Stolen Away (10 page)

Lindbergh said nothing.

“Ideally, I would like to head up the team of detectives in charge of the case—a mixture of my own boys and state troopers. But I’m available strictly as a consultant, if that’s your pleasure.”

Lindbergh said nothing. His eyes were like stones.

Parker shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Then Lindbergh spoke. His voice was as expressionless and unemotional as a telephone operator’s. “I have great respect for your achievements, Chief Parker. But I’ve already read and heard some of your opinions about this case, in the papers and on the radio. And I will have no truck with cheap shots, second-guessing and theorizing.”

“Colonel Lindbergh, my only concern is to offer my help in your time of…”

Lindbergh raised a hand in a stop motion. “I won’t have police officers from every which where tripping over themselves, seeking their own glory at the possible expense of my son’s life. Colonel Schwarzkopf and I have the situation in hand. Good day to you, sir.”

“Colonel Lindbergh…”

“Thank you for coming.”

Parker rose; his neck was red with anger, but he merely nodded to Lindbergh and went out.

I stayed behind.

“That guy is one of the most brilliant detectives alive,” I said. “And your boy Schwarzkopf is a goddamn department-store floorwalker!”

“Nate,” Lindbergh said tersely, his hands flat on his desk, “Ellis Parker is accustomed to getting the lion’s share of the limelight—he’s done remarkable work in the past, but he’s dazzled by his own publicity.”

“I’m sure he is jealous of Schwarzkopf,” I said with a shrug. “But a guy like that, who is a great detective by anybody’s yardstick, ought to be turned loose on a major crime like this—particularly when it’s in his own backyard, for Christ’s sake. It only makes sense!”

“No,” Lindbergh said.

I looked at him.

“Okay,” I said.

I went out. Lindy wanted to hear the truth from me, it seemed, but didn’t necessarily want to pay it any heed.

I caught up with Parker outside, just as he was about to climb into a Burlington County police car.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help,” I said. “I’d like to have had you involved.”

“Who says I’m not going to be?” he said, one foot on the running board. And he winked at me.

The dust of Parker’s Ford on the dirt lane hadn’t settled when Breckinridge’s familiar Dusenberg pulled in. The lawyer looked grayer than usual as he climbed down from his fancy car and came straight over to me. He took me by the arm, took me aside.

“Heller,” he said. “What did you do last night?”

“It wouldn’t be gentlemanly to say.”

“You spent the night with that medium, didn’t you?”

I shrugged. “Slim said I was the resident spook chaser. Who else are you going to get to lay a ghost?”

He grabbed me by one arm. Almost shook me. The unflappable Breckinridge was definitely flapped. “What did she have to say?”

Actually, she hadn’t said much at all. She’d moaned a good deal and even screamed a couple times. But I wasn’t about to share my memorable evening with Sister Sarah with Breckinridge. I’m just not that kind of guy.

Besides, what would a stuffed shirt like Breckinridge know about a night of wild passion with a woman whose pale flesh glowed in the half-light of a flickering candle, who let me ride her and who rode me, till I was raw and sweating and dead from exhaustion. Sister Sarah could make a ghost out of any man.

But we hadn’t talked. I knew no more about her from spending the night with her than I did after that séance. Including going through her purse and her suitcases and other personal belongings, after she went to sleep.

“Hey, pal,” I said indignantly, “I don’t kiss and tell, okay?”

“She said a letter would come today. To my office.”

“Yeah, so?”

“This came by mail, to my office,” he said grimly, “this morning.”

He took an envelope out of his pocket, hastily opened it and held the letter up for me to see.

Specifically, he showed me the signature: blue and red interlocking circles with three holes.

The letter Breckinridge received included a brief note telling the attorney to “handle inclosed letter to Col. Lindbergh.” The letter itself said the following:

Below this, again labeled “singnature,” were the distinctive blue and red circles with a trio of small holes. On the reverse the letter continued:

Frank J. Wilson squinted behind his round black-framed glasses as he read the note, and read it again.

We were in Lindbergh’s study, Lindy, Breckinridge, Schwarzkopf, Wilson and myself. Lindbergh had rejected my suggestions to make the New York cops and J. Edgar’s boys aware of this new communique; but he did agree to call in Treasury Agent Wilson.

“I think the letter is encouraging,” Lindbergh said to Wilson, “don’t you?”

“Encouraging?” Wilson asked. He was seated across from Lindbergh. I was seated next to Wilson; Breckinridge and Schwarzkopf were standing on either side of Lindy like mismatched bookends.

“My son is in good health,” Lindbergh said brightly, “and they want to keep him that way. They’re following the diet…”

“You take these people at their
word
?”

