Max Collins - Stolen Away

“He has a landing strip, then?”

Whately nodded. “Even this dirt road itself discourages travelers and sightseers. The Colonel likes his privacy. A remote estate is a necessity for the Lindberghs.”

“And a liability.”

He turned his head slowly and looked at me down his long nose, which was quite a trip. “Pardon?”

“Stuck out in the middle of nowhere, they’re an easy target. For cutthroat mix-breed hillbillies, say-or a kidnapper.”

Whately snorted and turned his attention back to driving.

Autos and ambulances swarmed the roadsides by the whitewashed stone wall with wrought-iron gate. Some of the cars bore the cachet of a particular news service, while the ambulances were an old press trick: they’d been converted to mobile photo labs-retaining their sirens, of course, to ensure getting where they needed to as fast as possible. Standing out in the bitter March air, mixing cigar and cigarette smoke with that of their breaths, were hundreds of reporters and photographers and newsreel cameramen, gathered like flies at a dead animal. An abandoned ramshackle farmhouse, well outside the gate but in sight of it, was providing shelter for dozens of newshounds.

Several New Jersey troopers stood on guard at the gate. They looked as crisp as the Sourland weather, light-blue uniform jackets, leather-visored caps, yellow-striped riding britches.

“They look like chorus boys in The Student Prince ,” I said.

Whately arched an eyebrow in what seemed to be agreement, as they passed us through.

More than a house, less than a mansion, the Lindbergh home, standing alone on a patch of ground cleared out of the dense woods, was a rambling, twin-gabled, two-and-a-half-story structure facing the forests and hills of the Sourland. Featherbed Lane came up behind the whitewashed fieldstone house, like an intruder; then the lane opened into a wide court and swung around its west side, into a smaller paved court cluttered with automobiles. A picket fence halfheartedly surrounded the sprawling, French-manor-style house and gave it a homey, civilized touch, as did the windmill that spun sporadically in the bitter breeze; but none of it quite compensated for the loneliness of the wilderness-surrounded site.

The place looked unfinished. Other than the landing strip beyond what would be the front yard, no landscaping had yet been done-the grounds were a barren patchwork of snow and weeds and dirt. And the windows, most of them, lacked curtains.

“When did the Lindberghs move in?” I asked Whately, as he pulled the sedan to a stop.

“They’ve only been spending weekends here,” he said.

“For how long?” I didn’t figure this place had been habitable longer than a month or two.

Whately confirmed that: “Since January.”

“Where do they spend the rest of their time?”

Whately frowned, as one might when a child asks repetitious and pointless questions. “Next Day Hill.”

“What’s that?”

“The Morrow estate. At Englewood. If you’ll just come with me.”

He got out of the sedan and so did I. The day was gray and cold and I was glad I’d brought my gloves. Whately got my traveling bag out of the back of the sedan and handed it to me. I thought maybe he’d carry it, but then he wasn’t my butler, was he?

I followed the tall, fleshy Britisher to the three-car garage, one door of which he swung open to reveal a herd of cops at work in a makeshift command post. It was Sunday afternoon, but nobody had the day off. A trooper at a switchboard was frantically transferring calls to a nearby picnic table of plain-clothesmen working a bank of phones, while at two other picnic tables, uniformed troopers sorted mail into various piles, with the discards going into already well-filled barrels. A pair of teletype machines chattered, spewing paper onto a cement floor crawling with snakes of telephone wires and electrical cords; the smell of cigarette and cigar smoke mingled with that of steaming hot coffee.

“This, sir,” Whately said to me, infusing “sir” with more disrespect than one syllable ought to be able to convey, “is where police personnel congregate.”

“Hey,” I said, “I’m supposed to talk to…”

But Whately was outside, pulling the garage door down, shutting me and my question-the final unspoken word of which was “Lindbergh”-inside.

A potbellied, bullet-headed flatfoot pushing fifty, with hard tiny eyes behind wire-frame glasses and a face as rumpled as his brown suit, approached me with something less than enthusiasm.

“Who are you?” he said, in a half-yelled monotone. “What do you want?”

I thought I better show him my badge. I set down my bag and did.

“Heller,” I said. “Chicago P.D.”

He just looked at me. Didn’t glance at the badge. Then, slowly, the gash where his mouth should be turned up at one corner-in amusement, or disgust, or both.

“I’m here to see the Colonel,” I said.

“We have several colonels here, sonny boy.”

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.