Besides, Curley Guy was in no position to face investigation. In his attempt to establish American citizenship (to which he had no legal right whatsoever) he had been cutting numerous corners. A humble seaman-navigator aboard the palatial Vincent Astor yacht, he had jumped ship some months before when the vessel was docked near Los Angeles. Then, he had registered and voted at the recent elections — in order to make himself eligible for a pilot’s or a navigator’s license — then only granted to American citizens.
A grayish raincoat was found among his meager effects and the police then marked the case Closed. There were various identification parades, held both at the Times offices and at police headquarters, some without Guy being present. But several important witnesses identified his raincoat — which they had seen through a twelve-inch porthole on the Carma on a dark and foggy night, if at all. Guy was given the nitrate-paraffin test and passed it, but the police explained that too much time had elapsed and that in the meantime he might have washed his hands, or even at the time of the murder he might have worn gloves — though never did anybody in officialdom suggest that the same ruse might have been used by any other potential suspect.
The case, which had up until this time been largely centered in a newspaper office, finally came to preliminary hearing (Guy was booked December 13) and the comedy of errors got into full swing. Before a magistrate, the lovely Aloha Wanderwell, who had been very dry-eyed all this time, gave her testimony. She also smiled encouragingly at the prisoner all the while, which mightily confused the press who were properly trying to build her up as the bereaved widow. Also smiling and nodding to him was pretty Marian Smith, the girl from Atlanta who thought that she had seen somebody like him through the porthole on the fatal night, but wasn’t too sure...
What really flabbergasted the working press was the fact that after the hearing was over, the beauteous Aloha walked across the room and made a point of warmly shaking hands with the prisoner and whispering a few words to him. It was certainly evident at the time that there were no hard feelings anywhere. It made no sense to the boys on the Times — nor to us on the Herald-Express, the opposition paper, who naturally resented being caught off base. With the arrest of Curley Guy reporter Williams and his friend Lieutenant Filkas had scooped everybody in town. But the thing was just beginning...
The trial of William James (Curley) Guy opened February 3, 1933 in Long Beach, with Judge Robert W. Kenny (more recently Attorney General of the State of California and now a prominent attorney specializing in labor law and relations) presiding. At the request of the city editor of the Herald-Express, I was assigned to cover the highlights of the trial. This may have been because of, or in spite of, the fact that my early stories on the case had accented my belief that Curley Guy was innocent — at least of the crime for which he had been indicted. I had even gone so far as to begin one story with the famous Gallic cliché, “Cherchez la Femme!”
Weeks ahead of the trial our opposition paper, the Times, intimated that Curley Guy was guilty all over its front pages. The Herald-Express inclined toward the opposite viewpoint — not only because of my own hunch but because Bill Moore, their regular police-reporter, agreed that the case against Guy was as full of holes as a Swiss cheese. The thing became a battle between two great rival newspapers, with no holds barred.
Meanwhile, the ceremonies attendant on the burial of Captain Walter Wanderwell — né Valerian Johannes Riecynski — had taken place with considerable fanfare; ceremonies from which the working press were excluded but which must have been something for the book. The body had been cheaply cremated in Long Beach, then taken back aboard the old schooner and in the midst of a rainstorm and a howling gale had been transported out to sea, with the full crew aboard. Since the Carma could not yet move under her own power of either sails or auxiliaries, she was lashed to a fishing vessel, aptly named the Sunshine 2nd, and ignominiously hauled out past the breakwater. The remains were wrapped in a flag — whether that of the United States, of his native Poland or something like his uniforms designed especially for the occasion is not recorded — and consigned to the deep. Then when it came time to play Taps it was found that no bugle was aboard! But by that time most of the disillusioned mourners were too seasick to care. On the way home the fifteen Argonauts got together and unanimously agreed to call off the projected tour to story-book islands of the South Seas.
Besides, most of them had been subpoenaed for the trial of Curley Guy and they wouldn’t have missed that for anything.
Judge Kenny, looking like an Alaskan billikin or an Oriental Buddha, dominated the proceedings. The Judge ruled with cautious fairness — though some of the newspapermen who lunched with him gathered that in his private opinion he felt rather sure that the trial was a dry run; there would be no victory for the State.
Representing the defense was Eugene McGann, a fine old Irish warhorse in the tradition of Fallon and Jerry Geisler, who operated from the beginning as if he knew that he had the world by the tail with a downhill drag. From whence came his fee — which must have been considerable — nobody knows. It is part of the record that Guy was down to his last ten dollars when arrested. Nor did our defendant pad his coffers by signing up with any one of the numerous newspapers and press services who would have gladly paid him plenty for his “life story” (to be ghost-written of course by some hack sob-sister) as has happened in so many other murder cases. Curley Guy played it close to his chest, but I said in print then and I still maintain that he played it like a man in a poker game who had two aces showing and one in the hole.
Buron Fitts, a prominent legal light at the time, was then District Attorney of Los Angeles, and his jurisdiction covered the scene of the crime. But at the last minute he decided to send in this third team, a couple of bright young men fresh out of law school. Bill Brayton and Clarence Hunt carried the case for the People, doing their level best with what they had — which wasn’t too much. There was a faint uncertainty about their courtroom manner — they went through their roles and read their lines in a manner which reminded me of the old story of Eugene Field as dramatic critic who said of Mr. Creston Clarke as King Lear that he “played the King as if he momentarily expected someone to play the Ace.”
The two were bright and able young men and they had a true bill presented by a picked grand jury. But I always felt that they realized that the facts of the Wanderwell killing were still obscured and deep beneath the surface. They did their best, but they had to sit in on a tough poker game with nothing better than two pairs.
And Curley Guy had an ace in the hole, as I wrote at the time and still maintain.
On the opening day of the trial at Long Beach, thanks to the fact that while I was a pro tern Herald-Express reporter I was allowed an interview with the prisoner in his cell, and later was permitted to walk with him and his aged, tobacco-chewing deputy sheriff several blocks through the busy streets of Long Beach to the courtroom. Guy was under no restraint; the old man wore a rusty .38 but certainly would never have used it in a crowd and probably hadn’t fired it in ten years or more anyway. It occurred to me at the time that Guy could easily have made a break for it anywhere along the way — the deputy in charge could have been pushed over with a nudge, and I for one would not have lifted a finger to stop the man, since I had already come to my own conclusions about who had actually shot Wanderwell — and who should be standing in the dock!