“And you admitted lying about seeing the ransom money,” I said.
“Yes,” Curtis said, nodded, lips tight across his teeth. “He trotted me inside and had me admit that to the Colonel. I did, and Lindbergh gave me a cold look, a look to kill that I will never forget. He nodded to Welch, who dragged me out of there. I was taken to Schwarzkopf’s office, where I made a statement adding this new fact. Then I was taken into the basement of the Lindbergh home, and the beatings began.”
They started at 10:00 in the evening, the beatings; ended at 4:30 A.M., when the final, most complete of the several statements he signed, he signed. Then he was left tied up in the dank basement laundry room. He was not yet under arrest, or even formally accused of any wrongdoing.
“The next morning, unshaven, in filthy clothes,” he said, lips trembling, “I was dragged into Colonel Lindbergh’s library. A court of arraignment was waiting-the justice of the peace was there, so was Breckinridge, Lindbergh, Wilson and Prosecutor Hauck. I was charged with obstructing justice and taken away to jail. I stayed there until the trial. I couldn’t afford the bail. My wife came and brought me a change of clothes.”
Evalyn believed him. The tears in her eyes said so.
I believed him, too. I knew all about cops beating confessions out of suspects-having been both a cop and a suspect, at various times.
But what was more important, I believed he’d been telling the truth all along: I didn’t know who exactly Sam, Hilda, Nils and the rest were…nor whether they were in on the kidnapping, or just interloping extortionists.
But I was convinced they existed.
“One thing I don’t understand,” Evalyn asked earnestly. “Why weren’t Admiral Burrage and Reverend Dobson-Peacock accused and brought to trial?”
“Admiral Burrage never had any direct contact with the gang,” Curtis said. He had calmed himself, but it was a surface calm, only. “Also, the Admiral’s friendship with Colonel Lindbergh protected him. His only public comment, incidentally, has been ‘no comment’-and he has never responded to my calls or letters.”
“What about Dobson-Peacock?” I asked.
“The Reverend refused to come to New Jersey for questioning,” Curtis said, “which was undoubtedly wise. His public stance was that I’d put one over on him-though he did have some contact with the kidnappers.”
“I’d like to talk to him.”
“I hope you’re prepared to travel, Mr. Heller,” Curtis said. He smiled but there was nothing happy about it. “Like Colonel Lindbergh, the Reverend resides in England, now.”
Evalyn and I exchanged looks of quiet frustration.
“What else can I tell you?” Curtis asked.
“What about the allegations,” Evalyn asked, gently, “that all this was a hoax you concocted to sell your story to the newspapers?”
“I did have a deal with the Herald-Tribune,” he said forth-rightly. “But it was contingent upon the recovery of the child. No money exchanged hands.”
It was time to take another tack.
“Did you ever hear of Max Greenberg,” I asked, “or Max Hassel?”
“Yes,” Curtis said, and saw me perk up, and then stopped me: “Only in the papers. I understand Gaston Means identified them as bootleggers involved in the kidnapping.”
“Did you see their pictures in the paper at the time?”
“Yes. And no, I’d never seen them before.”
“What about this guy?”
I showed him the picture of Fisch that Gerta Henkel, who was also in the picture, had given me.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. Who is it?”
“The infamous Isidor Fisch,” I said.
“You’re in the right place for a fish,” Curtis said, with his wry smile. “But not that one.”
“Commodore,” I said, rising, offering him my hand, “thank you.”
“I don’t know what I’ve said that could be helpful,” he said regretfully, taking my hand. “The Hauptmann case and mine are apparently unconnected.”
“Commodore,” Evalyn said, straightening her skirt as she rose, “they’re connected in this way: if we’re successful in clearing Richard Hauptmann, you may well be vindicated, too.”
“I appreciate that,” he said heartily. “But if you don’t mind, I’m going to continue my own efforts. If it takes the rest of my life, I’m going to clear my name through the courts.”
“I’m sure Hauptmann feels the same way,” I said. “Only the rest of his life is most likely a couple weeks.”
And we went out into the gray-blue world, where skiffs skimmed the water like ducks in a pond, and pointed the nose of the Packard north.
I had somebody to see at a nuthouse.
34
“Nathan Heller,” Gaston Means said, sitting up in bed, with his usual puckish smile, though his eyes had no twinkle, just a disturbed, disturbing glaze, and his dimples were lost in the hollows of his cheeks. He’d lost weight and his skin, which bore a yellowish cast from frequent gallstone attacks, had the loose look of oversize clothing. He wore a hospital nightgown, and was under the sheets and horsehair blankets of a bed in the prison ward in the Medical and Surgical Building of St. Elizabeth’s, a government mental hospital in Congress Heights, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. The window next to him had both bars and mesh, like the skylight near Hauptmann’s death-row cell.
Evalyn and I were standing next to his bed. Evalyn was wearing white, for a change, though the outfit was trimmed in black and her hat was white with black trim, too; she looked like a wealthy nurse.
“I never told you my name, Means,” I said.
“Ah, but you made an impression on me, Heller,” he said, and some twinkle almost cracked the glaze on the eyes. “Any man who puts a gun barrel in my mouth leaves his imprint on my psyche. Effective piece of psychology-I must compliment you.”
“Thanks.”
“I made a point to check up on you, yes indeedy. Like me, you’ve made your mark in the field of private investigation. You have certain acquaintances of influence in the underworld, as do I. You have, to put it mildly, quite a reputation, young man.”
“Coming from you,” I said, “I guess that’s a compliment.”
He looked at Evalyn warmly, placing a hand on his heart, as if about to be sworn on the witness stand, where he would of course lie his gallstones off.
“My dear Eleven,” he said, reverting to Evalyn’s long-ago code number, “you look charming. Are you lovely because you’re so rich, or are you rich because you’re so lovely? I’ll leave that question to the philosophers. At any rate, I want you to know that I harbor no ill feelings toward you.”
“You harbor no ill feelings toward me?” Evalyn said, eyes wide, her white-gloved hand touching her generous bosom.
“For testifying against me,” he said, seemingly astounded that she hadn’t known what he meant.
“You wouldn’t want to demonstrate your good will,” I said, “by telling us where Mrs. McLean’s one hundred thousand is, would you?”
He cocked his head and raised a lecturing finger. “That’s one hundred and four thousand,” he said. “And, no-that’s a point on which I’m rather fuzzy. I have a vague memory of stuffing the cash in a piece of pipe and throwing it into the Potomac. But from which pier exactly, I’m afraid it’s just not clear.”
“Right,” I said.
He began to cough; it did not seem feigned-it rattled the steel bed and his yellow face turned purple.
When the coughing subsided, and his color (such as it was) returned, Evalyn asked him, “How ill are you, Means?”
He straightened his bedclothing, summoned his dignity. “These gallstones are a damned nuisance, my dear. That’s not why I’ve come to St. Elizabeth’s, however. I’m here for serious psychiatric evaluation. I have had, on occasion, a tendency to fabricate, and to have difficulty differentiating illusion from reality.”