“I’ll tell you all about it,” I said, “on the way.”
“On the way where?”
“We have one more stop this afternoon….”
The neat, trim two-story white clapboard in the Bronx was unchanged; so was the quiet residential street it was perched along. The lawn was brown, but evergreens hugged the porch.
I told Evalyn to stay in the car; she didn’t like it, but I made her understand.
“If there’s a witness,” I said, “this guy is liable not to say anything.”
The attractive dark-haired woman who answered the door did not recognize me at first.
“Yes?” she said, warily, the door only a third of the way open.
“Is Professor Condon in? Tell him an old friend’s dropped by.”
Her face had tightened. “Detective Heller,” she said.
“Hiya, Myra.”
The door shut suddenly—not quite a slam.
I glanced back at Evalyn, sitting in the Packard, and smiled and shrugged. She looked at me curiously, wondering if this interview was over before it began.
The door opened again and there he stood, in white shirtsleeves and vest and pocket watch, in all his walrus- mustached glory.
“Long time no see, Professor.”
“Detective Heller,” Dr. John F. Condon said stiffly. He extended his hand and I shook it; he squeezed to impress me with his strength, as usual. “I hope you’ve been well.”
“I’ve been okay. You’re nice and tan.”
“I have just returned from Panama.”
“So I hear. You took off, day before Hauptmann’s case came up before the Court of Pardons.”
He snorted. “That’s true. Though it is of no particular significance.”
“Isn’t it? Didn’t the Governor of New Jersey request that you stick around? And help clear up a few discrepancies in your various versions of various events?”
He raised his head. Looked down his nose at me with his vague watery blue eyes. “I had full permission of Attorney General Wilentz to depart on my holiday.”
“I’m sure you did.” I smiled blandly at him. “You might be wondering why I’m still interested in this case, after all these years.”
“Frankly, sir, I am.”
“Well, I’m working for Governor Hoffman now.”
He backed away, stepping into the entrance hall; I half expected him to hold up a cross, as if I were a vampire.
“Sir,” he said, pompously, “during my stay in Panama, I followed all reported developments in the Lindbergh case, and this man Hoffman seems bound and determined to maliciously impugn my character, my motives, my behavior.”
“Really,” I said.
He took a step forward and shook a fist in the air. “I would like to face this Governor Hoffman! I would like to nail these lies of his. I know he would have a good many men there, stronger than I—but even at my age, I can put up a good fight, Detective Heller! I can still handle myself.”
“Come along then. I’ll drive you there.”
His fist dissolved into loose fingers, which he used to wave me off. “Ah, I said I would
“Then why don’t you ask me in, and I’ll put the Governor’s questions to you, myself.”
“Detective Heller, I’m afraid I must decline, though I
“You are?”
“Certainly. If they’re submitted in writing.”
“In writing?”
“Yes—and I will of course submit my answers in the same fashion.”
“I see. How about answering just a couple of little questions for me, not in writing? For old times’ sake?”
He smiled in what I’m sure he imagined was a devilish manner. “Perhaps I’ll answer. Go ahead and pose your questions, young man.”
“Did you ever meet Isidor Fisch, when you were hanging around that spiritualist church on One-Hundred Twenty-Seventh Street in Harlem?”
His eyes bugged. He stepped back.
