The Reward

Chicago had arctic weather on Dec. 9, 1932; when big, red-faced Traffic Police man William D. Lundy went off duty in mid-afternoon it was 11DEG below zero in the drab Southwest Side. Shivering, he headed for Vera Walush's delicatessen, a cheap speakeasy, and stamped through into the dark kitchen in the rear.

As he stood beside the coal range, a trucker named John Zagata came in.

Blond, blowzy Vera Walush poured out two shots of raw moonshine, served them.

Then she screamed. Zagata dived for a side door. Two gunmen who had silently appeared in the kitchen entrance killed Policeman Lundy by firing seven revolver slugs into his big body.

Police Record. Mayor Anton Cermak, who was trying to get Chicago's mildewed reputation scrubbed up for the World's Fair, clamored for a crime cleanup. But the police turned up little except neighborhood rumor: a man named Ted Marcinkiewicz had threatened to hold up Vera's speakeasy. By Dec. 22, when detectives went to see a thick-lipped, black-haired youth named Joe Majczek, the case seemed to be falling apart.

Joe had a police record. At the urging of two older men he had once joined in a warehouse burglary, got a suspended sentence. But Joe said that had cured him. Joe was married and was working at what ever depression jobs he could find.

He had spent the afternoon of the murder packing coal into his house. As he talked to the detectives, his wife and father-in-law stood anxiously by, corroborating his story. The cops asked him if he had seen Ted Marcinkiewicz. Joe told them Ted, a former schoolmate, had spent the night of Dec. 9 at his house.

A Brightly Lighted Room. After that Joe Majczeks life became a nightmare. The cops took him off to jail, put him in a small, brightly lighted room. After a while a policeman brought in Vera Walush. She looked at Joe, said, "I know that's not the man." Joe was led out.

"For God's sake," he implored, "what's happening to me?" His guards stared at him sheepishly. An hour later he was led back into the bright lights, listened to Vera Walush saying, brokenly, "Yes. Yes, that's the man." Vera did not look at him.

When he was indicted for murder, his frantic family hired a lawyer whose name, they had seen in newspaper crime stories, a stocky, drunken gangland attorney named William W. O'Brien. The state's whole case rested on Vera Walush's testimony but O'Brien, unsteady with drink, did not question it. Joe pleaded for a chance to go on the stand himself. O'Brien waved him off. The jury's verdict: guilty --99 years in the penitentiary.

Even then Joe could not quite believe what was happening to him. The judge, obviously disturbed during the trial, had called Vera Walush into his chambers, baldly charged her with lying on the stand. He told Joe: "I'm going to see that you get a new trial." But the State's Attorney's office did not agree. Joe got no new trial. Numbly, he kissed his wife and newborn son, became Convict 8356E, a lifer at Joliet.

The Passing Years. His bewildered, Polish-born mother, Mrs. Tillie Majczek set out to save him. She knew criminals always wanted money--if she offered a big reward, maybe one would tell on the killer. She began scrubbing floors in office buildings to raise the money. The years passed, and her savings grew slowly.

Joe's wife gave up, divorced him with his troubled consent, married another man. Joe's mother went on. She got help from others in the family; after Joe's brother was drafted, he sent his allotment checks to the reward fund.

One day last autumn, after eleven years, Mrs. Majczek was ready. She ran a classified ad in the Chicago Daily Times: $5,OOO REWARD FOR KILLERS OF OFFICER LUNDY ON DEC. 9, 1932. CALL GRO 1758, 12-7 P.M.

Compost Heap. The Times'snewsroom spotted the story. Next day a slim, dark-haired reporter named James McGuire visited Mrs. Majczek, listened as she told her story in broken English. The Times refused her offer of the $5,000, began raking over the forgotten files of the Lundy case, uncovered a legal compost heap.

Reporters sought out witnesses. Bessie Barren, who had been a friend of Vera Walush, talked: Vera had admitted the cops had forced her to identify Joe falsely. Zagata, the trucker, told of being called into the judge's chambers, of hearing the judge say he believed Joe was innocent.

Last week, in a grey prison-made suit, with $10 of the state's money in his pocket, Joe Majczek walked out of the penitentiary a free man. His hair was greying. He talked gently. He looked at the trees, at passing girls, and said, "They never looked so nice before.

He walked into his mother's house. "My life was messed up," he said. "Maybe I can help my boy make something of his. I want my people to be proud of me." Proudly, Tillie Majczek sat in her front room with its bright, ugly rugs, its immaculate curtains, and looked at him, her hands folded in her lap.

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