Stolen Away

“Is that what I did?”

He looked at me hard; sighed. “Nate, this man is guilty.”

“I heard you say you couldn’t identify ‘Cemetery John’ by his voice. You told the same thing to a Bronx grand jury, not so long ago. What changed?”

He gestured with a pointing finger. “I have been assured by the top police officials in this case that there is no doubt about Hauptmann’s guilt. I have heard this from Schwarzkopf, from Frank J. Wilson, from Lt. Finn, from…” He shook his head, as if clearing cobwebs. “If you were able to sit in that courtroom every day, as I have, and as I will, you’d find that out.”

“Slim, I was a cop. I am a cop. And I can tell you one thing about cops: once a cop decides a guy is guilty, that guy is guilty. And a cop will, at that juncture, get real inventive. More tampered-with and manufactured evidence, and coached and purchased witness testimony, has been presented in American courtrooms than any other kind. Trust me.”

“I wish you would, Nate.”

“What?”

“Trust me.”

“Well.” I smiled; dabbed my own face with a napkin. “I will let you buy me lunch. I’m not that proud.”

We smiled at each other, warily, Slim and I, but Breckinridge was disturbed by all this.

After lunch I was called back on the stand and Reilly had at me. I thought, for a moment, he was getting to the heart of it.

He was asking me, in his high-handed ham-actor fashion, about the night we prepared the replica ballot box of ransom money for Jafsie and Slim to deliver to Cemetery John.

“Didn’t you think it would be a good idea to go along and capture that person?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Did the Police Department of the city of New York, and the Department of Justice, know there was going to be a ransom payment that night?”

“I believe so. At least, the Treasury Department did.”

“Did they know where the payment would be made?”

“No. Nobody knew that. Colonel Lindbergh and Professor Condon didn’t know, until they got to the florist’s shop, as the note directed them.”

“You’re referring to the note delivered by the taxicab driver?”

“Yes.”

“Were the police notified, at that time? That the note had arrived, and that Dr. Condon and Colonel Lindbergh were off to make their payment?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Mr. Heller, weren’t you at the time a police officer yourself?”

“Yes. But with the Chicago Police. Just a liaison, an adviser, on this case.”

“And you don’t know why the New York Police, or the Justice or Treasury Departments, were not notified that the ransom payment was about to be made?”

“No, sir, I don’t. I wasn’t one of the big chiefs in this. I was just a dot on the ‘i.’”

That got a laugh; both Lindbergh and Hauptmann smiled, strangely enough, though Judge Trenchard didn’t. He rapped his gavel, demanded order, threatening to clear the courtroom.

“Mr. Heller,” Reilly said, a hand on his ample side, “as a police officer, did you make any effort to follow and protect Dr. Condon and the Colonel, that night?”

“No.”

Reilly smiled and looked tellingly at the jury. He’d made a point, however vaguely; but then he dismissed me!

I shuffled off to my chair, next to Lindbergh, who patted my arm supportively. My head was reeling. Shit, Reilly didn’t ask me about the stooped swarthy hanky-over-the-face guy I saw; or the Capone connection; or the spiritualists; or Means or Curtis or fucking anything. Some of it he may just not have known. But a good deal of it had gotten into police reports and the press, in the aftermath of the ransom scam and the Means and Curtis hoaxes.

The next witness was called: “Dr. John F. Condon.”

The great man had apparently just arrived, as he made a grand entrance from the back of the room.

Old Jafsie walked slowly, solemnly, to the witness chair, a tall, paunchy figure in circuit-preacher black with a crisp white hanky in a breast pocket and an old-fashioned gold watch chain draped across his breast.

Wilentz asked the witness for his age and place of residence, and Jafsie answered in a tremulous, yet booming voice, “I am seventy-four years of age, and a resident of the most beautiful borough in the world, the Bronx.”

I groaned, and Lindbergh flashed me a sideways glance.

Wilentz asked for more background, and Jafsie began a yawn-inducing tale of the story of his life; I was just