contradiction in the testimony, they have a way into the web of lies that inevitably surrounds any denial of guilt. In the eyes of the police Smith was so obviously guilty that his refusal to make everyone’s life easier by confessing seemed to exasperate them. They were playing their parts, in a sense, but Smith was not playing his. Again it was Lieutenant Cahalane who attempted to break through the denials.
“Straighten me out, will you? I’m all mixed up.”
“Go ahead,” said Smith. Cahalane proceeded to introduce himself and everyone else in the room, including the stenographer. He then led Smith once again through every detail of his morning. He asked what time Smith woke up, what he ate for breakfast, where he got off the bus. With slow, grinding thoroughness he asked exactly what work Smith performed in the Goldberg house, which rooms he worked in, and how long everything took. He asked what door he entered through, what door he left through, and whom he saw on the short walk to the bus station. At one point Cahalane asked if he saw three children walking along the sidewalk on Pleasant Street—Dougie Dreyer and his friends coming home from school—and Smith said that he did. The children all placed Smith leaving the crime scene, and Smith would have known that, but he still declined to fall into the trap of lying. Cahalane was getting nowhere.
“Do you ever black out?” Cahalane finally asked.
“I never blacked out in my life.”
“Do you ever find yourself getting into some sort of predicament that you don’t remember getting into?”
“No.”
“You know at all times everything you’re doing?”
“Sure, yes—I mean I’m normal, if that’s what you mean.”
“You have never been in any mental hospital?”
“No.”
“Have you ever fainted in the street?”
“Never.”
Cahalane was trying to lure Smith into a legal trap. If he killed Bessie Goldberg but didn’t remember doing it, then it could not possibly be premeditated. The definition of first-degree murder is the killing of another human being “with malice aforethought,” and a blackout would effectively remove intentionality from the crime, reducing the charge to manslaughter. Had Smith taken the bait and acknowledged that perhaps he had killed her without realizing it, he almost certainly would have been destroyed at trial, but that was not Cahalane’s problem.
“This was a pretty nice lady?”
“She was nice.”
“She treated you nice?”
“Real nice.”
“Did you proposition her?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you ask her to be over-friendly?”
“Never.”
“Listen, Roy, no one is trying to put you in the middle, we’re just trying to find out what happened.”
“Look, this is serious; I’m giving it to you straight,” said Smith. “If you’ll excuse me for saying this here, there’s too many women out there for me to be making a proposition for somebody. Do you think I want my neck broken?”
“You didn’t ask her to be extra friendly?”
“No, I’d swear on a stack of Bibles as high as a building, I swear.”
“Did you make a grab at her when she refused you?”
“I never made no passes at her.”
“Roy, that’s not very reasonable, I’m telling you.”
“I didn’t make no passes. That lady never made no passes at me. She was nice. She fixed me dinner [lunch] and got me a cup of tea. I sat down and ate that and got right back up like I do in everyone’s house. I got right back up and started working.”
“Roy, something happened in that house, and it is quite natural that we should feel you are responsible.”
“Why me?”
“Because you were the only one who was there. Don’t you understand? If there is nobody else there but you and the woman and something happens to the woman, naturally we got to think you did it. Now listen, Roy, nobody is trying to put you in the middle. If there is something bothering you and you made a grab for her, all you have to do is say so.”
“I didn’t.”
“It’s no big mystery, it happens every day.”
“I’m telling you, you can take a knife and take my insides out—you can take me to a hospital and let them do anything to me.”
“I’m not going to do anything—all I want to know is what happened.”
“How do I know? I went there, and I worked for that woman. She’s not the only woman I worked for.”
“I believe—they tell me—you’re a good worker.”
“Jesus Christ, take me to a hospital, let them do anything to me.”
“Listen Roy—at the time this happened to the woman—”
“Yes?”
“—that somebody knocked her flat—”
“I haven’t knocked nobody flat.”
“I’m telling you; you listen.”
“Okay.”
“At the time somebody attacked this woman you were the only one in the house, so naturally we have to figure that you were the one who attacked her. Now, are you the one who attacked her or not?”
“Yes, someone’s got to get blamed for it.”
“No, I didn’t figure that. That is why we’re talking to you. We don’t want to put anything on you—all I want is the truth.”
“There’s got to be some kind of way you all could see whether I’m lying or not.”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” said Cahalane. “If something happened accidentally, all you have got to do is say so. If she were standing on a table or chair and fell off and you grabbed her all you got to do—”
“Do you mind if I say something?”
“I don’t mind.”
One can imagine Smith drawing himself up for this. The police have asked Smith to step into their shoes for a moment; now Smith was doing the same. “My home is in Mississippi,” Smith said. “There’s no way I’d take no white woman because I love my neck, you understand?”
“But this is the North, not the South,” Cahalane answered.
“I
