moving at half-speed, in a sluggish, dreamlike state. Schwarzkopf didn’t seem to be around.
I ushered Evalyn from the Lincoln as if we were both approaching a graveside ceremony. Halfway to the side door, however, Lindy-wearing a dark-blue sweater over an open-collar shirt, his brown pants tucked into his midcalf leather boots-came out to greet and meet us halfway. He smiled at us, shyly friendly, but the dark circles under his eyes would rival a raccoon’s.
“Mrs. McLean, it’s an honor,” he said, warmly-in fact, his voice was at that moment as warm as I think I ever heard it. “I’m so pleased you’ve come.”
“The honor and the pleasure are mine,” she said, with dignity, extending a gloved hand rather regally, which he briefly took. “It was kind of you to suggest we meet.”
That seemed to embarrass him a little.
“Nate,” he said, acknowledging me with a nod and smile. And to us both, with a stiff gesture, said, “Let’s go inside.”
He took her by the arm, and I trailed after.
We moved through the servants’ sitting room; the desk Schwarzkopf had set up out there, making it an informal office, was empty. I asked Lindbergh where the state police colonel had gone, and was told Trenton- Schwarzkopf was spending less and less time here. In the kitchen, we found homely Elsie Whately chopping vegetables with a sharp knife, preparing to do her reverse magic on perfectly edible provisions; she portioned out one minimally civil nod for us all to share, as we passed through.
In the large living room, Anne Lindbergh-wearing a simple dark-blue frock with a lace collar, looking like a schoolgirl, albeit a five-month pregnant one-rose and moved toward Evalyn with a warm, wide smile and an arm extended for a handshake in a manner about as dainty as a longshoreman’s. The brown-and-white terrier, Wahgoosh, who’d been asleep on the couch, uncoiled like a cobra and began barking with his trademark hysteria.
Lindbergh spoke sharply to the mutt, silencing him, but Evalyn, still shaking hands with the grateful Anne, merely said, “I like dogs-please don’t scold him on my account.”
Hell, in Evalyn’s house, Wahgoosh would’ve been wearing the Star of India.
Anne was clasping Evalyn’s gloved hand, holding it with both of her bare ones as if it were something precious.
“You’ve done so much,” Anne said. “You’ve tried so hard.”
Evalyn swallowed. “And accomplished so little, I’m afraid.”
Anne’s smile was tight yet soft; her eyes were tired, but they sparkled-with tears, perhaps. “You’re a wonderful person, Mrs. McLean. I’m aware that you…lost your own little boy. And so, I do understand, and I do appreciate, all you’ve done. All you’ve tried to do.”
“You’re very kind.”
Anne released Evalyn’s hand, but stood very near her. What Lindbergh’s wife said next was spoken softly, and not meant for anyone’s ears but her guest’s. Detective that I am, I heard every word.
“I think,” Anne said, “analyzing it, that women take sadness…and conquer it…differently from men. Don’t you?”
Evalyn said nothing.
“Women take it willingly, with open arms. Men try to lose themselves, in effort. Would you care to walk with me? The dogwoods are blooming, and you can see the occasional wild cherry tree….”
They exited arm-in-arm, Anne playing gracious hostess and tour guide, and Lindy said to me, “Someone you should see.”
“Oh?”
He didn’t explain-just led the way.
In the library, with Breckinridge seated near the desk, Commodore John Hughes Curtis stood straight as a ship’s mast, hands locked behind him. His two previous companions-Reverend Dobson-Peacock and Admiral Burrage-were conspicuously absent. He remained an impressive, immaculately attired Southern gentleman, well over six foot, his hair iron-gray, features regular and tanned.
“Commodore,” Lindbergh said, “you remember Nate Heller, with the Chicago Police Department?”
“Yes,” Curtis said, with a big, affable smile, offering a bear’s-paw hand for me to shake. “The Capone mob expert.”
“That may be stretching it,” I said. “But none of us can deny that bootleggers seem to be all over this case.”
Curtis nodded, solemn now, and Slim said, settling himself behind the desk, “Since you saw him last, Nate, the Commodore has had much more contact with
“Not at all,” Curtis said, reasonably, and as I found a seat, he finally sat, too. Breckinridge and I had already exchanged small smiles and nods of greeting; the gray, loyal attorney and I had come to share a measure of respect and even friendship.
“Several weeks ago,” Curtis said, fixing his steady gaze on me, “I was approached again by ‘Sam’-that rumrunning, fleeting acquaintance of mine, whose ‘fishing smack’ I repaired once or twice….”
“I don’t remember you describing ‘Sam’ in much detail,” I said, noncommittally.
“Well, he’s a big, lumbering individual…usually wears flashy clothes, like some gangster in a moving picture. He’s decidedly Jewish in appearance, his English broken.”
Being half-Jew myself, I wondered how anybody’s appearance could be “decidedly Jewish,” but I decided to let it pass.
“At any rate,” Curtis continued, “he called me, several weeks ago, and asked if I could meet with him in Manhattan, the next day. With some urgency in his voice, he suggested we meet at a cafeteria near Forty-First Street, at one A.M. Sunday morning.”
Admiral Burrage had arranged for a Navy pilot to fly Curtis to New York, where he checked in at the Governor Clinton Hotel under an assumed name.
“I walked uptown, in the middle of the night, to the cafeteria. Only one side of the room was in use, porters already at work cleaning the other side for the early morning trade. Chairs were piled high, the floor was being swabbed.”
“Commodore,” I said. I was tiring of people who savored melodrama. “Could you get to the point?”
“Detective Heller, I found only one other customer in the cafeteria: Sam, who was sitting at the very last table eating a plate of wheat cakes with some relish.”
Pickle relish, maybe. God, these people.
“Sam claimed the boy was with a German nurse-that he himself had never seen the child. But that he could get her, the nurse, to write out a description for me to give the Colonel. I told him that that was okay, but that I wanted proof, personally, for my own satisfaction, that his crowd really stole the child.”
“And what,” I asked, “did Sam say to that?”
Curtis smiled. “He offered to take me to meet the rest of his gang-to which I immediately said, ‘Let’s go, then!’ But he made me wait two more days-and the night of the second day we met again. I was told to follow Sam’s vehicle through the Holland Tunnel…then to the Hudson-Manhattan train station in Newark. And that was where I came face-to-face with the four men who, if they’re to be believed, masterminded this kidnapping.”
Well, the melodrama of that did have some effect, even on me.
“They were waiting there, on the train platform. No one else was around; the lighting was minimal. One of the men I’d seen before, in the Norfolk shipyard, though this was the first I’d heard his name: George Olaf Larsen. He’s in his early forties, medium height, drab-colored hair combed straight back from his forehead. Sam always addresses him as ‘boss.’”
The second man, Curtis said, was introduced simply as Nils-a Scandinavian in his early thirties, blond, with a florid complexion. The third man was called Eric, another blond but in his mid-forties.
The fourth man was named John.
“He’s a handsome man,” Curtis said, “with the physique of a physical culturist. From his accent, I’d say he was either Norwegian or Dutch.”
I glanced significantly at Lindbergh and then at Breckinridge; Lindy flicked an eyebrow up, while Breckinridge maintained a lawyer’s poker face.
