It was almost ten o’clock, the next morning, when I stumbled downstairs. The little fox terrier looked up from its perch on the living room couch and began barking hysterically at me. Next to the mutt was Anne Lindbergh, wearing a prim blue sweater-suit, sitting across from her mother, Mrs. Dwight Morrow; the latter was doing needlepoint, the former reading a small leather-bound book.
They began to get up and I asked them please not to.
Mrs. Morrow was a small woman in her late ffties, with her daughter’s delicate features; she wore a blue dress with white lace trim and pearls and a crucifix. Her hair was more brown than gray, though I would imagine it would be getting grayer as the days progressed.
“Wahgoosh!” Anne said sharply. “Be still.”
The dog stopped barking, but he continued to growl and give me his best evil eye.
“I understand you and Henry drove down to Virginia yesterday,” Anne said, smiling, “and back again.” She gestured for me to sit next to her on the couch and I did. Wahgoosh expressed snarling displeasure.
“That sounds like quite an outing for a single day,” Mrs. Morrow said.
“We didn’t get back till the middle of the night,” I admitted. “How worthwhile a trip it was, I couldn’t say.”
“You spoke to a clairvoyant, I understand,” Anne said.
Mrs. Morrow shook her head, barely, as if thinking, What next? and returned her attention to her needlepoint.
“Yes,” I said. “A sincere gentleman, I believe.”
“Not a faker, like so many of them.”
“No. But he gave us some specific information, including street names that we tried to check, on various maps, without any success.”
“I see,” Anne said, with a patient smile.
“What are you reading?” I asked.
“Ben Jonson.”
“Oh.”
“The poet.”
“Right.”
She read aloud: “‘Although it fall and die that night, it was the plant of flower and light. In small proportions we just beauties see; and in short measures, life may perfect be.’” She looked up at me with shimmering blue eyes and a crinkly brave smile. “I like that line…‘It was the plant of flower and light.’”
Jesus. Had she written off her kid as dead already?
“That’s a nice poem,” I said. “Tell me something…”
“Certainly.”
That fucking dog was still growling at me.
“Why do you think your dog was quiet that night?”
“Wahgoosh? He was in the opposite wing of the house. When he’s not on the sofa, here, where we really shouldn’t let him be…or sleeping on the floor in the nursery near Charlie…he has a little bed in the servants’ sitting room. Whately first brought him into the house, you know, and we sort of adopted the little fellow. He couldn’t have heard anything through the howling wind, all that distance.”
“You know…and excuse me for raising this, Mrs. Lindbergh…but there are those who suspect one of your three servants might be involved.”
She shook her head. “No. Betty and the others, we trust implicitly.”
“That’s not always a good way to trust.”
“Pardon?”
“Implicitly.” I turned to Anne’s mother. “Mrs. Morrow, how big a staff do you have at your estate?”
The older woman looked up from her needlepoint. “Twenty-nine. But I assure you, Mr. Heller, they’re all trustworthy.”
“I’m sure they are, Mrs. Morrow. But how many of them knew, or could have known, about the change of plans for Anne and her husband and son, to stay over an extra day or two here?”
Mrs. Morrow lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug, not missing a stitch. “Most of them. Perhaps all of them.”
I thought about that.
“You know, Mr. Heller,” Anne said, reflectively, “there was something else odd about that evening. The evening that Charlie was stolen away, I mean….”
“What was that, Mrs. Lindbergh?”
Her eyes tightened. “My husband was supposed to give a speech that night, to the alumni at New York University. But he’s been so overworked lately, he mixed up the dates. He drove home, instead.”
“You mean, he wasn’t supposed to be here that evening?”
“No.”
I leaned forward. “You realize that only someone within this household-or possibly the Morrow household-could have known that.”
“Yes. But that assumes the kidnappers knew. That this wasn’t all just a matter of…chance. Blind, dumb chance. That’s…that’s what I have so much difficulty accepting.”
Behind us a voice said, “Everything in life is chance, dear.”
It was Lindbergh. He was wearing a corduroy jacket over a sweater and open-collar shirt; his pants were tucked into leather boots that rose midcalf. He looked like a college boy-a hung-over college boy, that is. His face was haggard as hell.
