The road to the Lindbergh estate was called Featherbed Lane; but the winding, rutted dirt path was hardly rest-inducing. In fact, it woke me out of a sound sleep I’d been enjoying since shortly after leaving Grand Central Station, at 10:00 A.M., where the Twentieth Century Limited had deposited me into the care of a stuffy, well-stuffed Britisher named Oliver Whately.
Tall, rawboned yet fleshy looking, dark hair thinning and slicked back, Whately was Colonel Lindbergh’s butler, not a chauffeur, and he seemed to resent the duty. I’d tried to make conversation, and got back a combination of stiff upper lip and cold shoulder, so I buttoned my lip, settled my shoulder against the door of the tan Franklin sedan, and began sawing logs.
I needed the sleep. I’d been up much of the night, moving from the smoking car to the dining car, drinking too heavily for my own good. The Chicago P.D. had predictably seen fit to buy me the cheapest accommodations possible-frankly, I counted myself lucky I wasn’t in the baggage compartment-and I had slept only fitfully, in my Pullman upper.
But it wasn’t the accommodations, really. It was me. I was nervous. I’d never been east before, and certainly never met anybody as famous as Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh-except maybe Al Capone, and we hadn’t really met, had we? Besides which, Lindbergh was one of the few men on this disreputable planet that a Chicago cynic like yours truly couldn’t help but admire.
Only a few years older than me, Lindbergh was, of course, one of the most famous and admired men in the world. Five short years ago he’d piloted his tiny, single-engine plane-the Spirit of St. Louis-across the Atlantic Ocean; this 3,610-mile jaunt-the first solo nonstop flight from New York to Paris-had made the gangling, unassuming youth (twenty-five years old at the time) an immediate international celebrity. Without meaning to, he won hundreds of awards and medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Congressional Medal of Honor. Judging by the papers and newsreels, he was a quiet, even shy midwestern boy who’d managed to give Americans a hero in an age of immorality and corruption.
I didn’t believe in heroes, yet Lindbergh was a hero to me, too. I felt strangely embarrassed about this, and oddly uncomfortable about going to meet him; and uneasy about encountering him at such a sad, desperate point in his life.
“Sour land,” Whately said, suddenly, in a bass voice that rattled the windows of the sedan, and shook me from half-awake to fully.
“What?”
Whately repeated himself, and it turned out to be one word, not two: “Sourland-sometimes known as the ‘lost land.’” The butler, dressed in funereal black, sitting back regally from the wheel, nodded his big head toward his window at the tangled thickness of woods through which the long black-mud private lane had been cut.
“They say,” he said, “that Hessian soldiers fell prey to the maze of these woods, and, giving up, settled here.” He looked at me ominously. “They mixed their blood with Indians’.”
He said this as if he were referring to a laboratory experiment, not some good-natured redskin nookie.
“Later, runaway slaves hid in the Sourland Mountains,” he added, darkly.
I made a clicking sound in my cheek. “I bet some more blood got mixed, too.”
Whately nodded, his expression grave. “The descendants of the Hessians and their interbred rabble live in tar-paper shacks and caves in these hills and mountains.”
“Funny neighborhood to stick a fancy house in,” I offered.
“The Colonel chose the location from the air,” Whately said, shifting gears on the sedan and the conversation. He sounded matter-of-fact, dismissing from consideration the wild bands of mixed-blood hillbillies he’d summoned up. He lifted one large hand off the wheel and painted in the air. “Colonel and Mrs. Lindbergh chose the crest of a knoll, higher than fog could disrupt.”
“He has a landing strip, then?”
Whately nodded. “Even this dirt road itself discourages travelers and sightseers. The Colonel likes his privacy. A remote estate is a necessity for the Lindberghs.”
“And a liability.”
He turned his head slowly and looked at me down his long nose, which was quite a trip. “Pardon?”
“Stuck out in the middle of nowhere, they’re an easy target. For cutthroat mix-breed hillbillies, say-or a kidnapper.”
Whately snorted and turned his attention back to driving.
