where he had lived, and where he is buried.
Some of the others are, as I write this, still alive. Several of the cops and reporters. Betty Gow, still in England. Anne Lindbergh, whose literary skill has won her fame of her own. Anna Hauptmann, who after quietly raising her son in obscurity, reentered the public eye in the 1970s, fighting in the press and in the courts to clear her husband’s name.
Over the years a number of men came forward claiming to be, or expressing the suspicion that they might be, Charles Lindbergh, Jr. One of these was an advertising executive from Michigan who, starting four or five years ago, contacted me several times for information about the case.
His name was Harlan C. Jensen-the “C” stood for Carl-and he was always quiet and respectful in our several phone conversations; he seemed not at all a crank, but I wasn’t terribly cooperative. I did hear him out on a couple occasions.
He had been raised in Escabana, Michigan, by Bill and Sara Jensen. When he was a young boy, he was told (by an uncle) that his mother and father were not his natural parents; naturally, he wondered about this, and as a young teenager confronted his father, who said only that “you’re legitimate.” Before he went to Korea, for combat in 1952, his mother’s cousin had confided in him that “family rumor” had it that he was Charles Lindbergh, Jr.
Several years later, on his honeymoon, Harlan and his wife had been in a boatyard in Wickford, Rhode Island, where they were enjoying the nautical scenery while they waited to catch the ferry to Cape Cod. An elderly woman approached, with a redheaded woman in her twenties, and introduced herself as Mrs. Kurtzel. She said to Jensen, “You were with us as a baby-I helped care for you. This is my daughter-she was like your sister.” Jensen had been understandably taken aback, but then the woman said, “May I feel the dent in your head?” Shocked that a stranger knew about this defect, which he’d been told was from a slip of the forceps during delivery, he allowed her to touch the back of his head.
“You are the Lindbergh baby,” she said. “I helped care for you.”
At this point, the ferry arrived, and Jensen and his bride left, covering their confusion and fear with nervous laughter.
He began to read about the Lindbergh case, but rejected the notion that Bill and Sara Jensen were not his real parents. He never talked to them about the “family rumor,” but on their respective deathbeds, each parent had tried to tell him something. His mother had become ill while he was in Korea and had lapsed into a coma before he could get home to be at her side; his father, suffering a stroke in 1967, struggled to give his son some message, but could not make himself understood.
Years later, in a medical exam for recurring headaches, Jensen was shown X-rays and told by a doctor that his skull had been severely fractured in his early childhood. Also, the doctor asked why he’d had so much plastic surgery as a child-Jensen said that he wasn’t aware that he had. But the doctor demonstrated on the X-rays that reconstructive surgery had taken place beneath his eyes and on his chin, possibly removing a cleft.
He had begun, then, in earnest, making a search for his identity his spare-time obsession. Unlike the others who claimed to be Charles Lindbergh, Jr., Jensen had disclaimed any rights to the Lindbergh estate, putting that in writing in a letter to the probate judge on Maui.
There was more, but I wouldn’t let him tell me. I told him I was retired from the detective business, that the Lindbergh case was something I didn’t think about anymore, and had no interest in discussing with anybody. He called, I think, three times, telling me a little more of his story each time.
About a year ago, I was sitting in my little condo in Coral Springs; my wife-my second wife, but who’s counting-was out, playing bridge with some of the other old girls who live in this same complex we do. Occasionally I fish, but most days I either read or write or watch TV. That afternoon I was watching a videocassette of an old Hitchcock movie. Well, hell-I guess all Hitchcock movies are old, at this point. Like me.
Anyway, I answered the door and found a slender man in his mid-fifties standing there, looking shy and a little embarrassed. He wore a yellow sweater over a light blue Ban-Ion shirt; his slacks were white and so were his rubber-soled shoes-he looked like somebody on vacation.
Which he was, as it turned out.
“I’m sorry to drop by unannounced,” he said. For a man in his fifties, he had a youthful face; not that it wasn’t lined-but the nose, the eyes, the mouth, were boyish. “My wife and I are visiting her mom down here and…look, I’m Harlan Jensen.”
“Oh. Oh yeah.”
“I know you don’t want to see me, but we were in the area, and I knew you lived around here, and…”
“Come in, Mr. Jensen.”
“Thank you. Nice place you got here.”
“Thanks. Let’s sit here at the kitchen table.”
He sat and talked and told me his story; he had a lot of facts and rumors and suppositions to share. He was obviously quietly tortured by this quest of his.
“I found the daughter of the woman who approached me in the boatyard on my honeymoon,” he said. “The mother is dead, but the girl, the redhead, is alive and well. Her name is Mary.”
“How’d you find her?”
“Did you know that Edgar Cayce, the famous psychic, did a reading on the case?”
“No. Really.”
“Well, my wife and I followed his directions, and by doing a little interpretation, you know-phonetic sounds instead of literal readings-we found this building in New Haven, on Maltby Street, where I think I may have been kept.”
“Yeah?”
“I got the name of the tenant that had lived there in 1932, and it was a Margaret Kurtzel, and through the mother’s sister, managed to track the daughter down. She was in Middletown, Connecticut. She still is.”
“Really.”
He sighed. “She didn’t know much. Just that her mother was a nurse, back then, working for private individuals, not hospitals or anything. And that all her life, her mother had proclaimed Hauptmann’s innocence. She didn’t know if, in fact, her mother had cared for the Lindbergh child.”
“I see.”
“You know, I’ve been trying for years to get this thing settled. It’s driving me nuts. I used the Freedom of Information Act, to try to get the baby’s fingerprints, but they’re missing.”
“Hunh. There were plenty of ’em around, once.”
“Somebody at some point got rid of them. I’ve tried to approach Mrs. Lindbergh, but it’s no use. There are DNA tests, you know, that…”
“She and her husband decided many years ago that their boy was dead.”
He shook his head, wearily.
“What do you want from me, Mr. Jensen? I haven’t been a detective for a long time.”
“I just want to know what you know,” he said.
Shit. How could I tell this guy that if I’d just had the balls to go in the goddamn ladies’ room at LaSalle Street Station, back in ’32, his whole life might have been different? Whether he was Charles Lindbergh, Jr., or not, that was true.
He was looking at me carefully. “You know, I have a memory of a man who helped me. It may not be a memory-it doesn’t seem quite real.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Something a kid might
I felt my eyes getting damp.
He grinned at me; it was Slim’s grin. “Are you that man, Mr. Heller? Did you save my little ass?”
I didn’t say anything. I got up, went to the Mr. Coffee and got myself a cup. I asked him if he wanted any and he said sure-black.
“Let’s go in the living room,” I said, handing him his coffee, “and get comfy. It’s a long story.”
