Mysteries of the missing

by Edward H. Smith

The grim caller had very little to say. He would report to the society what Varotta had told him and he would return later with the answer. Meantime, Varotta had better get ready all the money he could raise. The messenger might come again the next night.

The detectives were ready when the time came. In the course of the next day Varotta went to the bank as if to get the money. While there he was handed five hundred dollars in bills which had previously been marked by Sergeant Fiaschetti. Later on it was decided that Mrs. Nicoletti would need help in dealing with the kidnappers’ messenger, who might not come alone. Varotta himself was shaken and helpless. Accordingly, Detective John Pellegrino was dressed as a plumber, supplied with kit and tools, and sent to the Varotta house to mend a leaking faucet and repair some broken pipes. He came and went several times, bringing with him some new tools or part when he returned. In this way he hoped to confuse the watchers as to his final position. The trick was again successful. Pellegrino remained in the house at last, and the lookouts for the kidnappers evidently thought him gone.

A little after ten o’clock on the night of June second there was a knocking at the Varotta door. Two men were there, one of them the emissary of the Black Hand who had called the night before. This man curtly announced the purpose of his visit and sent his companion up to get the money from Varotta, remaining downstairs himself.

Varotta received the stranger in the same room where he had kissed the boots of the first messenger the night before, talked over the details with him, inquired anxiously as to the safety of Joe, and was told that he need not worry. Joe had been playing happily with other children and would be home about midnight if the money were paid. This time Varotta managed to retain some composure. He counted out the five hundred dollars to the messenger, asked this man to count the money again, saw that the bills were stuffed into the blackmailer’s pocket and then gave the agreed signal.

Pellegrino, who had lain concealed behind the drapery, sprang into the room with drawn revolver, covered the intruder, handcuffed him and immediately communicated with the street by signal from a window. Other detectives broke into the hallway, seized the first emissary who was waiting there. On the near-by corner, Sergeant Fiaschetti and others of his staff clapped the wristlets on the arm of Antonio Marino and James Ruggieri, his stepson. A few moments later Santo Cusamano was dragged from the bakeshop where he worked. Five of the gang were in the toils and five more were seized before the night was over.

Cusamano and the first messenger, who turned out to be Roberto Raffaelo, made admissions which were later shown in court as confessions. All the prisoners were locked into separate and distant cells in the Tombs, and the search for Joe Varotta was begun. Sergeant Fiaschetti, amply fortified by the correctness of his surmises, took the position that the child was not far away and would be released within a few hours now that the members of the gang were in custody.

Here, however, the shrewd detective counted without a full consideration of the desperateness and deadliness of the amateur criminal, characteristics that have repeatedly upset and baffled those who know crime professionally and are conversant with the habits and conduct of experienced offenders. There can be no doubt that professionals would, in this situation, have released the boy and sent him home, though the Ross case furnishes a fearful exception. The whole logic of the situation was on this side of the scale. Once the boy was safely at home, his parents would probably have lost interest in the prosecution, and the police, busy with many graver matters, would probably have been content with convicting the actual messengers, the only ones against whom there was direct evidence. These men might have expected moderate terms of imprisonment and the whole affair would have been soon forgotten.

But Little Joe was not released. The days dragged by, while the men in the Tombs were questioned, threatened, cajoled and besought. One and all they pretended to know nothing of the whereabouts of Joe Varotta. More than a week went by while the parents of the child grew more and more hysterical and finally gave up all but their prayers, convinced that only divine intervention could avail them. Was little Joe alive or dead? They did not know. They had asked the good St. Anthony’s aid and probably he would give them his answer soon.

At seven o’clock on the morning of July eleventh, John Derahica, a Polish laborer, went down to the beach near Piermont, a settlement just below Nyack, in quest of driftwood. The tide was low in the Hudson, and Derahica had no trouble reaching the end of a small pier which extended out into the stream at this point. Just beyond, in about three feet of water, he found the body of a little boy, caught hold of the loose clothing with a stick, and brought it out.

Derahica made haste to Piermont and summoned the local police chief, E. H. Stebbins. The body was carried to a local undertaker’s and was at once suspected of being that of the missing Italian child. The next night Sergeant Fiaschetti and Salvatore Varotta arrived at Piermont and went to see the body, which had meantime been buried and then exhumed when the coming of the New York officer was announced.