He came up behind his wife, behind the couch, and placed a hand gently on her shoulder. She reached up and touched the hand, but did not look back at him.
“You can guard against the high percentage of chance,” he said, “but not against chance itself.”
She nodded wisely. She’d heard him say it before.
I said, “You’re right, Colonel. But don’t go writing off everything you don’t understand as happenstance. In my business we learn to look at coincidence with a jaundiced eye.”
He nodded, but I wasn’t sure he’d paid any attention. He said, “Have you had any breakfast, Nate?”
“No, sir.”
“Let’s round you something up. I’d like a word with you.”
We excused ourselves to the ladies. He walked briskly and I followed along, till he came to a sudden stop in the foyer, beyond earshot of his wife and mother-in-law.
“This fellow Red Johnson is being brought around today,” he said.
“Yes.”
“He isn’t technically under arrest, you know. The Hartford police have turned him over to the custody of the state police, here. He’ll be held in Newark.”
“Well, that’s good.”
He put his hands in his pockets, rocked gently on his feet. “This is going to be hard on Miss Gow, if this beau of hers was using her for information.”
I thought, Yeah, and so fucking what?
But I said, sympathetically, “Yes, I know.”
“You know, she was badly embarrassed when the papers were full of that Scotty Gow nonsense.”
The first several days after the kidnapping, the press and the cops of several cities had latched onto the notion that one Scotty Gow, a Purple Gang member in Detroit, was the brother of Betty Gow. Miss Gow had worked in Detroit, and Lindbergh’s mother lived in Detroit, so everybody put two and two together and came up with three hundred and five.
“He wasn’t her brother,” I said.
“Of course not. Understand, I’m in general pleased with Colonel Schwarzkopf’s handling of this situation, but this persistent, sometimes boorish questioning of my staff does not please me.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.
“I’d appreciate it, Nate, if you would do two things for me.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t pester my servants with questions-don’t be part of this inquisition. And let me know if you see Schwarzkopf or his chief bully, Inspector Welch, overstepping the line.”
“Sure. But, Slim…there is reason to suspect an insider was involved. The cops are just doing their job.”
“It’s silly,” he said impatiently. “This thing was obviously the work of seasoned professional criminals. This is the underworld’s doing, not my damn household staff!”
“The underworld could have recruited somebody from your…”
“Perhaps they recruited Red Johnson. But that’s as far as I can see it going. I’m going to keep out of the way of the police when they interrogate him, so be my eyes and ears, if you would.”
“Fine,” I said, surprised that he’d bow out of the Johnson questioning. “Is something else up?”
Then he headed into the kitchen, talking as he went.
“I’ll be tied up most of the afternoon with an in-law of mine,” he said. “There’s a possibility the kidnappers have tried to make contact with us through an outside party.”
“Really?”
“I can’t say any more, at this point, and please don’t mention what I just said to anyone.”
I nodded.
Then we were in the kitchen; Elsie Whately was slicing a cucumber on a wooden counter using a wide, thick knife. She smiled wanly at Lindbergh, who asked her to fix me some eggs and toast.
“How do you like them?” he asked me. He was getting a pitcher of orange juice out of the Frigidaire.
“Scramble the eggs and keep the toast light, if you would,” I told her.
Her mouth flinched in surly acknowledgment, and she left the cucumber half-sliced and went to work on my breakfast.
Lindbergh had poured us both full glasses of orange juice. He brought the pitcher to the table.
I sipped my juice, and he gulped his.
“You seem optimistic today,” I said.
“I am. It’s foolish to be any way at all-better to just take every day and move through it in a straight line. Win out over it.”
“I feel the same way,” I said. “Only I usually settle for breaking even.”
“By the way, I haven’t had any luck freeing up a hotel room for you. The reporters have everything locked up at Gebhart’s. And that’s the only hotel in Hopewell. I may be able to get you something at Princeton. It’s only ten miles from here, and I’ve a secondhand car for you, that the servants had been using for grocery shopping and such, before we went under siege. Now we’re having everything brought in.”
“Well, a car-that’s swell. I hope I prove worth all this trouble.”
“What kind of per diem are you on, Nate?”
“Four bucks a day.”
“Food?”