“I have no reason not to,” Lindbergh said. “I’m reluctant to have you involved in this at all, Agent Wilson. They make clear that if I hadn’t called the police in, at the start, I might well have Charlie back in his mother’s arms, this very minute.”

Wilson didn’t bother discussing that. He knew there was no point.

“They apparently think the police intercepted the previous letter,” Schwarzkopf pointed out, needlessly.

Breckinridge nodded. “Maybe we’ve clamped down the lid on the press
too
tight. If we’d let it be known the second note had been received…”

“You’re trying to second-guess lunatics,” I said. “They warn you not to let anything out to the press, then wonder why you haven’t let ’em know you got their second letter!”

Wilson was still looking at the note. “As before, the easy words are misspelled, and the more difficult words are frequently correctly spelled.”

“It’s obviously a genuine communication from the kidnappers,” Lindbergh said.

“The unique signature symbol is present,” Wilson agreed. “It makes reference to the letter left in the nursery, as well.”

Breckinridge came around the desk and pointed to a specific line as Wilson studied the letter.

“That sentence bothers me,” Breckinridge said. “‘We will not accept any go-between from your side.’”

“It’s straightforward enough,” I offered. “It’s a rejection of Rosner and his cronies Spitale and Bitz.”

“Perhaps we should publish a message in the press,” the attorney said, “stating that we’re open to following any other methods that the kidnappers might suggest. Anything that will ensure a safe return of the boy.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Lindbergh said.

Wilson seemed to be ignoring all this. He gently returned the letter to the desktop, and removed a small notebook and stubby pencil from his suit coat pocket.

He said, “This psychic who predicted that Colonel Breckinridge would receive a letter today…her name is Sivella?”

“Sister Sarah Sivella,” I said. “Her husband’s name is Martin Marinelli.”

He wrote that down; from my notebook, I gave him the address of the church in Harlem, and he wrote that down, too.

“They knew about the note on the windowsill, as well,” Wilson said.

“Yes,” I said.

“On the other hand,” Wilson continued, “they’ve been hanging out with reporters for days. They may have gathered some information that way.”

“None of the reporters, to our knowledge,” Lindbergh said, “knew that windowsill detail.”

“There’s one other thing,” I said. “One damning little item.”

All eyes were on me.

“Sarah Sivella consistently referred to Colonel Breckinridge as ‘Mr. Breckin
bridge
,’ at the séance last night. And that is exactly how he is referred to in that letter.”

It was like I’d struck everybody in the room with a board.

Wilson broke the stunned silence: “What else did she say?”

“Some of it was gibberish,” I said, shrugging. We hadn’t mentioned to Lindbergh the prediction that the baby’s body would be found.

Then suddenly, Lindbergh stood. “Thank you for coming by, Agent Wilson.”

Wilson, disconcerted by this quick dismissal, stood and said, “Thank you for sharing this new information with me, Colonel.”

“I want you to stay away from those spiritualists,” Lindbergh told him. It sounded like an order.

“Pardon me?” Wilson asked, hollowly.

“Those spiritualists. If they’re legitimate, and they may well be—extrasensory perception is very real, you know, Agent Wilson—I don’t want them harassed. If they in fact are a part of the kidnap gang, I don’t want my son’s welfare put at risk by police action. These notes make it clear that I’m to keep the police out of this, if I hope to get my boy back alive and well. And Agent Wilson—I intend to do just that.”

Lindbergh nodded curtly, and Wilson knew the meeting was over.

I walked him out to his car. Breckinridge and Schwarzkopf stayed behind with Lindy—which was fine with me. I wanted Wilson’s ear privately.

We stood in the cold and chatted sotto voce, just briefly. I told him about the gangland roadhouse Dixon had shown me and he found that of great interest.

“You know Pat O’Rourke, from Chicago, don’t you, Heller?” Wilson asked.

“Of course,” I said. “Damn good man.”

“He’s working with me in New York, now,” Wilson said. “I’m going to assign him to infiltrate that spiritualist church in Harlem. We’ll find out why these ‘spirits’ know so much about this damn kidnapping.”

“O’Rourke’s an excellent choice,” I said.

O’Rourke had gone undercover for three months in the Capone organization when Eliot, Irey and Wilson were putting their case together. He was a good bet to pick up on any Capone connection between Marinelli and his congregation.

“How’s the search for Bob Conroy coming?” I asked.

“That son of a bitch has dropped off the face of the earth,” Wilson said glumly.

“Start dragging the lakes,” I said.

He nodded, sighed, said, “Heller—whatever differences we may have had, let me say this: I appreciate what you’re doing. That is, keeping me informed, when otherwise I’d be frozen out.”

“Swell. How about angling me a break on my taxes this year?”

“Screw you,” Wilson said, good-naturedly, and got in his black Ford and headed back to New York.

Schwarzkopf approached me, as I stood watching Wilson’s dust.

