A Death in Belmont. Sebastian Junger
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 know that too.”
“You have a lot more freedom up here.”
“I’m telling you one thing: I ain’t going to take no one’s woman, Jesus Christ, especially a white woman, you kidding? I’ve got more sense than that, Jesus Christ.”
“But still, the woman was lying on the floor, wasn’t she?”
“No sir—”
“What?”
“That woman wasn’t touched when I left there, no sirree. If I touched that woman do you think I’d be still messing around here? Are you kidding? I ain’t touched no woman. Maybe somebody come by after I left.”
“You have something more to tell us, you’re holding something back.”
“All right, then, you say I got something to tell you. Then all right. I ain’t got nothing.”
“Roy, let’s have it.”
“All right,” Smith says. “Go ahead, have it.”
For a black man in a police station in 1963 to speak sarcastically to his interrogators regarding the rape and murder of a white woman must have been rare indeed, even in Massachusetts. Back home in Mississippi it could have gotten him killed. “You’ve been lying all afternoon here, for the last half hour,” said Maguire. “Now you’re smart enough to know that science is going to trip you up.”
“Not going to trip me up.”
“So why don’t you start now and give us the right story and get it off your mind? It’s bothering you.”
“Nothing bothering me myself because—I ain’t did nothing and I’m not afraid of nothing myself. Y’all do just whatever you want but I’m telling you I ain’t did nothing.”
At this point Smith asked Chief Robinson for a cigarette, who gave him one. Maguire took the opportunity to interject, “Get it off your chest, Roy, let’s have it.”
“I’m not no Strangler here, are you kidding?” Smith said. “Shit.”
There must have been silence in the room. There must have been glances between the police officers. “Who said anything about being the Strangler?” Maguire finally said.
“That’s what ya’ll are trying to put on me. I seen that guy from the paper up there, people taking all the pictures and stuff out there, putting me on TV—you go ahead on and try to prove that stuff, go ahead on—”
“We will prove it.”
“Go ahead, do anything you want,” Smith said. “You know better than that. Me, I don’t go around and kill somebody.”
The interrogation of Roy Smith went on into the early hours of March 13. After twelve