AHMM, January-February 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  More than a dozen policemen were soon on the scene and the fruitless search was underway.

  Portage Path was part of the route that Indians had followed while portaging their canoes between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers. It was a street of stately homes occupied by those who had hit it big in the rubber industry and other lucrative businesses. I couldn't help but wonder if the response would have been the same had it been a child in Kenmore, East Akron, or some other working-class neighborhood.

  There had been a possible witness to the kidnapping. The maid at the house to the south of the Stauffers’ said she had been looking out a first-floor window when the nanny made her hurried trip inside. Within seconds, the maid said, a brown panel truck had pulled into the Stauffer's driveway, blocking her view of the child. Again, within seconds, the truck had backed out onto the street. The child was nowhere to be seen.

  The maid had not noticed the number of the truck's license plate. In a short time she appeared less certain of the truck's color and a little unsure of herself in telling the police that crude white lettering on the panel read JOE'S RADIO SHOP. The wording, she said, was not the work of a professional sign painter and might even have been cut from some sort of material and applied with adhesive.

  Although the area within a hundred miles of Akron was canvassed by police, they failed to find a Joe's Radio Shop. The closest was a Joe's Radio Shack in a small town near Mansfield, but the proprietor did not own a truck and had an airtight alibi for the day of the kidnapping.

  A second letter arrived at the Makepiece house the following day. It said the nanny, unaccompanied by the police or anyone else, was to deliver the ransom money in well-circulated, small-denomination bills. She was to walk south along Seiberling Street in East Akron the following night with the money in a satchel. When the contact was made and the money handed over, the child would be given to her. If there was any sign of police in the area the boy would be killed. This note was handwritten by someone more literate than the writer of the first.

  The police and FBI agents insisted on a presence in the neighborhood, one which offered little opportunity for concealment. The Stauffers were adamant in their refusal. Their only interest, they insisted, was the return of their son, not the apprehension of the kidnappers. They were emphatic in warning that if their wishes were not respected and anything went wrong they would make sure the resulting publicity reflected poorly on both the Akron police department and the FBI.

  And so it was done their way, although the nanny appeared reluctant until reminded that it was her negligence that was responsible for the boy's abduction. An hour after she set out, walking south from East Market Street, a passing motorist saw the nanny lying beside the road. She had been hit on the head, but the wound was superficial. She said a car had pulled up beside her, a man had jumped out, grabbed the satchel, and struck her. It all happened so fast, she said, that she couldn't identify either the man or make, model, or color of the car. Nothing had been seen of the missing child. No one doubted her word.

  Then the story died. Slowly at first, then day by day, less mention was made, until finally, two months later, there had been nothing at all for some time. The FBI pulled out, then the Akron police, although both swore the case was on the front burner and would remain so. There had been no new developments, though, and few people expected any would come.

  For me it had been a quiet couple of months. The girl of my dreams, Sue Baney, said she was through with me, so there had been no dates with her or anyone else. My social life, if it could be called that, consisted of two Saturday afternoons spent by myself at Old Forge Field watching East High's football team beat Maple Heights 53-0 and Buchtel 52-0. At least life was moving smoothly for the Orientals, although their remaining games might change all that.

  Even the police beat had been rather routine, and nothing much was happening in the lives of the other tenants at Mrs. Bauer's boardinghouse on Dudley Street, the place I called home. Jack Eddy was complaining that the private eye business was too slow for his liking, pudgy Mabel Klosterman had a couple of unmemorable dates with her sometimes boyfriend, the burly and slow-witted Joe Kurtz, and pretty Kitty Bauer seemed to have lost interest in Jack Eddy and now was dating a poor man's imitation of Rudolph Valentino in his role of the sheik.

  After three weeks had passed with no mention of the kidnapping in any area newspaper, I drove to Portage Path and talked with Joanne Stauffer. She was low in spirit, discouraged by the lack of results and apparent lack of attention the kidnapping of her son was receiving from law enforcement agencies. That's when I told her about Jack Eddy. For more than a year the assistant manager of the Akron branch of Wellington's National Detective Agency had occupied the room across the hall from mine at the east side boardinghouse.

  She was interested. In her opinion there was nothing to lose by hiring a private agency to look into the case, and the Stauffers certainly could afford the cost, whatever it might be. While I was still there she called Jack Eddy and set up an appointment with him at her home for that afternoon.

  October had turned suddenly cool and you could feel the creeping up of winter, but I put on a warm sweater and was waiting on the porch when Jack Eddy arrived home half an hour before supper time. As he parked his sleek 1932 Auburn sedan behind my car I went down the steps to meet him. “Are you on the Stauffer case?” I asked.

  I wasn't surprised, of course, when he nodded his head before saying, “Thanks for the recommendation, buddy. Guess I owe you a favor.” He made it sound like owing me a favor was tantamount to having root-canal surgery.

  I knew he had followed the story at the time it was hot news. He never commented on it, at least not to me, but I had seen him shake his head on several occasions after reading one of my stories in the Times-Press.

  "Think you can do any good?"

