Stolen Away

by Collins, Max Allan

  “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 r
oom 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.

  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 gis
t 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?”