“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.”
“Have you seen your date since?”
“No. I made a second date with him, for March sixth, but I couldn’t get away from the house. I haven’t spoken to him or seen him, since then.”
Schwarzkopf stepped in and smiled warmly. “You’re doing fine, Miss Sharpe. Just fine. Now, if you can just fill in a few blanks…”
She turned snippy again. “What sort of blanks?”
“Names would be a good start.”
“I told you before! I don’t remember any names.”
“You don’t remember the name of your date? You went for a ride with him on that Sunday afternoon, spent an entire evening with him…”
“I can’t remember.”
“Look,” Welch said, “we know you’re nervous. Just relax and the name will come to you.”
“I am not nervous, and I can’t remember his bloody name!”
“What about the other couple?” Schwarzkopf asked. “Can you remember who they were?”
She cocked her head and smiled with tight sarcasm. “No. I can’t remember their names, either.”
“You were out with these people a little over a week ago,” Welch said, “and you can’t remember their goddamn names?”
The steno paused, wondering whether to record “goddamn.”
Vio
let folded her arms across her chest, and her chin was raised high; but she was trembling. And she didn’t dignify Welch’s badgering with a reply.
“What movie did you see, Violet?” I asked.
Welch and Schwarzkopf looked at me, a little surprised that I’d get into this.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“My name’s Heller. I’m a police officer, like the rest of these men.”
“You have no business prying into my private life. None whatsoever!”
“Take it easy,” I said. “Just tell us what the movie was about. Something, anything, about the movie you saw—the actors in it, anything.”
Red Johnson had passed a similar test with flying colors.
But Violet Sharpe said nothing.
“What was the name of the theater?” I asked.
“It was in Englewood. That’s all I know.”
Welch and Schwarzkopf looked at me and I shrugged. I wasn’t doing any better than they were.
“Thank you, Miss Sharpe,” Schwarzkopf said. And to Welch, he said, “Send her back to Englewood.”
Schwarzkopf left, and I went along, following him back into the bustling garage command post.
“I have half a mind to turn her over to Welch,” Schwarzkopf said, “and let him work his magic on her.”
“If you do that,” I said, “you do have half a mind.”
“What would you suggest?”
“No rubber-hose technique—just some in-depth, sustained questioning. She was frustrating to interrogate, I’ll grant you, but you shook her loose when we’d barely begun.”
Schwarzkopf stopped in his tracks; sighed. “She’s one of Mrs. Morrow’s favorite maids. We push her too hard, we’ll get in trouble with the Morrows.”
“So fucking what?”
Schwarzkopf made a face. “If we get in trouble with the Morrows, we’ll get in trouble with Colonel Lindbergh.”
“Hook her up to a lie detector, then. Hell, hook up all the Lindbergh servants, and all the Morrow servants, too.”
“Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? Colonel Lindbergh won’t have it. It’s an invasion of privacy, and an insult, to his employees, he says.”
Half an hour later, Constable Willis Dixon of the Hopewell P.D. showed up, grinning. He reported to Schwarzkopf.
“Some interesting items in that maid’s room,” he said, with his gap-toothed grin.
So Schwarzkopf had sent Dixon, not his own men, to do a search of Violet’s room at Englewood, while she was here being questioned. Schwarzkopf was smart, in his weasel way: why get his own people in trouble, if the Morrows got owly about harassment of their favorite servant?
“First of all,” Dixon said, “the servants over there say Violet’s been havin’ an affair with an older man—a butler, they say. I figure it’s this guy Septimus Banks.”
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“The Morrows’ head butler,” Schwarzkopf explained. “History of drunkenness.”
“Anyway, I sure found some good stuff in her room, gents,” Dixon said. “A handwritten book of dirty stories. An address book with twenty-six names. And a savings book on a New York City bank.”
“You didn’t take any of these with you, did you?” Schwarzkopf asked, anxiously.
“No! But I did do some browsing. You know, Violet makes a hundred bucks a month, and’s been working less than two years. And I was told she sends a good chunk of her pay home to her folks in Great Britain.”
“So?” I asked.
“So,” Dixon asked in return, “why does she have almost two grand in her savings account?”
11
Bonfires burned orangely against the night, flames fighting the icy wind, kindled by troopers keeping vigil on the periphery of the Lindbergh estate.
Inside the command-post garage, two members of the New Jersey State Police were keeping vigil with a deck of cards. The two troopers—a kid named Harrison and a guy about thirty named Peters—had joined Constable Dixon and myself for a quiet game of poker. At a little after midnight, the rest of the skeleton crew of troopers were stretched out and snoring on army cots.
The only guy on duty was a fellow named Smith who was on the switchboard; but he was slumped and sleeping, too. The only calls that came through were those directed to the troopers themselves; Lindbergh had rejected Schwarzkopf’s request that calls to the house be routed here first for monitoring purposes. Every call, crank or otherwise, from anybody savvy enough to wrangle the unlisted number of the Hopewell estate, went straight to the phones inside—one on Lindy’s desk, another in the hallway, another upstairs (though at night the latter was disconnected).