“And lodging.”
“I thought something like that might be the case.” He lowered his voice so the cook couldn’t hear. “I hope this won’t offend you…but I’d like you to accept fifty dollars a week from me, as long as you’re here, to help defray the expenses you’re going to have.”
I grinned. “You got it backwards, Slim. Chicago cops take offense when you don’t offer ’em money.”
He grinned back. “Okay,” he said. “Colonel Breckinridge will give you an envelope, each Friday.”
“Well, thanks. I hope I won’t have to collect many of those from you.”
Lindbergh poured himself another glass of orange juice. “Was your trip to see the fortune-teller worth the time?”
“I’m not sure.”
“That’s what Henry said.”
“I want to have a couple things checked out by the feds. Do you have a number where Agent Wilson can be reached in New York?”
“Yes,” Lindbergh said, and fished out a small black book; he gave me the number and I wrote it down in my notebook.
Then Lindbergh polished off his orange juice and, with a little wave and a shy smile, left me to my breakfast, served up by the sullen Elsie Whately. The eggs were dry and the toast was dark. Just as I was finishing up, Betty Gow came in to get herself a cup of coffee.
She looked very pretty, as usual, wearing a dark green dress with tiny white polka dots and a white collar; she was neat as a pin-neater. She glanced at me nervously, and, coffee cup in hand, was moving back toward the servants’ sitting room when I called out to her.
“Join me for a moment, won’t you, Miss Gow?”
She hesitated, and a flinch of a smile crossed her face; then she haltingly approached me and sat down.
“Say, Elsie,” I said, friendly as an election-year politician, “could I talk you out of a cup of that stuff?”
“Yes sir,” she said, unenthusiastically.
“Cream and sugar, Elsie?” Betty asked.
Elsie nodded curtly.
“How are you bearing up under all this, Miss Gow?” I asked.
“It’s a bit of a trial, isn’t it, Mr. Heller?”
“I wish you’d call me Nate.”
“All right.”
But she didn’t suggest I call her Betty.
Elsie brought me my coffee, and Betty the cream and sugar. Normally I drank mine black, but I stirred some sugar in, and cream, too. We’d both had Elsie’s coffee before.
“I understand your friend Red Johnson is dropping by today,” I said.
“I don’t think ‘dropping by’ is exactly how I’d put it.”
“He hasn’t been arrested.”
“No. But he’s in custody.” She added more sugar, stirred, looked into the muddy liquid.
“I hope you don’t mind talking, a little.”
Her smile was tight and pretty and sarcastic. “Do I have a choice?”
“Well, sure. You’re free, white and twenty-one…barely. And Colonel Lindbergh has asked me to help look into this.” Of course, he’d have me on the next train out of here if he knew I was ignoring his request to leave the help alone.
“It was my understanding,” she said, “that the Colonel only wants to get his son back. That pursuing those responsible is not his inclination, at this point.”
“I think that’s right. But I’m a cop, Miss Gow. I’d like to try to understand what happened that night.”
She sipped her coffee; her eyes looked right past me, cold, unblinking, and a bit bloodshot.
“You talked to Red Johnson on the telephone, didn’t you?” I asked. “The night of the kidnapping?”
She nodded. “He called me about eight-thirty. I tried to call Henry on the telephone at Englewood, before I left for Hopewell, but I couldn’t reach him-he wasn’t at his boardinghouse. So I left word for him to call me, in the evening, at Hopewell.”
“And he did.”
“Yes. We’d intended seeing each other that evening, but when he called, I told him how it happened that I wasn’t at the Morrow house. I told him…told him the baby had a cold.”
“How long had you known Johnson? When did you meet him?”
“I met him last summer. He had a job as a deckhand on the Reynard, the Lamont yacht.”
“Lamont yacht?”
“Thomas W. Lamont. He and the late Mr. Morrow were partners in J. P. Morgan and Company. The banking house? Last summer, last August to be exact, the yacht was anchored off North Haven, Maine, where the Morrows have a summer home. I was there with Mrs. Lindbergh and the baby. Henry used to play cards with the Morrow chauffeurs. One of them introduced us and we hit it off. Then, in the off-season, the Reynard was moored in the Hudson, near the Palisades. Which allowed us to continue seeing each other.”
