Stolen Away

4

Footsteps echoing on hardwood floors, I trailed Schwarzkopf through the foyer past the second-floor stairs and into a large living room where a dog was barking. I didn’t see the animal at first, but its bark was ringing through the open-beamed room, the shrill sound of a small, hysterical pooch. To my left, French doors led to a flat terrace where a New Jersey trooper, in his perfect light-blue uniform jacket with orange piping, stood guard. Despite the bustle of activity elsewhere, this room was empty, but for the barking dog, who revealed himself as a little white-and-brown wirehaired fox terrier on a pillow on a green sofa. Fireplaces stood like brick bookends at either side of the big room, both unlit, emphasizing the coldness of the house.

That coldness wasn’t restricted to temperature: the newness of everything-the vague smell of recent paint and plaster, the absence of personal touches (the hearth was bare)-made the house seem charmless, impersonal.

“Wahgoosh!” Schwarzkopf barked back at the dog as we passed.

I didn’t understand what he was saying-some Teutonic curse, for all I knew.

“Mutt’s been barking constantly since we got here,” Schwarzkopf said, with quiet irritation.

“Did he bark the night of the kidnapping?”

Schwarzkopf shook his head no.

“You know what Sherlock Holmes said about the curious incident of the dog in the night.”

Schwarzkopf frowned, nodded toward the terrier. “That damn dog didn’t do a damn thing in the night.”

“That was the curious incident,” I said. “Inside job, you think?”

Schwarzkopf shrugged, but his manner said yes.

Just beyond the living room, sitting on a straight-back chair leaned against the wall, was a small, dark man in a three-piece black-and-gray pinstripe with a flourish of white silk handkerchief flaring out of his breast pocket.

“Hiya, Colonel,” he said to Schwarzkopf, not getting up. His accent was New York through and through.

Schwarzkopf, who seemed to like this guy even less than he liked me, grunted.

“Ain’t ya going to introduce us?” the cocky little guy asked, nodding toward me. He had a tabloid newspaper, Daily Variety, in his lap.

“No,” Schwarzkopf said, as we moved past.

I jerked a thumb back at the guy and began to speak, but Schwarzkopf cut me off with: “Don’t ask.”

He came to a halt before a big white door and knocked twice.

“Come in,” a voice within said. The voice of a young man-a weary man, but most of all young.

Slender, blond, handsome, haggard, Lindbergh stood behind a big dark oak desk cluttered with notes and phone messages, and smoothed his brown suit coat-he wore no tie, his collar loose-smiling warmly at me, extending a hand, as if we were old friends. Seated across from him was a lanky, distinguished-looking gray-haired, gray-mustached fellow in his fifties in a three-piece gray tailored suit. He also rose as I entered, and just kept rising-he was as tall as Lindbergh, easily, and Lindbergh was probably six-three or-four.

“You’d be Mr. Heller,” Lindbergh said. He nodded to the man in gray and said, “And this is my attorney, Colonel Henry Breckinridge, from New York.”

I reached across the desk and received the firm handshake I’d expected from Lindbergh; Breckinridge was equally firm with his handshake and smiled in a tight, businesslike but friendly manner. His face was soft, his features bland, but his steel-gray eyes under bold strokes of black eyebrow hinted at something stronger.

Lindbergh gestured to the chair next to Breckinridge and I sat, while Schwarzkopf stood behind us, at parade rest. Lindbergh’s smile disappeared. “Sorry about the mix-up-Whately was supposed to bring you directly to me.”

“That’s no problem, Colonel.”

He sat. “Well, I apologize if there’s been any inconvenience. God knows we appreciate your presence. I know Anne is thrilled to have you on the case, after your success with those kidnappers in Chicago.”

“Well…thank you. I’m just here to help, if I can.”

Attorney Breckinridge spoke up in a mellow, modulated voice that must have served him well in court. “We’re expecting agents Irey and Wilson of the Treasury Department later this afternoon.”