  "How the hell would I know at this point? The agency certainly can't do any worse than the police and those clowns from the Federal Bureau of Incompetency. It's too bad that Plato Largis was off on vacation in Greece or someplace at the time or the Akron cops might have figured it out."

  "He's their best man, granted, but what could he have done that the other detectives didn't?"

  "For starters he probably would have seen right away that the whole setup was phony. Those letters to the house across the street—what a joke they were. Do you honestly think that even the dumbest kidnappers wouldn't have known the right address for the Stauffers? Then there was the time they spent looking for that truck. All they had was the word of the next-door maid that it even existed. She was a loser from the word go, came across as either a complete idiot or a lousy liar. And they checked out the Stauffers’ own maid and their cook to see if either had doctored the nanny's lunch to make her have that sudden need to rush to the bathroom. But tell me, what else did they do?"

  "They checked out all the delivery people and other workers who came to the house. The yard man, for instance. The gas man, the mailman, those kinds of people."

  "You're right, friend, they did all the routine things. The easy, obvious things. When something developed they hurried to investigate, but they were just putting out fires. Nobody was using any imagination."

  "Well, the FBI agents—"

  "Played like they were Melvin Purvis chasing Dillinger or Pretty Boy Floyd. They tapped a couple of phones and waited for informants to give them a tip. That's what the FBI does best, but when it comes to knocking on doors and doing the legwork, they aren't too enthusiastic. The police should have put Plato Largis in charge as soon as he was back in town. He would have brought a little imagination to the job."

  "Taking others off the case and giving it to him wouldn't have been following protocol."

  Jack Eddy laughed, repeated “protocol” like it was a four letter word, and gave me a one-knuckle punch that left my right arm feeling paralyzed. After blinking back a few tears, I said, “So what are your plans?"

  "Plans? Do you think we're waiting for Christm
as or something? We started working on it as soon as I got back to the agency. I've got Cal Andres doing a background check on the maid next door and Cliff Austin doing the same on the nanny."

  "The cops have done that, Jack."

  "Yeah, sure they did. We look at things from a little different angle, buddy."

  He could have said that again and been correct, but I didn't say so. The police were bound by a lot of rules that the Wellington Agency ignored. Sometimes their unorthodox methods produced results because they seldom worried about building a case to take to court. As a result, they were held in respect by citizens, scorned by less efficient cops and feared by criminals who knew the agency could get rough when someone like Jack Eddy felt it was a good idea.

  Jack was a complex man, one I had never been able to figure out. He was excessively ambitious, determined to work his way to the top of Wellington's hierarchy, and he didn't much care how he did it or who got hurt along the way. On the other hand, I had seen him down on a dirty basement floor helping a kid with his Soap Box Derby car. Then, too, a couple of times when he thought I might be in over my head he had showed up unannounced and without a client to foot the bill. And thanks to Jack I had enjoyed the inside track on some good stories. But he could be ruthless when the need arose, as I had witnessed a few times. He stood only five eleven compared to my own six three, and his sandy brown hair was growing thin on top. That and his round Irish face could easily have led someone to think he might be a pushover. The truth was that Jack Eddy was hard as nails. I was always thankful to be on his good side and not someone he was hunting down.

  I tapped on the door of his room late the next night. He had missed supper and only arrived home fifteen minutes earlier, obviously weary. “Where do things stand?” I asked.

  "On the Stauffer case? Have you ever really looked over the layout there, buddy? The house to the north is quite a distance away and shielded by trees. On the other side of Portage Path the only house or yard with a view of the Stauffers is the Makepiece place, and they were away on vacation. That leaves those in the house to the south or someone in a car on the street as the only possible witnesses to the kidnapping. Traffic is light along there, the man in the next house was at work, and the woman was at a club meeting. The only one there was the maid, and her version of what happened leaves me cold. Cal Andres has found out a few interesting things about her, so maybe by tomorrow I'll have something concrete to tell you. Right now I'm going to hit the hay, so you can hit the road."

  At the police station the next morning I sought out Plato Largis. When I walked in the door of his office, he grinned and said, “Bram Geary, ace reporter. What's on your mind, kid?” I was expecting him to explode when he heard that Jack Eddy was poking around in the Stauffer kidnapping. Instead, he sat at his desk, nodding his head as I filled him in. When I was through he said, “He may be right. I'll have your head in a basket if you mention this to anyone else, but I don't think the investigation was handled too well. What he said about imagination, I kind of agree."

  I was anxious to find out what progress was being made, so after completing my afternoon rounds I walked north on Main Street to the Wellington office in the Metropolitan Building. I was there so often the cute, blond elevator operator didn't ask what floor I wanted, just took me up to the fifth. Apparently she thought I was another Wellington operative. I didn't mind, even played the role a little.

  I had arrived, it turned out, shortly after Cal Andres had ushered the next-door maid into Jack Eddy's office. Jack came out to tell me so and asked if I wanted to sit in on their interrogation. I did, of course, although it turned out to be a little upsetting.

  From the first, I had sized up the maid, Gertrude Slade, as somewhat of a dim bulb. She was a stocky woman in her mid twenties, about five three, with oily-looking black hair and eyes set too close together. She was scared out of her wits, what little she had, and neither Jack nor Cal were doing anything to put her at ease.