“Were you two serious, Miss Gow?”
She shrugged; sipped her coffee. “We dated quite often. Boating, movies, dancing-the Palisades Amusement Park was nearby.”
“Were you engaged?”
“No. I like Henry, Mr. Heller. He’s a good-hearted bloke. I don’t think he’s capable of being involved in something like this. I know there’s speculation that he…used me to get information. I just don’t believe it.”
“Where does your loyalty lie, Miss Gow? With the Lindberghs, or with Henry Johnson?”
Her smile was thin as a razor slash. “Who do you think told the police where Henry could be found? If you’ll excuse me.”
She went into the servants’ sitting room; I followed her.
“Thanks for your time, Miss Gow,” I said.
She was sitting absently paging through a film magazine; she didn’t look up, didn’t respond.
I went outside.
The usual barely controlled chaos was afoot in the command-post garage; troopers were going through the mail, bags of which were piled against one wall. Inspector Welch, the hard-nosed, potbellied flatfoot who’d confronted me shortly after my arrival, met me as I was about to step inside.
“Are you still around?” he said.
“I seem to be. Where’s Schwarzkopf?”
“That’s Colonel Schwarzkopf to you, sonny boy.”
“That’s Mr. Sonny Boy to you, bud.” I brushed by him.
Schwarzkopf was leaning over the telephone switchboard, having a word with the trooper at that post. “Ah,” he said, spotting me, “Heller.” Almost glad to see me.
“Any news from the front?”
“Henry ‘Red’ Johnson is due here momentarily. Would you like to sit in on the interrogation?”
“Yes, thanks,” I said, realizing he wouldn’t have made the offer if Lindbergh hadn’t requested it. “Tell me, Colonel…is there any reason to think there might be a connection between this case and New Haven, Connecticut?”
That damn near startled him. “Actually, yes.”
That damn near startled me. “No kidding,” I said.
“Why do you ask, Heller?”
“That psychic in Virginia Beach mentioned New Haven.” That made him less interested, but he said, “A number of the workmen involved in the construction of this house were from New Haven. They were among the first people we questioned. Detective Heller, I realize you have a low opinion of the New Jersey State Police. But we have been, and continue to be, running a first-class investigation. Within the first forty-eight hours after the crime, we interrogated three hundred and twenty people, in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.”
“That’s a lot of interviews. I didn’t know you had the manpower.”
“We were, and are, stretched to the limit.”
“Who were those people you questioned?”
“The Lindbergh and Morrow household staffs, neighbors, delivery boys, carpenters and various workmen involved in the construction of the house…we’ve been very thorough.”
“Yeah, it sounds like it. Say, you think you could arrange an open phone line for me, Colonel?”
“Certainly.”
He walked me to one of the tables where troopers were manning phones and cleared a space for me. He stood there for a moment, until he realized I wasn’t going to place the call until he left.
I used the number Lindbergh had given me and got Treasury Agent Frank J. Wilson on the first try.
“What’s going on out there, Heller?”
“We’re about to have a talk with Red Johnson.”
“The Norwegian sailor? Found a milk bottle in his rumble seat, I hear.”
“Right. You boys checking up on him?”
“Not us, but I understand J. Edgar’s crew is checking on his immigration status.”
“Not a bad idea. Would you like a lead?”
“Why not? We’re not getting any help from Schwarzkopf, that’s for damn sure.”
“You found Capone’s boy, Bob Conroy, yet?”
“No.”
“You said witnesses put Conroy in New Haven, Connecticut, that night, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, apparently this house was built by workers from New Haven. Schwarzkopf was suspicious enough to send his state cops in there doing an investigative sweep.”
“That is interesting.”
“Also-and this is a long shot, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t ask me my source…but see if you can find an Adams Street and/or a Scharten Street, in New Haven. And maybe a section of town called Cordova.”
The line went silent; he was writing it down.
“Okay,” he said. “Anything else?”
“If you get anything, call here and leave word for me to call you. If there is an Adams or a Scharten Street, I’ll give you more specifics.”
“Fair enough. I appreciate your cooperation, Heller.”
“That’s okay, Agent Wilson.”
“Make it Frank.”
