family there. His name is Benedetto Madonia. His wife is my sister.”
Di Priemo gave the Italian detective an address in Buffalo, but he refused absolutely to say more. Petrosino could get not a syllable out of him concerning Madonia’s murder or the dead man’s relationship with Giuseppe Morello.
He telephoned the news back to New York in any case, andMcClusky called it through to Flynn. The Chief was sitting in his office with a Sicilian translator when the phone rang, working his way slowly through the piles of letter books and correspondence seized from Morello’s room. He felt sure that he had seen Madonia’s name somewhere earlier that day, and leafing back through the Clutch Hand’s untidy ledgers, he eventually found it. Scrawled along the edge of an interior page were the words “Madonia Benedetto, 47 Trenton Avenue, Buffalo, New York.” The note, Flynn observed with interest, was in Morello’s handwriting. Unlike the other entries on the page, it had been scribbled in red ink.
BY THE TIME PETROSINO got to Buffalo, Madonia’s wife had heard what had happened to her husband.
The salacious
New York Journal
, which had better contacts and deeper pockets than any other paper in New York, got word of Petrosino’s trip to Sing Sing from an informant at police headquarters as soon as the Italian detective phoned in his report. A hurried telegram to the paper’s stringer in Buffalo brought the reporter and a local beat policeman to Madonia’s apartment in a two-story frame house that evening. The two men found the oldest of the barrel victim’s children, twenty-one-year-old Salvatore, sitting outside enjoying the spring air.
Harry Evans, the Buffalo policeman, was a man of limited tact. Introducing himself, he bluntly explained: “The New York police believe that the Italian who was found with his throat cut is your father.”
“I don’t know about that,” Salvatore answered warily.
“Is your father home?”
“My father is in New York, but we expect him home in a few days.”
Evans pressed his point: “Do you know whether or not your father is alive?”
“I guess he is.”
It was only when the reporter handed Madonia the
Journal’s
photo of his father’s body lying in the New York morgue that the news sank in. Badly shaken, the dead man’s son burst into tears, then ran blindly back into the house in search of a family portrait. He held the snapshot and the folded copy of the
Journal
side by side. There was no room for doubt; the two photographs depicted the same man.
“You had better come in,” the young man told his visitors.
—
PETROSINO ARRIVED at the Madonia house the next morning to find the whole family in mourning and the dead man’s wife in bed. Lucy Madonia had been unwell even before word of her husband’s brutal murder reached her. Now she looked drawn and ill, older by far than her forty-two years.
It took Lucy a long time to admit that she knew anything of her husband’s activities. He was just a mason, she insisted in response to Petrosino’s questioning, and had never been in trouble in his life. Yes, Benedetto had done what he could
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