“They’re good men,” I said.

“I received a call from Eliot Ness,” Lindbergh said, “recommending you highly, Mr. Heller. We hope you can stay on until-well, until Charlie is home and in his mother’s arms.”

“I’d like that.”

“I’ve spoken to Mayor Cermak,” Lindbergh said, “and he indicated your department would assign you here until I choose to release you.”

“Well…that’s fine.” It seemed odd, though, to be assigned directly to the victim’s father; why not to Schwarzkopf? Not that I wanted to be.

The phone rang, once, and Lindbergh answered it. His responses were monosyllabic and I couldn’t get the gist of the conversation; I let my eyes roam around the dark-wood-paneled study. Several walls were dominated by books, not the usual unread, leather-bound variety you see in a wealthy home, but novels and books of poetry mingled with scientific and aviation tomes. A fireplace on the wall opposite the door cast a warm glow; above the mantel was a framed aeronautical map. Light filtered in through a sheet that had been hung over the uncurtained window, across the room behind me. This was, I knew from what I’d read, the window directly under the one that the kidnapper had gone in. The nursery would be directly above us.

There were no mementos of fame in this room: no replicas of his silver monoplane, no medals, no trophies. Other than the well-read books and several framed family photos on his desk-among them the curly-haired cherubic Charles, Jr.-this study seemed as unlived-in as the rest of the house.

Lindbergh hung up the phone and smiled tightly. “They’ve picked up Red Johnson in Hartford.”

“Good!” Schwarzkopf said.

It struck me as strange that this call had come directly to Lindbergh; shouldn’t the chief investigator, who was obviously Schwarzkopf, receive it? Why did the head of the New Jersey Police seem to be reporting to the victim’s father? Curiouser and curiouser.

“Red Johnson,” I said, remembering the newspaper accounts. “Isn’t he the sailor-boy boyfriend of your nurse, Betty Gow?”

Lindbergh nodded; his face revealed nothing. He had a pale, hollow-eyed look, but no emotion, nothing, could be read there.

“The Hartford boys will hold him and grill him,” Schwarzkopf said. “But we’ll get our shot.”

“Did you meet Betty?” Lindbergh asked me.

“Coming in,” I said. “Pretty girl. Seems nice enough.”

Lindbergh nodded. “She’s innocent in this,” he said, with a troubling finality.

Schwarzkopf spoke up. “That doesn’t mean Red Johnson is innocent. That sailor may have pried some information loose from the girl. She could be the ‘inside man’ without intending to be, Colonel-let’s not lose sight of that.”

Reluctantly, Lindbergh nodded.

Breckinridge turned toward me in his chair. “How much do you know about the case?”

“Just what I’ve read in the Trib, back home,” I admitted. “But I’m not so convinced it had to be an inside job.”

Lindbergh looked up. “Oh?”

I shrugged. “There was a lot in the papers about the construction of your house, here. I remember seeing pictures and articles about the layout of the rooms, who was to occupy them and so on, months ago. And hell, I live in Chicago. Surrounded by these woods, you could be observed easily-a guy posted in a tree, with binoculars, could determine in a matter of weeks what your pattern was.”

Schwarzkopf, shaking his head, no, said, “Their pattern was broken. The Lindberghs had been staying here weekends only. But because little Charles caught a cold, Mrs. Lindbergh didn’t want to travel, and they stayed over an extra night.”

“That does sound like an insider tipped an outsider off,” I allowed. “And the dog not barking indicates a friendly, familiar face might be involved.”

Schwarzkopf grunted in vindication.

But I continued, directing my comments to Lindbergh: “I’m just saying I wouldn’t rule out a gang specializing in the so-called snatch racket keeping your house staked out, ’round the clock, seven days a week. In which case, the change of pattern becomes irrelevant.”

Lindbergh was looking at me carefully. “I’d like to show you around myself, Mr. Heller,” he said, standing. “I’d like to get your firsthand reaction to some things.”

