The Aviator's Wife

security, and painted a strange symbol with a bucket of pig’s blood on our front door before she was taken away.

The most bewildering were the offers from other mothers to give me their children. How could any mother be willing to part with her child voluntarily? And the notion that my son could simply be replaced by another—I shook with rage at the thought. Yet we received dozens of such letters and telegrams.

Charles was trying to oversee everything; trying, in vain, to shelter me from the worst of it, constantly reassuring me that it was only a matter of time before he returned Charlie to me. He barely ate, fitfully slept. He spent most nights seated upright in a chair in our bedroom, watching me, as if he was terrified I might disappear, too. But when I was awake, he could hardly look me in the eye.

To Colonel Schwarzkopf, to the hordes of policemen, detectives, working on the case—to the world at large, holding its suspended breath—he remained the calm, cool aviator in total control. He allowed Schwarzkopf and his men to sort through the thousands of letters delivered three times a day by a special mail truck, to follow up the vaguest of anonymous tips, to continue to tramp about our property in search of clues. But he made it clear that he, and he alone, would communicate with the kidnappers, and I heard Colonel Schwarzkopf express his first doubts about Charles’s leadership the next night in the kitchen, when I padded downstairs to get a glass of warm milk.

“You can’t be serious?” I heard the colonel ask in his blunt way; I stopped just outside the doorway. “You’re really going it alone? Colonel Lindbergh, you have the entire police force of New Jersey and New York at your disposal.”

“I am perfectly serious. They need to trust me. That’s the only way we’ll get him home, don’t you see? Once I can establish that trust, I do not intend to betray it. I will make a statement declaring that no police will ever be involved in our communication, and that I alone will meet with them, no questions asked.”

“You’re a man of honor, aren’t you, Colonel?”

“Of course.”

“Well, whoever took your baby isn’t.” Schwarzkopf slammed outside, so furious that he didn’t see me standing in the hallway. Through a window, I watched as he kicked a stone, drew a deep breath, then took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it, angry face raised to the moon.

Peering around the corner, I saw Charles slump down in his chair, hiding his face within his hands. I knew I mustn’t go to him; I couldn’t let him know I had seen him like this. He needed me to be hopeful; I needed him to be strong. These were the roles we had assigned each other.

But for the first time, I understood that they were just that—roles.

MOTHER ARRIVED ON SATURDAY; by then, my baby had slept somewhere else for four nights. Was he crying out for me? Or was he, so used to me being gone as I flew away with his father, already trusting his kidnappers? Could he be bestowing on them one of his sweet, serious smiles? My heart could not withstand such questions—but still they came, as relentless as that shutter that still beat itself against the house.

“I don’t know what to say to you!” Mother blurted the moment she saw me. “I have no idea what you’re going through. I can’t even imagine.”

So I found myself comforting her instead; I had just led her to the study when Charles burst into the room.

“Anne! Come. There’s another note.”

My heart started to thunder; I leaped to my feet and followed Charles into the kitchen. There, once again, an army of men stood round our table, gaping at a thin white note as if it might jump up and bite them.

We have warned you not to make anyding Public also notify the Police

.

I felt sick; I closed my eyes, but not in time to stifle an image of my child lying cold and still, sacrificed because we had done what any parents would do under the circumstances. But then I heard Charles, reading the rest of the letter out loud, say, “Don’t be afraid about the baby,” and my nausea disappeared. I opened my eyes and saw for myself the three-hole signature, just like the original.

“He says don’t be afraid!”

“Yes, he does. He also says he increased the ransom to seventy thousand.” Colonel Schwarzkopf picked up the note.

“But that’s wonderful, right? It means the baby is unharmed!” I scanned his face, desperate for confirmation.

“Yes, of course, it’s a positive thing,” Charles said, with such authority it banished the tiny, imperceptible fear worrying my heart. “Colonel, where was the letter postmarked?”

“Brooklyn. We’ve already brushed it for fingerprints, but there’s nothing to pull. It was in the mail, and probably touched by a hundred hands along the way. I suggest, then, that we post lookouts at every mailbox in the borough.”

“No.” Charles shook his head. “That will scare them off.”

“Colonel, we can do it in such a way no one would notice—”

“No.” Charles’s voice rose; it silenced Colonel Schwarzkopf. “I said no police. Didn’t you read the letter? I think we need to contact Spitale and Bitz.”

“I urge you to reconsider—”

“Spitale and Bitz,” my husband repeated, his voice a low growl.

Schwarzkopf pulled at his lower lip, glaring at my husband. Charles glared back.

“As you wish, Colonel Lindbergh,” Schwarzkopf muttered; he then looked at his men, nodded, and strode out of the kitchen. One by one, his men followed him—each mumbling, “Ma’am,” to me as they left.

Don’t be afraid about the baby. I knew that I would repeat that phrase, over and over, through this endless day.

“Charles, who are Spitale and Bitz?” They sounded like a vaudeville act to me. I sat down at the empty table. My kitchen was no longer a warm, inviting place; there were cigarette butts in saucers, stacks of empty coffee cups on the counter in an assortment of mismatched china patterns. Elsie must have had to send away for extras. Newspapers were piled in corners: “Lindbergh Baby Kidnapped!” “Little Lindy Vanishes!” “The Crime of the Century—Will Lucky Lindy’s Baby Ever Be Found?”

“Who are they? Why is the colonel so upset?” I asked my husband again.

“Anne, I ask you to trust me. These men have never been involved in a case like this. They may be well intentioned, but I don’t want this bungled. Do you?” Charles met my gaze warily. We were both on an uncharted trip to a land we never even saw as we flew so high, untouchable—or so we had once believed. And just as he had needed me to navigate his path before, he needed my trust now; without it, he might never find his way back to himself, the man who had never been lost, not even while crossing an ocean alone.

“So what do you plan next? What is your—our—next move?”

“Harry Guggenheim has been helping me come up with the money. I’ll have to wire him about this new sum. Anne, that is all I’m going to discuss with you at the moment. I don’t want you to know more.”

“Why? What possibly can be worse than what I already know?”

“There are some rather—unsavory characters that I’m dealing with. But they can be very helpful, even if I detest having them touch my son—even if I would prefer not to associate with their kind.”

“Kind? What do you mean?”

“Mobsters, Anne. Men like—Al Capone offered his services. There, now you know. And some New York men. They offered to act as go-betweens, instead of the police, and I believe that’s the best course. I prefer not to tell you more. You mustn’t worry. Your job is to remain hopeful.”

“You keep telling me this, but I do worry!” I was shaking with fury. “Of course I do—and so do you! But you won’t tell me, you won’t talk to me, and I don’t understand why. Charles, I was your crew! I was baptized in the Yangtze and let you push me off the top of a mountain in a glider—but now you think I’m too weak to understand or help? Too frail? Charlie is my son, too!” I pushed myself away from the table in disgust. “How can you imagine that I’d care whom you deal with? Deal with the devil himself if you have to! But stop thinking you can protect me from this. You can’t protect any of us anymore, so stop trying