“Okay, Frank. I can always use a friend in the IRS.”
“Just keep an eye on Schwarzkopf. He’s a rank amateur. Don’t let his military bearing fool you-between graduating West Point and falling into law enforcement, he served a hitch as a department-store floorwalker.”
“Impressive credentials.”
“He’s never patrolled a beat or arrested a criminal in his life. He’s in way over his head, Heller.”
“Well, if he starts going down for the third time, I’ll throw him something nice and heavy.”
“That would be my advice,” Wilson said.
After I’d hung up, I joined Schwarzkopf, who was conferring with the bullet-headed Welch. “Any sign of our wandering sailor boy?” I asked.
“Yes,” Schwarzkopf said. “He’s arrived.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“You noticed the contractor’s shack just inside the gates?”
The small shack had been used as a guard outpost for troopers, primarily to keep reporters and sightseers at bay.
“Sure,” I said.
“We’re going to question him there.”
“Away from the house and Colonel Lindbergh, you mean.”
“Right.” Schwarzkopf gestured to Inspector Welch. “I want you two men to start fresh. I can’t have any animosity among my men.”
I was his man, now? Lindbergh must’ve really lowered the boom.
“No hard feelings,” I said, and extended my hand to Welch.
We shook hands, exchanged insincere smiles and followed Schwarzkopf to a patrol car. A trooper drove us to the weatherbeaten shack, the inside of which wasn’t much bigger than an outhouse. Two troopers stood guard over a man in a straight-back chair. The troopers looked spiffy; the man did not. It was cold and everybody’s breath smoked.
Husky, freckled, his hair a dark reddish brown not unlike my own, Betty Gow’s sailor looked tired and frazzled; in his early twenties, ruggedly good-looking, he wore a light-blue work-shirt and dark-blue trousers, clothes obviously slept in.
“The Hartford police have turned you over to us, Johnson,” Schwarzkopf said, planting himself before the suspect like a cop directing traffic. “You know why you’re here.”
“I don’t know nothing’ bout Lindbergh kidnap.” He had a thick, rather melodious accent-Swedish or Norwegian or something.
“You’ll have to prove that,” Welch said, poking him in the chest with a hard finger.
“Tell us where you were,” Schwarzkopf said, “and what you did on the night of March first of this year.”
Johnson sighed, wearily. “Oh kay. On night of kidnap, I meet friend of mine, Johannes Junge, ’bout eight o’clock.”
“Who is this Junge?”
“He live in Englewood. Husband of seamstress at Morrow house. We take short drive in my car-sometime ’round quarter of nine, I call here and ask speak to Betty.”
“How did you know she was here?”
“I had date with Betty for Tuesday, but I call earlier and learn Betty would not be in Englewood that night. Baby have cold. Lindberghs, they decide best not to make baby make trip between two homes.”
“So you called Betty Gow.”
“Yes. She ask, what’s big idea? I said, oh, I just thought I call you up and tell you I’m sorry not to be seeing you tonight. She say, oh, I see. I say, how is baby? She say, I think he going to be all right. I say, uh, when you think you get back? She say, I don’t know; please don’t call here anymore-they might not like it. She hang up. I hang up.” He shrugged.
“Then what did you do?”
“Junge and me, we go to Plaza Theater in Englewood to see movie. When we come out of show, we go to ice-cream parlor. Had couple those chocolate nut sundaes. Then I went home to my room at boardinghouse.”
This guy sounded like a hardened criminal, all right.
“When was this?”
“Sometime ’bout midnight.”
Schwarzkopf seemed stumped by the forthrightness of the suspect. He looked at Welch, who said, “Mind if I take over?”
I knew what that would amount to-rubber-hose roulette. So I said, “Excuse me, Colonel. Could I ask Mr. Johnson a few questions?”
Schwarzkopf, rather stiffly, said, “Certainly. Johnson, this is Detective Heller of the Chicago Police.”
“Hi, Red,” I said.
“Hello.”
“You smoke?”
“Yah.”
I looked at Welch. “Get this man a smoke, would you?”
Welch dug out his own Camels and reluctantly lit the sailor up. The boy sucked the smoke in eagerly.
I just stood there, letting him smoke and relax.
