morph—enough to supply every hospital ship in the fleet and then some. Three Marine liaisons were guarding it. Someone slipped them something, and they passed out. The snatch was made at three o'clock in the morning. The infirmary was picked clean. It never made the news because the navy high brass kiboshed it. DeVries and his sister and two others were strong suspects—they were all assigned to pharmaceutical supply, but they all had tight alibis. They were all questioned repeatedly, jailed as material witnesses, and finally released. The dope was never recovered. They—'
'What were the names of the other two suspects?' I blurted out. Kraus consulted some papers in his hand. 'Pharmacist's mates Lawrence Brubaker and Edward Engels. Underhill, what the hell is the matter with you?'
I stood up, and the squad room, Kraus and Lutz reeled in front of me.
'Underhill?' Lutz called as I started to walk away. 'Underhill!'
'Call Will Berglund,' I think I shouted back.
Somehow I made it out of the police station and out into the hot Milwaukee sunlight. Every car and passerby on the street, every fragment of the passing scene, every inundation of the red brick midwestern skyline looked as awesome and incredible as a baby's first glimpse of life out of the womb and into the breach.
21
There was only one Cadwallader in the Milwaukee-Waukesha area phone directory: Mrs. Marshall Cadwallader, 311 Cutler Park Avenue, Waukesha. Rather than call first, I drove directly there, straight back over Blue Mound Road.
Cutler Park Avenue was a block of formerly ritzy townhouses converted into apartment houses and four-flats. Cutler Park itself—'Wisconsin's Greatest Showplace of Genuine Indian Artifacts'—stood across the street.
I parked my loaner and went looking for 311, checking out house numbers that ran inexplicably out of sequence. Number 311 was at the end of the block, a two-story apartment house guarded by a plaster jockey with one arm outstretched. The front door was open, and the directory in the small entrance foyer told me that Mrs. Marshall Cadwallader lived in apartment 103. My suspicion was that Mrs. Cadwallader was a widow, which suited my purposes: a single woman would be easier to question.
I felt my pulse race as I recalled the photographs Maggie had shown me of her adventurous-looking father. I walked down a hallway lined with cheap prints of southern plantations until I found number 103. I knocked, and the very image of what Maggie Cadwallader would have looked like at sixty-five answered the door.
Startled by this permutation of time and place, my now familiar insurance cover story went out the window and I stammered: 'Mrs. Cadwallader, I'm a friend of your late daughter's. I investigated her . . .' The woman blanched as I hesitated. She looked frightened, and seemed about to slam the door in my face when I caught myself and continued: '. . . her death for the Los Angeles Police Department back in 1951. I'm an insurance investigator now.' I handed her one of my cards, thinking that I almost believed I was in the insurance racket.
The woman took the card and nodded. 'And you . . .' she said.
'And I believe there are other deaths tied into Margaret's.'
Mrs. Cadwallader showed me into her modest living room. I seated myself on a couch covered with a Navajo blanket. She sat across from me in a wicker chair. 'You were a friend of Maggie's?' she asked.
'No, I'm sorry, I mean . . . I didn't mean that. I was one of four detectives assigned to the case. We—'
'You arrested the wrong man and he killed himself,' Mrs. Cadwallader said matter-of-factly. 'I remember your picture in the paper. You lost your job. They called you a Communist. I remember thinking at the time how sad it was, that you made a mistake and they had to get rid of you so they called you that.'
I felt the queerest sense of absolution creep over me.
'Why are you here?' Mrs. Cadwallader asked.
'Did you know a woman named Marcella DeVries Harris?' I countered.
'No. Was she Johnny DeVries's sister?'
'Yes. She was murdered in Los Angeles last month. I think her death was connected to Margaret's.'
'Oh, God.'
'Mrs. Cadwallader, did Margaret have a child out of wedlock?'
'Yes.' She said it sternly, without shame.
'In 1945 or thereabouts?'
'On August 29, 1945.'
'A boy?'
'Yes.'
'And the child . . .'
'They gave up the child!' Mrs. Cadwallader suddenly shrieked. 'Johnny was a drug addict, but Maggie had good stuff in her! Good Cadwallader-Johnson stock! She could have found herself a good man to love her, even with another man's baby. Maggie was a good girl! She didn't have to take up with drug addicts! She was a
I moved to the grandmother of Michael Harris and tentatively placed an arm around her quaking shoulders. 'Mrs. Cadwallader, what happened to Maggie's child? Where was he born? Who did Maggie and Johnny give him up to?'
She shrugged herself free of my grasp. 'My grandson was born in Milwaukee. Some unlicensed doctor delivered him. I took care of Maggie after the birth. I lost my husband the year before, and I lost Maggie and I never even saw my grandson.'
I held the old woman tightly. 'Ssshh,' I whispered, 'Ssshh. What happened to the baby?'
Between body-wrenching dry sobs, Mrs. Cadwallader got it out: 'Johnny took him to some orphanage near Fond du Lac—some religious sect he believed in—and I never saw him.'
'Maybe someday you will,' I said quietly.
'No! Only half of him is my Maggie! The dead half! The other half is that big, dirty, Dutch drug addict, and that's the part that's still alive.'
I couldn't argue with her logic, it was beyond my province. I found a pen on the coffee table and wrote my real phone number in L.A. on the back of my bogus business card. I stuck it in Mrs. Cadwallader's hand.
'You call me at home in a month or so,' I said. 'I'll introduce you to your grandson.'
Mrs. Marshall Cadwallader stared unbelievingly at the card. I smiled at her and she didn't respond.
'Believe me,' I said. I could tell she didn't. I left her staring mutely at her living room carpet, trying to dig a way out of her past.
'My baby. My love.'
'Where is he?'
'His father took him.'
'Are you divorced?'
'He wasn't my husband, he was my lover. He died of his love for me.'
'How, Maggie?'
'I can't tell you.'
'What happened to the baby?'
'He's in an orphanage back east.'
'Why, Maggie? Orphanages are terrible places.'
'Don't say that! I can't! I can't keep him!'
I ran through Cutler Park searching for a pay phone. I found one and checked my watch: ten-fifteen, making it eight-fifteen in Los Angeles. A fifty-fifty chance: Either Doc or Michael would answer the phone.
I dialed the operator, and she told me to deposit ninety cents. I fed the machine the coins and got a ringing on the other end of the line.