“That’s why I’m here, Colonel,” I said, with a serious smile.

Schwarzkopf was frowning again.

Lindbergh caught it.

“Colonel,” Lindbergh said, addressing the cop, not the lawyer, “I expect you to cooperate fully with Detective Heller. He’s come a long way to lend us a hand.”

“Yes, sir,” Schwarzkopf said dutifully, respectfully. The guy really did seem to view Lindbergh as his boss.

Lindbergh was out from behind the desk now; he gestured to the phone. “Henry, if you wouldn’t mind…”

“Gladly,” Breckinridge said, and rose and took Lindbergh’s position behind the desk. One of the most expensive lawyers in New York-in the country-was playing secretary for Lindy.

Schwarzkopf stepped between Lindbergh and me. “Would you like me to accompany you, Colonel?”

“That won’t be necessary, Colonel,” Lindbergh said.

If one more colonel showed up, I’d jump off the roof.

“I’d best join my men at the command post,” Schwarzkopf said, summoning his dignity. His footsteps were echoing across the living room as Lindbergh and I exited the study. That dark, dapper little guy was still sitting in the hall, reading his show-business paper. He stood up, upon seeing Lindbergh.

“Any news, Colonel?” the guy said, eager as a puppy (speaking of which, the dog had begun barking again, at Schwarzkopf).

“Red Johnson is in custody over in Hartford,” Lindbergh said.

“Hey, that’s swell.”

“Nathan Heller, this is Morris Rosner.”

“Hiya,” he said, grinning, extending his hand.

I took it, shook it.

“Mickey Rosner?” I said.

“You heard of me?” he asked. It was damn near “hoid.”

“The speakeasy king, right?”

He straightened his tie, hitched his shoulders. “Well, I’m in the sports and entertainment field, yes.”

“There’s nothing sporting or entertaining about kidnapping,” I said.

Lindbergh cleared his throat.

“Mr. Rosner has made his services available as a go-between,” he said, “Since it’s the general consensus that the underworld is involved in this…”

“My lawyer is a partner in the Colonel’s office,” Rosner interrupted.

“In your office?” I said to Lindbergh.

“Not that Colonel,” Rosner said.

“Oh,” I said. “You mean Breckinridge.”

“No,” Lindbergh said. “Colonel Donovan.”

Which way to the roof?

“Colonel Donovan?” I asked Lindbergh.

He said, “William Donovan.”

“Wild Bill Donovan,” Rosner said to me, and from the tone of his voice he might as well have added “ya joik.”

While I was trying to sort out how you get from Wild Bill Donovan, currently running for governor of New York, to Broadway bootlegger Mickey Rosner, Lindbergh was explaining to the latter just who and what I was. “Mr. Heller is our liaison man with the Chicago Police.”

“The Chicago Police,” Rosner said, smirking. Then with a straight face, he said to me, “You think Capone’s offer is for real?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What do you ‘t’ink,’ Mickey?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Capone’s a king in his world. What he says generally goes. I think the Colonel should maybe pay attention to the Big Fellow.”

Mickey didn’t say which colonel he meant.

Lindbergh nodded to Rosner in dismissal, and the little bootlegger sat down and returned to his reading.

The dog had stopped barking, but resumed when he saw me. Lindbergh said, “Shush, Wahgoosh,” and the dog fell silent.

“What the hell is ‘Wahgoosh’?”

“The pooch’s name,” Lindbergh said, with that shy midwestern kid’s smile of his.

“Oh,” I said, as if that made sense.

“You’d have to ask Whately what it means. Wahgoosh was Oliver’s dog, but we’ve kind of adopted the little yapper.”

“Colonel,” I said, “do you really think it’s advisable to have the likes of Rosner around? That no-account bum could be in on the crime…”

“I know,” Lindbergh said, gently. “That’s one of the reasons why he is around.”

“Oh,” I said again.