Autos and ambulances swarmed the roadsides by the whitewashed stone wall with wrought-iron gate. Some of the cars bore the cachet of a particular news service, while the ambulances were an old press trick: they’d been converted to mobile photo labs-retaining their sirens, of course, to ensure getting where they needed to as fast as possible. Standing out in the bitter March air, mixing cigar and cigarette smoke with that of their breaths, were hundreds of reporters and photographers and newsreel cameramen, gathered like flies at a dead animal. An abandoned ramshackle farmhouse, well outside the gate but in sight of it, was providing shelter for dozens of newshounds.
Several New Jersey troopers stood on guard at the gate. They looked as crisp as the Sourland weather, light-blue uniform jackets, leather-visored caps, yellow-striped riding britches.
“They look like chorus boys in The Student Prince,” I said.
Whately arched an eyebrow in what seemed to be agreement, as they passed us through.
More than a house, less than a mansion, the Lindbergh home, standing alone on a patch of ground cleared out of the dense woods, was a rambling, twin-gabled, two-and-a-half-story structure facing the forests and hills of the Sourland. Featherbed Lane came up behind the whitewashed fieldstone house, like an intruder; then the lane opened into a wide court and swung around its west side, into a smaller paved court cluttered with automobiles. A picket fence halfheartedly surrounded the sprawling, French-manor-style house and gave it a homey, civilized touch, as did the windmill that spun sporadically in the bitter breeze; but none of it quite compensated for the loneliness of the wilderness-surrounded site.
The place looked unfinished. Other than the landing strip beyond what would be the front yard, no landscaping had yet been done-the grounds were a barren patchwork of snow and weeds and dirt. And the windows, most of them, lacked curtains.
“When did the Lindberghs move in?” I asked Whately, as he pulled the sedan to a stop.
“They’ve only been spending weekends here,” he said.
“For how long?” I didn’t figure this place had been habitable longer than a month or two.
Whately confirmed that: “Since January.”
“Where do they spend the rest of their time?”
Whately frowned, as one might when a child asks repetitious and pointless questions. “Next Day Hill.”
“What’s that?”
“The Morrow estate. At Englewood. If you’ll just come with me.”
He got out of the sedan and so did I. The day was gray and cold and I was glad I’d brought my gloves. Whately got my traveling bag out of the back of the sedan and handed it to me. I thought maybe he’d carry it, but then he wasn’t my butler, was he?
I followed the tall, fleshy Britisher to the three-car garage, one door of which he swung open to reveal a herd of cops at work in a makeshift command post. It was Sunday afternoon, but nobody had the day off. A trooper at a switchboard was frantically transferring calls to a nearby picnic table of plain-clothesmen working a bank of phones, while at two other picnic tables, uniformed troopers sorted mail into various piles, with the discards going into already well-filled barrels. A pair of teletype machines chattered, spewing paper onto a cement floor crawling with snakes of telephone wires and electrical cords; the smell of cigarette and cigar smoke mingled with that of steaming hot coffee.
“This, sir,” Whately said to me, infusing “sir” with more disrespect than one syllable ought to be able to convey, “is where police personnel congregate.”
“Hey,” I said, “I’m supposed to talk to…”
But Whately was outside, pulling the garage door down, shutting me and my question-the final unspoken word of which was “Lindbergh”-inside.
A potbellied, bullet-headed flatfoot pushing fifty, with hard tiny eyes behind wire-frame glasses and a face as rumpled as his brown suit, approached me with something less than enthusiasm.
“Who are you?” he said, in a half-yelled monotone. “What do you want?”
I thought I better show him my badge. I set down my bag and did.
“Heller,” I said. “Chicago P.D.”
He just looked at me. Didn’t glance at the badge. Then, slowly, the gash where his mouth should be turned up at one corner-in amusement, or disgust, or both.
“I’m here to see the Colonel,” I said.
“We have several colonels here, sonny boy.”
I let that pass. Put away my shield. “Are you in charge?”
“Colonel Schwarzkopf is in charge.”
“Okay. Let me talk to that colonel, then.”
“He’s in conference with Colonel Lindbergh and Colonel Breckinridge.”
“Well, tell them Colonel Heller’s here.”
He tapped my chest with a hard forefinger. “You’re not funny, sonny boy. And you’re not wanted here, either. You’re not needed. Why don’t you go back to Chicago with the rest of the lowlife crooks?”
“Why don’t you kiss my rosy-red ass?” I suggested cheerfully.
The tiny eyes got wide. He started to reach out for me.