Then I said, “How much did you spend on that long-distance call, Red?”
“Pardon?”
“You called from a public phone?”
“Yah.”
“From Englewood to Hopewell. How much money did you feed the pay phone?”
“Was thirty-five cents.”
I looked at Welch, who was standing there like a fireplug, and looking just about as intelligent. I made a writing motion with my finger and he looked at me blankly for a moment, then nodded, and took out his notebook and wrote down what Johnson had just said.
“What movie did you see, Red?”
“Saw two. Don’t remember names. Sorry.”
“Who was in the first one? What was it about?”
“Uh, funny movie. That fat guy and skinny guy.”
“Laurel and Hardy?”
He nodded vigorously.
“What about the second feature?”
“Fighter and little kid. Sad picture.”
I looked at Welch. “The Champ.”
Welch smirked and scribbled.
“You know where that ice-cream parlor is?”
Johnson nodded and reeled off the address; Welch wrote it down.
“What about this milk bottle they found in your car?”
He shrugged. “What ’bout it?”
“What was it doing there?”
“I guess I forgot to throw it out.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“I bought bottle of milk on my way up to Hartford, Wednesday morning.”
“Where?”
“Can’t remember exactly. Guess it was somewhere along the road, near Englewood.”
“What was the idea of buying a bottle of milk? Somehow I picture you drinking something a little stronger, Red.”
“No, no. My stomach bad. Doctor told me drink lots of milk.”
“What doctor?”
“Morrow family doctor, in Englewood. Forget his name.”
Welch stepped in. “Now listen, Johnson-where is that baby?”
“So help me God, I don’t know. I don’t know a thing about it!”
“You know Betty Gow pretty well?” pressed Welch.
“I guess you could say that.”
“Where’d you meet her?”
“Up in Maine, over year ago.”
“How?”
“Well, I work for Mr. Lamont, and his estate was near Morrow summer place.”
“When d’you see Betty last?”
“Sunday. No-Monday night.”
Welch straight-armed him. “Which-Sunday or Monday?”
“Both!” Johnson winced with pain.
“Where did you see her?”
“In Englewood.”
Welch grabbed his shirt front, wadding it in a tight fist. “Why did you call her and ask about the baby, the night of the kidnapping?”
“Because it was on account of baby that she broke her date with me! Naturally, I ask about baby.”
“Ever been in Lindbergh’s home?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Two…three times, I think.”
“When were you there last?”
“Maybe two weeks ago.”
“Know the layout of the place pretty well, do you?”
“I guess I do.”
“Ever been in the nursery?”
“No, never.”
“Ever been on the second floor?”
“Yah.”
“Where on the second floor?”
“In Betty’s room. That where she can have visitor after working hours.”
“Where’s that from the nursery?”
“Next to it, I think.”
Johnson was answering the questions as fast as Welch could fire them; the sailor was holding up under it.
Welch let go of the sailor’s shirt and turned to Schwarzkopf and said, quietly, “Clear this shack out-leave me alone with him, and I’ll get you the truth.”
Schwarzkopf nodded; that seemed to sound good to him.
“Colonel,” I said, “Inspector…let’s step outside a second, fellas, what say.”
We stood outside the shack; nearby were the stone walls of the front gate, beyond which reporters milled like ants in search of a picnic. They were dying to know what was going on in our glorified outhouse.
“Why beat a confession out of him at this point?” I asked. “First of all, he’s a sailor and probably pretty tough-it would be hard to get him to confess to anything, without hurting him to where it would show.”
Welch bristled. “Are you telling us how to do our job?”
“God forbid. I’m convinced when it comes to beating worthless confessions out of innocent suspects, you’re the guy to call.”
“Fuck you, Heller.”
“Take a number, Welch. Colonel, why don’t you check up on Red’s alibi, before your inspector starts wearing out rubber hoses on Johnson’s thick Swedish skull.”
“He’s Norwegian,” Schwarzkopf said. But he was thinking. “If those facts check out-the cost of the long-distance call, the movies he says were playing, the ice-cream parlor, the doctor prescribing milk-we may have an innocent man on our hands.”
“I know,” I said. “And it’s a pity-when he talks, he sounds just like those goddamn ransom notes.”