Stolen Away

“That is not,” he said crisply, “the focus of this trial. Let it go.”

“Let it go? Maybe Reilly won’t let it go, Slim.”

His mouth twitched irritably. “Just use common sense on the stand, Nate. All right?”

“Common sense?”

Our food arrived; I waited till everybody was served and the waiter was gone. The Gow Goulash looked tomatoey and was steaming hot and smelled good.

“Common sense,” I repeated. “You mean, lie on the stand?”

Lindbergh glared at me, but said nothing.

Breckinridge said, “No one is suggesting that, Heller, certainly.”

I took a bite of the goulash; it tasted as good as it looked. Damn near as good as Betty Gow looked, for that matter.

“You know, gents,” I said reflectively, “I’m from Chicago, and in many respects I’m your typical low-life greedy Chicago cop. Of course I’m private now, and part of why I left the department is that some people assumed I was for sale at any price. I’m not.”

“No one is suggesting…” Breckinridge began, nervously.

“There’s a lot of things I’ll do for money, or even just the hell of it. But I make it a point not to lie on witness stands.”

Lindbergh was looking at his soup as he spooned it; eating quickly, for him.

“You remember that gun I loaned you, Slim? The one you took to the cemetery that night?”

He nodded, but he didn’t look at me.

“I lied on the witness stand, once. The cops and the mob had a patsy picked out. It was even okay with the patsy—he was in on the fix. I didn’t see the harm of going along with it. So I lied on the witness stand.”

Lindbergh touched his lips with a napkin.

“It got me ahead,” I said, shrugging. “It’s how I got to be the youngest plainclothes officer on the goddamn Chicago police. But it rubbed my father the wrong way. Old union guy that he was. Stuffy about things like that, like telling the truth under oath. Funny—he didn’t even believe in God, yet if they put him under oath, he couldn’t have told anything but the truth. Anyway. That gun I loaned you, he killed himself with it. My gun. Since then, I’ve been fussy about what I say on witness stands.”

Slim said, “I’m sorry about your father.”

“That wasn’t my point.”

“I know what your point is. I don’t appreciate being called a liar.”

“Is that what I did?”

He looked at me hard; sighed. “Nate, this man is guilty.”

“I heard you say you couldn’t identify ‘Cemetery John’ by his voice. You told the same thing to a Bronx grand jury, not so long ago. What changed?”

He gestured with a pointing finger. “I have been assured by the top police officials in this case that there is no doubt about Hauptmann’s guilt. I have heard this from Schwarzkopf, from Frank J. Wilson, from Lt. Finn, from…” He shook his head, as if clearing cobwebs. “If you were able to sit in that courtroom every day, as I have, and as I will, you’d find that out.”

“Slim, I was a cop. I am a cop. And I can tell you one thing about cops: once a cop decides a guy is guilty, that guy is guilty. And a cop will, at that juncture, get real inventive. More tampered-with and manufactured evidence, and coached and purchased witness testimony, has been presented in American courtrooms than any other kind. Trust me.”

“I wish you would, Nate.”

“What?”

“Trust me.”

“Well.” I smiled; dabbed my own face with a napkin. “I will let you buy me lunch. I’m not that proud.”

We smiled at each other, warily, Slim and I, but Breckinridge was disturbed by all this.

After lunch I was called back on the stand and Reilly had at me. I thought, for a moment, he was getting to the heart of it.

He was asking me, in his high-handed ham-actor fashion, about the night we prepared the replica ballot box of ransom money for Jafsie and Slim to deliver to Cemetery John.

“Didn’t you think it would be a good idea to go along and capture that person?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Did the Police Department of the city of New York, and the Department of Justice, know there was going to be a ransom payment that night?”

“I believe so. At least, the Treasury Department did.”

“Did they know where the payment would be made?”

“No. Nobody knew that. Colonel Lindbergh and Professor Condon didn’t know, until they got to the florist’s shop, as the note directed them.”

“You’re referring to the note delivered by the taxicab driver?”

“Yes.”

“Were the police notified, at that time? That the note had arrived, and that Dr. Condon and Colonel Lindbergh were off to make their payment?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Mr. Heller, weren’t you at the time a police officer yourself?”

“Yes. But with the Chicago Police. Just a liaison, an adviser, on this case.”

“And you don’t know why the New York Police, or the Justice or Treasury Departments, were not notified that the ransom payment was about to be made?”

“No, sir, I don’t. I wasn’t one of the big chiefs in this. I was just a dot on the ‘i.’”

That got a laugh; both Lindbergh and Hauptmann smiled, strangely enough, though Judge Trenchard didn’t. He rapped his gavel, demanded order, threatening to clear the courtroom.