Lindbergh opened the front door and led me outside into the chilly overcast afternoon; he nodded to the trooper on guard at the door. Lindy hadn’t bothered with a topcoat, so I didn’t say anything, but it was goddamn cold. I followed him across the yard to the left, back toward where his study would be.

We walked directly outside his study window, below the second-floor corner window, which faced southeast. He pointed up.

“That’s where they went in,” he said, meaning the kidnappers.

“Why isn’t this area roped off?” I said, looking at the ground, hands tucked under my arms. “Was it ever roped off?”

“No,” he said.

“Weren’t there footprints?”

There certainly were now. Hundreds of them. Grass might never grow on this ground.

Lindbergh nodded, breath smoking. “There was one substantial footprint-belonging, apparently, to a man. It seemed to be that of a moccasin, or a shoe with a sock or perhaps burlap around it. There were also the footprints of a woman.”

“A woman? So there were two of them, at least.”

“So it would seem.”

“Have the moulage impressions been sent to Washington?”

Lindbergh narrowed his eyes. “Moulage impressions?”

“Plaster casts of the footprints. Say what you want about J. Edgar’s boys, they have a hell of a lab. For one thing, they’ll tell you exactly what that man was wearing-moccasin or potato sack or glass slipper.”

“Colonel Schwarzkopf’s man took photographs, not plaster impressions. Was that a mistake?”

I sighed. “Is Bismarck a herring?”

Lindbergh shook his head wearily. “I know mistakes were made that night. It’s possible plaster casts weren’t taken simply because the reporters trampled this area before there could be.”

That was still the fault of the coppers in charge; but I’d said enough on this subject.

“Look, Colonel. We can’t do anything about mistakes past. The early hours of this case were understandably a jumble.”

Of course, a good cop knows that the early hours of any major felony investigation are the most important, the time during which you allow no mistakes. But I didn’t say that, either.

“What we can do,” I said, “is not make any more of ’em. Mistakes, I mean.”

He nodded gravely. “Would you like to see the nursery?”

“First, I’d like to see the ladder they used. Is it still around?”

It ought to be in an evidence locker in Trenton, but with the command post here, I figured it was worth asking.

He nodded. “It’s in the garage. I’ll have the troopers bring it around. Excuse me for a few moments.”

Lindbergh loped off; he had a gangling gait, and seemed slightly stoop-shouldered-as if he were embarrassed to be so tall, or so famous. Or perhaps it was the weight of it all-from the kidnapping itself, to living out this tragedy in the center ring of a goddamn circus.

Despite the trampled ground, blurring any footprints, there still remained in the moist clay, near the side of the house, the indentations of the feet of the ladder. The indentations were below, but to the right of, the window of the study, which explained why Lindbergh might not have seen anybody going up a ladder outside his curtainless window.

Two troopers returned, Lindbergh leading them; each of the men carried a section of the thing, and “thing” more than “ladder” was the correct word: a ramshackle, makeshift affair that seemed composed of weathered, uneven lumber scraps. The rungs were spaced too widely apart for even a tall man to make easy use of it.

Lindbergh set his section down. “Put it together, would you, men?”

“Good God,” I said. “That thing’s a mess, isn’t it?”

“It’s ingenious in its way,” Lindbergh said. “Slopped together as it is, inexpert as the carpentry may be, it was designed so that each section fits inside another. One man could carry it, though it’s been kept separate like this, for examination.”

The troopers were inserting wooden dowels to connect the sections. The top rung of the bottom section had broken, apparently under a man’s weight.

I walked over and pointed to the broken pieces. “One of the kidnappers did that?”

Lindbergh nodded. “And I may have heard the bastard climbing either up or down. I heard what sounded like the slats of an orange crate breaking, around nine o’clock.”

“Were you in the study?”

“No-the living room, with Anne.”

“Did you check on the sounds?”

“No,” he said glumly. “I just said, ‘What was that?’ to Anne, and she said, ‘What was what?’ and we both went back to our reading. Shortly after that, she went upstairs to bed and I went into the study.”

