I picked it up and didn’t say a word.
A woman’s voice said, “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”
“Yes, this is Irene Kelly.”
“Irene Kelly? I don’t know if you’ll remember me…you talked to me twenty years ago, but I didn’t tell you my name.”
“Betty Bradford,” I said. “I’m so glad you called.”
“I’m in Zeke Brennan’s office. He’s agreed you can be present when I talk to the police.”
63
T WO HOURS LATER, I WAS PART OF THE GATHERING IN ZEKE BRENNAN’S office. I hoped Betty Bradford felt as comfortable as I did with him. Over the years, the attorney had saved me from more than one legal tangle. Only people who’ve never been in that kind of jam make lawyer jokes. Zeke is one of my heroes.
Zeke held the meeting in his mid-size conference room, which had just the right number of chairs for the small crowd that was there. Betty, Zeke, and I were joined by one of Zeke’s assistants, the local D.A. and one of his assistants, Frank, a lieutenant and a captain from homicide, and Hailey, who was the last to join us.
Hailey had been paged by Lydia because next to me, she had the most background on the 1958 events, and since Zeke was my lawyer, the paper wanted to keep everything on the level and have another reporter there. Hailey looked more nervous than I thought she’d be-I supposed she was rattled because she was late. Zeke had already started talking when she walked in. She shot me a distressed look, then seemed to settle into the business at hand.
Betty looked nervous, too, but who could blame her? Although knowing she was the woman in the photos allowed me to see the resemblance, she seemed to have little in common with the blond floozy of the 1950s. She was in her sixties now. Her hair was carefully dyed to a natural-looking brown, her makeup was subtle and spare. She dressed conservatively.
The D.A. and Zeke had already come to a very clear-cut agreement about her protection from prosecution in exchange for information and later testimony-a negotiating process had been under way all day.
She had done a bit of negotiating with me, too. I could come to this meeting and bring one other reporter, but under no circumstances was she to be photographed. In exchange for an exclusive, the paper agreed.
She had contacted Zeke Brennan after reading about Max Ducane’s reward in the paper. She didn’t want the reward, and part of the agreement with the D.A. was that she would not receive it, and that in any announcements he made about the reward, it would be noted that it was her idea to refuse it.
“I came forward because Mr. Ducane seems like a good person, and he shouldn’t have to spend money for someone he isn’t even related to after all. I don’t want to make money from what happened to that missing child and from my part in his being kidnapped-I am deeply ashamed of having any part in that.”
She had wanted to come forward in 1978, but was afraid. “I have a new family, and a new life. My husband was living then, and my kids were all at home. My husband passed away two years ago, and my children are all married and moved away from here. This has been on my mind a lot, but I’ve been scared. So I sold my house, and I’m moving away from here just as soon as this is all settled and you don’t need me to testify or anything else. I knew I needed a good lawyer, and Mr. Brennan’s name was in the article about Mr. Ducane, so I contacted him.”
She proceeded to tell us of her relationship with Gus Ronden, and her certainty that he had murdered Rose Hannon and probably the child as well, although she was less sure about the murder of the baby. “I read in the paper that blood tests have already proved that Gus did that, so that part you might think I got from the paper. But I know more than that.”
She talked about that night, about being told by Gus that their boss had a big plan for them, of the role she’d played in setting up Jack for a beating- she shot an anguished look at me as she told about that. She told of going back to the house, escaping to Mexico with Lew Hacker, and marrying him there. She said she came back to the U.S. after he died, got a fake ID, and married her second husband. “I’m not telling you my new name or my husband’s name or any of that, because Lex will go after my kids. I know he’s older than dirt, but if he’s drawing breath, he’ll do harm where he thinks he has a right to do it.”
She got a little flustered at that point, and Brennan said, “Ms. Bradford was for many years under a misapprehension regarding the name of the leader of this group. He used some intermediaries who deliberately misled those in the lower ranks about his name…”
“We never saw him,” she said. “Only person I ever saw giving Gus orders was Griffin Baer. For a long time I thought he was this Lex, and that was another reason I didn’t think it would do any good to come forward-Griff was dead. But then, back in 1978, these Yeager guys were caught by the police, and I realized Griff was connected to them. They were always meeting over at the farm Griff owned.”
“Why didn’t you come forward in 1978?” the D.A. asked.
“We agreed,” Brennan said, “that she would be allowed to tell her story first, and then you would be allowed to ask questions, correct?”
“Sorry,” he said.
“I didn’t come forward,” she said, “because the guy who had the D.A.’s job before you messed up and let those guys get away with murder. They’re out now, aren’t they? Have been for years.”
Frank and all the other representatives of the police were suddenly putting their hands over their mouths, hiding smiles.
“Plus,” she said, “I thought the boss’s name might really be Lex Talionis.”
“Lex talionis!” the D.A. said.
“For those of you who may not know,” Brennan said, “that means ‘the law of retaliation.’”
Betty said, “You should tell them that part, Mr. Brennan.”
He nodded. “I believe by adopting the name Lex Talionis, the person who chose it was announcing that he thought of himself as the embodiment of retribution-the old ‘an eye for an eye’ rule of reciprocal revenge. He abused it, really, because lex talionis-first codified in ancient Mesopotamia- ensured that only the state, and not the individual or feuding family, would be allowed to seek that revenge.”
“Whatever he thought he was,” Betty said, “his name was Mitch Yeager.”
But when more questions were asked, it was clear that she had only guessed this relatively recently. She had seen Griffin Baer and Yeager together, but did not know that Yeager was more than a friend of Baer’s at the time, and had no solid proof that Lex Talionis was Yeager. “Although I might have,” she said, a little defiantly.
“If you please,” Brennan said, “allow Ms. Bradford to continue. I think what she has to say will be useful to you.” He turned to her. “Tell them about Mr. Harmon.”
“Bennie Lee used to work for Griff, too. Or-that’s what I thought. He ran errands for Griff in that Eden truck. Not all of them had to do with farms. Someone got out of line, Bennie Lee paid ’em a visit. I once asked Gus what was in that truck of Bennie’s and Gus said, ‘Cold meat. Don’t ask so many questions or Bennie will give you a ride in back,’ and he laughed. I knew he wasn’t talking about steaks.”
The questions began, but once more, Brennan called for quiet. “Go on, Betty.”
“Well, there’s one other thing. Griff had an office. I never saw him use it, so maybe it wasn’t his after all- maybe it was Mitch Yeager’s. I was kind of snooping around in there on the night before all this stuff happened. I had gone out to the farm with Gus, and Griff wanted to show him something outside. He said he was going to borrow my car and drive him out somewhere in the field to show him something. I was supposed to just sit there, waiting for him, while this was going on.”
She paused, and took a drink of water.
“Now, looking back on it, I suppose they were trying to figure out how big of a hole he’d need for my car. I didn’t know that then. I just knew he was going to get my car dirty, and I was mad. So I went into the office and decided to have a look through the desk. I’m not proud of this, or much of anything from those days, but I thought there might be some money stashed away there, and so I took a look. There was this drawer with a false back to it. You know the kind I mean?”
