I let that pass. Put away my shield. “Are you in charge?”
“Colonel Schwarzkopf is in charge.”
“Okay. Let me talk to that colonel, then.”
“He’s in conference with Colonel Lindbergh and Colonel Breckinridge.”
“Well, tell them Colonel Heller’s here.”
He tapped my chest with a hard forefinger. “You’re not funny, sonny boy. And you’re not wanted here, either. You’re not needed. Why don’t you go back to Chicago with the rest of the lowlife crooks?”
“Why don’t you kiss my rosy-red ass?” I suggested cheerfully.
The tiny eyes got wide. He started to reach out for me.
“Don’t put your hands on me, old man,” I said. I lifted one eyebrow and one forefinger, in a gesture of friendly advice.
The eyes of thirty-some state cops were on me as I stood toe to toe with one of their own, probably a fucking inspector or something, getting ready to go a few rounds.
A bad moment that could get worse.
I raised both my hands, palms out, backed up and smiled. “Sorry,” I said. “I had a long trip, and I’m a little washed-out. Everybody’s under the gun here, everybody’s nerves are a little ragged. Let’s not have any trouble, or the press boys will make us all look like chumps.”
The inspector (if that’s what he was) thought that over, and then said, “Just leave the command post,” stiffly, loud enough to save some face. “You’re not wanted here.”
I nodded and picked up my bag and found my way out.
Shaking my head at the inspector’s stupidity, and my own, I knocked at the door adjacent to the big garage. I was about to knock a second time when the door cracked open. A pale, pretty female face peeked out; her bobbed hair was as dark as her big brown eyes, which bore a sultriness at odds with her otherwise apple-cheeked wholesome good looks.
“Yes, sir?” she asked, in a lilting Scots burr tinged with apprehension.
I took off my hat and smiled politely. “I’m a police officer, here from Chicago. Colonel Lindbergh requested…”
“Mr. Heller?”
“Yes,” I said, brightly, enjoying being recognized as a human being, and a specific one at that. “Nathan Heller. I have identification.”
She smiled wearily but winningly. “Please come in, Mr. Heller. You’re expected.”
Taking my topcoat, hat and gloves, she said, “I’m Betty Gow. I work for the Lindberghs.”
“You were the boy’s nurse.”
She nodded and turned her back, before I could ask anything else, and I followed her through what was apparently a sitting room for servants-though no one was using the magazines, radio, card table or comfy furnishings, at the moment-into a connecting hall. Following her shapely rear end as it twitched under the simple blue-and-white print dress was the most fun I’d had today.
In a kitchen larger than my one-room apartment back home, a horse-faced woman of perhaps fifty, wearing cook’s whites, was doing dishes. At a large round oak table, seated with her hands folded as if praying, sat a petite, delicately attractive young woman-perhaps twenty-five-with beautiful haunted blue eyes and a prim, slight, sad smile. A small cup of broth and a smaller cup of tea were before her, apparently untouched.
I swallowed and stopped in my tracks. I recognized her at once as Colonel Lindbergh’s wife, Anne.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“Mrs. Lindbergh,” Betty said, gesturing formally toward me. “This is Mr. Nathan Heller, of the Chicago Police.”
Betty Gow exited, while Anne Morrow Lindbergh stood, before I could ask her not to, and extended her hand. I took it-her flesh was cool, her smile was warm.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Heller. I know my husband is looking forward to meeting you.”
She wore a plain navy-blue frock with a white collar; her dark hair was tied back with a blue plaid scarf.
“I’m looking forward to meeting him,” I said. “And it’s an honor meeting you, ma’am. I wish it were under happier circumstances.”
Her smile tightened, bravely but not convincingly. “With the help of men like yourself, perhaps happier circumstances will find us.”
“I hope so, ma’am.”
There was a sudden sparkle in the sad eyes. “You needn’t call me ‘ma’am,’ Mr. Heller, though I do appreciate the sentiment. Are you tired from your trip? You must be. I’m afraid you missed lunch…we’ll have to get you something.”
That touched me; I felt my eyes go moist, and I fought it, but goddamn it, it touched me. Everything this woman had been through, these past four or five days, and she could still express concern-real concern-about whether my trip had been pleasant, and if I’d missed my lunch.
And then she was up and rummaging in the Frigidaire herself, while the woman who was apparently her cook continued wordlessly to wash dishes. “I hope a sandwich will be all right,” Mrs. Lindbergh was saying.
“Please, uh…you don’t have to…”
She looked over her shoulder at me. “Heller’s a Jewish name, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes. But my mother was Catholic.” Why did I sound defensive, for Christ’s sake?
“So you eat ham, then?”
So much for the discussion of my religious persuasion.
“Sure,” I said.
Soon I was sitting at the table next to a beaming Anne Lindbergh, who was enjoying watching me eat the ham-and-cheddar-cheese sandwich she’d prepared for me. It wasn’t a bad sandwich at all, though personally I prefer mustard to mayonnaise.
“I’m sorry you have to wait to see Charles,” she said, sipping her tea (she’d provided me with some, as well). “But things are hectic here, as you might imagine.”
I nodded.
“Actually, it’s settled down, some, the last two days. Those first several days were sheer bedlam. Hundreds of men stamping in and out, sitting everywhere…on the stairs, on the sink. People sleeping all over the floors on newspapers and blankets.”
“The press is a problem, I suppose.”
“Terrible,” she admitted. “But the troopers are keeping them at bay…and, in their defense, the news people
Charlie, of course, was her missing son.
“They published it widely,” she said, with satisfaction. “He has a cold, you know.” She swallowed, smiled her prim, charming smile and said, “I admire men like you, Mr. Heller.”
I almost did a spit take. “Me?”
“Such self-sacrifice and energy. Such selfless devotion.”
She sure had me pegged.
“You brought a mother and a child back together,” she said, “didn’t you?”
“Well…yes, but…”
“You needn’t be modest. You can’t know the hope that gives us, Charles and me.”
She reached out for my hand and squeezed it.
Had I given her false hope? Maybe. But maybe false hope was better than no hope at all.
“Excuse me,” a voice behind us said.
The voice came from the doorway that led to the sitting room and outside; it was a male voice, so my first thought was of Lindbergh himself. Instead it belonged to a square-jawed six-footer about forty with dark blond hair combed straight back and a small, perfectly trimmed and waxed mustache. He was in an officer’s variation of that blue uniform with yellow-striped riding britches; all he lacked was a riding crop, a monocle and a saber.
“Colonel Schwarzkopf,” Anne Lindbergh said, without rising, “this is Nathan Heller of the Chicago Police Department.”
Schwarzkopf nodded, resisting any urge to click his heels. “Mr. Heller-if I might have a moment?”