So Lindbergh was probably in the study at least part of the time the kidnapping was taking place.

“Place that in the holes, would you?” he said to the troopers.

It took both of them to maneuver the clumsy, towering affair. They placed it carefully in the indentations in the ground and placed it against the side of the house, where it rose several feet above, and to the right of, the nursery window, stretching damn near to the roof.

“Well, it’s way off,” I said, craning my neck back. “Obviously.”

“I just wanted you to see that,” he said. “We figure the kidnappers miscalculated on the ladder.”

“They sure as hell didn’t have a carpenter on their team,” I said. “So, what? They must have just used the lower two sections.”

Lindbergh nodded. “The ladder was found over there…” He pointed about sixty feet to the southeast. “…with the two bottom sections connected.” Then he directed the troopers to haul the ladder down, remove the dowel and lift off the top section, and put the now two-sectioned ladder back up.

“It’s still way off,” I said.

Now the ladder was about three feet below the nursery window. And, again, to the right. You could see the places on the whitewashed fieldstone where the ladder had scraped; no doubt about it: only two sections of the ladder were used, and this was where it rested.

“Well, what do you make of it, then?” Lindbergh asked.

“I’m revising my opinion about this not necessarily being an inside job.”

Lindbergh’s frown was barely discernible, but it was there. “Why, Mr. Heller?”

“Somebody had to have handed your baby out to an accomplice on the ladder. That’s about the only way it figures…unless two people went up the ladder, one at a time. I doubt that thing would support two people at once.”

“Perhaps that’s why it broke,” he suggested.

“The weight of the child, added to whoever carried him down, probably did that.”

“Good God. If Charlie fell…”

I lifted a hand. “From that height, there’d have been the impression of whoever fell-and it would’ve probably been both of ’em, the child and the kidnapper. If…excuse me, Colonel…if the kidnapper dropped the child, but managed to retain his own footing on the ladder, there still would’ve been an impression in that wet ground.”

Which even the New Jersey cops couldn’t have missed.

“Perhaps a woman went up first,” Lindbergh said, studying it, hand on his chin. “We know a woman was standing around out here…”

“A woman’s touch might explain the baby staying quiet. I mean, the baby didn’t wake up crying, or someone would’ve heard him, I would imagine.”

“Yes. My wife was in the next room, separated only by a bath.” Impulsively, grabbing my arm, he said, “Come. Look the nursery over.”

We went up the uncarpeted stairs, and the upstairs was as clean, fresh-smelling and impersonal as below.

Lindbergh hesitated outside the nursery, and I went on in. He stayed in the doorway and watched me look around.

It was the warmest-looking room I’d seen here-and the most lived-in. Evergreen trees, a country church, and a man with a dog were gaily pictured on the light green wallpaper; between the two east windows was a fireplace with a mosaic of a fisherman, windmill, elephant and little boy with a hoop; on the mantel was an ornamental clock around which were gathered a porcelain rooster and two smaller porcelain birds. A kiddie car was parked near the hearth. Against the opposite wall was the child’s four-poster-style maple crib; nearby was a pink-and-green screen, on which farmyard animals frolicked.

“That’s where he takes his meals,” Lindbergh said from the doorway, pointing to a small maple table in the middle of the room. Specks of dried-up food still remained.

I was looking in the crib. “Are these the baby’s bedclothes?”

“Yes. Exactly as they were.”

The bedclothes-blankets and sheets-were barely disturbed; they were attached to the mattress with a pair of large safety pins. The impression of the child’s head was still on the damn pillow.

“Whoever did this lifted the child out without waking him,” I said. “Or, if the boy did wake, he wasn’t startled. A familiar face, a familiar touch?”

“Or,” Lindbergh said, almost defensively, “a woman’s touch. Perhaps a woman did go up the ladder first…”

“I’d buy that sooner,” I said, “if the rungs weren’t so damn far apart.”