Once Inspector Welch had answered the hall phone and Lindbergh snapped at him, “What the hell are you doing?”
And it was fucking rare that Lindbergh cursed.
“It rang and I answered it,” Welch had said.
Lindbergh’s expression and tone rivaled the weather in coldness. “I want it understood very clearly, and right now, that neither you nor any other policeman is to touch that phone for any reason. You are here through my courtesy and I ask you not to interfere with my business.”
On the other hand, Mickey Rosner, pride of New York’s underworld, frequently answered the phone and had full access to it.
Dixon, the two troopers and I were sitting at one of the tables where mail was sorted; bags of the stuff were crowded up against the wall behind us, like Moran’s men in that Clark Street garage where Capone held his St. Valentine’s Day dance. The picnic-type table was littered with nickels and dimes and quarters. The majority were piled before me. It was my deal.
“Black Mariah,” I said, dealing them down.
“What the hell is Black Mariah?” Peters wanted to know. A chain-smoker, he was a brown-haired, rosy-cheeked guy whose eyebrows were almost always knit, as if he were suspicious people smarter than him were taking advantage. Which they often were.
“Seven card stud,” I said. “High spade in the hole splits the pot.”
“Oh,” Peters said, and sucked in some smoke.
Dixon seemed to know the game and, from the forced poker face he maintained glancing at his two hole cards, probably had the ace of spades down. Harrison was the youngest man at the table and he was just playing, and losing, without comment.
I had barely finished the deal when Colonel Breckinridge came bustling in. The usually dignity-personified Breckinridge was wearing a plaid dressing robe and in stocking feet, legs bare and white and hairy.
“Heller,” he said, relieved. “You’re still here.”
Normally I was gone by nine at night, heading over to Princeton in the flivver Lindy loaned me. I had hung around tonight to take money from these eastern hick cops.
“Yeah,” I said, checking my two hole cards. Queen of spades. All right. “What do you need?”
“You,” he said, and grabbed me roughly by the arm and pulled me away from the table.
“Hey!” I said, cards spilling from my hands.
“Come along,” he said, and I was following him back into the house, leaving the cards and my money behind.
“I was winning,” I said, indignantly. “I must have been up three bucks…”
“Never mind that,” he said. “I need you to be Colonel Lindbergh.”
“What?”
Breckinridge led me to the hall phone outside the study. The receiver was off the hook.
“There’s an elderly fellow named Dr. John Condon on the line,” he said. “Claims he’s received a letter addressed to him, with an enclosure addressed to Colonel Lindbergh.”
“So?” Calls like this came in all the time.
“Dr. Condon says he doesn’t know if there’s anything to it—the letter may be from a hoaxer or a crank; but recently he sent a letter to the Bronx Home News offering a one-thousand-dollar reward to anyone who returned little Charlie safely. And they printed the letter, and he thinks this may be an answer to that.”
“What the hell
is the Bronx Home News? Sounds like some bush-league suburban rag.”
Breckinridge shrugged. “It is.”
“Then it’s not very likely the kidnappers would’ve seen his letter, there.”
“I know—but this man is no crank—he’s a professor at Fordham University. At least he says he is—and the credentials and degrees he reeled off sound legitimate.”
I made a farting sound with my lips.
“But,” Breckimidge continued, “he refuses to speak further unless he’s speaking to Colonel Lindbergh himself—who I’m not about to disturb…Charles has only begun sleeping again, these last few nights.”
“Oh. Well, fine. Sure, I’ll play Lindy.”
Breckinridge smiled. “Thanks, Heller. You know the Colonel wants every lead, every call, taken seriously.”
“Sure,” I said, picking up the receiver. Queen of spades down. Damn! “This is Colonel Lindbergh. What is it?”
“Ah, Colonel! I’m so relieved! I’ve just received a letter, which may be of importance to you.”
His voice was well modulated but blustery.
“Do they usually deliver your mail at midnight, Professor?”
“I didn’t get home until ten—I had classes today. I was sorting through perhaps twenty pieces of correspondence when I came upon this one. Shall I read it?”
“Please, Professor.”
He continued in a declamatory style. “It says—and I must make allowances for misspellings and poor syntax—‘Dear Sir: If you are willing to act as go-between in Lindbergh case please follow strictly instruction. Hand enclosed letter personally to Mr. Lindbergh. It will explain everything. Don’t tell anyone about it. As soon we find out the press or police is notified, everything are cancel and it will be a further delay.’ Atrocious spelling!”
“Is there more?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Professor, you can flunk the guy later. Finish reading the thing, please.”
“Certainly. ‘After you get the money from Mr. Lindbergh, put these three words in the New York American: Money is ready.’”
I covered the mouthpiece and spoke to Breckinridge. “I think this old boy’s just after some easy dough.”
Stolen Away Page 13