  Before going back into his office Jack had told me that she had an older sister, Florence. The two had shared a cheap apartment above a store on South Arlington Street, although Gertrude spent most of her nights at the house where she worked on Portage Path. Florence was looked upon as reclusive and aloof in the neighborhood. The interesting part, however, was that she had left the day of the kidnapping and hadn't been seen since.

  "The police found that out, Jack. I heard about it before."

  "Sure. Of course they did, but they let it drop when Gertrude said her sister just happened to leave on vacation that day. Guess they never got around to checking to see if she came back again. She still hasn't."

  Once we were in the office, Jack and Cal gave Gertrude a real grilling. “Where's Florence?” was repeated again and again. After hearing “I don't know” a dozen times, Jack said, “You know taking part in a kidnapping is a capital offense. It's called the Lindbergh Law because it was enacted after the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped, and it can get you strapped in the hot seat down at Columbus. You want to risk that, Gert, or do you want to cooperate?"

  The woman was at the point of incoherence, totally confused and unsure of what to do. It was obvious that she knew more than she had ever let on, but just as obvious that she was equally afraid of something or someone else, perhaps sister Florence. When it seemed they weren't going to get anywhere with her, Cal said, “Where are you from, Gertie?"

  "Gharkeyville,” she replied, then immediately seemed to regret it. “But I haven't been there in years.” After thinking about it for a moment more she added, “Neither has Florence."

  "How do you know that?” asked Jack Eddy. “You said you didn't know where she is since she left back in August. Why not Gharkeyville?"

  Gertrude was extremely agitated. “No, no, no. She'd never go there. She has to be somewhere else."

  "Why wouldn't she go there, Gert? Seems to me like the very place she would go."

  She was befuddled, desperate as to what to say next. Finally she croaked, “No, no, no,” again. “She can't be in Gharkeyville, so please forget that idea."

  Cal Andres looked at Jack and said, “That's where she is. Gharkeyville. No doubt about it, Jack."

  Gertrude screamed, “No! No, she isn't! Please, please forget that!"

  Even I could tell that Florence was in Gharkeyville. But why did it upset her sister that way? “Because,” said Jack Eddy when I asked him later, “she's got the Stauffer kid there."

  "You really think so?"

  "I'd bet my last dollar on it."

  "Where the heck is Gharkeyville?"

  "In southwest West Virginia, just a couple of miles from the Kentucky state line. We knew that, by the way, before Cal asked her. Remember that miserable little town of Switchback you went to last spring?"

  "How could I forget?"

  "Well, from what we've learned, Gharkeyville makes Switchback seem like the Garden of Eden. It's another coal mining town down in Hatfield and McCoy territory. Cal knows a little about it because he grew up in a place like it on the other side of the state line."

  "Cal doesn't seem the type. He's so suave and well spoken I'd never have taken him for a hillbilly."

  "That's your problem, friend. One of them. You stereotype people, try to fit them into a little niche. Cal has worked hard to become the way he is. Maybe you've never noticed, but he's one hell of an actor. He can play any role you could name, and that's one of the reasons why he's so good at his job. So anyway, have you got any vacation time coming?"

  "About five days. Why?” Then the light dawned. “Now wait a minute, Jack..."

  So we talked about it for a while. “It could be a big story, buddy.” Jack said, then a minute later said it again. “Maybe the biggest of your career."

  "Not to mention yours. Look, if you think I'm going to spend my vacation time in a place like Gharkeyville—"

  "It's up to you, pal. I hear Tom Kennedy at the Beacon Journal is fed up with being scooped on the police beat, so he'd probably jump at
the chance to go along."

  "You know what you are, Jack? You're an extortionist, an ... an arm twister. You have the mind of a criminal."

  He laughed and punched me on the chest. “Of course I do. How else could I be so good at my job?"

  "It takes one to know one, isn't that what they say?"

  "Know your enemy, buddy. Always know your enemy."

  "Dammit, Jack, you've got me over a barrel. So when do you leave?"

  "First thing tomorrow morning."

  I did my best to work it to my advantage. “Look, Ben,” I said to my city editor, “it could break the Stauffer kidnapping wide open. You want me to get first crack at the story, don't you?"

  Ben Goldsmith leaned back in his chair, either smirking or sneering, I wasn't sure which. “From what little you've told me, it sounds like another one of your wild-goose chases. But I'll tell you what I'll do. If it turns out you're right, then you've been on company time. Only eight hours a day, though, no overtime. If you're wrong, well, you've been on vacation."

  It sounded reasonable. Except that bit about one of my wild-goose chases. Just what was he talking about? I wondered.

  It didn't make me happy when Jack said we'd go in my car. “The Auburn would draw too much attention in a place like Gharkeyville,” he said. “Chances are the people there have never seen one, but they won't notice another old clunker."

  He knew that would get under my skin. The Hupmobile was a far cry from an old clunker. One good thing about taking it, though, was that I'd be behind the wheel. I packed a small suitcase in the morning and was out at the car a few seconds ahead of Jack. After tossing his bag on the backseat, he said, “I'll drive."