I walked to the southeast window, the kidnappers’ window. It was recessed, window-seat deep. Below it, against the wall, was a low cedar chest. It was almost as wide as the wide sill itself. On top of the cedar chest was a black suitcase, on which sat a jointed wooden bunny on a small string.

“That chest houses Charlie’s personal fortune,” Lindbergh said, trying to sound cheerful. “His toys. He has plenty, I’m afraid.”

I smiled over my shoulder at him. “And when you get him back, you’re going to buy him another damn chestful, aren’t you?”

Lindbergh smiled shyly. “I intend to spoil Charlie rotten.”

“Good for you,” I said, kneeling at the chest. “Was this chest moved away from the window at all? Disturbed in any way?”

“No.”

“How about this suitcase?”

“No.”

“Any mud, any scuffs, on the suitcase, or the chest?”

“No.”

“Where was this toy rabbit found?”

“Right where you see it. Right where it usually was.”

I stood. “The house wall is a foot and a half thick, and the sill is almost as wide. Anybody entering through that window would have to span a distance of almost three feet to actually get in this room proper. Doing that without leaving mud, without moving the chest, without disturbing the suitcase or toy rabbit, and all without making a ruckus…very improbable.”

Lindbergh said nothing.

I opened the window and felt the rush of cold air. The shutters wouldn’t close. “Are the shutters on any of the other windows warped like this?”

“No.”

“They must have known about this,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to shut them.

“A chisel was found outside,” Lindbergh said, “which would indicate they thought they’d have to break in. They just got lucky, picking this window.”

“I don’t know what the chisel was for, other than maybe to make somebody assume what you just assumed. This window wasn’t pried open, was it?”

“No. It wasn’t locked; we lock the shutters, not the windows.”

“But this window is directly over the curtainless window of your study below. The French windows, on the other side of the room, over a side door, are what a kidnapper who didn’t know about the broken shutter would’ve come in through.”

Lindbergh said, “Now you’re sounding like Schwarzkopf.”

“Good,” I said. “Then he’s thinking like a cop.”

“You’ve changed your mind, then. You’re convinced this is an ‘inside job.’”

“I haven’t changed my mind,” I said. “I’m just keeping it open. The worst and most common investigator’s error is making a snap decision at the outset about who or what is behind a crime. I noticed some scientific studies and books and such in your library.”

“Yes.”

“Well, in science, if you start out with an answer you want to prove is correct, it screws your research up, right? Because you’re only looking for the evidence that proves your point.”

Lindbergh nodded.

I walked over to him. He was still in the doorway.

“You don’t want to think your servants could be involved, do you? You trust them. You like them.”

“I hired them,” he said.

And that, of course, was the nub: if a servant did it, then Lindy was, ultimately, responsible. And he couldn’t face that.

“In science,” I said, “the truth hurts sometimes. You wouldn’t want a doctor to lie to you, would you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then I’m not going to lie to you. Nor am I going to kiss your ass. I’m going to level with you, and tell you how I see things.”

His face was deadpan for what seemed an eternity. I realized I may have crossed the line with Lindy; tomorrow at this time, I could be getting off the train back in Chicago. Which was fine, if the alternative was standing around making like a horse’s-ass yes-man.

But I wouldn’t have to, because Lindbergh smiled, big and natural.

“Do you mind if I call you ‘Nate’?”

“I’d be honored,” I said, and meant it. “Could I call you something besides ‘Colonel’? Every time I say that, eight heads turn.”

He laughed softly. He extended his hand to me, as if we hadn’t shaken before.

“My friends call me ‘Slim.’ I’d appreciate it if you called me that, at least when we’re more or less in private.”

We shook hands, loose and casual.

“Okay…Slim,” I said, trying it out. “I’ll be more formal when it seems appropriate.”

“Thanks.”

We headed back downstairs, where Schwarzkopf-looking like a hotel doorman in that fancy-ass uniform-met us halfway.

“Colonel,” he said, “agents Irey and Wilson are waiting to see you.”