Killing the Poormaster by Holly Metz

Author:Holly Metz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2012-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

The three other clerks who had worked for Harry Barck were now called in turn to testify for the state. Unlike their senior coworker, none had previously claimed to be eyewitnesses or rescuers, and their direct examination proceeded quickly. Under George’s questioning, the testimony of twenty-four-year-old typist Adeline Cerutti, a stylish blonde, led to her discovery of the desk spindle on the floor of the poormaster’s office. One of the men who had run in to help asked her to get Barck a glass of water. “I got a glass of water from a small sink in Mr. Barck’s room,” Cerutti said. “On my way to get water, I picked up his glasses, a [desk] file, a whistle, and the telephone” from the floor near his desk.

William George brought forward a desk spindle with a bent spike: Was this the one Cerutti had retrieved from floor of the poormaster’s office? It was, Cerutti testified. The assistant prosecutor entered the desk file into evidence.14

Cerutti’s dark-haired counterpart, Romayne Mullin, testified that when she had entered the poormaster’s office, she’d seen three men. They had seated Mr. Barck in a chair and had opened his collar. “I went downstairs and got a bottle of ammonia and put it under his nose, and he was placed outside on a bench by three men,” she said.15

Under cross-examination by the defense, Mullin said she could not recall if Eleonore Hartmann had been in Barck’s office when she ran in. But under further questioning, the young typist revealed that she had seen Joseph Scutellaro in the office, sitting in a chair.

And how did he seem? Leibowitz asked.

“He didn’t seem moved by what had just happened.”

“He sat there like a dummy, didn’t he?” Leibowitz said. He would develop this allusion later.

“Yes,” Mullin agreed.

“And what did you say to him?”

“Why did you do it?”

And how had Joe Scutellaro replied? Leibowitz asked.

“I received no reply.”16

Leibowitz then introduced a hint of his client’s version of the morning’s events. He asked Romayne Mullin if she had heard Joseph Scutellaro “tell police after his arrest that Barck fell over the spindle in a scuffle” with him. No, Mullin said, she had not. The journalists in the courtroom scribbled furiously. They now had their lead.17

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