“Don’t put your hands on me, old man,” I said. I lifted one eyebrow and one forefinger, in a gesture of friendly advice.
The eyes of thirty-some state cops were on me as I stood toe to toe with one of their own, probably a fucking inspector or something, getting ready to go a few rounds.
A bad moment that could get worse.
I raised both my hands, palms out, backed up and smiled. “Sorry,” I said. “I had a long trip, and I’m a little washed-out. Everybody’s under the gun here, everybody’s nerves are a little ragged. Let’s not have any trouble, or the press boys will make us all look like chumps.”
The inspector (if that’s what he was) thought that over, and then said, “Just leave the command post,” stiffly, loud enough to save some face. “You’re not wanted here.”
I nodded and picked up my bag and found my way out.
Shaking my head at the inspector’s stupidity, and my own, I knocked at the door adjacent to the big garage. I was about to knock a second time when the door cracked open. A pale, pretty female face peeked out; her bobbed hair was as dark as her big brown eyes, which bore a sultriness at odds with her otherwise apple-cheeked wholesome good looks.
“Yes, sir?” she asked, in a lilting Scots burr tinged with apprehension.
I took off my hat and smiled politely. “I’m a police officer, here from Chicago. Colonel Lindbergh requested…”
“Mr. Heller?”
“Yes,” I said, brightly, enjoying being recognized as a human being, and a specific one at that. “Nathan Heller. I have identification.”
She smiled wearily but winningly. “Please come in, Mr. Heller. You’re expected.”
Taking my topcoat, hat and gloves, she said, “I’m Betty Gow. I work for the Lindberghs.”
“You were the boy’s nurse.”
She nodded and turned her back, before I could ask anything else, and I followed her through what was apparently a sitting room for servants-though no one was using the magazines, radio, card table or comfy furnishings, at the moment-into a connecting hall. Following her shapely rear end as it twitched under the simple blue-and-white print dress was the most fun I’d had today.
In a kitchen larger than my one-room apartment back home, a horse-faced woman of perhaps fifty, wearing cook’s whites, was doing dishes. At a large round oak table, seated with her hands folded as if praying, sat a petite, delicately attractive young woman-perhaps twenty-five-with beautiful haunted blue eyes and a prim, slight, sad smile. A small cup of broth and a smaller cup of tea were before her, apparently untouched.
I swallowed and stopped in my tracks. I recognized her at once as Colonel Lindbergh’s wife, Anne.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“Mrs. Lindbergh,” Betty said, gesturing formally toward me. “This is Mr. Nathan Heller, of the Chicago Police.”
Betty Gow exited, while Anne Morrow Lindbergh stood, before I could ask her not to, and extended her hand. I took it-her flesh was cool, her smile was warm.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Heller. I know my husband is looking forward to meeting you.”
She wore a plain navy-blue frock with a white collar; her dark hair was tied back with a blue plaid scarf.
“I’m looking forward to meeting him,” I said. “And it’s an honor meeting you, ma’am. I wish it were under happier circumstances.”
Her smile tightened, bravely but not convincingly. “With the help of men like yourself, perhaps happier circumstances will find us.”
“I hope so, ma’am.”
There was a sudden sparkle in the sad eyes. “You needn’t call me ‘ma’am,’ Mr. Heller, though I do appreciate the sentiment. Are you tired from your trip? You must be. I’m afraid you missed lunch…we’ll have to get you something.”
That touched me; I felt my eyes go moist, and I fought it, but goddamn it, it touched me. Everything this woman had been through, these past four or five days, and she could still express concern-real concern-about whether my trip had been pleasant, and if I’d missed my lunch.
And then she was up and rummaging in the Frigidaire herself, while the woman who was apparently her cook continued wordlessly to wash dishes. “I hope a sandwich will be all right,” Mrs. Lindbergh was saying.
“Please, uh…you don’t have to…”
She looked over her shoulder at me. “Heller’s a Jewish name, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes. But my mother was Catholic.” Why did I sound defensive, for Christ’s sake?
“So you eat ham, then?”
So much for the discussion of my religious persuasion.
“Sure,” I said.
Soon I was sitting at the table next to a beaming Anne Lindbergh, who was enjoying watching me eat the ham-and-cheddar-cheese sandwich she’d prepared for me. It wasn’t a bad sandwich at all, though personally I prefer mustard to mayonnaise.
