While the battle of affidavits grew warmer in Boston, Ehrmann was making daily shuttle runs across the placid countryside to Providence and New Bedford. He had become convinced that the Morelli gang alone was at the bottom of the South Braintree crime, and each trip he made seemed to him to make this more certain.
The same day that Thompson was having his second session with Jimmy Weeks, Ehrmann questioned the New Bedford police captain, Ralph Pieraccini. The captain listened quietly to the lawyer’s request for information about Mike Morelli, but came to life when Madeiros’ confession was mentioned. “We’d better have Jake in,” he said.
Jake turned out to be Sergeant Ellsworth Jacobs, who in 1920 had been a department inspector. When he heard Ehrmann’s request he slipped out and came back with his 1920 notebook which he opened to the entry: “R.I. 154E, Buick touring car, Mike Morell.” This, he explained, meant that a few day before April 15, 1920, he had seen Morelli driving what looked to be a new Buick touring car. Knowing Mike, he suspected the car was stolen and wrote down the license number. On the afternoon of April 15 he caught a glimpse of the same car sometime between five and five-thirty. The license plate was the same, R.I. 154E.
On the afternoon of April 12 he saw a Cole Eight touring car with the license plate R.I. 154E parked in front of Joe Fiore’s restaurant at the comer of Kempton and Purchase streets. “The whole thing looked fishy,” Jacobs told Ehrmann, “so I went into the restaurant to inquire, although I was not on duty at the time. At a table inside I saw four men who looked like Italians, one of whom was Frank Morell. The men at the table were extremely nervous when they saw me come in. I can’t say just what it was, but they acted apprehensive of something. One of the Italians whom I remember distinctly was a short heavy-set man with a wide, square face, high cheekbones, smooth shaven and dark brown hair. I can never forget that man’s face. As I approached the group, this man made a movement with his hand towards his pocket and I thought he was going to draw a gun. As I was unarmed at the time I was badly scared, but tried not to show it. Fortunately, Frank spoke up and relieved the situation somewhat.
“‘What’s the matter, Jake?’ he said quickly. ‘What do you want with me? Why are you picking on me all the time?’
“‘Look here, Frank,’ I said, ‘there’s a Cole car downstairs with a number-plate that I’ve seen on your Buick car that Mike’s been driving. How did that happen?’” At that the bunch eased up somewhat.
“‘Oh,’ said Frank, ‘that’s a dealer’s plate. You see, I’m in the automobile business and we just transfer plates from one car to another.’
“At that time I had no way of contradicting Frank, so I left the restaurant and talked the matter over later with Ralph Pieraccini. At the time of the South Braintree murders and payroll robbery he and I had suspected the Morells, especially on account of Mike and the Buick car so that the actions of that bunch at Fiore’s made us more suspicious. Shortly after that, however, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested and as I had no definite evidence, I dropped the matter. I never saw Frank again since approximately that time, but Mike hung around New Bedford for possibly a year afterwards.”
Ehrmann fitted another piece to his puzzle when he visited John Richards, now adjutant general of Rhode Island. Richards, a big-boned solid man with slate-colored eyes and a yellow mustache, had been in his youth a soldier of fortune, and even as a middle-aged United States marshal he had not lost his taste for excitement. Several times he had shot it out with the Morelli gang in the shadows of the Providence freight yards.
Listening to Ehrmann, Richards became instantly sympathetic to this young, dark-eyed lawyer, so different from him in temperament and physique and racial background. Ehrmann showed him Weeks’ affidavit and Richards agreed that the composition of the gang was as Weeks had made out: Joe, the oldest and the leader; Pasquale or Patsy; Frank; Fred or Butsy; Bibber Barone; Gyp the Blood. They had owned a Cole touring car and also a Reo truck. In a later affidavit Richards admitted that, like Weeks, he had confused Fred Morelli with Frank and that it was the latter who had been nicknamed Butsy. Richards recalled two other gang members, Paulo Rosso and Tony Mancini. There had also been a pair of young hijackers who were handy with cars: a light-complexioned man named Raymond McDevitt and another known as Steve the Pole. Both had since been killed in gunfights.