He said, “There’s an interrogation you should sit in on.”

“Really,” I said. “I’m beginning to enjoy this new spirit of cooperation.”

Several snazzy troopers and rumpled, potbellied Inspector Welch were standing in the servants’ sitting room. Seated in a chair that had been dragged out into the middle of the braided-rug-covered floor was a pretty, pleasantly plump girl in her twenties, wearing her maid’s black uniform with white lace apron. Her hair was short and brownish blonde, her eyes brown and flitting, her face round, her front teeth protruding slightly, chipmunk-cute. She had her hands in her lap, playing with a white hanky.

Seated just behind her was a male police stenographer, plainclothes, fingers poised over keys.

“Miss Sharpe,” Schwarzkopf said, “we need to take a statement from you.”

“I’ve given you a statement,” she said, imperiously. Or maybe it was just her English accent.

“We’d just like to clear up a few details.”

She pursed her lips, raised her chin and replied in a snippy schoolgirl fashion. “Why are you so interested in my personal life? Why don’t you mind your own business and get on with the job of finding these kidnappers?”

Her manner was cold and defiant, but it seemed at least partly a mask: her eyes and her hands moved ceaselessly. She was as nervous as a wife with one lover in the closet, another under the bed and hubby in the hall.

Inspector Welch took over. “Look, sister. We’re just doing our job. Don’t make it tough on yourself. Surely a cute kid like you don’t have anything to hide?”

Welch was trying to be nice, but it came off like a threat.

“Don’t you bully me,” she said.

Welch rolled his eyes at Schwarzkopf, who said, “All of the other servants at the Morrow home have been cooperative. Why are you so difficult, Miss Sharpe?”

“I resent being questioned, and I am cooperating—but only because I have no choice!”

Her defiance was an amazing thing to see; but I wasn’t fooled. Behind the strength was weakness, and fear.

Schwarzkopf, almost pleading, said, “Don’t you want to help Mr. and Mrs. Lindbergh get their baby back?”

She lowered her head and nodded. Sighed. “Go ahead, then. Ask your questions.”

Welch nodded to the stenographer to start, then said, “State your name and age, please, and place of birth.”

“My name is Violet Sharpe. I was born in England in 1904 in Berkshire. About two and a half years ago, I went from England to Canada. I stayed there about nine months and moved to New York.”

“And went to work for the Morrows?”

“Well, I registered at Hutchinson’s Employment Agency on Madison Avenue, and was interviewed there for Mrs. Morrow, and received a position as maid, which I still occupy.”

“Have you made any friends, male or female, in New York, or New Jersey?”

“No. None.”

She was too good-looking a girl for that to ring true.

Exasperation distorted the inspector’s voice. “Since the time that you arrived in New York from Canada, you’ve been out in company of
no
friends, male or female?”

“No. I have nobody here other than my sister, Emily.”

“Where does she reside?”

“In Englewood. A friend of the Morrows employs her.”

Welch moved to the other side of her. He tried again. “Have you at any time since your arrival in this country been to
any
social functions, public gatherings, theater, dinners or dance, with
any
man or woman?”

She paused.

Then she said, “Yes.”

Welch, with studied sarcasm, said, “Why don’t you tell us about it, then, Miss Sharpe?”

“My sister and I were walking through the village of Englewood on a Sunday afternoon…”

“What Sunday afternoon?”

“February twenty-eighth.”

“Of this year?”

“Of this year. We were walking along when a man passed us on Lydecker Street in an automobile and waved his hand at us. I mistook him for one of the employees at the Morrows’, and waved back. He stopped his car and I went over to him, but realized my error—explained that I had taken him for someone else.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘That’s all right, where are you going?’ And I said, ‘Just to the village.’ He invited my sister and myself to ride there in his car, which we did. During the ride we had a friendly conversation and the gentleman said he’d like to take me to the movies some night, if I would like to go.”

“What did you say?”

“I said okay.”

She was a pretty easy pickup for a girl who’d been here for years without making a single male or female friend.

“And what did he say?”

“He asked for my phone number and I gave it to him.”

“The phone number of the Morrow house, you mean?”

“Yes. He wanted to know who he should ask for when he called, and I told him to ask for Violet.”

“Did he call?”

She nodded. “At about ten minutes of eight on the evening of March first.”

The day of the kidnapping.

“What did he say?”

“He asked if I would care to go out with him that evening. I said I would, but that I wouldn’t be ready for a while, as I hadn’t yet finished with serving dinner. Before long, he came to the back door of the pantry of the Morrow house.”

“What did you do?”

“I got my hat and coat and went out. He had another couple with him, who I’d never seen before. The four of us went to a movie house in Englewood and after the show, he drove me back to the Morrow home. It was then, I think, eleven
P.M
.”