“I’m sorry you have to wait to see Charles,” she said, sipping her tea (she’d provided me with some, as well). “But things are hectic here, as you might imagine.”
I nodded.
“Actually, it’s settled down, some, the last two days. Those first several days were sheer bedlam. Hundreds of men stamping in and out, sitting everywhere…on the stairs, on the sink. People sleeping all over the floors on newspapers and blankets.”
“The press is a problem, I suppose.”
“Terrible,” she admitted. “But the troopers are keeping them at bay…and, in their defense, the news people were cooperative when I gave them Charlie’s diet.”
Charlie, of course, was her missing son.
“They published it widely,” she said, with satisfaction. “He has a cold, you know.” She swallowed, smiled her prim, charming smile and said, “I admire men like you, Mr. Heller.”
I almost did a spit take. “Me?”
“Such self-sacrifice and energy. Such selfless devotion.”
She sure had me pegged.
“You brought a mother and a child back together,” she said, “didn’t you?”
“Well…yes, but…”
“You needn’t be modest. You can’t know the hope that gives us, Charles and me.”
She reached out for my hand and squeezed it.
Had I given her false hope? Maybe. But maybe false hope was better than no hope at all.
“Excuse me,” a voice behind us said.
The voice came from the doorway that led to the sitting room and outside; it was a male voice, so my first thought was of Lindbergh himself. Instead it belonged to a square-jawed six-footer about forty with dark blond hair combed straight back and a small, perfectly trimmed and waxed mustache. He was in an officer’s variation of that blue uniform with yellow-striped riding britches; all he lacked was a riding crop, a monocle and a saber.
“Colonel Schwarzkopf,” Anne Lindbergh said, without rising, “this is Nathan Heller of the Chicago Police Department.”
Schwarzkopf nodded, resisting any urge to click his heels. “Mr. Heller-if I might have a moment?”
“Colonel,” Anne said, troubled by Schwarzkopf’s expression and tone, “I thought you were in conference with Charles.”
“Yes, Mrs. Lindbergh. But he and Colonel Breckinridge needed a word in private. Mr. Heller?”
I thanked Anne Lindbergh for her kindness in general and her ham sandwich in particular. Schwarzkopf bowed to her, in his silly formal way, and the two of us stepped into the room beyond the kitchen, a spacious well-stocked pantry.
He looked at me with disdain. “I don’t know how you people do things in Chicago. Judging by what I read in the newspapers, you don’t do them very damn well. Murder in the street. Corruption in city hall. It took the federals to nail Capone.”
“This is fascinating, learning all about Chicago like this. But don’t I have an appointment with Colonel Lindbergh?”
He trained his hazel eyes on me like the twin barrels of a twelve-gauge. “In New Jersey, I run a force of one hundred and twenty hand-picked, highly motivated and rigidly disciplined men.” He thumped my chest with a forefinger-just like that inspector out in the garage had. “You’re in my territory, mister. You’ll play by my rules, or you won’t play at all.”
I grabbed his finger in my fist; I didn’t squeeze it, I didn’t get tough with him. I just grabbed the finger and stopped him thumping me with it. His eyes and nostrils flared.
“Don’t put your hands on me,” I advised. “You might get your uniform mussed.”
I let go of the finger and he drew it back, indignantly.
Through clenched teeth, he said, “You were rude and disrespectful to one of my key people, Inspector Welch, who is no doubt twice the policeman you’ll ever be. You used coarse language of a kind that may be acceptable in Chicago circles, but will not, mister, be countenanced here-not in my world.”
I smiled pleasantly. “Colonel Schwarzkopf, let me make a couple things clear. First of all, I’m just here to advise and to help, because several people wanted me to come, including Colonel Lindbergh. Second, that asshole Welch called me ‘sonny boy,’ twice. Do I look like a refugee from a Jolson picture to you?”
That froze him. He did not know what to say to me. He did not know what to make of me. He just knew, whatever I was, he didn’t like it or me.
“I don’t think you’re going to fare very well with Colonel Lindbergh,” he said, finally, with an icy smile.
“Well,” I said, shrugging. “Why don’t you lead the way, and let’s see.”
Nodding curtly, he did.